Raised in the unapologetically Black bastion of Atlanta, Georgia – ensconced in the vibrancy of the Black Arts Movement and the sonic undertow of the traditional Black church – while rooted in Charleston, South Carolina’s culturally rich and enigmatic Lowcountry, a region with African traditions and Black folkways that span centuries and deeply inform her work, Queen Esther embraces lost American history and wide-ranging and ever changing aural influences, while leaning heavily on the bluing of the note, creating reclamation-driven Black Americana. Her Southern penchant for storytelling entwines historical truths with personal anecdotes, blurring the past and present, embracing the connectedness of the human spirit.

A member of SAG/AFTRA, Actors Equity, Dramatists Guild and the Recording Academy with a BA in Screenwriting from The New School, her work in New York City as a vocalist, lyricist, songwriter, producer, actor, solo performer, playwright and librettist has led to creative collaborations in neo-vaudeville, alt-theater, various alt-rock configurations, (neo) swing bands, trip-hop DJs, spoken word performances, jazz combos, jam bands, various blues configurations, original Off-Broadway plays and musicals, experimental music, art noise and performance art.  Thanks to an admin publishing deal with Bug Music (now BMG Rights Management) instigated by the esteemed guitarist/songwriter Alejandro Escovedo, Queen Esther started her imprint EL Recordings. She has written, produced four and self-released six critically acclaimed jazz and Black Americana albums  – Talkin’ Fishbowl Blues (2005), What Is Love (2010), The Other Side (2014), Gild The Black Lily (2021), Rona (2023) and Things Are Looking Up (2024).

Music fellowships and residencies include: 2023 - 2024 Joe's Pub Working Group; the 2023 inaugural class of Keychange US Talent Development Program; PostHoc Salon, hosted by Susan McTavish Best; and an artist fellowship at the National Arts Club. Noteworthy highlights include: a grant from the 2024 New Music USA Creator Fund for All Cats Are Beautiful – alt-country soul performed by hard bop jazz musicians Wayne Tucker and The Bad Muthas, with each song celebrating the life of an innocent Black victim of police violence; and a 2022 grant from the New York City Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theater to create Blackbirding, an alt-country soul album written during a 2020 All Media Artist Residency at Gettysburg National Military Park, scheduled for a fall 2025 release.

Recent work includes: An Off-Broadway staged reading for her solo show Blackbirding as well as her full length play The Tears of a Megyn as playwright-in-residence in the 2022 - 2024 WP Theater Pipeline PlayLAB; performances at Lincoln Center to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Voices of a People’s History of the United States; showcases in New York City at Symphony Space, Uncharted Music Series and Joe’s Pub (NYC), Americanafest (Nashville TN), Folk Alliance Int’l (Kansas City, MO) and Woody Guthrie Museum (Tulsa OK), amongst others. In 2022, she brought her  western swing collective The Black Rose of Texas (featuring vocalists Queen Esther, Kat Edmonson and Synead Cidney Nichols and the legendary pedal steel guitarist Cindy Cashdollar) to Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City, with a sold out weekend at Dizzy's/Lincoln Center in the fall. Queen Esther's music continues to garner airplay worldwide as her 2018 TED Talk about the true origins of country and bluegrass steadily reverberates throughout the Americana community.

Whether she's writing essays, singing, creating songs, producing and self-releasing albums or creating alt-theater, performance art and cabaret, Queen Esther is a storyteller in the grand Southern tradition that's found her way back to Africa through her Lowcountry roots.