These queens of the modern slow jam have been snaking their way from underground roots into mainstream consciousness like syrup dripping from a stack of candied pancakes, their mesmeric beats and honeyed vocals provoking slow-burning critical recognition. The R&B swagger and soul-drenched seduction of the genres 90s lodestars are all present and correct here, but this is foremost a playlist of unapologetic female power; palpable sexuality, personal mastery unleashed through siren calls, witchy domination car-pooling with low-rider soul. Here, Colombian native Kali Uchis filters Cali sun through a vintage lens, while Odd Futures Syd tha Kyd laces excruciatingly breathy vocals with funk-fueled, dirty bass; Beyoncé nods to her forebears with slick production and urgent harmonies, and scrappy Londoner Tirzah chops and screws her way through woozy heartbreak.

Following the US election on Nov 8, 2016, we asked Dowsers contributors to discuss the moods and music the results inspired. We collected their responses in a series, After the Election.New York, June, 1969. After decades of harassment, brutalization, and homophobia at the hands of the NYPD, a group of queer folks who frequented the now infamous Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village spontaneously decided to fight back, meeting violence with violence. The Stonewall Riots, as they became known, lasted mere days but changed the course of history, carving out, as they did, a legitimized space in the American civil rights movement for the queer community.And, at least in the Western world, weve been on a fairly positive track since. Always moving forward (even it its at a snails pace), garnering small but significant legal victories along the way. Even though America is a bewilderingly divided place, where states that practice extreme prejudice (North Carolina, Im looking at you) butt up against liberal sanctuaries, the overwhelming ideology regarding LGBTQ rights has been one of momentum and progress.And then Trump was somehow elected president (lower-case by design), and along with his implicit approval of hate-speech and bigotry came the likelihood of an army of cronies who would turn this bigotry into policy and law. Theres already been a sharp increase in incidents of hate speech and violence since election day, and who knows how far that will go once the imposter officially takes office.I woke up on November 9 in absolute despair. As a queer woman, married to a queer, transgender, immigrant man, I felt the results of this election through every fiber of my body. As did every equality-seeking woman in the world; as did every person of color; every immigrant; every LGBTQ person. These results surely meant the undoing of decades of progress, a halting in our forward-moving momentum. And Im one of the lucky ones. Im white, university-educated, and just about considered economically middle-class (we own a house, we have two cars). My husband is also white, having emigrated from London, England. He has a green card, and hes married to me, a US citizen, so I guess hes one of the “good” kinds of immigrants. And sure, hes transgender, but hes also bald with a huge beard and a deep voice, so unless anyone has cause to root around in his pants, no one would ever guess that he wasnt born a dude.Because of this, were afforded a veil of invisibility, and Im ashamed to say that in the past fortnight, Ive been so grateful for it. When we lived in London, I fought with every part of my being to make myself visible and vocal, as a queer woman. I encouraged my husband to do the same. We lived in a liberal bubble, and notions of personal safety rarely crossed our minds. Theres so much power in visibility, so much grace, so much pride. And yet, now living in rural America (OK, upstate NY is hardly the boondocks: we live in a decidedly gay enclave in a very liberal neighborhood. But we have Trump-supporting, gun-toting neighbors, and that is more terrifying than I even know how to articulate), Ive suddenly felt the need to hide.And then Transgender Day of Remembrance rolled around. The beloved and I took ourselves along to a local candlelit service, and listened to the list of names, a heartbreaking tradition where the seemingly unending names of our trans brothers and sisters who have been brutally murdered this year are read aloud. In that room filled with untold amounts of love and support, of tears and sadness and joy and solidarity, the universe shifted slightly, and I quietly found my strength again.America didnt vote for hate: In fact, overwhelmingly, America voted for progress. If it were just a numbers game, Hillary would have trounced Trump. But antiquated electoral systems will do what antiquated electoral systems do best: reward the people whove figured out how best to manipulate them. And just because some old white dude managed to shout, insult, and bully his way into office, doesnt mean we owe him or his politics of hate anything.So, every day, Im going to put this playlist on, and Im going to remind myself why Im so proud to be part of the LGBTQ legacy. Because this mix is a celebration; of pride, of authenticity, of political integrity; of activism; of queerness; of frailty; of fallibility; of the innate nature of humanity. Im going to dance, laugh, cry, and shout, and then Im going to put as much love as I can muster out into the universe. Im going to reach my arms out to every person who doesnt have as much privilege and safety as I do, and do everything I can to take care of my people.Because thats we do in the face of hate: We love. And in that, we stay true to who we are, and we change the world, one step at a time.

