Roy Kinsey and Mother Nature 

Photo by Hannah Steinkopf-Frank 

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How Queer Rappers Are Defining The Next Generation Of Chicago Hip-Hop

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In a music industry that’s still heavily straight and male-dominated, and in a city that's still deeply segregated, queer artists like Roy Kinsey, Mother Nature, Mister Wallace and more are creating spaces for themselves
Hannah Steinkopf-Frank
GRAMMYs
Jul 11, 2019 - 10:28 am

On a rainy Chicago night during Pride month, queer youth gathered at D.I.Y. venue Concept Sanctuary for a night of hip-hop in an area of the city that's considered one of the country's largest open-air drug markets. Close to midnight, rapper and librarian Roy Kinsey played a new song "Fetish" about being objectified as a black gay man before performing with Mother Nature, a female duo dedicated to empowering youth through music. Utilizing underground venues and grassroots creative collaborations, these artists have worked for years paving paths for historically marginalized communities. Now their voices and messages are influencing the future of rap in the Midwest and beyond.

From producers and club DJs innovating house music in the 1980s to hometown musicians like Kanye West, Chance The Rapper and Common dominating the airwaves, Chicago holds a central role in hip-hop’s development. But compared to coastal scenes in Los Angeles and New York City, it's an unassuming cultural tastemaker. Similarly, the history of American queer art often focuses on New York and San Francisco, but Chicago has a longstanding and flourishing LGBTQ+ community and is a hotbed for drag performance and nightlife talent. But in a music industry that’s still heavily straight and male-dominated, and in a city that's still deeply segregated, queer artists are creating spaces for themselves. 

Formed in 2016, the artist collective, record label and media platform Futurehood provides an outlet for queer creators of color. Futurehood cofounder Mister Wallace (Erik Lamar Wallace II) said, "One of our foundations is hip-hop and the tool hip-hop has become for storytelling and as a way of exposing what's happening in the underground or to the underdogs."

As a "skinny gay black kid," Mister Wallace turned to performance to be seen, finding inspiration in supermodels Naomi Campbell and Jourdan Dunn. Mister Wallace said, "I play with gender identity and sexuality. But at the end of the day I'm just trying to show people that we're all human beings and we all deserve respect."

Formed with DJ/producer aCe a.k.a. aCeboombaP (Anthony Pabey), Futurehood provided the support for Mister Wallace to release music, including the 2016 EP Faggot and 2018 album Cool Mom. That title came from their role in Futurehood supporting up-and-coming musicians navigating the entertainment industry. They help with both the creative process sitting in on studio sessions and business aspects, like negotiating contracts.  

Although Mister Wallace lauds mainstream culture and rap becoming more accepting of queer stars, citing Atlanta rapper Little Nas X, who came out on World Pride Day, they also worry about the commodification of their identity. They're particularly concerned with corporations monetizing queer culture, seen most visibly during Pride month. This year, they participated in Chicago’s first Pride South Side festival, a community-based alternative to the city’s North Side celebration.

 "Right now we're competing with major labels that if anything are going to take what we do and what we've innovated and put it on some artists because they already have the metrics and the A&R," they said, adding: "These artists in Chicago, or wherever in the world, are going to be looked over or they're going to be taken from, like, their style, their content, their flows, their ideas. It's hard to fight against those machines. Right now, it looks like being black and gay is marketable."

As a city, Chicago also carries stereotypes, particularly around violence and its unfortunate nickname "Chiraq." Young activists and creatives are leading the charge in battling decades of corruption and institutional racism to build a more equitable city. Mister Wallace, who recently performed at Germany’s WHOLE United Queer Festival, said it’s important to uplift their hometown: "I consider Chicago to be a portal. I consider her to be a mother. I try to honor her and all of her legacy through my work."

Kinsey, who works with teens for Chicago Public Libraries, is also challenging preconceptions of who can be a rapper. His 2018 album Blackie: A Story by Roy Kinsey was a personal dive into his life, from his family coming north during the Great Migration to visions of a black future, through what he described as a new queer spirituality.

"I like being a part of this Chicago community that is so rich with history but daring to do something different," he said, adding, "That's a lot of what my album is: It's me trying to put together what I thought were fragments, things that I thought I had to keep separate, which were my scholarly side being a librarian and then my hip-hop side being a rapper. Or my queerness and my hip-hopness."

A storyteller, Kinsey is inspired by the people he meets as a librarian. He said, "I'm around words all the time. But I'm also around a lot of people who are existing in the margins, especially in this city. That's what I talk about when I speak on the duality: When I speak on how Chicago can be a world-class city but also a city that is experiencing its own inverse migration. So many people are leaving because of gentrification, violence, the closing of mental health facilities."

This article features the music video premiere for "Fetish," a song that explores Kinsey's teenage search for romantic connection in historic Boystown. While the Northside neighborhood is recognized as the country’s first gay village, Kinsey shared the common sentiment that "Boystown is a very exclusive space for wealthy white men. It's not until young queers of color get there that they understand this isn't necessarily your home."

Kinsey is finishing his fifth album, Kinsey, out this fall. While in the recording studio mixing a track he performed with RuPaul’s Drag Race star The Vixen, he reflected on why the city has become an epicenter for queer rappers. He couldn't pinpoint a singular reason, but he highlighted the importance of remembering queer pioneers, from the powerful drag ball emcees to the two mothers who raised him.

"We're not inventing something," he said. "We're understanding that we operated for a long time thinking that we were the only ones. In trying to remedy some of the wrongs and add a balance back into the world, it's important for us to share our truths, to share our stories and to just say that we were here."

Others are working to develop future musicians in underserved communities. Klevah Knox (Shasta Matthews) and T.R.U.T.H. (Tierney Reed) met at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and formed their duo Mother Nature. While women have traditionally been left out of hip-hop, Knox, whose father was a rapper, said it's exciting to be an anomaly, particularly with a supportive musical partner.

