​Queen Esther (from the album Blackbirding

​Queen Esther (from the album Blackbirding

​Queen Esther (from the album Blackbirding available on EL Recordings) (by Danny McCloskey)
The songs on Blackbirding, the recent release from Queen Esther, have a specific time date. Her stories are an emotional study of lives lived underneath the radar of history. Queen Esther looks deep into a distant past to pen tales of a unique time in America. She looks to the events surrounding the Batlle of Gettysburg, and how the fight for justice for Black Americans never came to the fulfillment of the promises that caused the conflict. Country Soul reclaims history in the album’s songs as they walks the Gettysburg battlefield. 

While sitting on the edge of the 2020 pandemic, Queen Esther enjoyed a month-long all-media artist residency at the Gettysburg National Military Park. The offer allowed the artist to create, and curate, her art on an un-bordered musical palette. Originally staged as a performance art piece reading Off Broadway in 2024, Blackbirding expanded into an album as well as a mini-documentary by filmmaker Elmo King. The term ‘blackbirding’ was coined as a result of the 19th Century practice of kidnapping free black men and women, and selling them into slavery. The album examines the practice, exploring its reasons, such as the Civil War and slavery, and connects the past with a 2026 America to show how, in many ways, the practice has never truly disappeared.  
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To frame the musical work, Blackbirding starts off with “Are You Thirsty (Les Vivandieres Theme Song)”. The faith of spirit speaks its truth on tracks such as “The Devil May Care (But Jesus Knows)’ and “Can’t No Grave Hold My Body Down”. The bright sparkle of plucked string welcomes in “Magic” as Queen Esther shouts out warnings in “Hey Virginia” and cautions with a contemporary tale for “Home Free” as determined strums introduce “Rebels”. Optimism is sprinkled among the cuts on Blackbirding when Queen Esther confidently accepts fate in “I Feel So Alive” and hammers out a beat for the future visions of “When I Get Home” before exiting the album on a Rock’n’Roll stride courtesy of her cover of Robert Palmer’s “You’re Gonna Get What’s Coming”. (by Danny McCloskey)
 
Listen and buy the music of Queen Esther from AMAZON
 
Head over to the Queen Esther website for more information