Growing up a deeply closeted queer kid, I didnt know that all it would take for me to come careening out of the closet was a visible queer hero. When I discovered underground lesbian filmmaker Sadie Benning in my teens, it was a sucker punch to my carefully constructed “straight” facade. Oh, I was queer. Oh, I was a weirdo. Oh, Im really OK with that. Id spend the next decade gently coming out to various people in my life and discovering underground queer hero after underground queer hero. But when I look to todays artists, those who courageously and unabashedly wear their identities with pride, who challenge mainstream gender norms and publicly claim their queerness as undying strength, my heart sings for all the listeners who find themselves in their music — who can find pride, self-acceptance, and joy in their queerness. From Frank Oceans minimalist heartache to Alynda Lee Segarras folk outfit Hurray For The Riff Raff, from Christine and the Queens androgynous synth-pop to Against Me!s transgender dysphoria blues, this mix from the class of 2015/16 reveals a queerness thats both everything and nothing, complex and simple, political and personal.

Following the US election on Nov 8, 2016, we asked Dowsers contributors to discuss the moods and music the results inspired. We collected their responses in a series, After the Election.In August, my sister gave birth to a little girl, a long, strange creature with wispy flames for hair and curiously loose skin. Like all babies, she was just a lump to begin with: a lump that stole my sisters sleep, ravaged her boobs, and generally caused rockslide levels of chaos all around her. She had no discernible personality, no idiosyncratic facial expressions, no likes or dislikes. She just was. Then, thanks to said boobs and my sisters superior ability to hold her shit together in the face of extreme sleep deprivation, she began to grow. Her eyelashes shot out of her face and, out of nowhere, she became sumo-wrestler fat. She grew multiple chins, each more beautiful than the last, and her hair—while still carrot-hued—began to form itself into an old-man-mullet: full at the back, scarce at the front. As the weeks passed, she began to make noises, to smile, and then—oy, my heart—to laugh. To be delighted by dancing and singing. To communicate with us doting, cooing idiots. To begin interacting with the world around her.My sister took the little fatty with her when she voted for Hillary. She posted a picture online, of her chubby beloved strapped to her chest, her head cosseted in a winter hat with an “I voted” sticker. “One of us lost a shoe in the melee but it was totally worth it. Job done. Cant wait to tell her she was there the day history was made. #formydaughter #forhumanity #imwithher.”For my daughter. For humanity.Because thats what a Hillary win symbolized: a future that befits humanity; a future where my niece can grow up unencumbered by the idea that she is somehow “less than”; a future where ability, skill, and moxie characterize your path to success; a future where old white men are forced to make space for everyone else; a future where we keep each other safe. We voted for hope.When I started putting together this playlist, I asked the members of Pantsuit Nation, the rogue feminist Facebook group Hillary mentioned in her concession speech, for the music that was getting them through the days since November 8. 5,000 responses later, Im still reading the recommendations. From Ani DiFranco to Janet Jackson, from David Bowie to Beyoncé, from Kimya Dawson to Leslie Gore: thousands of people championing anthems of hope, of strength, of power.Thousands of declarations of self, refusals to normalize hate, calls to action. Thousands of hands that will lift one another up, and thousands of hearts wholl keep all daughters safe.The music speaks for itself. For her.

It’s not a genre, it’s a sound — a nod to hazy teenage mornings spent listening to blues records, to the rasp and rattle of Janis Joplin, the folky crackle of Ani DiFranco, the gravel and grit of Billie Holiday. It’s the throat-scratching smoke of a dive bar, muddled together with a walk through the city at twilight. Here, the best smoky voices of the ‘10s linger and wind around one another, their unique tone evoking the absolute best of modern folk, pop, and indie, with effortless aplomb. Waxahatchee’s timeless evocation of lazy summers lounges alongside Angel Olsen’s fuzz-soaked, vintage pipes; Karen O employs the crackliest dimensions of her breathy tones, while Courtney Barnett’s half-sung melodies skiffle over country-laced guitars; and Hinds’ bourbon-soaked slurring marries perfectly with Shannon and the Clams’ Wanda Jackson-indebted twang.

