We’re excited to present My Music Story. This new campaign shares the personal stories of LGBTQ music artists from around the world and their relationship with music.

#MyMusicStories crosses genres, gender expression and locations. Some artists will express the importance of visibility and representation in music, while others will focus on the healing and comforting power of music. In all instances, the stories come from the personal perspective of our artists and their unique experiences. 

Music can soothe us, impassion us and sometimes save us.

This new series underscores the importance of music in our lives and illustrates why supporting the queer music community and independent artists is essential.  

Read their stories below, look for the hashtag #MyMusicStory on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and visit our social media channels @theQReviews and watch for a new My Music Story each day.

Thank you to all the artists who have already contributed — please take some time to explore their art and music. They are true talents you’ll be hearing more from soon. If you’re an artist who’d like to share their story, please reach out to us at info@qreview.ca

Ripley
Music for me has always been about protest. It's been about using my voice to raise awareness of injustice and hold those in power to account.

Right now, my songs are aimed squarely at the establishment, the patriarchy and the mega-systems like Amazon, Facebook and Google. I think as a queer person, my experience of these things is different, I'm already on the outside looking in. These systems exist to keep people like me out and on the fringes. Music helps me process these feelings in a way that feels liberating.

Queer music right now is incredibly diverse, rebellious, experimental- everything that our right wing governments despise, and that’s why this scene is so vital and so goddam brilliant.

Zach Benson
When I was first discovering my sexuality, music was the reason I was able to formulate my own feelings into words. Frank Ocean gave me that power when he sang about wrestling with emotions towards another man on "Bad Religion". Troye Sivan gave me that power when he posted his coming out video and started writing music about his identity.

Slowly discovering more and more queer artists, who are unabashedly themselves in their music and public personas, have given me the power to be more vulnerable, more queer in my own expression.
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What I love the most about the queer music spaces I've found over the last year or two is that we're constantly giving each other that same power. I'm constantly inspired by artists who are unequivocally themselves, who are vulnerable and experimental in their expressions. I hope that I'm able to give some power to other queer kids who need it.

Ryan Cassata
Music is my outlet. It's my passion. It's my love. Writing is how I feel the most like myself. Listening to other people's music let's me relate, process, and have fun. Music is everything to me.

It's important for there to be queer representation in the mainstream music industry. I really wish that we had more of it. These indie blogs that are blasting out LGBTQ artists are doing a major service. I wish more major outlets would follow. They are starting too at least.

Music has always been important to me. I started playing music when I was 6, I was 12 when I started writing. It's always been my love. It's been what has made me feel the most me, it's allowed me to see beyond my queer identity. It's humanizing.

Dareo Knott
A true artist knows that their best work comes from their deepest and rawest life experiences. It’s a shame that so much of the industry gains profits from exploiting this catharsis. However, being black and gay in the pop industry it is kind of a love-hate relationship. You have to make yourself marketable, niche and relatable, all these impossible standards we hold ‘celebrities’ to for our own entertainment values. It can’t just be about the music and the artistry in this era.

As a black pop singer, trying to make it in the industry, there’s a huge obstacle to overcome that nobody else has to worry about going into this field and that is defying the imbedded stereotype of what a pop star should be and and what a black persons place in the industry should be. So when I talk about visibility I have to discuss the lack of black pop stars, my journey, my story will be about going against those odds, defeating the way people see pop music and who can be a pop star. It’s time to let us people of colour show, we can do so much more, and be so much more than what is seen in fiction.

Yavin
As a queer person, music has always been a crucial part of my upbringing. Sometimes when you're growing up queer it can be really easy to feel misunderstood, and so I've always felt lucky to have had so many artists that have vocalized what I've felt through their art. With that being said, it's not lost on me that so many generations before mine haven't been so lucky.

I didn't necessarily grow up with as many queer faces in media as there are now, but I certainly had some, and to me that was just enough to help get me through navigating my own identity. That's why representation is so important, and why it needs to be a more central part of our global discussion. Putting a name to a face can be such a powerful thing when it comes to determining someone's humanity.

