ARAGIDI

NOMINEE FOR DRAG ROYAL, VISUAL ARTIST, AND CREATIVE ACTIVIST OF THE YEAR

arágidi is a Two Spirit member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara (MHA) tribe. Their work explores community, connection, and euphoric loss through a hauntological lens. Tradition meets futurism meets dreamstride.

DIVA J

NOMINEE FOR UPCOMING ARTIST, RECORD, FASHION ICON, AND CREATIVE ACTIVIST OF THE YEAR

DIVAJ is a Black Femme Queer artist with the talent and skill to rise to the top of the entertainment industry, with the business mindset to impact the culture of consumer and community, while intentionally healing black wounds, protecting feminine bodies, and valuing queer authenticity.

"My name is DivaJ. My pronouns are they/them/theirs. I am a Minnesota twin cities based live performer, writer, and recording artist. I am a rapper, witch, alien, freak, and diva. I am black. I am femme. I am queer. I stand in my blackness. I bloom in my femininity. I embrace my queerness.

My sound is unique because I compose my art, music, and performance from my lived experiences. Like some of my favorite rappers before me, I include metaphors, punchlines, flow changes, humor, and wit into my verses and rhymes.

I am pursuing a degree in Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group Studies. My music represents my community. My sound can be healing, triggering, revealing, revitalizing, empowering, and perplexing. Sometimes all at the same time. I’ve been performing since I was a small child.

In 2020, I wrote, recorded, and released a 5 track EP titled, “Soliloquy: The Mixtape” in just 9 months. When I write a song, I want people to listen to it more than once and I want them to have a different experience and a different take away each time.

Since an early age, I have always had kinship with storytelling through the arts. My ancestors were healers, storytellers, sages, and artists. Growing up I developed a passion for visual art and performance art. I went to FourSeasons A+ Elementary school here in Minnesota, where music, dance, and theatre were the backbone of the curriculum and every student participated in the annual school musical. In high school, I played the clarinet in multiple bands, and was a baritone in multiple choirs.

Even after high school, I engaged in acting and musical theatre. I have been a writer for as long as I can remember, consisting of poetry, songwriting, creative writing, research essays and even free thought writing.

I would describe my distinctive musical voice as a storyteller’s call to action. Through my writing, art, music, and performance, I tap into my lived experiences as a black femme queer living in the United States. I weave them like spells or incantations to enchant my listeners and audiences alike. Like some of my favorite rappers before me, I include metaphors, punchlines, flow changes, humor, and wit to give additional depth to my verses and rhymes.

My distinctive musical voice carries the talent, skill, and will to rise to the top of the entertainment industry and impact the culture of community through intentionally healing

internal wounds, protecting external bodies, and valuing human authenticity. I see the future of my art form as a projection and manifestation of black abundance, feminine prowess, and queer truth.

My work contributes to that by revitalizing the original spirit of Hip-Hop/Rap in its truest form of speaking out against injustice and oppression. My work explicitly calls out cultural patriarchy, white supremacy, and the suppression of femininity within all people. Lastly, my work brings to light the significance and impact of the queer identities that have shaped, trail blazed, and influenced the culture of fashion, music, and art.

My music does not fall on the spectrum of cultural advocacy from allyhood to cultural appropriation because my art, like other black, femme, and/or queer artists, is the reason why cultural advocacy from allyhood is needed and why cultural appropriation happens. My music is my own culture. A culture that gets exploited, goes unrecognized in the spaces that benefit and steal from it, and often times is silenced. My music is self love and the recognition and appreciation of self worth and value.

I am breaking down stereotypes and intersectional barriers that promote musical and artistic divisiveness based on identity. I am providing visceral experiences for my audiences’ senses during my live performances.

What’s next for me as an artist is continued live/virtual performances as well as hopeful collaborations with creative professionals in the twin cities music community, especially my fellow black/femme/queer artists, and navigating my entrepreneurial focus towards building and expanding on my artist brand and business ventures."

EDEN T. LAREESE

NOMINEE FOR DRAG ROYAL

Eden T. Lareese is a drag queen and drag mother in Minneapolis, MN. She has gained popularity for her performances at clubs and bars all around the city. She is an unstoppable force who works constantly for the advancement and maintaining of queer rights and queer spaces. You won't forget her once she performs one of her infamous J-Lo inspired performances!