"Say we're opening for a male artist, I just feel that it’s a breath of fresh air to see women who are fearless and aggressive and loving," said Knox. "It slowly starts to free people."

Mother Nature taught internationally through the U.S. State Department Next Level initiative and started the nonprofit Miseducation Of Hip-Hop. Since 2015, they've worked with more than 300 kids around the country, teaching the art of the rap cypher and empowerment through self-expression. Now, some of their mentees entering college are pursuing music careers.  

"We're living testimony of everything we're teaching young people," said T.R.U.T.H, "It's possible for you to grow yourself, build your career, everything through this culture of hip-hop because it's more than just a genre of music."

Mother Nature released their four song EP Pressure in March and some of their students even starred in the music video for the track "Simple." While they participated in Pride and other queer-centered events, they don't want to be boxed in by their race, gender or sexuality.

"In trying to remedy some of the wrongs and add a balance back into the world, it's important for us to share our truths, to share our stories and to just say that we were here."

"I feel like hip-hop in its essence, you're talking about community," said T.R.U.T.H. "Most importantly it helps us to freely express. You let go of your boundaries. You let go of your preexisting notions and just be."

In promoting positivity and acceptance, Mother Nature also don't shy from exploring social issues and their mental health impact, particularly on people of color.

"For me, ideas and inspiration come in time of failure and 'death': not actual death but when you've hit a rock bottom or ending of something," said Knox. "For a second I'm in that space and then that's when the new flower starts to sprout."

She said Chicago's music scene reflects this ethos: "There's just something about the energy in Chicago that's really genuine, really multifaceted, really gutter. But at the same time really bright and loving and life-giving." 

Younger queer artists have fewer barriers to mainstream success because of the foundation laid by their predecessors. When he was only 15, Kidd Kenn gained viral fame when he freestyled over FBG Duck’s "Slide," queering the opening line to "It's a faggot party baby, you cannot get in."  In a short time, he was performing with Kehlani at San Francisco Pride. Embracing his youth, he released his first album Childish last year. While he's now signed to a record label and working with producers around the country, he still most enjoys writing in his bedroom.

"I love recording in Chicago because it's home so I'm comfortable already," he said. I know which studio I want to go to. If I want to have people there with me, I can do that."

Like many creative digital natives, Kidd Kenn uses social media to catapult his craft, while also being open about his gay identity. He’s collaborated with female rappers including Queen Key and Zani Band$ and joked they’re better than their male counterparts. With ambitious goals to have number one hits, be in movies and create clothing lines, he's inspired by megastars like Nicki Minaj.

"Her confidence, her work ethic, she doesn't care what people have to say about her," he said. "She's doing her with the colorful costumes in the beginning and just her being her."

Kidd Kenn’s bravado and dedication—he's now homeschooled to dedicate more time to music—represent a shift for queer rappers. Building on hip-hop's rebellious nature, these young creators are questioning the status quo and reclaiming spaces. When asked about Kidd Kenn, Mister Wallace recalled a recent experience in Boystown when he saw Kidd Kenn in a Mercedes, pumping music and dancing with friends. In that moment, Mister Wallace saw the freedom and power they'd envisioned for queer communities. While racism and homophobia are still rampant, Chicago's queer rappers prove art can be a force of not only resilience, but progress for their city.

"When I'm on stage I carry this confidence, this coolness," Mister Wallace said. "Yeah, there's a lot of aggression. Yes there's a lot of the struggle still present. But I overcome and I win. That's what I want them to know about Chicago. We're winners. We're going to overcome."

What Makes A Good Ally? LGBTQ+ Artists And Industry Leaders Weigh In On Pride, Diversity & More In New York

Shura

Photo by Hollie Fernando

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Shura Tells Her Modern Love Story On 'Forevher'

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The U.K.-born pop singer/producer talks to the Recording Academy about moving overseas for love, how it inspired her gorgeous sophomore effort 'forevher' and why this feels like her "first record as an adult woman"
Rachel Brodsky
GRAMMYs
Aug 15, 2019 - 4:23 pm

Shura didn't intend to fall in love with a woman an ocean away—like all love stories, it just sort of happened.

In the time after her 2016 debut, Nothing's Real, the British pop performer began to realize that having a traditional Tinder account was no longer an option, with her own show attendees screencapping her profile and posting it to Twitter, among other embarrassments. So she signed up for the considerably more private dating app, Raya, which heavily vets its users and posits itself as "an exclusive platform for people in creative industries."

During a phone call to talk about her upcoming sophomore album, forevher (out Aug. 16 via Secretly Canadian), Shura, whose real name is Aleksandra Denton, emits a sniff of laughter at the idea of being one of the dating elite ("I'm on it and my girlfriend's on it, and she's not famous," she says). But her experiment would prove successful: Once she began swiping on Raya, Shura met her now-partner, who was and is currently based in New York. After months of chatting, Shura flew to the city for a first date. Now, two years later, she's a permanent resident of the Big Apple, and her relationship informs much of her softly soulful sophomore album, which is home to the synth-splashed, Janet Jackson-esque single "religion (u can lay your hands on me)."

In many ways, forevher also represents a victory lap for Shura, who, even as recently as a few years ago, wouldn't have felt comfortable using same-sex pronouns in her songs. But the "her" in "forevher" is quite purposeful, as is its Rodin-inspired blue imagery of two women embracing. "I remember when I put out Nothing's Real... In the pop sphere there really wasn't a queer woman that I could think of, other than people who had also already been around for a while," Shura tells the Recording Academy. "So, Tegan and Sara, maybe you have Hayley Kiyoko as well. But now we have King Princess, we have lots of non-binary artists. The indie-pop world, it's just so much queerer than it was when I first put out a record. I don't feel like the only gay in the village anymore."

On the cusp of releasing forevher, Shura sat down with the Recording Academy to delve further into the story behind her latest effort—which is co-produced with Joel Pott and features collaborations with Jagwar Ma's Jona Ma, Whitney's Will Miller and more—and why this feels like her "first record as an adult woman."

