Nashville Pride’s two-day 2017 lineup includes music from every genre, from country to hip-hop, and features both established artists like Ty Herndon and CeCe Peniston and emerging talents like Ezra Furman and Julien Baker. Here’s a quick look at many of the artists performing on the main stage Saturday! (See also: Sunday!)
Trevor James Tillery
Trevor James Tillery’s “esoteric, ghost-pop music” blends organic and electronic instrumentation that is “at once stripped down and lavishly embellished, showcasing timeless craftsmanship dressed with shimmering pop sensibility.” Currently working in Nashville, Tillery has lived all over the country, from early years in Indiana to teens and early twenties in Phoenix, Seattle, and Los Angeles.
His currently unfolding project, Together.Alone, following up 2016’s In Moonlight, is an album being released single by single online. Tillery’s work has drawn critical praise in the media, with The Advocate writing, “Trevor James Tillery delivers a delicious dream-pop delicacy with his latest music video, ‘Sleeptalking.’”
Vyrgo
A native of Barbados, Vyrgo’s music falls into a genre all its own. She's been singing and performing since the age of 14, and an amazing presence on stage that cannot be matched! As a singer-songwriter, actress, and all-around entertainer, Vyrgo has worked extremely hard “to build a phenomenal brand and stay in [her] own lane!”
She has opened multiple awards shows and major events such as the Atlanta Hip Hop Awards, the Nashville Soundtrack Beat Battle, and the 2016 Southern Entertainment Awards, where she won the Performance of the Year Award!
Vyrgo has also starred as Effie White in the Broadway musical Dreamgirls, and will be featured in the new film, A Mother's Love, starring Marc Jeffries. It's safe to say that there is much more to come from Vyrgo, and trust she won't stop until she reaches the stars.
Bright Light Bright Light
Rod Thomas, born in Wales and based in both London and New York, formed Bright Light Bright Light in 2010 and has since released LPs, 2012’s Make Me Believe In Hope and 2014’s Life is Easy, followed most recently by Choreography, which debuted at #39 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart and continues to garner critical acclaim. Rolling Stone praises its “throwback electro-pop style” while The Huffington Post declares it’s “Just the thing to get you moving.”
Alanna Royale
Alanna Royale, a six-piece powerhouse soul and R&B band with a larger than life presence, is a can't miss spectacle. “Lead by vocalist Alanna Quinn‐Broadus, the neo‐soul group reignites the fire under the ass of soul that once burned bright with stars like Etta James, Isaac Hayes, and Bobby Womack” (Pancakes and Whiskey). About the name, the lead says, “I love the name Alanna Royale because it sounds cheap and luxurious all at once. It conjures up images of a classic car or a Tarantino reference. It doesn’t sound like just one thing.” That perfectly describes a band dabbling in various sounds to create something unique, stretching the limitations of Nashville.
La Bouche
Lane McCray burst onto the international music scene in the mid and late 1990s with the late diva Melanie Thornton. Having met in Frankfurt, Germany by a chance encounter, this powerhouse duo became known as La Bouche (French for “the mouth”) and conquered the dance music scene with landmark success, producing chart toping singles, peaking at number one in seven countries. In 2001, Melanie Thornton passed in plane crash while promoting her solo career, but McCray continues to perform as La Bouche along with Zsofia Farkas.
Big Freedia
Big Freedia, known as the Queen of Bounce, is a New Orleans-based rapper and ambassador of Bounce music. A vibrant twist on hip-hop, Bounce is characterized by call-and-response lyrics over rapid-fire beats and accelerated booty-shaking. Big Freedia’s debut LP, Just Be Free was named one of the ‘best electronic releases of 2014’ by Rolling Stone. Big Freedia’s second full-length album will be released in 2017.
After running the New Orleans club scene for over two decades, Big Freedia is now bringing the Bounce movement world-wide with her hit reality show, Big Freedia: Queen of Bounce on FuseTV. Currently in filming its sixth season, the weekly docuseries remains the highest rated original series on the network. More, the show was honored with a GLAAD Media Award in 2013 and was nominated for the award in 2014.