EVV

NOMINEE FOR RECORD, UPCOMING ARTIST OF THE YEAR

EVV is a Minneapolis-based musician that does not claim a genre. Drawing influences from blues, jazz, and rock, Evelyn Speers is one that is years in the making - and they are only getting started - being noted as an “artist to watch for this year” by Ear Coffee’s Wes Muilenburg. EVV released their debut three-song EP “Homebody” on December 18th, 2020, including a remastered version of their second single “Dead to Me”, which was originally released in March of 2020. With each song, EVV sings about heartbreak and their experiences as a black femme in todays society. EVV hopes to inspire young femmes to pursue the music that inspires them and to let their voices be heard.

GINNY AND THE FIZZ

NOMINEE FOR UPCOMING ARTIST

Ginny & The Fizz is a four-piece Twin Cities band. With a new bassist, untethered vocals, and unmatched 90s nostalgia, Ginny & The Fizz is soon to become your favorite band - and cocktail!

Members include Michael Shannon (He/Him) on swirling guitar, Jarod Schiebout (He/Him) on in the pocket drums, Maddie Thies (She/Her) on punchy bass, and the one and only Eric LeBlanc (He/They) on wandering power vocals.

Prior to being renamed to Ginny & The Fizz, the tightly knit group performed under the name “Annex Panda” and released two full-length albums, “Groundpop” (2019) and “Alive” (2018). Their new name and direction has led to unmatched band collaboration and pushed the boundaries of their musical writing.

GULLY BOYS

NOMINEE FOR MUSICAL ARTIST, RECORD, AND ALBUM OF THE YEAR

The Gully Boys origin story plays out like the perfect domino effect. While sorting vintage clothes in a Minneapolis-area Ragstock in 2016, Kathy Callahan (she/her) shared her dream of becoming a vocalist with Nadirah McGill (they/them). After encouraging a friend from middle school, Natalie Klemond (she/her), to join the trio on bass, Nadi picked up a pair of drumsticks and counted off a cover of Best Coast’s “Girlfriend.” Mariah Mercedes (they/them) joined the band in 2021. From there, they had to master their instruments on the fly, growing as creatives while blossoming with their first material. After their debut EP landed online a year later, Gully Boys released their debut LP Not So Brave in 2018, earning Best New Band honors from their hometown City Pages and sharing the stage with everyone from The Hold Steady to Third Eye Blind. The band’s Phony EP arrived in late 2019 on the edge of a screeching halt.

Inspired by this break in the action, Favorite Son is a display of resilience and brilliance that brings the extremes of unprecedented times into full view. Gully Boys’ first for Get Better Records is fueled by grief but sustained on exultant self-reliance. It is important to mention, too, that Gully Boys’ mantras and music are tightly linked through community outreach. The band made meals for residents facing housing insecurity in southern Minneapolis in 2020 and repeatedly uses their platform as a base for resource sharing against white supremacy.

Favorite Son was produced by Zach Zurn at Carpet Booth Studios. Continuing the lineage of Gully Boys’ harmonious hybrid of garage, pop rock, and punk, the EP carries the weight of eighteen unforgettable months through pure kinetic energy. “The Way” and “I’m Not Yours” open the set with a jolting one-two punch from frantic percussion and even more anxious narratives with narrators ripping away the seams of uncomfortable relationships. This discomfort from a loss of control haunts the fragile “In Another Life,” a portrait of domestic life measured through several wasted decades, and “Russian Doll,” a sugar-coated alt-rock jammer about the bitter pill of screen time, retail therapy, and notification serotonin.

But Gully Boys’ mission comes through clearest on the title track, a throbbing and white-hot rejection of gender, where power is granted to favorite sons but usurped by these Boys. It’s a classic case of wolves in sheep’s clothing set to a fiery soundtrack, but it’s also a defiant reclamation of space and sound in a crowded, unnerving scene. While Gully Boys may not be here to completely burn it down, they’re here to rebuild it on their own terms, still learning as they go.

JASON BUCKLIN

NOMINEE FOR VISUAL ARTIST OF THE YEAR

For the past 4 years, Jason Bucklin has used his camera to showcase and celebrate queer artists, organizers and activists. Outside of photography, Jason works as the LGBTQ Program Coordinator with Minneapolis Public Schools working to create inclusive policies, curriculum and opportunities for Queer and Trans students, families, and staff.