When did you begin to write forevher in earnest?

I began as soon as I finished touring. I wasn't seriously planning anything. It was just about getting back into the groove of writing. No pressure to think about anything in terms of an entire record.

Then, I guess about summer of, maybe spring, summer of last year, I'd written enough songs to really go, "Okay, there's a body of work here, a story that I feel like I can get a handle on what the story is that I want to tell." And I began in the summer of last year, the recording. Kind of approached it, actually, in a very different way than the first record.

[The first record] was done like, I would write a song and finish producing it, and then move on to the next song. Whereas this was much more like, write a bunch of things, and then go, "Okay, what do I have here?" And then go in.

Did you primarily record in the States, or were you in London?

No, because earlier, I made it primarily in London. It was just about me going to the States.

I did some writing in L.A., actually, with Orlando Higginbottom, whose artist name is Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs. But that was the only writing that I did in the States for this record. I bizarrely made more of this record in the U.K. than the last one.

Forevher is about your forming a long-distance relationship with your current partner. When did you guys originally connect?

Yeah, so we met on a dating app when I was physically in Minneapolis, and my partner was in New York at the time. So we weren't close to one another, even then. And we met because she had said, "If you're swinging by New York on your way back to London, then maybe we should hang out."

But you know, I wasn't really swinging by anywhere. I'd just wrapped up finished touring. I was like, "I need to go home. See my parents and my cat, and my twin, but sure." So we began talking. It wasn't like an every day sort of thing. We would just occasionally share funny things that had happened.

And I guess gradually, we were just talking more and more frequently. For four months it slowly developed to this quite intense relationship. It wasn't sexual, of course. It was an intellectual one. That's the funny thing about it. Because it wasn't Tinder. It was an app called Raya.

Yeah, I just learned about that one. My coworker was telling me how she spotted like, Owen Wilson and Ben Affleck on there! Isn’t it where all the celebs hang?

Well, apparently. Except I'm on it and my girlfriend's on it, and she's not famous.

You have to give your Instagram handle. You go through an approval thing. It's based on whether or not you're verified, or verified people follow you. You know, it's kind of ridiculous.

I think everyone can get on it. If her and I can get on it, it can't be that bad. But I only got on it because I was at my own gig in Boston, and I hadn't even opened my Tinder. Because I wouldn't, at a gig, that would be weird.

But because I was physically in the vicinity, people found my Tinder profile and screen-shotted it, and shared it on Twitter and being like, "I hope we're going to meet." Or like, "I hope we're going to match." And I was like, "Oh my God, I need to get off this."

And I was like, "Okay, I've got to get off of this." And I told a friend, and they told me about Raya, which I found it so hilarious. I was like, well, I have to apply. It's just so funny.

Like a week or two later, after I'd applied, I was accepted. I was like, "Holy sh*t. This is what I'm going to spend the next hour in the tour van, looking at. This going to be so fun!"

So the point that I was getting across is, because it's for wildly famous or successful people, in theory. They don't show you people who are necessarily physically close to you. Because I'm guessing the assumption is that you're so successful that you can afford to fly to L.A. You could go anywhere on your private jet, or whatever it is. I wasn't wealthy enough or successful enough to be able to fly on a private jet to go on a first date. So it meant that we just had to talk, in a way that I guess you wouldn't on Tinder, because it shows you people that are close.

So you have to, after a couple of weeks go, "Should we go on a date?" We just slowly developed this relationship. I think once we got to the stage where we were talking on the phone more or less every day, and three, four, five hours at a time, I was like, "We should probably see if this is gonna work in real life, because it's taking up a lot of my emotional energy, and obviously, just a lot of my time."

So I just invented a reason to go to New York. I thought, maybe I can take a couple of meetings, and hit up some of my friends, just in case. And I flew to New York, for this date and arranged lots of other things just in case it went really badly. But it went really well. And here I am, two years later with a record about meeting someone on a dating app and then moving to a different country.

Wow. So have you officially moved to the States?

Yeah, yeah. I moved to New York in November of last year.

How are you liking it?

I love it. Which is really weird, because I hated it when I first went. I hated New York and I loved L.A., because L.A. is immediately appealing. There are palm trees, and the weather's great. And New York was kind of weird, because it was either too hot or too cold, and everyone was cross at you. In England, if someone's cross at you, they're going to apologize. You bump into someone, they'll be like, "Sorry." Even though you bumped into them. Whereas in America, if you bump into someone, they'd be like, "What the f**k are you doing, you f**king asshole?" And I'm like, "I'm sorry! I didn't see you!"

But once you sort of peel away the layers of New York, it has this real energy that's like no other city I've ever been in. I mean, for Christ's sake, it also of course helps that I fell in love there. You can't not fall in love with the place in which you're falling in love. Which is kind of weird to be that person that's being like, "Oh, America's really great!" at a time where everyone else was like, "F**k the Americans!" It's mad! So yeah, it's been quite a weird backdrop to a queer love story.

Well, in looking at your description of the album and its lead single, “religion (u can lay your hands on me),” I’d love it if you could elaborate a bit on how you’re approaching the concept of religion and Christianity here.

I think there's a few things going on. Frankly, there's this rich history, in general, with pop music playing around with religion that I enjoy. Whether it's the iconography or toying around with it lyrically. So it's just fun to me to explore that and be, "This is my contribution to that tradition," shall we say.

Especially, if you think of me being a devotee of, to use a religious phrase, Madonna. And I think it's sort of my way of honoring that tradition. But also, the language that we use around love is very close to the language we use around religion.

Whether it's "I believe in love" in the same way that you believe in God. It's a type of faith and the act of devotion. Something that we say, we devote ourselves to someone that we love, and the physical act of laying your hands on someone. It's something that you would do during sex.

But also it could be in religion. It's something you might do to bless someone or to heal someone. So there's me, just having fun a little bit with that and other factors.

