TEAM GINA

Gina Genius and Gina Bling, a.k.a. Team Gina, are fierce, femme Seattle lesbians whose musical goal is to make their audiences dance — and think. Raised on riot grrl feminist electronic tradition and old-school rap and hip-hop, Genius and Bling meld together divergent musical and political influences to create over-the-top songs and live performances. The duo throws monthly ’80s electro parties at Seattle’s Wild Rose Bar — which they unashamedly label “political.” A mix of drag, camp, matching outfits, and good times, Genius and Bling describe their shows as “performance magic.” - Bess Korey

History (more accurately, cable television) likes to make it seem as though grunge ruled the late '80s and early '90s. It didn't. The charts were positively inundated with polished turds like Debbie Gibson, Bel Biv Devoe, Ace of Base and Milli Vanilli.

Though most of us are afraide to admit it, we bought those artists' tape cassettes and can still recite their lyrics when we hear snippets of them on an infomercial for some compilation of "yesterday's favorites."

Team Gina takes this same nostalgia for heavily processed dance-pop and channels it through the pro-women electronica of Le Tigre. With high-school-style raps about lesbian subject matter, Team Gina discusses same-sex issues while steering clear of evangelism. Though some would call their blatant nostalgia for cheese-pop ironic, it doesn't take much to realize there's a difference between hipster irony and just plain having fun. - Brian Barr

Team Gina is a force to be reckoned with. The duo rock audiences with their bombastic dance moves and riotous outfits, mixing boombox jams and hilarious rhymes to the delight of their in-the-know fans and unsuspecting audience members. You’ll never forget your first Team Gina show. - www.threeimaginarygirls.com

Like two precocious girls at a slumber party making impromptu mixes on a boom box, Gina Bling and Gina Genius mix liberal ideals with pop culture in a stream of consciousness that’s smart, self-aware and, most importantly, fun. “A Tribe Called Rocco,” from their debut EP Gina Gina Revolution, takes a jazzy bass sample, rolls languidly in roughly the same pentameter as A Tribe Called Quest’s “Buggin’ Out”—the ladies aren’t shy about copping to their influences, either—and manages to drop references to both Foucault and Jem and the Holograms in the same verse. If it’s not very often that you hear the terms “lesbian” and “hip-hop” in the same sentence, don’t blame Team Gina. - Steve Haruch

Team Gina's expressive brand of rap combines their shared experience as children of the 80s, and their love of all things pop.

The Seattle-based duo of Gina Genius and Gina Bling audaciously sample Sir Mix-a-Lot's 'Baby Got Back,' simultaneously referencing My Little Pony, and themes from the queer rights movement.

"We're synthesizing all the elements of pop culture that we grew up with and mashing them up to create something new," says Genius. "We're also trying to bring a perspective that's kind of utopian-- we want to represent the perfect queer paradise that doesn't exist yet, that maybe exists at our shows."

Components? The beat-heavy duo, who met in 2006 at a Scream Club show, sport matching attire (think booty shorts, wristbands) when they break it down.... - Melody Wells

Is anything cooler than Team Gina, the hot queer lyricists behind the anthem "Butch/Femme"? We don't think so.

Their debut EP, Gina Gina Revolution, is a campy, queered-out escape into a hot-pink, cotton-candied, 12-year-old's fantasy world from the mouths of two sassy Italian girls with a serious My Little Pony fetish. - Melany Walters-Beck

Local lesbionic hip-hop duo Team Gina... have evolved into a wildly entertaining, pop-influenced rap outfit. Reminiscent of the criminally-overlooked Long Island feminist hip-hop act Northern State, Gina Bling and Gina Genius posit themselves as complementary opposites, balancing kitschy references to Jem and the Holograms and Bell Biv Devoe with flashes of liberal smarts, aligning themselves with "Langston Hughes and leftist views," and making no secret of their affection for badass butch babes.

- Hannah Levin

That's right, straight to a sassy chick party, children! Team Gina are a younger, hipper B-52s, and their odes to mixtapes and wife-swapping are a classy distraction. Plus, TG cleverly ponder the eternal question: "How did we ever fall in love without the Internet?" - Robbie Daw

Made up of a joyful pair of white-girl rap poseurs, the glam-punk homo duo Team Gina produces adorable singsong ditties about fighting for social justice and making out with butch chicks. Busting out slippery rhymes about how to make capitalism work for everyone while wearing skimpy gold lamé dresses, Gina Bling and Gina Genius sound sweet and giggly, but warn that they get cranky with people who can't spell or haven't done much reading. Collaborations with local transman hip-hop phenom Katastrophe and national electro-lesbian heroes Scream Club make these two hotter than the opening credits of Barbarella. - Hiya Swanhuyser

Hip-hop may sometimes take heat for a lack of social consciousness, but one pair of rapping fierce femmes from Seattle is taking the temperature on a burning issue in the queer community.

"Where have all the butches gone?" The inquiring minds of Team Gina want to know.

According to Team Gina, an emerging electro-feminist hip-hop duo with synchronized dance routines and neon outfits to match, the world desperately needs more women who like to wear tool belts, star-shaped tattoos and mohawk haircuts. Gina Bling and Gina Genius outline their plea in the exemplary track, “Butch/Femme,” where they sample the lyrical pace of another Seattle product, Sir Mix-a-Lot. They pine:

“I like butch girls and I cannot lie. You other femmes can’t deny. When a butch walks in, all the femmes wanna fuss, cuz there’s, like, one of them, and 30 of us!”

Asked what prompted this outburst on the epidemic of the disappearing butch, Gina Genius, fresh from a triumphant performance at the Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle’s gayborhood on Saturday, said by e-mail: “Quite simply, we love butch girls! A lot of the straight world doesn't understand or appreciate butchness, and a lot of butches feel like they don't measure up to transmen in the community, and so we just wanted to write a song telling them that we love them just the way they are!”

Hot.

You may not be able to find a girl to connect your stereo or change your oil, but you can find Team Gina’s eight-song debut EP, Gina Gina Revolution, now from Don’t Stop Believin’ Records. A video for “Butch/Femme,” fittingly directed by another woman named Gina, was shot in early July and will premiere soon. Gina Genius claims the footage is brimming with sexy Seattle butches, and an appearance by Cindy Wonderful from fellow rhyme impresarios, Scream Club.

Still, as Team Gina insists, their coordinated dance moves and clothing must be seen in person. - Julie Bolcer, NewNowNext