Queen City Queens
- Margo Roysdon
- Jul 1
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 1
“Performance is a mask that we created, we painted. It’s not fake. It’s real. It’s a piece of us that we like to wear, but there are also other pieces of us underneath these layers that we build up for ourselves…”
Friday, May 9th at the historic Urban Artifact brewery, the Beyond the Stage Team, friends and fans alike, witnessed a showcase of the divine feminine in local talent. A Radio Artifact event headlined by some of Queen City’s finest queens, KY Honey and Juls. Each artist’s performance embodied a uniquely tailored full spectrum of their own sound, style and presence that made for a dually entertaining sonic journey.
Both women bore their souls not only in their performances that night, but also through an on-stage group interview with the Beyond the Stage Team. Where KY Honey and Juls connected their art to their personal journey’s and triumphs. Inspiring many cheers of admiration and agreement from the crowd who were gripped by the musings of turning pain into passion. The artists’ shared one overwhelming sentiment: healing through one’s craft as a means to relate and connect with the world on a more intimate level.
KY HONEY
“Self-care looks sexy on everybody!”
The darling, daring, and self-proclaimed “Kentucky’s sweetest recording artist,” KY Honey, or Morgan (Mo) Bruin, is one little lady with a big stage presence. Her country-twang meets hip-hop sound had the whole crowd feeling themselves and grooving to her, “sacred booty-shaking music.” She encouraged the audience to join her on stage (more than once), finding some more than eager participants.
Mo’s parents were both professional horse jockeys, her “Mam-maw” was even the first woman to be licensed as a horse jockey. Making it come as no surprise her Kentucky roots are centerstage as a driving force of inspiration.
For Morgan it all started when she was a little girl, she wanted to join the middle school choir. Her mom’s brutally honest response, “Aww, but your singing voice isn’t that pretty honey,” despite her mother also doting Mo has a gift- a warm aura that makes people feel heard and safe. Mo confided how this sentiment resonated with her for years into adulthood, So much so that it became a resounding part of her spiritual and physical journey.
Mo began traveling through North, South and Central America, sitting with indigenous elders and studying with master healers. She made a buffalo medicine drum while in Columbia, playing and singing during ceremonies and around fires. 17 ceremonies, 50 tracks and many miles later, Mo credits ayahuasca as her key to unlearning the bounds that her family, society and religion had placed on her. Ultimately freeing her inner child unto being reborn as KY Honey.
The highest purpose Mo feels as an artist, the message she embodies, is to remind people of their right to permission- permission to show up as they are. KY Honey notes the hyper-sexualization of young women in our society, and how for her its been a tool, a means to reclaim the divine feminine in all its “sacredness, silliness and sexiness.”
JULS
“I’ve always been behind the scenes. I was silently taking singing lessons and doing recitals… I never said anything about being performer, I just always wanted to be around music.”
Soulful pianist, singer, super mom and soccer mom to two, Julia (Juls) Lawrence, of local rock band, ‘Juls and the Ghouls,’ sets her alarm for 6am everyday. Juli kickstarts her days with a homemade matcha and bong rip (checking our box for self-care!). This attitude for gratitude and peace truly came across in her relaxed, almost ephemeral performance.
She credits her artists’ mad genius to her father, Malachi Lawrence. A retired GE aerospace engineer and watercolor artist who she fondly remembers working all day only to come home and perfect his craft into the wee hours of the night. Admittedly, becoming her biggest underwritten supporter and inspiration over the years.
Juls is what some might refer to in the music industry as, “a lifer.” At the age of eight, it was an African dance class that sparked her interest, where she learned the joys of moving your body and playing instruments. Juls went on to have a life altering surgery at 15, unable to leave the house, the only thing she could still participate in was voice lessons. She recalls the moment her orchestra teacher blindsided her, by gathering the choir teachers in her office and making her sing for them. Promptly igniting her life-long affinity for all things music.
Juls fully plunged into that world in her studies at Xavier’s School of Music for music education. Nowadays she can sing in 9 different languages, Germanic, Latin, Portuguese, and French, to name a few. As of 2023, her most recent musical endeavor, leading her own band, ‘Juls and the Ghouls’ is an all consuming and fulfilling actualization.
When asked what she want’s people to get out of her music, Juls answered without missing a beat, “Joy. I want people to feel included… Music for me feels like connection.” She embodies a balance many of us strive for in our busy and often overwhelming lives.
Watch the FULL Session on YouTube:
LOOKING FORWARD
All in all, it was an evening that immortalized two more artist’s in the Beyond the Stage Universe’s directory. KY Honey and Juls are vastly different musically, yet still prove: the craft resides in the heart and thrives through connection. If you’d like to follow their journeys (or ours), you can find KY Honey on Instagram (@kyhoneymusic) and Spotify; Juls on Instagram (@juls_ghouls); the Beyond the Stage team on Instagram as well (@beyondthestagelive).
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