Kaia Kater has been playing the banjo since she was 11 years old. She was raised by a single mom who worked in the music industry, particularly with folk and bluegrass – two genres that have influenced her work as a musician. She first learned to play the piano, the cello, and later the banjo.

Born in Montreal of Grenadian descent, Kaia’s jazz-fueled voice and deft song craft have garnered acclaim from NPR’s Tiny Desk, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and No Depression – a quarterly, long-form journal on roots music. She spent her early childhood in Mild End before moving to Wakefield, Ottawa and then to Winnipeg. It was in Winnipeg that she met mentor Mitch Podolak, the founder of the Winnipeg Folk Festival who offered her a banjo lesson.

Kaia attended Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, West Virginia on a music scholarship, where she learned flatfoot dancing, and deepened her knowledge of hambone – a style of dance that involves stomping and slapping the arms, legs, chest, and cheeks. During her time in West Virginia, Kaia toured with a string band and a percussive dance team, performing clogging, flatfooting and Appalachian dance styles.

Kaia released her first EP, Old Soul, in 2013 when she left high school. At 17, she recorded her first EP titled Rappin’ Shady Grove a hip-hop style tune which she said was inspired by Drake’s storytelling in some of his songs.

In 2015, she released Sorrow Bound, followed by Nine Pin in 2016. Nine Pin went on to win the Pushing the Boundaries award at the 12th Canadian Folk Music Awards. The album received a four-star review from The Guardian, while Rolling Stone praised its “[ol]d-time Appalachian banjo tunes — both traditional and newly crafted — with sobering, honest lyrics exploring all-too-current themes including poverty and racism.”

Grenades, released in 2018, explores her personal history, including the story of her father’s youth and 1983 American Invasion of Grenda that changed his life. The album was nominated for Contemporary Roots Album of the Year at the 2019 JUNO Awards, and was long-listed for the Polaris Music Prize. Her latest album, Strange Medicine, released May 2024 was reviewed in The Guardian, where the publication noted that it “packs a powerful punch.” The album celebrates the power of women and oppressed people throughout history, while also sharing meditations of Kaia’s life.

In 2020, Kaia participated in the Slaight Music Residency at the Canadian Film Centre, and wrote original music for The Porter a television series produced by Winnipeg-based Inferno Pictures and Sienna Films. She won a Canadian Screen Award for the project. She also wrote and performed music for My Dead Friend Zoe, a 2024 American war comedy-drama written by Kyle Hausmann-Stokes.