Queen Naija

The entertainment world thrives on fantasy, but Queen Naija made her name by keeping it real. Born Queen Naija Bulls in 1995, the Detroit native first tasted fame as a contestant on American Idol, and then began to build a following via social media alongside her then-husband. It was only after his betrayal that Naija went solo with her recording career. Her debut single, 2017’s “Medicine”, gave her cheating ex a taste of his own and set the tone for her subsequent work: strong-willed, self-confident and saucy as hell. Equipped with a knockout voice and a taste for lush, velvety R&B punctuated by the occasional crisp trap beat, she dropped her debut album, missunderstood, in 2020, spinning deeply relatable tales of heartbreak, perseverance and lust. No stranger to public scrutiny, she opened the album with a wink and a nod to the trials of the limelight. “What happened to Queen Naija?” carps a voice in the introduction. “She was picking up momentum and then she just fell off the face of the earth.” She told Apple Music that quoting her critics “is like motivation for me.” Familiar with setbacks, she thrives most when people doubt her. Besides, she added, giggling, “It’s a little juicy, too, because people like drama.” All the more so when doled out with an attitude like Naija’s.