I've always been really interested in religion. I very nearly studied theology instead of English literature, because I just found it fascinating that in every culture there is a kind of religion. Which is kind of hilarious, because I'm an atheist and always have been. But you know, to be fascinated in that and especially being a woman and being queer, two things that don't often get treated well. Like women, since the dawn of time have gotten a bit f**ked over because you know, in Christianity, the prime example of a woman is a mother and a virgin. Which is kind of a physical impossibility. From that point on, we're a bit f**ked.

Yeah, there's not a lot of gray area where women are concerned in the Bible.

Yeah. So I think just something that I'm interested in. I think love is kind of absurd if you think about it. Like the idea of being with one person forever, is kind of absurd. But that's how I love. That's how I do it. If I am to be with someone, it's because I think I'm going to be with them forever, even though all the evidence points to the contrary.

And I think there's something about religion that's also absurd, and that we believe that most every culture has a belief system, where we go, there's someone bigger than us that does everything and knows everything. And I think it's just playing around with the absurdity of humans and being human and love and faith is a big part of that.

Hopefully I want it to be kind of done in a fun way and also a funny way. I really, on this record more than the last one, I wanted to make people cry, but I also wanted to make people laugh, and feel joy. There was a lot of me in that first record, but I feel like in general, my personality gets across better in this record, in the fact that I am a deep thinker, but also a bit of a joker. And a bit, I like to kind of play around with things and have fun.

Yeah, forevher has a soulful quality that I think was missing on your debut. When you mention how you are with someone, specifically the way you enter a relationship believing in the concept of forever—even though all the evidence points to the contrary—is that where the title of the record comes from?

Yes, well, it's a combination of things. Firstly, the idea that we love forever, in a sense. Or the idea of the ultimate love, or the one true love, is someone you would love forever. But you know, it stemmed, or the reason I started thinking about that as a title, was because of the song "Forever," which isn't spelled with an "H." I rhymed "together" and "forever." Which is like the biggest no-no in songwriting history. Because it's so obvious that the point in doing that, I think, was to point out the absurdity of it.

And I think in the middle of it, I start talking about the sun crashing into the sea, and leaving us in the dark forever. When I'm saying "I'm gonna love you forever," I don't want it to be just this saccharin, cheesy thing. I want it to be like, "Oh, there's an absurdity to it, or a sense of humor to it." But forevher, the title, and the way that I spell it with the pronoun, arose because it was a mix of, well, her. My partner.

So much of it has to do with that. But then also it's a mix of, "for-her, forever, and forever-her." I think because I really made a conscious choice on this record to use pronouns in a way that I hadn't done before. It felt important to specify that in the title.

My first record was queer. If you watch the music videos and it's queer as f**k. But this record, lyrically, is more explicitly queer.

Yeah, I think that’s been in the conversation more recently. That artists, if they do identify as queer, they’re more likely to use the pronouns of their choice. And that probably would not have been the case, say, 10 years ago.

Even five years ago! I remember when I put out Nothing's Real... In the pop sphere there really wasn't a queer woman that I could think of, other than people who had also already been around for a while. So, Tegan and Sara, maybe you have Hayley Kiyoko as well. But now we have King Princess, we have lots of non-binary artists. The indie-pop world, it's just so much queerer than it was when I first put out a record. I don't feel like the only gay in the village anymore.

Absolutely. And as far as the album cover goes, that feels like it adheres much more closely to your identity as well. Would you say that’s true?

Yeah. I felt that this record was a more certainly musically mature record. And I think I felt like I wanted that to be visible just from the artwork and stuff. I always joke that my first record was kind of like the soundtrack to a John Hughes movie that was never made.

[For this record] I wanted to use photography and illustration to have that childish, teenage vibe. And this felt like my first record as an adult woman. And so yeah, I knew from the beginning that I wanted it to be, to feel vastly different.

I remember talking with a friend of mine, he's a brilliant photographer, Hollie Fernando, about wanting to recreate a classic image of love with women. And we were talking about the Rodin sculpture, "The Kiss," which is one of the most classic examples of erotic love in art.

I remember saying, "Well, how would you feel about recreating that and doing a photograph?" It was very important to me, even at that stage, of it not being just a straight photograph. I wanted to go through another process. I really want to print it as an aristograph, which is the the style of printing that just feels sort of nostalgic and almost going to make something look like an oil painting, rather than just a photograph. 

What I didn't know was that the image that we used for the cover, I didn't know that that was what it was going to be. I'd thought it would be very obvious, and it would be a wide shot where you can really clearly see what we were doing. And now, actually, the cover is kind of quite mysterious. You wouldn't necessarily know it was two women until you open it up, and it's unveiled to be two women.

I felt like that was a really nice representation, aesthetically, of the music. Because it's a very queer record that you could completely miss with queer, somehow. Especially if you don't listen to the lyrics. That's the first thing I listen to, is lyrics. But a lot of people are all about melody and the music. 

I'm just so struck by [the cover], how blue is such a promiscuous color. And I don't mean that it sleeps with a lot of people. It means so many different things to different people, to different cultures. For some people it symbolizes depression or loneliness. For others it's love or royalty or holiness. And I just really loved how blue that blue made me feel. It kind of feels like longing and maybe it's something to do with the ocean and the distance between us. I look at it, and it feels like there's this halo around her head. We might see Mary and religious imagery, which tied in with some of the religious themes.

But it's this kind of desire for the eternal that I really got from that color in that dimension. And I think that's what we strive for and when we are in love, it's this weird desire for things to last forever. There's a song on forevher called "tommy," which very explicitly deals with the notion of forever, and foreverness, and the desire for the eternal, and death.

Yeah, you mentioned working with Hollie Fernando... Speaking of collaborators, you also have so many on this record Orlando from T-E-E-D, Jona Ma from Jaguar Ma. How did you connect with everyone?

