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Baby Queens - Cara, Estelle, Monique, Ruth and Vanity - are five girls from Cardiff. Two sisters, two cousins and their adopted sister - each equal parts songwriter, musician and music lover. As distinct in their fashion as they are their music, each band member's individual personality and style can be heard in their music. In 2013, they released their first single "Red Light". It was a viral hit, and soon won the attention of BBC Radio 1, who made them "Artist of the Week", with repeated plays across the station from the likes of Fern Cotton and Greg James. They've also had support from the likes of Huw Stephens, DJ Target, DJ Semtex and Mista Jam. They've also had continuous support from BBC Wales, where they've been "Artist of the Week", three times. Since "Red Light", the girls have been releasing tracks, readying their debut album and cutting their teeth on the live circuit. They've played festivals like The Great Escape, Boomtown, T in the Park, X Fest, and Swn festival and toured with Welsh super band The Earth. And now the album is finally ready to be heard. Produced by Super Furry Animal's Cian Ciaran, the self-titled album crisscrosses the narrow divide between rock, hip hop, soul and reggae - it's a blissed out, musical odyssey written by all five members of the band. The sickly sweet overtures one might expect from an all-girl band are ditched in favor of beats that force the melodic content to the fore, with the principles of classic soul and R'n'B song-writing, catching up with the present day sounds of British street genres. Lavishly layered vocals are wrapped up in slick production that marks out Baby Queens's intentions to push boundaries and reintroduce to the masses what a vocal group with melody and beats in their hearts is all about. "Our love of street poetry, spoken word and rap has influenced many of the songs, but also rock n roll bands, soul/Motown, trippy '60s and '70s bands, the roots reggae and roots hip hop artists, basically anything that is heartfelt and soulful and stands for something positive," says Cara.
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