Queen Mars, the Chicago-born songstress dabbles in a genre she has termed kaleidoscope pop. It’s a prismatic sonic umbrella that gives her the freedom to create at whim. Much of the foundation for her material has come from her roots fortified by a nomadic upbringing. Songwriting had become the only constant. In addition to relocating every couple of years, Queen Mars also had to navigate the polarities of two identities. She grew up with her mother in a strict, conservative household, where Christian and Gospel were the preferred soundtracks. However on the other hand, her father provided a refreshing dose of Top 40 and pop culture – which acted as escapism from a suppressive home.
“I am literally the product of opposites. I’m bi-racial with the two sides of my family falling on the opposite ends of the Midwestern spectrum,” she says. “For half of my family, Sundays are for church and praising God. For the other half, Sundays are for waking up at 7 am, cracking a cold beer, and day drinking for Sunday football. This exposure to duality has made me obsessed with representing the complexity of life. I want to show that there is congruence in contradiction. Where others hear dissonance, I hear harmony.” As an insatiable avoider of rules and regulations, Queen Mars dropped out of art school in an effort to form her own identity amongst the renegades of Chicago.