JAYNA DAVIS

NOMINEE FOR UPCOMING ARTIST OF THE YEAR

Jayna Davis (she/her) is a folk-pop singer/songwriter from Stillwater, Minnesota. In 2021, Jayna released her first original EP, Yellow Houses. She hopes listeners feel at-home in her music and find pieces of themselves in her lyrics. Jayna is currently earning her MSW and working as a Wellness Provider and LBGTQ+ Support Group facilitator at a high school. When she isn’t studying, working, or playing music, she can be found hiking and goofing off with her fiancé, Adri, and their dog, Blue.

MELANCOLY (SOMETIMES)

NOMINEE FOR VISUAL ARTIST, DRAG ROYAL OF THE YEAR

melancholy (sometimes) is a drag queen whose namesake comes from the depressive episodes she feels living with bipolar type II. The name is a play on words that she only feels melancholy some of the time, and that she is only the drag persona "melancholy" sometimes. Her conceptual performances with a twist mirror the highs and lows of her mental health. Sometimes she serves manic camp, and other times she gives you a depressing ballad, but she always tells a story.

MOQUI JOY

NOMINEE FOR VISUAL ARTIST OF THE YEAR

Moqui Joy is a queer artist based in Minneapolis. Joy’s work focuses on viewing temporal queer spaces through a vibrant and abstract lens, communicated by collaging together painting, drawing and video editing. Conceptually, their paintings are rendered from synesthetic experiences of specific songs and sounds. Joy has been included in various exhibitions including “Illuminated” at New Rules, sets for musical performances at house venues and the annual Pianos on Parade as a returning artist. Joy works out of the artist collective at the Vine Arts Center and some of their work can be seen as having gone rogue on building walls. They live and work in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

MX APPAREL & DESIGN

NOMINEE FOR FASHION ICON

Created by Twin Cities designer Maxine Britt (she/they), Mx Apparel Design is based on the idea that fashion is a key tool for self expression and that gender "neutral" apparel should never be boring.

Through clean shapes and bold color, Maxine hopes to broaden understandings of what fashion can be while helping gender nonconforming people wear clothes that feel like them.

ROSE NYLON

NOMINEE FOR FASHION ICON OF THE YEAR

Rose Nylon is an 80’s inspired Wrestling Superstar created by the toxic goo of the galaxy. A gender less being that believes the future of fashion is Maximalism, which to me, is defined as perfectly curated chaos. If you want to see a performer who takes being an artist first seriously, you won’t want to miss a show with Rose Nylon!

@TITTYBOISWEET

NOMINEE FOR CREATIVE ACTIVIST OF THE YEAR

@tittyboisweet has been instrumental in recent years for connecting the queer community to necessary resources online and has throughout their time on social media provided great information and entertainment for the local queer community.

"Howdy I’m Tittyboisweet :) I have no idea what’s going on in the world but if I win this award I think I would find something out. Abolish prisons, fuck 12, I love boobs!"

ZON LEGACY PHOENIX

NOMINEE FOR FASHION ICON, DRAG ROYAL OF THE YEAR

Zon legacy Phoenix is a black trans human born and raised on the south side of Chicago, and now resides in Minneapolis, MN for just over 5 years. She is a trained dancer and choreographer and is pursuing her PhD in Dance Performance and Education. Zon brings an old vibe with a new school flare. She has created winning talents for herself and others across the country, from bar titles in Minnesota to national titles of Miss USofA Newcomer/Classic and Miss EOY.

Not only is Zon a dance champion, but she’s an activist who specializes in conflict resolution which won her the National Sustained Dialogue Award. Since, she has traveled to many schools across the country improving policy for developing safe spaces for everyone; in particularly the LGBTQAI+ and non-binary communities. Now, Zon hopes to continue this work with her trans partner.

Zon is always ready to light up the stage. She has only been performing for about 5 years and has made a name for herself not only in Minnesota but in the surrounding states and across the country. She recently earned the title as Miss Peach State International 2021 in Atlanta, Georgia and has taken this title and is showing the country what it truly means to be not only a peach but a Caramelized Peach.

Some of Zon’s accomplishments include...

Miss Remedy Event 2019

Miss Saloon 19-20

Miss Queen of Hearts 2020

Miss Northern Lights 2020

Miss Peach State International 2021

And many more.