2016 was bleak for lots of reasons: a giant Cheeto dumb dumb managed to ass-chat his way into the Oval Office, some other jockstraps decided to kill a bunch of innocent people in Florida and Nice, and the Zika virus stuck two fingers up to modern medicine. But its also the year during which I finally chased down, and jumped, my dream. Three years ago, after a whole lot of soul-searching and desperately trying to convince myself I loved living in London and getting shit-faced six days a week, I realized what I really wanted was a simple life. To return to the countryside, to the woods, with my beloved. So we worked and we planned, and in December 2015, we left our jobs and friends and families in the UK, and moved—cat, tortoises, and all—to the Hudson Valley, just a few hours north of New York City. People will remember this year for all its faults, but for me its the year my sister, also an NY resident, gave birth to my niece. Its the year my true love and I bought our first home, a 100-year-old wreck of a farmhouse on 12 acres of organic farmland which were in the middle of gutting and renovating with our own four hands. Its the year I started making more money writing than I do editing. It’s the year I made space for myself. The year I summoned enough courage to leap.And perhaps suitably reflective of the year itself, my soundtrack to 2016 is far stranger than expected. We did a lot of driving before we got our own place, and I listened to the radio a lot. Which meant that I was forced to listen to new(ish) mainstream music, rather than get stuck in my comfortable rabbit holes of whatever artist I was obsessed with at the time. Sure, it took me about 10 months to realize my pickup stereo has a CD player, but for the first half of the year, I ended up listening to a lot of Justin Bieber and Kiiara. A darling friend from home gifted me a Vinyl Me Please subscription as a leaving present, and so Weezer, The Books, and Fugees resurfaced unexpectedly in my life. Sometimes Im homesick, missing my mum terribly, and I turn to things that remind me of her. Nina Simone, Sade, Joan Armatrading. Sometimes Im so blissed out by the peace and quiet that all I want to do is roll up a stonking blunt, close my eyes and fall into some Tirzah, Young Thug, and Bjork. And sometimes I cant believe I moved to this country the year the Cheeto dumb dumb had the misfortune to be “elected”. Then I need Solange and Rihanna. But, odd as this mix is, it captures, in its beautiful weirdness, just how glorious this year has been.

With the release of I can feel you creep into my private life, Tune-Yards’ Merrill Garbus has come full-circle, her gift for game-changing vocal play reaching full-tilt automaton on an album that simultaneously nods to her analog beginnings and doffs its cap to an exciting electronic future.“I started sampling my vocals with an MPC,” she says of I can feel. “There was something that felt really right about my voice being trapped in a machine.” Long-time fans will know that Garbus recorded the majority of her debut LP, BiRd-BrAiNs, on a voice recorder, lending the record its distinctive—and now renowned—lo-fi sound. What it also did, however, was create a distance between Garbus’ towering vocal pipes and the listener, a trick she’s revisited on the latest album. “I wanted the vocals to sound robotic,” she says. “Maybe to counter the sincerity of the lyrics.”Garbus is no stranger to vocal manipulation on a grand scale, basing entire albums around a particular hook or device (see the Pee-wee Herman-inspired playground chants across the entirety of Nikki Nack, or the sultry doo-wop harmonies and Haitian-inspired vocal layering that populate Whokill), while also reserving her most crescendoing, gratifying hollers, whoops, and yells for when they’ll make the most impact. Hers is an inimitable voice, one built on a foundation of varying regional African folk musics, the ‘80s pop of Michael Jackson and Cyndi Lauper, and mid-century soul in the vein of James Brown and The Ronettes. And while Garbus’ influences ride valiantly along with her genre-hopping melodies, her gift for weaving together fragmented musical cues precludes any suggestion of imitation. You can hear her loop-pedal vocal layering techniques in the a-capella mastery of Manhattan Transfer and the meticulous gospel of the Soweto Gospel Choir, while her penchant for the peppy nasal belting of Afrobeat is rooted in the Congolese pop of Wenge Musica or Awilo Longomba.

Once again, Teen Vogue—the young, woke sister of the Condé Nast family—reveals its on-the-pulse badassery with a recent article detailing the shady politics of Coachella bigwig Phillip Anschutz, who has historically donated funds to anti-LGBTQ charities and organizations. As the magazine points out, billionaires supporting right-wing institutions are nothing new, but if you want to try and elicit change, “The most effective way (as the #BoycottCoachella tag demonstrates) is to hit em where it hurts: their wallets.”But boycotting festivals doesn’t mean you have to be without banging tunes. In the article, Teen Vogue champions queercore bands as musicians “who are using their art for more productive means.” And while purists may balk at the term “queercore” in this context, the message is clear: LGBTQ rights matter, and there are a lot of amazing musicians out there willing to scream it from the rooftops.The inclusion of London band Skinny Girl Diet is a measure of just how right they’ve gotten this playlist—part Russ Meyer vixens, part scrappy girl gang, the band have produced some of the most sublimely, unapologetically feminist punk of the last decade (their most recent album is called Heavy Flow). SGD’s “Silver Spoons” is a rollicking dirgey mess, a wall of sound with an insanely hooky vocal line, while Brooklyn’s Aye Nako champion a more nostalgic, grungy sound. London trio Shopping (pictured) amp up the energy with “In Other Words,” with Rachel Aggs’ inimitable jagged guitar work driving the track. And no queercore playlist would be complete without math-pop dreamboats PWR BTTM’s “Answer My Text.” This isn’t just a list of queer artists; it’s a statement of intent, a journey through genres, and a politically driven (wo)manifesto.If you like Teen Vogue’s playlist, you’ll also love artists like New Yorkers The Shondes, Pittsburgh natives Rue, and Seattleites Tacocat. And luckily for you, I’ve added a handful of relevant artists to the end of the playlist. Consider it further reading.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.