1. Early life

2. Career
     2014: American Idol    2016–present: YouTube    2016–2017: Musical career beginnings    2018: new artist/breakout R&B star    2018: Queen Naija EP  

3. Discography
    EPs  Singles 

4. References

5. External links

Queen Naija Bulls (born October 17, 1995), known professionally as Queen Naija, is an American singer and songwriter.

In December 2017, she self-released the song "Medicine".^[1] She was an unsigned social media star, but the song made a No. 45 debut on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week of April 10, 2018.^[2] In June 2018, she released her second single, "Karma", this time as a signed artist to Capitol Records. On its release day, the song reached #1 overall on the iTunes charts.^[3]

Early life

Queen Naija was born on October 17, 1995. She has described her ethnicity as a mix of "Black, Italian and Yemen ^[4] Her mother is African-American and Italian, and her father is originally from Yemen.^[5]

Her birth name, Queen Naija, was given to her by her mother. "Queen" was inspired by her grandmother, who had the same first name, and "Naija" represented her father's name.^[6] and she has two siblings.^[7]

Career

2014: American Idol

Queen Naija, formerly known as Queen Bulls, first gained prominence as a contestant on the eighth season of American Idol. She had auditioned two years earlier but had failed to advance into the next round.^[8] In the eighth season, she advanced into the Hollywood round, but was cut when the top 30 were chosen.^[8] Afterwards, Queen Naija went back to working as a security guard. She concentrated on her YouTube career.^[9]

2016–present: YouTube

Queen Naija began her career as a YouTuber in 2016 alongside her ex-husband Christopher Sails. The YouTube channel named "Chris and Queen" consisted of couple-related videos such as challenges, story times, vlogs and pranks. It also consisted of music by the couple, including a few popular songs with each other and remixed/covered songs.^[10] The couple's channel quickly grew in popularity, reaching over 2.3 million subscribers within a year.{{citation needed|date=October 2018}}

In November 2017, the couple officially separated, and Queen filed for divorce. Their channel, which held over 2.3 million subscribers, was given to Sails by Queen Naija; he renamed it to Chris Sails.^[11]

On April 4, 2017, she created her own YouTube channel named "Queen Naija". She has said that she created her own channel while still being a part of the couple's channel was because she wanted something to fall back on if the relationship took a turn for the worse.^[11] Once her relationship with Sails officially ended, Queen Naija built up her own YouTube channel, which had around 600,000 subscribers at the time. Within a year, her solo channel had surpassed the old channel, and has 3.4 million subscribers as of October 2018.^[12]

In July 2018, Queen Naija created a new collaborative YouTube channel, "Royal Family", alongside her boyfriend Clarence White. Their videos include challenges, vlogs, story times and family content. The channel has 1.8 million subscribers as of February 2019.^[13]

2016–2017: Musical career beginnings

Queen Naija began her career with music while she was on YouTube. She created music with her husband Chris, including popular songs such as "Maybe", "Come to This", and "Exclusive Girl". She also collaborated on music with close friends Armon and Trey on covers and original songs. Queen also created song covers and remixes on her own. The collaborations, covers and remixes never went mainstream nor outside of the YouTube platform.^[14]

After her public breakup, Queen Naija dropped "Medicine" on December 31, 2017, and in less than two weeks, it had more than 2 million views on YouTube.^[15] In an interview with Fader magazine, she described the song as "Medicine was basically made to confirm to my supporters on YouTube what happened in my marriage. They wanted to know was I leaving or not. I didn't want to say anything because the first time after the cheating situation happened, I stayed. I felt stupid. But then it happened again privately and I didn't want everyone to be like, I told you so. So instead of talking about it, I told them I'd write a song about it. Once I saw how crazy it went outside of YouTube, I was like, Okay, I need to take music more seriously. I've always wanted to sing — I've been singing since I was three. I knew it was going to happen somehow, but I didn't know how."^[16]

2018: new artist/breakout R&B star

Queen Naija did an official lyrics and meaning interview for the song "Medicine" with Genius in January 2018.^[17] A month after the song's release, it had 5 million views.^[17] Queen documented on her YouTube channel a few meetings with record labels that she attended with her team/management.^[18] By March 2018, Queen's initial song post of "Medicine" had more than 10 million views.^[19] An official music video was released later that month.^[2] The video acquired 4.5 million views on the day of its release, and has over 95 million views as of December 2018.^[20]

On April 25, 2018, Queen Naija signed to Capitol Records.^[21] On June 28, 2018, she released her second single, "Karma". She had written and recorded the song in January 2018.^[22] In an interview with Genius, she described this song as being a more personal story: "I just was trying to get a more personal because “Medicine” was personal. I just wanted to tell people how I really, really, really felt, like about not being confident about myself, and the reason why. I wanted people to know all the good that I was doing too. Like, how I stuck by his side, and all that stuff. How I was a good woman, and how I felt."^[23] On its release day, the song reached #1 overall on the iTunes charts.^[24] "Karma" closed the week as the thirteenth-best seller in the United States, thus taking #13 on the Billboard Digital Songs sales chart.^[25] In July 2018, "Karma" debuted at #63 on the Billboard Hot 100.^[26] Five months after its release, the video has over 62 million views as of December 2018.^[27]

2018: Queen Naija EP

Queen Naija released her self-titled extended play on July 27, 2018. It consists of five songs: "Medicine", "Karma", "Mama's Hand", "Butterflies", and "Bad Boy".^[28] The project includes production from No I.D., El Jefe, Rob Grimaldi, 30HERTZBEATS, and ClickNPress.^[29]

Queen Naija has described the EP as an emotional journey in which each song describes either an experience or emotion she has gone through.^[30] The songs reference topics including heartbreak and betrayal, motherhood, and finding new love again.^[31] "Medicine" deals with her heartbreak and emotions toward her ex-partner, and "Karma" explains overcoming the heartbreak while sending a message that she will be fine. "Mama's Hand" dedicated to her son; she promises to give him everything and encourages him to have optimistic thoughts about the future.^[32] "Butterflies" reveals that she is beginning to fall in love again with someone new. "Bad Boy" describes her connection with a new lover, and how her goodness may cause him to change for the better.^[32] In August 2018, the EP debuted at #26 on the Billboard 200 and reached #1 on the Apple Music R&B charts.^[33]

Discography

EPs

Singles

References

External links

• Official website

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