So Joel Pott, I wrote a lot of this record with him. We co-produced it together, which is why I still made it in London. So that was fairly easy because we'd worked together before.

With Whitney, I had just worked with Will, who plays trumpet for Whitney. I just fell in love with that record. When I was writing "princess leia," decided I wanted to have a brass arrangement, because there's a moment where I'm talking about, I was on a plane and a dead soldier was taken off the plane, and I saw that, and there was a brass band. Whitney's [also] signed to Secretly Canadian. So they just introduced us and I sent him the track and I said I'd really love for you to just do your thing on it. I didn't give him too much direction. As a fan, I trusted him. And when I got it back, I just remember crying and just thinking it was so wonderful. And why hadn't I ever learned to play the horn?

With Orlando [from Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs], he'd just put out a song, I think, on SoundCloud called "Leave A Light On," that I couldn't stop listening to. And it's very rare for me to reach out to people, like just slide into the DMs. But I did. I just DMed him and was like, "Hi, this song is so beautiful, I can't stop listening to it. If I were to ever be in L.A. for writing, would you like to try some things?" And we spent three days together and wrote four or five songs, two of which made the record. So that was just very exciting.

And then, there's a chorus of incredible women: Rosie Lowe, Kerry Leatham and Reva from NIMMO. They're friends of mine too. They just happen to be really brilliant vocalists.

And I mean, I've obviously been a big fan of Jaguar Ma. I'm so lucky to have, like, slid into the DMs of people who I'm a big fan of and have them be receptive. Some DMs, you don't get a response. So these are the ones that came off.

Well, it never hurts to ask.

I have this thing, "Don't ask, don't get." The worst thing that someone can say is no, and the world's not gonna end if that happens. 

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Billy Strings

Photo: Daniel Mendoza/Recording Academy

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Billy Strings Talks New LP, Being Billed As Bluegrass' Future, Heavy Metal & Mental Health

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The virtuosic bluegrass guitar star opens up about his forthcoming album, his rock and metal influences and how he copes with the pressures of touring and being hailed as the future of a genre
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Aug 8, 2019 - 11:31 am

Once you hear Billy Strings do his thing, you'll get it. His unhinged flat-picking guitar playing kicks the tradition of bluegrass into new territory with one foot while keeping the other firmly planted in the genre's rich tradition. As a young artist, his songwriting, already scary good, seems to only be improving. For good reason, Stings is being called the future of bluegrass. And even though seeing is believing, and he proves he's worthy of the attention every night he takes the stage, that's still a lot of pressure for one person.

Aug 8, 2019 – 11:31 am

Billy Strings On Bluegrass, Playing Live & More

We sat down with Strings recently at Newport Folk to talk about how he handles the challenges of all the attention and success, how other genres like rock and metal have weaved their way into his astonishing guitar work, the collaborative process of making his forthcoming album, HOME, and more.

You're new album HOME is on its way, Sept. 27. Can you tell us how it was recorded?

We made it back in January over about 10 days or 12 days I think.

So lots of live tracking then?

Yeah, we just all were isolated in different booths and stuff, but we just try to lay the tracks down and I'll play it and live track it. Yeah, I think most of the songs we just end up doing that way. It kind of feels more live that way too than if we played the music and then did the vocals and then did this and that. We kind of just do it all at once like we do at our concert, you know?

I think there's a collaborative element of that, and a collaboration is a theme to this album. Why is it important to you, as a solo artist?

For me it's just I love playing music with my friends. Like I just did with Molly Tuttle up there [on stage at Newport Folk], but yeah, Jerry Douglas played some on the record and sometimes collaborating with people like that, it's just inspiring. It kind of puts a fire underneath you and keeps you going. When I get to play with my heroes, it really inspires me. It's good for you.

There are a lot of the people who want you to carry the torch for bluegrass, bring traditional bluegrass into the new generation. Obviously, you know the history and you come from the history, but you're doing something new. How do you navigate that as an artist?

A lot of people have said, and I would believe that it's true that you kind of have to know the origins and to know traditional bluegrass before you can then branch out. I think there's something true about that. I grew up playing bluegrass with my dad and very traditional bluegrass, I cut my teeth on it, but then somewhere along the way when I was a teenager, I got into heavy metal and rock and roll and all sorts of different music as I grew up and branched out a little bit.

As a writer, I try not to block off those other genres for inspiration as well. I'll let all the rock and roll and the metal and all that stuff that I've listened to inspire me while songwriting just as much as a bluegrass. And also, even if I'm writing a song that's not very bluegrass, it sort of comes out because that's how I learned how to play. It always kind of, you'll hear that flavor in there, I guess.

Yeah, is there something specific about rock or metal that has worked its way into your style?

I think it's more just about our live show. I think the most important thing that we do is our live show. I think that's where we are really best seen is on stage, in a concert venue somewhere. We're gonna make records and we're going to do our best to recreate that live setting on an album, but we're a live music band. Every night it's different. We could play the same song, but it's totally sometimes different. I don't know, we just try to jam with each other.

How often do you practice to play at such a high level?

I mostly even play on stage every day. Sometimes I never get to practice because I'm always on stage. I was talking to my friend David Grisman about that the other day and like, "Man, I never have time to practice." He's like, "Well you could work up new songs and play them and we do that." But, we play a lot of gigs, and sometimes when I'm not playing gigs, I finally get a day or two off after several weeks on tour. Man, it's almost like you just want to take a nap and catch up.

But, I would like to practice more. Honestly, I think I could do better about that. I'd like to write more music. I'd like to get out my metronome more and practice with that. I'd like to just practice learning my fretboard, everything. I mean I'm still trying to get better.

You spend a lot of time playing shows and touring. For a lot of artists, mental health has become a topic we talk about now, where it used to be avoided. What do you do to kind of stay grounded when you're away from home?

