If you turn on any radio station or check out the popular music videos on YouTube, the odds are slim that the music you'll hear relates to a non-heterosexual relationship. Mainstream music is nearly all about straight love and sexuality, and representation of musicians who don't identify publicly as straight is meager at best.
To counter this trend, I’ve put together a list of 11 queer artists worth checking out. These are talented musicians who aren't afraid to be open about their sexuality in their music and in their public life.
1. Josef Salvat
Salvat is openly bisexual and has stated, "I’ve had numerous relationships with both genders so my songs are usually pronoun neutral. For artists like Olly from Years & Years and Sam Smith to use male pronouns is great. It gives texture to their sound.”
2. Years & Years
Lead by gay front man/keyboardist Olly Alexander, this London electronica trio is blowing up in a big way.
Alexander told Complex that their single “Shine” is about “the overwhelming and unstable feeling of falling in love…we wanted to use light to represent that feeling.”
3. Angel Haze
Haze released her first studio album "Dirty Gold" in the last few hours of 2013, but most of the hype surrounding it came later. She released "Battle Cry," a collaboration with Sia, which was nominated for a VMA for Best Video with a Social Message; the lyrics are explicitly about overcoming past pain resulting from social oppression.
4. Hurray for the Riff Raff
Hurray for the Riff Raff are veterans in the queer music scene, releasing their sixth album this year. They are a collective based in New Orleans making bluesy folk music headed by Alynda Lee Segarra, a Puerto Rican woman from the Bronx who left home as a teenager, found herself in Louisiana and formed a band after learning how to play the banjo. Yosi Perlstein, who is transgender, is the band's fiddler, and Segarra identifies as queer.
5. THEESatisfaction
THEESatisfaction is a Seattle-based duo composed of rapper Stasia "Stas" Iron and singer Catherine "Cat" Harris-White. Partners in both their personal and professional lives, Stas and Cat met at the University of Washington in 2008 and have been creating what they describe as "funk-psychedelic feminista sci-fi epics with the warmth and depth of Black Jazz and Sunday morning soul, frosted with icy raps that evoke equal parts Elaine Brown, Ursula Rucker and Q-Tip."
6. Shamir
Androgynous 20-year old Shamir Bailey is making waves in the music industry with his countertenor range. His debut album, "Ratchet," dropped in May 2015 to rave reviews.
Inspired by Janis Joplin and Lana Del Rey, Shamir embraces his androgynous voice: “It’s not feminine, it’s not masculine,” he told Radio.com. “It’s a happy medium. I feel like if the world was more like that, our problems would be gone.”
7. Le1f
Le1f got his start as a 17-year-old student at Wesleyan University, producing tracks for comedy hip-hop group Das Racist. In 2012, he successfully transitioned to a solo career with his huge hit "Wut."
The rapper is multi-talented — his undergraduate degree in dance only helps make his songs vibrant and fun as hell.
8. Mykki Blanco
Mykki Blanco, the female side of Michael Quattlebaum, released her first mix-tape,"Cosmic Angel: The Illuminati Prince/ss" last year and the media attention has never stopped. Her iconic song, "Wavvy," released last year, put her at the forefront of New York's transgender music scene and she continues to be outspoken about her identity and her art.
9. Aye Nako
Brooklyn-based DIY punk band Aye Nako is made up of three queer-identifying and proficient musicians, Mars Ganito (vocals/guitar,) Joe McCann (bass) and Jade Payne (guitar.) When asked to describe their music, Mars said their go-to response is as follows: “sad punk songs about being queer, trans, and black.”
10. The Internet
The Internet is an alternative neo-soul group based in LA lead by openly gay frontwoman Syd tha Kyd. The group has been around since 2011, and their most recent album "Ego Death" came out last summer.
Syd told PAPER that she thinks “that sometimes the way I look and the fact that I'm a female singing about females can work against us because society is still transitioning and there's a lot of people that aren't comfortable with homosexuality in general and with female homosexuality,”.
11. Troye Sivan
Troye Sivan is a South African-born, Australian actor and singer. He played a young Wolverine in the X-Men movie series but later gained fame with his regular YouTube video blogs, through which he has amassed over three million followers.
More recently, the multi-talented 20-year-old climbed the Australian charts with his dark, moody yet catchy pop tunes like "Youth." He came out as gay to his followers in a 2013 vlog.
