King Isis returns with a brand new track, ‘Sparkly’. The singer navigates listeners through a floating, transformative musical journey. Sparkly (talks pain, growth, love and self-discovery), King Isis’s mesmerising honey vocals blend perfectly with the smooth guitar and baseline beat. The track’s chill vibe invites reflecting thinking; Sparkly is the track to relax and vibe too. King Isis’ music has been described as a guide through “culmination of apathy, angst, acceptance, and actualisation”. They aim to emphasise freedom and comfort in their music and we’re certainly seeing that.
King Isis is the queer, Black genre-bending afro future you don’t want to miss. Born and raised in the cultural hub of Oakland, CA, King Isis brings life back to music with their raw, honest, and gritty sounds. A musical shapeshifter, Isis emerges with a refreshing fusion of sound, ranging from rock to RnB to jazz and blues. Much of their music-making centres on the exploration of identity and existence, creating and finding selves, worlds, and realities. With each song + show, Isis takes you on a journey of healing and becoming, sweeping through pain, growth, and transformation in their music. With vulnerable lyrics, haunting vocals, mesmerizing melodies, and an expansive musical ability, Isis enters the scene ready to make their permanent mark.
Growing up, Isis was always on the outskirts, never really fitting in with the kids at her predominately white and wealthy private schools. Coming from a low-income, single mother household, Isis struggled with feelings of inferiority and insecurity in these institutions. Always a bit of a recluse and never really feeling home in any space, Isis turned to creating little worlds of her own with short stories, eventually leading to her desire to create safe spaces with their words through music.
Taught on her great-great-grandmother Omega King’s piano, one of the first Black opera singers in Chicago, music has been rooted in King Isis’ blood for generations. Isis began musical training at the age of four by the encouragement of her mother, enrolling Isis in piano lessons and music programs for most of youth. Stifled by stringent classical training, Isis began to explore the world of jazz and blues, inspiring a desire to expand her musical world and teach herself the guitar at the age of 16. King Isis’ music nods to the improvisational and experimental nature of her musical training, creating a sound that defies the traditional. Through each song, Isis guides you through a culmination of apathy, angst, acceptance, and actualization.
King Isis finds power and freedom in sound and is a firm believer in creativity as the fuel to the revolution. Isis has always believed in the communal healing power of music, volunteering with the FreeStudio Program at Rikers Island to cultivate a safe creative space for incarcerated youth, teaching free music classes to low-income communities in Los Angeles, and providing a safe space for children of incarcerated adults.
As reflected by their BA in American Studies concentrating in Race and Music from Barnard College, Isis’s work focuses on imagining sounds and spaces of liberation for those who exist outside of the confines of dominant society, making music in a black radical feminist tradition. Inspired by activists, artists, and writers such as Audre Lorde, Assata Shakur, Angela Davis, and Toni Morrison, King Isis hopes to disrupt, destruct, and unify through their sounds.
From shy girl to rockstar, King Isis makes music for the weirdos, the queerdos, and everyone in between. Shedding layers of self-doubt and insecurity with their sounds, King Isis is breaking out of their shell to let everyone know that your difference is your power. With their 3-part introductory EP series, split by sounds + seasons, Isis challenges both the binaries of society and the boundaries of genre, traversing through different realms of reality in their music by rejecting the limitations of the status quo. King Isis encourages everybody to let loose and let go of the reigns of conformity to take this ride together.
