Queen Drea
(Sound Alchemist)

Queen Drea Voice-Loops N Effects creates conceptual soundscapes. By applying poetic and often metaphorical language to her lyrics and compositions, she tries to approach a wide scale of subjects in a multi-layered way and likes to involve the audience in conversation as they accompany her on her musical journey. Her performances directly respond to the surrounding environment and uses everyday experiences from the artist as a starting point. Often these are framed instances that would go unnoticed in their original context. With a conceptual approach, her work references love, pain, the feeling of not being “enough as a form of resistance against the "Normalcy" box people want to put her in.

Recipient of a 2017 Minnesota Emerging Composer Award administered by the American Composers Forum, is a vocalist, performance, and soundscape artist whose pieces are often conceived and created under the auspices of improvisational settings. Queen Drea has created work about depression in the Black community for Intermedia Arts, and about the loss of Black men’s lives in America at Red Eye Theater. She has been commissioned to compose soundscapes for Ananya Dance Theatre and Black Label Movement, sound design for Penumbra Theatre’s production of For Colored Girls, and is a 2020 Naked Stages Fellow with Pillsbury House Theatre. https://www.queendrea.com “I have been investigating some thoughts on Black Love and how it is strong enough to withstand being denied. Acknowledging that the way we came to this country and the way our families were separated is the reason why we are separated now. Acknowledging the pain of this reality. Acknowledging the beauty of this reality. Acknowledging Black Love in its many forms and expressing this love thru my art.” –Queen Drea