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QUEEN ESTHER – SHE’S SO FEARLESS

By Lawrence Lebo

Perhaps you haven’t heard of Southern-born, now Harlem based
musician/producer/actress/playwrite/TED speaker Queen Esther. I
hadn’t, until I came across her latest release Gild The Black Lily
charting on the Roots Music Report Blues-Rock charts … and I
am so glad I did.

As a professional and seasoned musician/vocalist, my
relationship with music is not bound by genres or my ethnicity.

I comprehend and can execute many styles of music, be it Latin,
African, Asian, Middle Eastern or American styles such as Rock, Country,
Jazz/Swing, and of course all the styles that live under the Blues umbrella!
As a performer I very much enjoy indulging in variety! However, when
an artist goes to put their work out into the world, they are
challenged with fitting it into the pigeonholes the “music industry
machine” has to offer. Unfortunately, the industry gatekeepers

(labels, radio, press, etc.) are also often bound by these limitations.
This is very unfortunate as it causes many artists to begin crafting and
limiting their art to fit it into the mould. It is also unfortunate in that
artists who choose not to follow the mould often do not get heard as
they should. Queen Esther is one such non-conforming and fearless
artist who is attempting to break through these barriers.

Queen Esther’s 4th release Gild The Black Lily ignores the mould. The
13 tracks include originals from Queen Esther, as well as covers

from Son House, Chip Robinson of The Backsliders, Sister Rosetta
Tharpe, The Eagles, and George Jones! And while my relationship
with music is not shaped by my ethnicity, Queen Esther’s relationship
very much is. Her black experience of “twang” informs her
interpretation of Black Americana music. Track 1, Esther’s original
‘The Black Cowgirl Song’ is a traditional cowboy-country ditty one
might expect to hear emanating late at night around a Texas
prairie campfire. Meld that with her gospel style vocal approach
and one gets the essence of Queen Esther’s black experience of

traditional cowboy/country/folk music. Now this doesn’t fit
clearly into any music industry mould. It is her art. Her
experience.

I asked Queen Esther to tell us about her life, career and her
latest release Gild The Black Lily. This is what she told me.

LL: Let’s start at the beginning! Would you tell us about the family you grew up in and what it
was like growing up in the American South?

QE: I was raised by my parents, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents, and because both of
my parents and their parents came from big families, I had a lot of aunts, uncles, and cousins of all