So, story time. This group of ladies make me particularly proud. I’ve been listening to rock music since 2002, but didn’t start going to shows until 2009. The only thing I found to go to locally were hardcore shows, so that made up the bulk of what I was seeing and listening to at the time.

One of the things I always wanted to see was black women doing hardcore and metal music on the stage, since that’s what I prefer to listen to, but when I first started going to shows that wasn’t something I ever saw. When I started this blog in 2011 there weren’t a lot of black women in rock in general, but there were almost no black women doing heavy rock music. Alexis Brown of Straight Line Stitch was the only one I knew of at the time.

It’s been an absolute pleasure to see that change over the years, and to have so many women to choose from when I want to dig in and listen to hardcore. Because the hardcore scene was the first scene I ever explored in Atlanta, it always has a special place in my heart, and I love that there are so many black women doing this type of music now.

Like a lot of hardcore kids, I transitioned into metal as my primary genre of choice and most of the shows I go to now are metal shows. And there’s a glut of black women to choose from when I want to listen to metal as well! But I always look fondly on the days of going to weird, out of the way venues (including a random warehouse) to go see hardcore shows, and the women in this group remind me of good times.

Featuring…

Bleed The Pigs (Kayla Phillips) #SeenLive

Replica

Venkman (Lynette Vertilus)

Buggin (Bryanna Bennett)

Hostilities (Larissa Perrin)

Red C (Toni Young)

Picture credits go to their respective owners.