Biography
Boundary-breaking hip-hop pair God-Des & She rank among the rare openly gay acts to register with mainstream audiences, owing to their fusion of unflinching subject matter, Eminem-shaped rhyme style, and tuneful soul-pop refrains. Rapper God-Des, whose trombone-professor father contributed to the theme from The Flintstones and whose cellist mother worked alongside Carole King, joined forces in Madison, WI in 1999 with vocalist She, a onetime punk drummer once billed as Tina G. After years of relentless national roadwork, the two relocated to New York in 2004, taking assorted day jobs to bankroll their recordings; that same year they appeared in the Logo channel’s LGBT documentary Hip-Hop Homos, supported MC Lyte and Slick Rick onstage, and issued their first full-length set, Reality. An invitation to perform at a gathering tied to Showtime’s lesbian series The L Word led producers to feature the duo’s bold cut “Lick It” during the wedding sequence that closed season three. After issuing the 2008 follow-up Stand Up, the artists circled the globe and enlisted Public Enemy bassist Brian Hardgroove, whose production shaped their widely praised 2009 album Three.
Albums