The main thing that I do is I see a therapist and I talk to that person and I've been doing that for a while. I had a lot of anxiety back in January maybe before we started making the record and I don't think it was based around the record. It's based around a lot of other things. Things when I was young and just everything, everybody has their own troubles and that kind of things, but certain things can haunt you or if you keep things inside and don't talk about them, that stuff can come out as an anxiety.

It's almost if you have a pot of boiling water, all these emotions and things that you wish you would have said or maybe thought about or this or that and you put the lid on, it starts boiling and a little bit of steam is gonna get out no matter how hard you hold that lid on. Might as well just take it off.

That's what I do is I talk, I see a therapist and I would recommend it to anybody who struggles at all in that way. I think it is an important thing to talk about and I'm certainly not ashamed of that or anything. I have to work on myself and I think a lot of other people do too. I've lost a lot of friends to, whether it's substance abuse or depression and anxiety and that kind of stuff is very real to me.

Unfortunately, I do believe in this line of work as a musician, entertainer, an actor or actress, those kinds of folks, because there is this added amount of pressure, I think a lot of times anxiety and depression sometimes, I think a lot of musicians deal with that or I think maybe a lot of therapists or psychiatrists see a lot of musicians or entertainers because we're like in the public eye and there's a lot of stress involved.

A lot of musicians depend on things. I know a lot of people that are in bands drink a lot and that kind of stuff. It's easy to do. People are always handing your stuff too man when you're out there. People are offering you everything and it's hard to say no when there's a party and it's, until you start to have anxiety and stuff and that's, man, I just, I do everything I can to try to stay healthy. I try to make sure I get enough sleep, make sure I drink enough water, don't be doing drugs except for psychedelics, but yeah, just try to take care of myself and stay zenned out brother.

One more question: What's inspiring you right now?

I think my earlier life, I use [it] as inspiration a lot. When I grew up, I grew up in a small town and I saw a lot of drugs and stuff, a lot of substance abuse and I saw also that those people drove themselves down into a dark hole and that they can never get out of, prison and overdose and stuff like that. It's like, I didn't want to be a bum. I wanted to do something good with my life. I think just seeing that kind of helped me run towards the light in the right direction.

It's great that we get to travel and spread the light and meet people and play music for people and hopefully brighten somebody's day. Also, I've got to mention my father who taught me how to play. It's just great to sort of carry his torch in a way and to kind of, I'm doing it for him and from my mom and him.

Molly Tuttle On 'When You're Ready,' Her Modern Nashville Bluegrass Classic | Newport Folk 2019

Amber Gray and the Broadway cast of Hadestown

Photo by Matthew Murphy

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Singing—And Streaming—To Success On Broadway

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How the success of streaming platforms has launched an unorthodox new wave of Broadway productions
Bryan Reesman
GRAMMYs
Aug 7, 2019 - 10:17 am

The traditional trajectory of a musical seeking to reach the Great White Way was that it would start as a local or off-Broadway production, go through multiple permutations of performance and development, find the right commercial casting choices, do an out-of-town tryout, and then, if the creators got lucky and the show thrived, arrive on Broadway. But some recent productions have been bucking traditional channels, finding audiences through original soundtracks available on CD and more prominently by streaming platforms like Spotify, which has allowed unorthodox shows like Hadestown and Be More Chill to skirt the usual gatekeepers and reach mainstream theatergoers in New York City.

Streaming is making a difference. During opening week performances of both Hadestown and Be More Chill, their audiences emanated incredible enthusiasm. This was beyond even the normal warm reception given new shows. Many people in those seats intimately knew these shows.

Writer/composer Anaïs Mitchell's Hadestown, a retelling of the Orpheus myth with both New Orleans and an industrial Hell as its settings, began life as an abstract, DIY community-style show in her home state of Vermont in 2006. Two incarnations later, she recorded a cast album in 2010 featuring vocalists Ani DiFranco, Greg Brown, Justin Vernon from Bon Iver, and Ben Knox Miller from The Low Anthem.

Andre De Shields in Hadestown

"It was a very magical collaboration," says Mitchell. That first cast album later lured director Rachel Chavkin and co-star Patrick Page to the project, which lead to productions off-Broadway and in Edmonton and London between 2016 and 2018. Later, Hadestown premiered on Broadway this past spring and won eight Tony Awards.

Mitchell does not seem to concern herself with streaming numbers on Hadestown (the Top 10 tracks on Spotify have notched up 7.6 million streams), but she notes that the three different recordings—the original concept album and off-Broadway and Broadway cast albums—"have definitely helped the show reach people who otherwise might not set foot in the theater. For all the complicated aspects of music streaming, I love that music is free. It's like water running to the sea. It will find the people who will listen to and love it, whoever they are."

The Hadestown creator adds that the process of developing the show over the past six years has been very public. "It's a little intense sometimes because people get attached to one version of a thing, and they inevitably have feelings when that thing changes," notes Mitchell. "But people have been incredibly supportive of the time it took to bring this show to Broadway. In a way people are invested in, and have really been part of, the journey itself, not just the destination. They’ve literally been part of the process."

Be More Chill

After the sci-fi teen comedy Be More Chill (adapted from Ned Vizzini's book) finished its four-week run at the Two River Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey in 2015, the original cast album was recorded to commemorate the experience. "No one ever thought that it would lead to having the show find a way back to a stage," admits composer Joe Iconis. But something unexpected happened.

"It was a perfect storm of things,” says Iconis. "There were a few shows around that time that had come out that had some audience crossover with us, like Dear Evan Hansen and The Lightning Thief musical. Through the magic of social-media algorithms, Be More Chill was suggested to people because of that." From their growing streaming audience, old-fashioned word of mouth built up interest. By August 2018, the offbeat musical Be More Chill, about a geeky teen outsider who swallows a supercomputer that seeks to turn him into a cool insider (with consequences), landed an off-Broadway run and then transferred to Broadway in February. It ends its official five-month run this Sunday, and a film adaptation is reportedly in development.

