DeLuca’s 5 Picks: Philly poet and musician Moor Mother, plus Kelly Clarkson, Drake, Nick Lowe, and more

Camae Ayewa, the Philadelphia Afrofuturist poet, songwriter, rapper, activist, and educator, is a nonstop creative force.

Last month, Ayewa — who is currently based in Los Angeles, where she’s teaching music composition at the University of Southern California — released Nothing to Declare, a full-length album of resounding raps and minimalist beats, as 700 Bliss, her collaboration with Philly music maker DJ Haram.

Now, Ayewa has released two songs from a new Moor Mother album called Jazz Codes. Out on July 1 on Anti- records, it’s positioned as a follow-up to last year’s Black Encyclopedia of the Air, the most accessible Moor Mother album to date and one of her several 2021 releases, including Open the Gates, her collab with free jazz collective Irreversible Entanglements.

The lead single from Jazz Codes is “Woody Shaw,” a tribute to the late jazz trumpeter, who grew up in Newark, N.J., and played with many jazz greats including Horace Silver, Miles Davis, and Philadelphia pianist McCoy Tyner.

The song features spoken word poetry from Ayewa — who is the founder of Black Quantum Futurism along with her partner Rasheeda Phillips — along with vocals from Melanie Charles and Shaw’s former bandmate Henry Franklin on bass. At the end of the track, Ayewa says Shaw “was an innovator, and sometimes innovators don’t get their just due … But he was a bad man.”

Jazz Codes pays tribute to jazz luminaries including vocalist Mary Lou Williams on “Ode To Mary,” which features pianist Jason Moran and Philly songwriter Orion Sun. Other Philadelphians involved in the project include harpist Mary Lattimore and singer Justmadnice.

Ayewa describes Jazz Codes this way: “Poetry drives this album. The stories of these artists and countless others not named but felt … I wanted to honor & give offerings. Hold them in my body, dream with them. Send sweetness.” Moor Mother is touring Europe this summer. The closest she gets to Philadelphia is Montreal on July 4.

Twenty years after she became the first American Idol winner — topping Doylestown’s own Justin Guarini — Kelly Clarkson has transformation into a next-generation network TV talk show host.

But she hasn’t left music behind. That can manifest in a forward-thinking booking policy: the Black Opry Revue was on the show last week. But mainly it’s how she uses the opening segment of her show, called Kellyoke, to cover a song of her choosing.

She takes a full-throated approach to songs by a wide range of artists, from OutKast to Flock of Seagulls. Now, she’s issued a six-song EP that includes a surprising but not amazing version of Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees,” as well as impressive takes on Linda Ronstadt’s “Blue Bayou,” The Weeknd’s “Call Out My Name,” and Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever.”

Drake’s surprise announcement last Thursday that he was dropping his seventh album, the passive-aggressively titled Honestly, Nevermind, was upstaged by Beyoncé’s announcement the same day that her new album Renaissance is coming July 29.

So, woe is Drake, last seen by Philadelphia sports fans suffering court side as the Sixers closed out his Toronto Raptors in May. And the version of the Canadian rapper caught up in his feelings carries through Honestly, Nevermind, which makes a house music move to the dance floor, but stays sad while doing so. Sample lyric: “Time isn’t healing, time is revealing.”

The exception is the closing song on the 14-track album, the only one to include a guest rapper. It picks up the energy considerably, with a title that plays on Jimmy Brooks, the character young Aubrey Drake Graham played in the Canadian TV series “Degrassi: The Next Generation,” and lots of tough-talking posturing and tightly rhymed bars.

You know it’s a newly recorded track because Drake nods to the recent arrest of Young Thug and Gunna on conspiracy charges: “Hoes say I’m suave, but I can’t get RICO’d.” And 21 Savage uses the incident at the Oscars to threaten a rival: “If I was Will Smith, I would have slapped him with a stick.”

A Nick Lowe appearance is reason enough to be cheerful, but this gig by the New Wave-era British songwriter and Elvis Costello producer (and writer of the timeless “(What So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding” has added fizz.

That’s because it not only includes the gentleman rocker being backed by Los Straitjackets, the Nashville-based surf-rock-plus band who perform wearing Mexican wrestling luchador masks, the opening act is 82-year-old Louisiana swamp pop legend Tommy McLain, who has one song cowritten by Lowe and another featuring Elvis Costello, I Ran Down Every Dream, due in August. McLain is with Cajun musician C.C. Adcock, a force in his own right. $40, 8 p.m. June 23, Ardmore Music Hall, 23 E. Lancaster Ave., Ardmore, ardmoremusichall.com.

The new Philly outdoor venue across from the Rocky steps has a beer garden and a Ferris wheel, and live music, four nights a week.

This week’s calendar kicks off Thursday, with Thr3zus, the jazz trio fronted by Philly trombone player Ernest Stuart and featuring Jason Fraticalli and Lionel Forrester Jr. They will be followed on successive night by Doc Robinson & the RTs, Minka, and Friendship.

Highlights from later in the summer include Arthur Thomas & the Funkitorium on July 15, Catbite and Party Muscles on Aug. 12, and Snacktime on Aug. 21. All shows are free and start at 8 p.m.