Months ago, my cousin Grace (who lives here in DC) reached out to me to ask if I’d be interested in joining her at a concert. She and her husband, Austin, would be going to DC9 to watch a friend of a friend open for another artist. 

So, on the first Tuesday of October, we met up near U Street and walked to the venue. At 8pm, a Christian Deconstructionist Drag Queen named Flamy Grant took the stage. She sang about religious trauma and between songs discussed how hard it was to grow up queer in the Bible Belt. In fact, her first album Bible Belt Baby came out just about a year ago now. 

Some of my favorite songs that she performed were “What Did You Drag Me Into?,” “Esther, Ruth, and Rahab,” and “Desire of Your Heart,” although for sure the funniest song was “Take a Chance on Me,” which was the only one that didn’t seem to have any kind of Biblical connection. Before singing it, she described it as spilling all your red flags on a first date to avoid the weeks of pretense.

Since we were mostly there to see the opener, and we all had work or class in the morning, we weren’t initially planning to stay through the entire show, but when Flamy Grant relinquished the stage to Adeem the Artist, it became clear that we were in for a treat. 

Adeem Maria the Artist is non-binary and makes music that is sort of a twangy country-folk but their platform centers queerness and political activism. They have songs about systemic racism and growing up in the south, discovering your queerness, military PTSD, and more. Between songs, they talked and told jokes. At times, it felt as much like stand up comedy as a concert. 

When the concert ended, Grace and Austin introduced themselves to Flamy Grant and welcomed her to DC, and I bought an Adeem the Artist t-shirt. Walking back to the metro, my cheeks hurt from grinning, and we gushed about how much fun we’d had. 

Adeem’s first album, Cast Iron Pansexual, came out in 2021, and their second, White Trash Revelry, came out in 2022. 

If you like Semler or Stick Season, you might like Flamy Grant and Adeem the Artist