That's a depressing thing to say, but it's the sad truth. There's over 7 billion people in the world, and only a handful of them control the types of people that we all get to see. That kind of limited media not only controls progress, it stifles it. If we can allow more types of people to be front & center putting their work, creativity, talent, *humanity* out there for the world to see, we'll be able to see more minds & systems change. That's why I work so hard at progressing my own career.
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I don't just want my own face to be seen, I want to help other people's faces be seen as well. We deserve it, and the world needs it.

Jay Long
Art is how you communicate your deeper self. I can’t talk to you eloquently about what it’s like inside my head... there aren’t words for things like that; however I can do my best to show you, so we can relate. Music has allowed me to take internal things and externalize them... Personify my demons so I can look at them, and give them less power. Music has allowed me to digest myself in clearer ways. This has made me a more self aware and confident person. This has also been the truth of my relationship with music since I was a child.

At four years old, I heard an orchestra for the first time at school, then came home and told my parents I wanted to play the violin. They agreed, and now I teach string instruments for a living. I have worked with hundreds of youth, passing on the beauty of expression and freedom in music.
In discovering my queerness, I discovered my real artistry.

Expressing my deeper self garnished more meaning and clarity. Being visible in your queerness through art and expression gives wings to the idea for young people that “maybe someone is just like me... maybe I will be okay one day...” I am proud to be queer in all aspects of my life. I am blessed to be able to remind kids it is powerful to be who you really are. To explore and express yourself.
Nearly every time I’ve had the chance to play a live show, I am lucky enough to meet someone that tells me one of my songs spoke to them. That they heard a bit of themselves in what I expressed and I am astonished. It is the deepest connection I can create between myself and others, and it feels like equality in any room. We, in our own individual ways, feel the same things.

Before I came out, music and theatre allowed me to perform as my real self before I could do it in public. Now, I have created a life for myself where all of those things can come together. Music has allowed me to do that, and in that right saved my life on many different levels. I am grateful to continue finding myself through this medium, and I hope one day to be a proper Queer role model for my community.

Gattison
Music is liberation. The memories of my first “secular” (non Christian) album are so clear and vivid. I remember the tension I felt from the tug of war between my religious upbringing that said anything other then Christian music was sinful and my curiosity of this new inescapable girl group called Destiny’s Child. I can’t tell you how many times I went back and forth in my head about whether I should listen to this or not. My only exposure to “secular” music was at work from the radio that my coworkers would play and that’s when I “overheard” their first single “No No No”. Every time that song came on I felt a different side of me open up and to be honest it was a little scary. After listening for a few seconds the shame would come rushing in and I would tune their beautiful voices out.

This went on for a while but after so many cycles of this same process each time I listened was becoming longer and longer. Eventually I found myself purchasing their album and listening to it front to back! I sang at the top of my lungs, I danced like I had never danced before and I found a piece of myself that was hidden away. I discovered the part of myself that had been silenced. I unearthed a part of me that didn’t degrade my faith but actually allowed there to be depth and nuance. Listening to music made me feel so...free...I felt like I could breathe...I felt liberated. Music liberated me. Music IS and music has taught me to BE.

Blake English
Growing up under the restraints of a conservative Christian environment in Athens, Georgia the notion of me being queer was something I didn’t discover until I was 14. It wasn’t that I didn’t know I was “different”, it was that the idea I might be gay wasn’t even in my scope of understanding.

Luckily, I had help guiding me to find the most authentic version of myself. That help came in the form of some of my favorite performance artists. When I was 10, I saw the movie Labyrinth and fell in love with David Bowie. I actually don’t think I would be pursuing an artists path if it wasn’t for him. When I was 12 I was introduced to The Rocky Horror Picture Show and have been enamored with Frank N. Furter ever since. Lady Gaga is another one that has pushed me to be the best and most authentic version of myself, holding me not only high standards for art but high standards of being a human. Without these phenomenal characters in music, I would not be where I am today and I think that can be said for A LOT of people.

