When you think of a singer-songwriter, who comes to mind? Nathan Graham says it probably isn’t somebody who looks like he does. And he wants to change that. Raised in Chicago on Prince and Earth, Wind & Fire, Graham bridges South Side Blues with Nashville Americana to deliver a bittersweet and soulful sound.

Starting out backing blues singers at famous haunts like Buddy Guy’s Legends and Kingston Mines, he spent a decade building his career as a guitar-for-hire before forming bands to perform his own music and lyrics. But it took a bit of convincing to overcome self-doubt as a singer. Some advice from his mother eventually pushed him forward: “All you have to do is open up your mouth, and project.”

What Graham projects now are stories of the human condition, somehow both achingly painful and exquisitely comforting. His guitars convey heartbreak, lyrics tell stories of regret, but his rich vocal delivery offers the remedy.

He puts it altogether on debut record Saint of Second Chances, where his guitars reach from delicate and pristine to reverberatingly powerful. Tracks like “Good Honest Man” speak frankly about the urge to give up on love rather than risk loss, while “Fake Friends” offers a stomping, nostalgic rhythm behind some anxious self-reflection: “Saw you going down, down in flames / Well I guess I just didn’t know that I was doing the same.”

It’s a versatile album, just as meaningful when blasted through headphones in the isolation of your own room as it is in a crowded bar. And it’s a record Graham hopes can drive inclusivity in a genre not always known for its diversity.

“When people hear ‘singer-songwriter,’ they typically think of somebody who is white, middle-aged, male,” he says. But greats like Smokey Robinson, Luther Vandross, Lauryn Hill and even J Cole deserve to be reframed as a part of the genre just as much as someone like Bob Dylan. “They’re doing it in a different way, but they’re doing the same exact thing: they’re using their voice to tell a story.”

Just as Lenny Kravitz taught him black men could rock out on a guitar, Chuck Berry proved straightforward lyrics are some of the most impactful, and his own mother convinced him to pick up the mic, Graham is challenging the assumptions and doubts that create musical barriers. With his music, he hopes to bring people together in the process.

“I wrote a record about the human condition of having anxiety, having feelings of love and being scared to lose that, or scared that you’re going to screw it up somehow—or they’re going to screw it up somehow,” he says. “I want the audience to go on that journey with me. To sometimes be sad, and sometimes be joyful. I want us all to be walking through that journey with each other.”