WARRIOR QUEEN
Lyrically bawdy and brash, Annette Henry aka Warrior Queen is a defining, pre-eminent dominator in Dubstep and Roots Culture. She champions the scene with provocatively shameless declarations and undeniably unapologetic anthems. The vigilance, zeal, and ruckus that she creates through her seductively jaw-dropping chants, drizzled over bass-heavy tracks, arouse possibilities and eradicate vulnerabilities. Warrior Queen’s merciless commitment and motor-mouthed capability, reverberates beats through her intense and hypnotic rhyme style, triggers hip-winding and grinding, bulldozes inhibitions, and renders spectators into submission.
interview by Crystal Guerrero
…Who are your influences?
Definitely Bob Marley, Burning Spear, Brigadier Jerry, Marcia Griffiths, Al Green, Millie Jackson, and Diana Ross. Since I was a child, I practically lived in the record shop. I knew their songs by heart by always hearing music playing. There were so many emotional feelings from intensely listening to their songs, and their music really spoke to me and was telling me to do something. I was also a big fan of a local artist called Bobby Culture. All the way! He had an amazing voice, and I actually ended up taking the name Wendy Culture.
Tell us about Wendy Culture.
When I first started it was all about Wendy Culture and roots cultural. The name was derived from my pet name Wendy, and I took the name Culture from Bobby Culture. When I was getting started, there was a lot of female MC’s named Sister or Lady, like Sister Nancy. So as I left the country to the city, I met many DJs and MCs. I met producer Phillip “Fatis” Burrell and he said “Oh my gosh, who is this girl at the controls? Her style is wicked”. And we started doing tracks and tunes together at Tuff Gong Studio. I’d come to find out there was more money available for singers and it was no problem for me to make the transition. In three days, I did vocals on eight tracks! So Fatis put those on his Vena Label. He was my first producer; I also did a recording for Dave and Tony Kelly from Madhouse, and was the first female MC on their label. I continued to do more tunes with producers Specialist, Shocking Vibes, Steely & Clivie, Donovan ‘Penthouse’ Germain, and Flabba Holt from Roots Radics…