Music, I think, is one the most influential mediums of communication we share as a human race. It can transport us back in time. It can inspire us for the future. Most importantly though, I think it brings us to the present moment. When I was younger and angry at just about everything going on in my life, I would drive around in my car and blast My Chemical Romance . With them, I never felt alone in my thoughts and feelings. That’s why it’s so important to continue to share stories through music that represent all walks of life. It relates us to one another and gives that kid growing up in Athens, Georgia a chance to feel like somewhere out there, there are people just like them

Brooklyn Doran
Music began as my outlet. Anytime I felt an extreme emotion, I usually tried to work out how I was feeling with writing music or poetry. Finding different ways to put what I was going through into words helped me uncover truths that I had been keeping secret from myself.

Music helped me discover who I am as a person. I would listen to incredible singer-songwriters and feel like they were singing my own thoughts and experiences back to me directly; and being able to grow into myself as an artist and speak to that one ‘weird’ kid in every small town in a meaningful way, is really fulfilling to me as an artist.

Aman Dhesi
Music to me is about identity.

Growing up I identified with artists that spoke about being silenced by a world conditioning them to believe that being themselves is wrong. I admired music artists that courageously expressed their true selves through their music. It gave me permission to embrace myself and come into my own.

I’ve had people in my own circle criticize me for being ‘too queer’ and ‘unnecessarily LGBT’ with my music. In the past I would have buckled under the pressure but I realize that being unapologetically true to myself is the ultimate path towards self-love.

Music, and being a music artist, helped me find the courage to stand my ground and love myself in a way that I have never allowed before.

I think back to the confused kid I once was. I wish I could have seen more of myself in the artists I looked up to. My hope is to see more artists send a message that it is ok to be yourself and to never shy away from loving who you are.

NEO10Y
Music is the most important medium of self expression. I think it’s a human right to make your own songs and have your own soundtrack during your existence on this planet. Making my own songs has allowed me to express myself as the non-binary, pansexual, polyamorous being that I am but also to connect with a higher consciousness that gives me hope for the future.

In a society built on violence to queer people, it’s really important that artists like us exist to show future generations that it’s possible to be yourself.

I didn’t have any representation for people like me in the media when I was a kid, so it makes me happy to see a new generation of queer music artists breaking the glass ceiling.

Growing up, music was escapism, a chance to feel part of something bigger and a way to express myself, evolving into making my own songs has been part of my personal and spiritual growth.

If I ever need to feel inspired and connected to the universe, I listen to my songs.

Matthew Presidente
Music defines me and my music tells my story.

Growing up in the 90s was a wonderful time to discover my queer identity as a musician. Coming off of the 80s with the cool industrial dance pop of Depeche Mode & the cure into the era of grunge and alternative music helped me discover my inner rebel and offered a voice to channel my energy. Listening to this music guided me to shape my identity growing up as a queer person.

When I started making my own music I felt it was important to make it personal, to tell my story. This is why I make music from a queer perspective. It’s genuine, it’s personal and it’s me.

Natalia Malone
Two years ago, I was writing a new song, about enjoying the warmth and affection, or “calor y cariño” (in Spanish), from a woman. There was only one line that explicitly said it: “esa mujer” or “that woman.” Up until then, for fans who didn’t really know me, I was straight-passing. It crossed my mind that it would be easier if I changed that line. Less questions, more open doors. But I couldn’t stomach that. So instead, I turned that part into the bridge of the song where I repeat “esa mujer” over and over (seven times, to be exact), and I love it. I also love that it’s now my “if you don’t know, now you know 🌈” song.

When I send the song to playlist curators or share it with industry professionals, the top critique for those that don’t like it is “the lyrics” ... but interestingly I haven’t had that critique from any queer people. A friend said it would be a really interesting experiment to have a man sing my song and send it to the same people. Maybe I should, and expose the results to open up conversation!

But for me, the bottom line is the industry and a lot of people in it are scared of investing in music that is openly queer. They are scared of homophobic fans and mold to that. They are more ok with it if it’s coming from an artist who is already established and bringing in $$$. This also goes by genre. Some genres are more open to queerness than others.

