Pop Conference 2025

As a performer of 6 years in NYC’s KiKi Scene, I've witnessed & studied first hand the technical
production of black trans woman deejays, commentators, and musicians. Inspired by and invested in
honoring their artistic labor, I launched my own musical career in 2016.

As Queen Green on da Mf Beat, my music is an eclectic soundscape that draws on elements of the vogue
fem genre and samples from 80s & 90s Ballroom classic club hits. My sonic signature is a reformulation of
the voices of the Scene’s iconic transwomen , e.g. Octavia Saint Laurent, Sexy Lexy, Dominique Jackson,
Samantha “Cookie Tookie.” My rap performance, accompanied by their dialogue, highlights my narrative as a
black trans girl who came-of-age in Ballroom and the South Bronx. I also honor my Nuyorican heritage,
often layering vogue fem samples with percussive rhythms from reggaeton & dembow. My music grants me a
praxis of resistance and a site for scholarly inquiry, empowering me in the face of quotidian transphobic
violence, both within and outside of academia.

For Pop Con 2025, I propose to conduct a live production of a vogue fem beat on Logic Pro X
while I discuss the mechanics of Fem Queen Performance as an embodiment of the soundscape. As both
voguer and producer, I showcase my creative process that weaves vogue fem’s sonic elements and patterns,
which I and my fellow Ballroom sisters intuitively respond to in our movement. Some of these elements
include: catchy 4-count kick rhythms, glass-like “Ha” crashes, vocal samples that function as instruments,
upbeat tempos, and silences in the beat that allow for vogue movement. I intend to contextualize these
samples in the evolution of Ballroom’s music history. I’ll explain where these sounds derive from, how
Ballroom producers manipulate them delicately and meticulously, as I spotlight my own unique process of
generating arrangements through Logic’s sophisticated technologies (like the step sequencer, quick sampler,
EQ’ing, plug-ins). I also name and honor trans women deejays at the helm of producing and popularizing this
sound.

Theoretically, I frame my performance around the essence of cunt— a Ballroom colloquialism for the
vernacular of movement that Fem Queens exhibit during FemQueen Performance. In the words of Icon
Sinia Ebony, cunt essence is all about “oozing and flouncing your femininity” through your vogue. This black-
trans-womanly–embodiment inhabits vogue fem music via a series of movement strategies, some of which
include: “sticking-and-landing” handwork—playing with the tension of fluid and fixed motion in one’s
performance in response to the beat pulses, or making “moments”—hiking up the drama in one’s vogue in
response to the rising action of the beat so as to reach a climactic dip. Further, I ground cunt essence in La
Monte Young’s notion of “getting inside of a sound” and Elizabeth Freeman’s theory of erotohistoriography.
Young describes “getting inside of” and “surrendering” himself to sounds within the classical compositions
he produces to invigorate his audiences, while Freeman’s erotohistoriography proposes queer bodily pleasure as a
tool to “effect, figure, and perform” history in the present (Freeman, 95). I pair these two theoretical models
to demonstrate how vogue fem, via sonic production and embodied performance, is a praxis which keeps me
tethered to Ballroom's trans herstory in the present. I conclude the presentation by performing vogue fem to
my own production.