The 2019 edition of the Mo Pop Festival was another incredible weekend filled with music and good times, which makes it unfortunate that the event will have to move from West Riverfront Park going forward. Despite that, I got to talk to some very talented people last weekend. That includes buzzworthy R&B/pop artist Siena Liggins, who discussed her current success, focus on the fan experience, her dog, representing the LGBTQ+ community and more.
Liggins has been turning heads with each song she releases, including “Flowerbomb,” “Naked,” and “Me Again.” She’s an alumnus of Detroit’s Assemble Sound family, whose connections include Flint Eastwood, Tunde Olaniran and Black Noi$e. So what’s the secret behind Assemble Sound?
“It’s rinky-dink [laughs]. It’s falling apart and somehow brings everyone together,” Liggins says. “I always say this. The best songs I’ve ever recorded are in somebody’s basement or in a place like Assemble. You can go to a nice-ass studio, but there is something about the grind of having to figure out how make the sound of a shitty room work. That when you put the project together, you put the song out, that it feels like it’s a lot more humble. The humility and its origins are there.
I feel like that is the magic of Assemble. It’s so bare-bones and so collaborative in its nature that it can only be strong from that. It can only be great from that.”
Billboard named “Flowerbomb” as one of their top Pride Picks in 2018. When Siena Liggins performed at Mo Pop last Saturday, she said during her set that “it’s a great time to be gay and fine.” Those who watch the news on a regular basis, however, have seen the more public display of intolerance these last few years. Liggins isn’t worried about that.
“I think the nice thing about the LGBTQ+ community living in an era with so much hate and derogatory feelings towards us is that, we live in a country where we can still say whatever the fuck we want, as loud as we want. The nice thing about queer people is that we are loud and we are here and we are proud of who we are.”
Listen to the entire interview below.
Photo credit: Dave Kim, Ferndale Radio