I want young people to have music to dance to, in this case a song with a reggaetón/dancehall beat, that also frees them to be themselves, whatever sexuality or gender expression that may be. More queer representation in music helps young queer people, and ALL queer people, feel valid, seen, and not alone. It’s a mental health issue. It’s a public health issue. Let’s keep pushing! ✨🌈⚡️

Florian Rose
​Music has been a companion for as long as I can remember. It helped me throughout my teenage years to figure myself out, and it still does, it’s like a mirror in which I can reflect what’s going on inside and put it into words.

I started making my own music fairly recently, out of the feeling that my side of the story as a person, part of the lgbtq+ and the imagery I’m developing is worth showing. It’s a way for me to share them, channel my emotions, create storylines of stolen experiences I wish I’d lived but couldn’t and come to terms with the ones I did go through.

I'm a South American boy who grew looking up to big stars from foreign countries. I didn't feel like I fitted too much anywhere, and I was always the “weird kid” cause I was dainty, didn’t like sports or the straight boy's music on the radio, so I found my idols among irreverent, sassy women. Artists like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and others, never shunned talking about the lgbtq+ community and their own experiences with their sexuality. That was crucial when I was trying to build myself up being part of a minority that's been having their experiences obscured for far too long. They opened up a space for us, and now that I’m older I think it’s time to make it our own. To say things from our point of view, to demand accurate representation and be out there shining as only we know how. Strong, delicate, fierce, sensitive, whatever color suits you the most, it’s up to you!

This last months I’ve been so moved by the amazing community developing around lgbtq+ music that I found… or more like they found me. I’ve met people I’ve longed for so long, and I’m starting to feel like I can be part of something bigger, that I can contribute and inspire even if it’s just one person at a time.
If you’ve kept reading this far, I hope you’re safe and able to be your true self 🌹.

Tommy Atkins
As I grew up and into my queerness, music validated my feelings. When I heard songs of love and heartbreak that I related to, it didn’t matter if the singer was “straight” or “queer” – what mattered was that we had felt the same things. It proved to me that love is love – that those feelings are the same, no matter who is involved.

Growing up however, I didn’t see a truly positive representation of an LGBTQ+ artist in country music. In the rare event an artist came out, there was backlash. Or they only felt comfortable coming out well after their commercial peak, as radio and record labels would have abandoned them. Therefore, I never entertained the idea of being an openly gay artist myself. I’d decided to become a songwriter and pitch the majority of my songs to female artists, as so many of them were about men. And that’s why visibility is so important – if any group of people don’t see themselves in a genre of music, or in literature or in films, they will never truly feel like they belong or that their stories are valid.

I hope that my career, no matter how big or small the impact, will help prove that queer artists and people belong in country music; that our stories matter. Music is my go-to - my therapist and my confidante - and I know that’s the case for many people. I hope I can be a positive representative for our community in country music and that my songs help someone feel a little less alone.

CPIII
For most of my life, I’ve been told that who I am is wrong: as an artist, as a black man, and as a gay man.

It took time to heal from this, and that journey is reflected in my music. Singing has been my saving grace and my chosen tool for radical self-love.

My music is a celebration of all that I am, and it’s used to bring people who are like me together. Music is everything.

Glass Battles
Growing up and knowing you’re different from others is probably one of the most isolating and ironically relatable facets of this life we have. On top of always being a little left of center with the way I saw the world, I also struggled to come to terms with my sexuality when I was much younger, lamenting why there was yet ANOTHER thing that people may find strange or unlikable.

As a white man in this industry I do understand that I still had and have it so much easier than many based on my inherent privileges alone, but my experience as a queer person with strange tastes in art and crippling anxiety as I got older wasn’t particularly pleasant. The late 90’s were extremely formative for me, as they promoted standing out from the general masses, not falling prey to the idea of being ‘popular’ and generally just the weirder the better. Artists like NIN, Prince, No Doubt, Janet Jackson, Hole, Queen Latifah, and my favorite Garbage really helped me come into my own, at least from an energetic perspective.Art is so healing, and music is so universal.

