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
Regina Sayles
Regina Sayles’ first album It’s Home came out in December, and the title couldn’t be more appropriate. Singing has been home for Sayles ever since she started speaking; her mother was recording her voice on tape when she was 2 years old.
When she was 10, Sayles’s father bought her an acoustic guitar and she began taking lessons sporadically. In 2003, she graduated from East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania as a theatre major, but saw a career as a singer/songwriter unfolding and focused her attention there. Now, she’s playing gigs with a rich voice she describes as a mix between rock and soul.
“Whenever people ask me what my voice sounds like,” says Sayles, “I tell them it’s a cross between Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin.”
Sayles’s inspiration for lyrics comes from many different sources. She writes about people she’s known her entire life and people she’s known for only five minutes. She takes everyday events and makes a story out of them, or she transcribes a story that’s just waiting to be told. “I just try to be aware in every situation, to be very observant whenever I can be,” she says.
It may be this alertness that enabled her to assemble a band on the spot one day in March. A venue in which she was playing solo requested that she return with a band this August. Immediately, she pulled together The Regina Sayles Project, and thinks they’ll continue to play together long after the gig in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware (August 10th).
For details on the Delaware gig and future shows, visit myspace.com/reginasayles. –Tyler Mendelsohn
