Out Artists on the Rise
Team Gina’s expressive brand of rap combines their shared experience as children of the ’80s, and their love of all things pop.
The Seattle-based duo of Gina Genius, 27, and Gina Bling, 26, audaciously sample Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back,” simultaneously referencing My Little Pony, and themes from the queer rights movement.
“We’re synthesizing all the elements of pop culture that we grew up with and mashing them up to create something new,” Genius. “We’re also trying to bring a perspective that’s kind of utopian—we want to represent the perfect queer paradise that doesn’t exist yet, that maybe exists at our shows.” Components? “Well, there’d be really great outfits,” muses Genius, giggling. “And really great dance moves.”
While Gina Bling is a Seattle-born former “musical theatre junkie,” Genius, who hails from D.C. via Brooklyn, is a former folk singer. The beat-heavy duo, who met in 2006 at a Scream Club show, sport matching attire (think booty shorts, wristbands) when they break it down every first Friday at Seattle’s Wild Rose bar. Their debut CD, gina gina revolution, was released this year by Crunks Not Dead and Don’t Stop Believin’ Records.
The two giggly femmes, who just finished touring with MondoHomo Dirty South, share one other love: butch girls. Hence these memorable lyrics from their Sir Mix-sampled track “Butch/Femme”: “I like butch girls and I cannot lie/You other femmes can’t deny/When a butch walks in all the femmes wanna fuss/’Cause it’s like one of them and thirty of us.”
For more on Team Gina, visit myspace.com/teamgina. –Melody Wells
Hip-hoppers to country crooners, this year’s up-and-comers are here, queer and ready to entertain
Melanie Valera of Tender Forever
Melanie Valera’s arrival into music could be called just about anything but typical. While on a trip to Seattle two years ago, the songwriter had a mere $20 in her pocket and performed on the streets with friends in order to ensure a quick buck. A day before her departure back to France, her native country, K Records founder Calvin Johnson showed Valera a detailed map of the U.S. and asked her to join his label. Valera affirms that day as the beginning of a “pretty crazy adventure.”
Before long, Olympia audiences would embrace Valera’s brand of heartstring-tugging indie pop. Valera had previously collaborated with friends covering ‘60s songs in the streets of Bordeaux. “It was kind of horrible,” she jokes. It was this method of directness that led to Valera’s deeply personal performance aesthetic; onstage alone with a laptop and keyboard.
Valera, an out lesbian, fell in love for the first time with a girl at a local concert, sparking what would become an intense long-distance relationship and the inspiration for Tender Forever. “She wrote in an e-mail that she wished she could write 45 songs about what we were going through,” and Valera did just that.
Using simple electronic blips, guitars, and objects around the house, Valera wove together songs for her first album, The Soft and the Hardcore. “I was recording and writing songs thinking nobody would hear it, but I guess destiny made it so a lot of people did.”
Valera anticipates the release of her new Tender Forever record Wider in November along with tour dates in U.S. and Europe. Check takemybreathaway.net for more info. –PC