The queer community has really risen to the occasion in terms of building a repertoire that covers so many bases, and I think if there’s one thing we can all agree on in terms of how we see the world, it’s that it’s better to be different. It’s beautiful to stand out, and it’s important to help others find that strength and confidence in an age where likes and shares and subscriptions sometimes take precedence over expressing yourself authentically.

As artists, it’s our job to create a safe space. As a member of the queer community, I am so honored to have the influences that have brought me to this place, and I hope I can continue be a part of this beautiful, evolving, and multi-faceted community.

Karmaa
KARMAA is only a small part of who I am and was brought here to be. Music has been a part of who I am since I can remember. It's like breathing for me. Whether I'm listening to the radio, creating music myself, or even thinking of lyrics, music just stays in circulation mentally for me. It's how I communicate my deepest thoughts, my every goal, and my biggest fears. I am a big advocate for mental health awareness, equality and paying it forward.

I intend to be a difference maker and a leader of change. I've never been one to stick to the rules and have never been one to follow the crowd. I was raised to be who I am and to be proud of it. My ultimate goal is to inspire the uninspired and change lives by being able to relate to others and talk about "taboo" topics that others don't like to or won't acknowledge and speak on such as being queer, battling depression and anxiety, having had suicidal thoughts, etc.

Being part of the LGBTQ community I want those discovering themselves to know they're not alone. This has heavily influenced many of my songs and is a known fact about me. I want people to know that it's okay to be proud of who you are and love yourself. Show your pride and never be ashamed of it. Live and love your life, love yourself and others shamelessly, and embrace who you are. There's only one you, flaunt it.

Andrew Neal
As a queer non binary artist, music is THE most important thing to me. It’s my opportunity to scream and cry and celebrate and laugh and love and hate everything all at once in one song.

It’s the ability to pour all of myself out when it just gets to full inside. And the most important part is how my music represents the queer stand point, the queer struggle and the queer rise to the top. Music supports me as a person , as an artist, as a lover and as a friend.

Music holds me and kisses me and loves me when it seems like no one else does. Music never lets me down and music will never wonder what’s wrong with me. Music will never ask me to change.

A'Biggs
In 2015 I was living with a homophobic parent. When I tried to come out they pleaded with me not to accept my sexuality. I was told to just pray and my desires would be changed. I was confused, exhausted, and lonely. I needed an outlet and a distraction so I learned to play the guitar and started to write songs.

I wrote sad songs, I wrote uplifting sings, I wrote songs about my struggles and I wrote songs about my strength. I wrote songs for my future self, knowing that I would need to be reminded often of who I truly am in order to survive. The more music I made the stronger I became.

I survived years in that environment by expressing my truth through my music. Now the music that I make celebrates my liberation. My greatest hope is that I can help someone who is in need of that reminder of who they are by allowing them to see their self represented in my music.

Bright Light Bright Light
Just like in TV, film or fashion, seeing someone who looks like you, or talks about your experience is so important. Lots of young LGBTQ+ people, especially those rurally or in small towns, grow up feeling lost. I know when I was young, I didn’t see anyone I identified with, as even the out gay men were fantastical, confident, flamboyant creatures very far from my insecure “normal” self. Giving visibility to a more diverse range of LGBTQ+ figures in music, and particularly creating space for those less famous is crucial so that everyone in our community can see that they belong, and that there are others out there doing things that they aspire to do.

​It’s our responsibility to amplify voices, show young LGBTQ+ people that they ALL have a voice and ALL belong, and fight to represent the under-represented who do the work, who make the work, and who also have the power to inspire countless others. It’s so important to stop anyone thinking that there’s “one way to be queer”, “one way to be a marketable LGBTQ+ musician”, that you can be “too gay” or “not queer enough”. Those prejudices exist and they need to be tackled, and in my opinion the best way to do that is to share the work of everyone you love and are inspired by so the world can see them.

