‘Portraits of Femme’ festival
Milwaukee musician B~Free is covering a different female artist every day in March.
Milwaukee musician B~Free has ambitious plans for Women’s History Month. Every day in March on her Instagram page, she’ll be covering a different song by female artists who have inspired her, including Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Brandy, Jill Scott and Faith Evans.
B~Free’s videos are part of the virtual programming in store for FemFest’s virtual “Portraits of Femme” series in March.
“My underlying goal with everything is that people need to know that women need to run the world,” B~Free (real name Britney Freeman-Farr) told the Journal Sentinel. “Showing how impactful and how diverse a role women play in the creative industry, let alone the world — that is always my goal.”
B~Free is also overseeing a virtual concert on March 8, International Women’s Day, that will stream on WYMS-FM (88.9)’s Facebook page. Titled “#Portraits of Femme: Women In Music (Cover Tributes),” the concert will feature performances from 10 women and femme-identifying artists from Milwaukee, including Amanda Huff, Caley Conway, Kyndal J, and Johanna Rose with Katie Lyne.
“Portraits of Femme” will be the focus of WMSE-FM (91.7)’s “Local/Live” episode on March 2, featuring a performance and interview with local artist Trinity Grace. Performance arts collective Heard Space is overseeing a virtual event on March 11, during which participants can write on the spot and share their writings.
Ms. Lotus Fankh — the artist behind the Journal Sentinel’s favorite Milwaukee song of 2020, “No Funerals” — will moderate a virtual panel, “Impact & Importance of Women in Music,” on March 25, featuring members of FemFest, Girls Rock MKE and Women in Music Chicago. The following day, Grace Weber’s Music Lab will feature a discussion with Tiffany Miranda, the founder of Girls Make Beats, a nonprofit that teaches and supports girls interested in audio engineering, music production and being DJs.
More details, including additional programming information and opportunities to submit content for the program, are available at Participants can also make donations to the organization through the website.
Continuing in the pandemic
It’s an ambitious lineup, but that’s not surprising for FemFest. A DIY undertaking in every sense of the word when Olivia Doyle established it as Riverwest FemFest in 2015, the program has grown substantially, hosting 68 performing artists (and other events) across eight days in 2019.
While several festivals canceled their plans last year because of the coronavirus pandemic, FemFest instead offered virtual programming through its Instagram page.
B~Free did the same thing, performing on her Instagram page when the prospect for live performances was wiped out. A year since the crisis began, live music events continue to be canceled or postponed, and most venues in the world remain dark.
“At the top of the pandemic, I just went into this inadvertent challenge,” B~Free said about her Instagram covers. “I felt it was a great way to show my audience more about me, and learn more about the source of music that impacted me in some way, and to stretch my own creativity.”
31 days, 31 cover songs
That’s how B~Free came up with her 31-day cover challenge last year, which also spotlighted her favorite female artists. She pulled it off in 2020, often syncing several separate performances to transform herself into a one-woman virtual choir and band.
But the performances this year will be more deliberate and elaborate, she says. She’s narrowed the focus to highlight songs from the late ’90s to the mid-aughts, and the average number of vocal tracks for a performance is about 50.
“They’re all completely independent arrangements with a cappella harmonies or beatboxing or flute or piano or a mixture of all of those,” she said. “I’m trying to be really creative and unique when producing the songs. It is a large thing to take on, but I’m excited to see how it develops.”
Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or plevy@journalsentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.
Piet also talks concerts, local music and more on “TAP’d In” with Jordan Lee. Hear it at 8 a.m. Thursdays on WYMS-FM (88.9), or wherever you get your podcasts.