THEESatisfaction - QueenS

What this video is

Released April 2012 alongside THEESatisfaction's debut LP awE naturalE on Sub Pop Records, 'QueenS' arrived at a pivotal moment for Black feminist alternative hip-hop. The duo — Stasia 'Stas' Irons and Catherine 'Cat' Harris-White — represented a collision of Seattle's indie underground (Shabazz Palaces orbit) and Brooklyn's Black art-intellectual scene. The video, set entirely in a women-only domestic party space,…

Why it matters

THEESatisfaction occupied a rare intersection of Afrofuturist hip-hop, neo-soul, and art-rap; 'QueenS' was their breakthrough single and the video was among the earliest music video documents of the Black feminist indie rap subgenre that would grow significantly through the mid-2010s. As the…

The director

dream hampton (b. Detroit, MI) is an American filmmaker, writer, and cultural critic. She studied filmmaking at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and built her career as a pioneering hip-hop journalist for The Source, Vibe, The Village Voice, Spin, and Essence.…