Hayden McHugh
Music allows me to live my own full fantasy, no matter where I am. I remember feeling isolated growing up, unsure of where I fit in; but I always knew that when I put my headphones on, I would be transported to a whole new world where I could be whoever I wanted to be.
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The fact that I am able to be a front for every queer kid out there brings me the utmost joy because I remember struggling to understand my various feelings as a kid, and recognizing my perspective in songs by girls about boys more than I did with boys singing about girls. Now I am able to make queer music, but also music that isn't intended to be anything but just a fun bop. While everything we do is a statement and we need to use our voices to raise people up, it's nice that sometimes my statement can be "I like a cute guy" and that's that.

Music is important to me because it allows me to express myself in ways that I've never felt before, and also because I know that the combination of rhythm, tempo, and chords speak a language that everyone can understand.

Bronze Avery
As a QPOC, our stories can inspire other people to come forward and feel comfortable living their truth. When I was growing up, I didn’t have the ability to hear stories outside of the perspective of the heteronormative mainstream and with how much queer music is coming forward, it’s been truly beautiful to get our voices out there so that other people in our community can come forward without fear.
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I truly believe change in our society starts with change in our media. Art has the power to influence the mind, and without queer representation in our larger media outlets, the world will treat us as if we’re invisible.

J GRGRY
Music is a crucial lifeline for so many queer people, for so many reasons. I can remember seeing Kurt Cobain in a dress on stage and holding back tears as I felt for the first time in my life, someone with power was standing up for me.

Seeing LGBTQIA+ people healthy, happy, and thriving as musicians is so important. For many of us, we have strained or severed relationships with biological families. We have little or no positive role models and self worth erodes without nurturing, hopeful environments. Music has given me hope and joy I never thought possible, before it.
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I am so grateful not only for the career it has brought me but for the community. The sense of family I was missing has been replaced by something so rich and so true I can't help but champion the importance of LGBTQIA+ representation in mainstream music.🤎🖤🎶

Travie Austin
Music is one of the most important parts of my life and is a large chunk of my identity. Every amazing or traumatic event in my life is connected to music in a way. I can hear a melody or a lyric from a song and have it immediately trigger a memory for me, good or bad.

I think queer voices in music have been such an unrecognized part of my generation and generations before me. It brings me so much joy to see us empowering ourselves now as a community to really live in our true identities and voices in a industry that has not only heavily benefited from us, but also hid us away for so long.

As a black queer musician, I have to navigate an industry that tries to put me in a “gay/queer?' box, what that means to them, while also being put in a “black-R&B/Hip-Hop” box . My entire goal is make the music that I want to make that I feel represents me, and it may sound like Pop one day and R&B the next.

Queer musicians are taking their long-awaited spotlight and while it’s happening, I want to really drive it home that “queer” isn’t a monolith. Each and every one of us has a different and unique sound. So get ready for a rainbow colored buffet.

Katie Tich
Music has been a driving force in my life since I was very young. I started writing songs to cope with the powerful emotions that came with growing up as a closeted queer teen, and channeling my inner turmoil into artistry helped me learn how to use healthy emotional outlets.

Now, my goal is to spread love through songs that promote openness and acceptance. My hope is that my music helps others realize that they’re not alone, whether they’re queer, questioning, or struggling with other emotional experiences in any stage of life.

I truly believe that music has the power to heal and bring all folx together. And especially right now, remember that BLACK LIVES MATTER, BLACK QUEER LIVES MATTER, and BLACK TRANS LIVES MATTER 🖤❤️🧡💛💚💙💜💖

Let’s use music as a way to bring us together and help stand up against the injustices in the world!!

Zee Machine
Listening to and creating music is where my queerness becomes my superpower. When I saw Freddie Mercury command a stadium with just a movement of his hand and a smirk or heard someone like Mika shriek his flamboyant falsetto unabashedly into the stratosphere during a time when pop felt very void of any strong queer presence, it felt like I was being shown a possibility and being given permission. They seemed invincible.

Seeing queer people proudly and joyously being themselves is immensely powerful, often in ways you don’t even realize at the time. I just want to be that person for someone by showing them what’s possible when you embrace your queerness as your strength.

This can be a very grueling industry to try and make your own space in, especially as a queer person, but having someone message me after a set I played at Omaha pride saying I had inspired them to publicly come out as gender fluid made the struggle and the numbers game of the business feel worth it.

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