"The craziest thing when we were first experiencing this viral sensation was that kids who were listening to it just didn't know that it wasn't playing somewhere," recalls Iconis. "I would get messages every day being like, 'I'm confused. What theater is this that?' We had this bizarre thing where for the longest time we had this hit show audience without having a show. It was just these kids who knew it so well from the album."

The two soundtracks for Be More Chill have reportedly racked up over 300 million streams combined, with the older off-Broadway version accounting for a greater share of those. The show made enough of an impact that it was parodied on the opening sequence of the Tony Awards this year (although, oddly enough, the source material went uncredited). The musical was nominated for Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written For The Theatre, the award for which ultimately went to Hadestown.

"When people first started discovering the show I would get messages, and I was just so thrilled that anyone was listening to the show at all," says Be More Chill writer Joe Tracz. "People were not just listening to it, but living with it and thinking about it and wanting to know more about the characters and the world. [This is] a show that's actually looking at whether technology is a good or a bad thing. The grand irony of Be More Chill is finding an audience through the Internet."

On the indie circuit, Buried composer Cordelia O'Driscoll says her offbeat show, about two serial killers who serendipitously meet on a date, has mainly built up an audience through over 70 performances in the U.K. and U.S. over the last two years. It was originally crowdfunded through Indiegogo for its 2017 debut at Scotland's annual Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Based on a book written by director Tom Williams, the show recently played at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in N.Y.C. Streaming has helped the show's creators find new fans as existing ones share the music, which she says has exceeded 200,000 streams, reaching many fans who do not live near where a current production is happening.

"In terms of what we've found out about our fans, it’s been interesting to see which songs have been streamed more than others, to see what music people are connecting with the most at certain times," says O'Driscoll. "It's an amazing way to start to understand audiences." The fun, irreverent show looks like it will continue to thrive and grow.

Other productions have been aware of streaming potential for musical exposure. Between their 2015 D.C. run and 2016 Broadway debut, the producers of Dear Evan Hansen released the streamable single "Waving Through A Window" which reportedly accumulated over one million streams prior to the show's N.Y.C. premiere. On the Broadway side, fans who have been waiting and clamoring for Hamilton tickets have repeatedly streamed its score and memorized it. They know the show before they have seen it. The full Hamilton soundtrack on YouTube alone has racked up nearly 10 million views.

"The new British musical Six has grown a huge following from the streaming of its album," says O'Driscoll. "The music is brilliant and works very well as a stand-alone album, so people are going to their shows already knowing all the words. It's really cool to see."

"It feels like with more musicians like myself coming to the theater from different angles, and being able to reach supporters by way of musical channels and not just theatrical ones, we all benefit,” says Mitchell. “It makes for more aesthetic diversity, and brings different folks with different tastes to Broadway.”

"When I was a kid, you'd find any musical by like digging through the musical theater section at Sam Goody or your local library, and you were lucky if they had like one Sondheim title," recalls Tracz. "The things you saw were restricted by what was there with physical media. Now with streaming, if you're looking to discover something new, you can find it. Or, even better, it can find you."

"Streaming has huge potential to significantly expand the reach of musical theatre, and remove the perceptions of elitism or exclusivity that some people think it has," says O'Driscoll. "It’s a very exciting time for musical theater."

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Christina Bell

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Christina Bell On "Going" & Playing Twinkie Clark In The 'The Clark Sisters' Biopic

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"A couple of years ago I went out to Essence Fest and did a tribute for The Clark Sisters, and then three years later I'm like, 'What the heck. I'm in their movie?'" the gospel performer tells the Recording Academy
Rachel Brodsky
GRAMMYs
Aug 5, 2019 - 11:44 am

Gospel singer Christina Bell is having a heavenly year. Not only has the Shreveport, Louisiana native recently released a chart-topping single called "Going," which is co-written by Isaiah Templeton and Shamarr Blake, and produced by D. Jamel Kimbrough, but Bell just wrapped filming the Lifetime biopic The Clark Sisters: The First Ladies Of Gospel, where she portrays Twinkie Clark. 

Executive produced by Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige and Missy Elliott, The Clark Sisters will premiere early next year. As she talks about it, Bell, who spent nearly two decades singing in the gospel group Zie'l with Crystal Kay Bell and Keyondra Shane Lockett, lets out a little yelp of excitement. First of all, AHHH!" she exclaims over the phone. "It's definitely a very thrilling and exciting adventure to be on right now. My first day, of course, I was super-duper nervous. But then it calmed down once I got the hang of it. It's been amazing ever since."

Now that she's wrapped shooting, Bell is working on her second solo album, which is due to arrive later this year via Malaco Records. The Recording Academy sat down with Bell to talk about everything she's been working on lately, including what we can expect on her upcoming solo work and what it was like to hang out with the real Twinkie Clark when preparing for her role.

How long have you been professionally singing gospel, and what inspired you to pursue a career in it?

I actually started singing since I was a small little baby. I was in a singing group for about 20 years. The group was called Zie'l, and we got the opportunity to just travel so many different places all around the country, and then a little bit outside of the country, hitting Jamaica and doing different things like that. And it started when we were in church. We grew up together and sang in a small choir. It was five of us. They were the only people that came to the first rehearsal, and that's how we started the group. Shreveport, Louisiana was our hometown, and like I said, we grew up together in the same church just really, really excited about just singing. At one point we actually wanted to do R&B, but my mom was like, "Yeah, no. You're not going to do that."

I continued on with the gospel thing. But for the most part it's really, really been exciting to sing gospel music. Of course gospel is the good news, so I'm really excited to keep doing gospel music and getting his word out, so that's where it started for me.

You've been performing solo for about the last four years. What has your journey been like in deciding to pursue a solo career?

