B~Free’s voice strong on ‘Affair’
R&B artist regains ability to sing after surgery, ready to take stage at Riverwest FemFest
For Milwaukee R&B artist B~Free, singing was her livelihood and identity.
But in October 2013, her abilities began to corrode.
“I lost my voice, and couldn’t keep anything down. Food, everything, burned my throat,” said B~Free, a.k.a. 29year-old Milwaukee Montessori School music teacher Britney Freeman-Farr. “Not only did I have a throat infection, but I had pneumonia, and the burning from the infection took the most detrimental toll on my voice. I couldn’t speak at all for six or seven weeks.”
B~Free regained the ability to speak after speech therapy, but remaining scar tissue left her unable to sing. She would undergo surgery for it in June 2014.
To this day, she uses a microphone to teach and speaks less than she used to on a daily basis. But a year after losing her voice, B~Free began to sing again. And in 2016, her tender voice was the beating heart behind “Ode to a Luv Affair,” a painful yet uplifting album about leaving abusive relationships. Produced by B~Free, who also played most of the instruments, “Affair” was the No. 1 Milwaukee album of the year, according to the Journal Sentinel.
“This album is geared mostly around abuse and self-discovery,” said B~Free, who will perform songs from “Affair” at Riverwest FemFest this weekend. “A few different women have come to me and said these songs gave them strength and reaffirmed to them that they made the right decision removing themselves from a bad situation. To have that connection has been gratifying.”
Musical upbringing: Since I was in the womb, music has been my main source of exposure to the arts. I grew up in a very musically diverse family. My mom and my dad used to play in a band; mom was on keyboards, my father played bass. Since I was 2, I would play Fisher-Price pianos and make up songs. I wrote songs for my Cabbage Patch girls. I named them Sarah, Kenya and Violet, and I pretended they were an R&B group called SKV. I was crazy. I started performing music when I was 8 years old in church choir, and picked up flute when I was 12. Around 13 is when I really started becoming serious, when I got my first exposure to neo-soul artists like Musiq Soulchild and Jill Scott.
Making “Ode to a Luv Affair”: (After losing my voice,) I was extremely overwhelmed and had a huge deal of depression. Everything I had known was crumbling before me and I had no idea what to do next. I got a lot of advice from my now-husband, then-boyfriend (Quinten Farr, B~Free’s keyboardist). I developed more of my production abilities and started honing in more on composing. Even though I could not sing the songs out loud, I could hear how they’d sound in my head.
A good portion of the album was written that way in 2014 during the healing period. The whole situation caused me to truly take my time with every aspect of the album. I had experienced a lot of musical growth and reformatted the lyrics. I felt like I could take some of the experiences I was going through and personify them. (Writing) lamenting love songs was a way for me to lament what I was going through with More on Music
Watch two performances from B~Free at jsonline.com/music. Sound Check appears every first and third Thursday online and in the Journal Sentinel. the loss of my voice.
Playing Riverwest FemFest: I was there last year, and it was so invigorating to be in a room with so many different powerful women, musically on stage and behind the scenes. The whole thing is a huge source of inspiration for me. I’m glad to be a part of anything like that.
Next gig: B~Free is one of more than 81 female performing artists, largely from Milwaukee, playing Riverwest FemFest through Sunday. Her set is at 10:15 p.m. Saturday at Company Brewing, 735 E. Center St. Admission for the show, beginning at 5:30 p.m., is $12 at the door or $10 with an additional donation for the Milwaukee Women’s Center. Festival passes are available at rwfemfest.com. Ticket proceeds benefit Pathfinders, the Coalition for Justice and the Women’s Center. For the schedule and more information, visit the FemFest website.