LOVE//WARRIOR by Frankie Simone

Frankie Simone offers a vision of pop music as a conduit for collective enlightenment, self-empowerment and awakening. Pop rarely transcends the constraints of dominant culture, but Simone’s incantations of radical self-love aren’t just transcendent, they’re transformative. Frankie Simone’s music exists, she says, “to celebrate every type of human.”

It’s a message Simone has worked hard to communicate, through youth outreach programs and community work — and in various musical projects over the years. And in 2014, she had a breakthrough: She put together a collaborative, experimental music project with her wife — dancer and performance artist Che Che Luna — and crowdfunded a west coast tour that began in their then-hometown of Santa Cruz, California and wrapped up in Portland, Oregon. Simone and Luna fell in love with the city, and decided to move there.

Portland, one of the least diverse cities in America, may not seem like the likeliest home for an emerging queer, Puerto Rican pop star. But after overcoming the initial shock of the city’s constant rain, she found friends and allies in the city’s deep-rooted artistic community. And on many levels, Simone is a quintessential Portlander: she reads tarot cards, she carries crystals in her pocket.

Her vision is confident and fearless — especially for an artist just getting started on her musical journey. Frankie Simone is a High Priestess of Pop: the stage is her pulpit, and her message of love and acceptance is universal.

Frankie Simone (they/them) is a queer, gender expansive, Puerto Rican singer, songwriter and producer based in Los Angeles, CA