I definitely will say the experience is quite different from doing group music than solo music. It's a little bit strange when you first start out doing the solo career because you don't get the opportunity to look to your right and your left. I always say this: you look to your right and your left. These are your sisters that you've grown up with, and you just have so much chemistry with, and you know exactly where to go musically, and you don't really have to say anything. But you know how you give that look to somebody and you're like, "Okay, yeah. Let's go there." I didn't have that anymore. I had to carry my own weight. In the beginning it's very nerveracking because you don't know if people will accept you like they did with the group. It's almost like you're starting over. People don't really know you as much. You have some people that remember you from where you came from, but then you have a lot of people that are being introduced to you.

The downside [of performing solo] is more nerves. You tend to be a little bit more nervous when you have to go from being in a group to being a solo artist. But the upside to it is, you get used to it. And though my nerves almost get the best of me, I've learned how to put that in check. So, it feels very exciting to sing and to perform, and just do what I enjoy doing. I wouldn't trade it. 

I know a lot of people ask me if the group will get back together, and I tell them I can't see it right now because it's freeing. You don't have to necessarily do what everybody else wants to do. You can actually get your brand out there. 

I'd love to talk a little bit about the latest song, "Going." What was the genesis of that one?

This is one of those songs that you want to have written, but I didn't pen this song. This song was actually penned by Isaiah Templeton and Shamar Blake. They are really, really great friends. Shamar was actually in Walmart and God just placed that song in his heart about God's mercy. I think he even saw something going on in Walmart, or something like that, but God placed those words in his heart about his mercy constantly going and just keeping us. And though we don't have to continue doing the same things that we were doing, you get the opportunity to experience God's mercy in a really, really real way when you're going through life, when you've made a mistake or when something has happened and you just don't feel right about certain things.

I think it's really, really special that they got the opportunity to get together and collaborate on the song. When you're working on gospel music you very seldom have people that can come together and do something so tremendous like that: make a song really simple so that other people outside of the writing department can understand what it is that you're saying. A lot of times I think that music has started to get to a place where we don't really necessarily understand what's going on in the lyrics, and this is one of those very simple songs where you don't have to worry about not understanding. I think that this song is actually for everybody.

In the Bible it says in Lamentations, chapter 3, verses 22 and 23, "The faithful love of the Lord never ends and his mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness. His mercies are new each morning." That's so beneficial for all of us, when you get to experience the love of God, and his mercy and his grace constantly just wrapping you up. I always say you got two best friends following you, grace and mercy. Because if you get in trouble, if you find yourself wondering what's next, you still have grace and mercy that follows you all of the days of your life, and you don't necessarily have to really struggle with wondering if God is there. 

In the song it talks about God talking you off of the ledge. Not necessarily off of a physical edge, but a spiritual edge. If you find yourself looking over the edge and you're like, "Okay. I just can't do it no more." God, he will in the nick of time literally send you something, or remind you of a word something in your spirit and you can just come off of that and you'll be like, "You know what? I'm not worrying about this anymore. I am not about to worry about it. I'm not going to be afraid anymore. I'm just going to take that leap of faith and I'm going to jump." And that's God's mercy just constantly saying, "You know what? I got you."

You just wrapped up filming The Clark Sisters, your first movie role. How did you get involved with this project?

First of all, [Screams] AHHH! It's definitely a very thrilling and exciting adventure to be on right now, okay?

We got connected with this project through a very well-known producer, and writer. He posted about it on his Instagram page, and I don't think that he was supposed to, but my managers got wind of it and reached out. And we got the opportunity to do an audition. They told me to get it in by a certain time, and I had to learn my sides in less than a day. And that's something that I have never done before, so I got the sides done and really, really studied hard for it. I had to study for three different role. They wanted me to try out for three different characters, and then Twinkie was the one that they were like, "No, you are definitely Twinkie." So I got the role, and a month later everything was history. We got to Canada. And my first day, of course, I was super duper nervous. But then it calmed down once I got the hang of it. It's been amazing ever since.

Did you actually re-record The Clark Sisters' songs? 

The first thing that we did was, we went to studios to record the vocals and everything. And this is something I didn't know, of course, but we did see live vocals as well while we were on set. A lot of what you see is us singing live, but they of course had to mix the two so that they could make sure that it was great for TV. You don't want to really have mess-ups and all that stuff or whatever. So we did do the recording of the vocals first, before we even did any television, the scenes or anything like that. Before we did any of that. So, that was nerveracking because I actually had never done lip syncing or anything like that. 

Right, and it's actually really hard to lip sync, or so I've been told.

Yes! I had to ask them. I was like, "Can I sing live?" So I sang live quite a bit, and the other girls did as well. It was something that not all of us, actually, have ever experienced actually doing live. I mean, lip syncing for videos and stuff. So, it came out really, really good. 

Did you have the opportunity to connect with Twinkie herself?

Oh, definitely. Mm-hmm. The group that I sang with, we covered quite a few of [The Clark Sisters'] songs when we were growing up. And once we got recognition for their song called "Is My Living In Vain," we got the opportunity to meet them. From that point on we did some meet and greets with them, and we also got the opportunity to sing with them on stage once before, or it may have been twice before. Over the years we got the opportunity to do tributes to them. And quite funny thing is, a couple of years ago I went out to Essence Fest in New Orleans and did a tribute with a couple of women gospel artists, and we did a tribute for The Clark sisters, and then three years later I'm like, "What the heck. I'm in their movie?"

I've [also] gotten the opportunity to sing at their church and just have fellowship with them, and actually speak with them, and with Twinkie. The Clark sisters saw the movie already, and when Twinkie watched it then she says, "You know, I like everybody, but the Twinkie character, I really like her."

That's great. So what can you tell us about your new LP?

I'm actually about to release my second project, which is going to be this year. And I'm super-duper excited about that because I've actually been done with it for about a year and a half, maybe two years now, and we just wanted to make sure that everything was absolutely fantastic for the listeners. It's just really important to me that people are not necessarily bombarded with gospel, even when it comes to gospel music. I wanted people to walk away with the feeling of relief and feeling renewed, because of course that's what the Bible talks about: be transformed by the renewing of your mind. I want people to walk away feeling renewed and feeling refreshed. 

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