Living in a place like Charlotte, a constantly growing metropolitan city, it is still surprising how some voices get drowned out among the chorus of activity. While LGBTQ+ spaces have grown in number over the years, some spots and organizations are not as visible as one might want.
When thinking about spaces for the city’s queer youth, there will always be a need for areas where one can find community with other peers, along with leadership that recognizes that sentiment. Thankfully, in the Queen City, we have a few organizations with that goal always in mind. One of the ongoing success stories is the music-based non-profit We Rock Charlotte.
Great ideas often thrive best when many hands are at work with the same effort. In 2022, two organizations melded into one. Girls Rock Charlotte, a local area chapter of music summer camps for young girls founded by Kelly Finley and Krystle Baller (they/them), merged with Baller’s Pachyderm Music Lab, a youth-directed music school, to form We Rock.
With Brit Swider joining the group as executive director and Baller taking the creative director role, along with the several hands that help out as leaders and teachers in the organization, an expanded dream was born. What was once programming for adolescent girls became a place where young students of numerous queer backgrounds could come together and grow their talents, whether femme, non-binary or transgender identifying individuals, or anywhere in the queer community.
Displayed on one of the walls in the We Rock headquarters on 22nd street, by North Davidson, is the organization’s vision statement. It reads, “We are an inclusive nurture and creative space that empowers all voices through music and arts in order to create a more just and equitable society.”
The inscription not only underlines the music aspect, the artistic medium We Rock’s foundation was built upon, but also a hope that the generations going through the programs learn value for each other, breaking the barriers and expectations of sex, gender and class.
Part of the rebranding, replacing “Girls” with “We” was an initial first step to signaling to those gender-diverse in their care that it was safe to be there.
“We were talking about changing the name for a few years, because when we started, gender language wasn’t where it is now, it changed really quickly,” Baller said. “From, I’d say 2018 and on, we started having a lot of non-binary kids and a lot of trans youth that identified as he/him, but definitely still fit in the bucket of what the Girls Rock camps were founded on, like social justice.”
Swider noted that the changes were not only present in the new faces, but in the returning ones as well. “Some of our youth started at [for example] maybe 10 years old,” she said, “and by the time we changed our name, they were 16 or 17. Some kids had transitioned and changed, growing into their gender identity. And so, we wanted to make sure that they all felt welcome, and We Rock was a perfect name.”
Another way the staff at We Rock has helped open up the conversation is by being the medium in bringing gender language to older generations, helping the parents of the teens being taught have a better understanding of the changes. “Teens are going to be confusing their parents forever about everything,” Swider quipped, laughing as she did so. “We have workshops where the adults will start talking, and we’re able to facilitate a conversation in order to help them understand their kids too, which is really cool, because you have some straight parents that say ‘I don’t understand pronouns, and I feel embarrassed to ask anybody, and my kid doesn’t want to tell me, because they’re a teenager, and we’re like, ‘We got you covered. Ask us anything.’”
The way We Rock brings social justice into their programming embraces elements both subtle and in plain view. For the latter, it is all about building with the community immediately in front of us. A giant step in that direction is being open and honest with the people in the programs the non-profit puts together.
“The social justice aspect is really just having real conversations with people … doing something like joining a class and being a part of something that maybe you wouldn’t have necessarily done,” Baller explained. “Going and meeting new people is really hard, and so you’re already in this kind of vulnerable place. But then, we introduce discussion questions that get people to talk about their past or their hopes, their dreams and then you really get to know people in a short amount of time through our camps and our programs.”
“And so you build genuine, real relationships. It’s not just like, ‘Oh, I’m going to go play music with my bro.’ It’s like, ‘Oh, I’m going to go play music with this group, and we’re actually going to have a real connection.’ And that’s what we’re all hungry for, a connection, and that’s what We Rock is.
“Most everything is on a screen now, and the relationships are fake. We get lost in that, but our programs are like a hub for people and talking about things like issues that are pressing, especially now more than ever, and having space for those tough conversations, allowing everyone to be on the same level and get to know one another.”
The organization seeks to open doors and create possibilities for their students and aims to fill the gaps in modern music today. On the local and regional levels, there are Charlotte favorites that came directly out of We Rock’s programming, like Baller’s band Hey Richard and the female-punk outfit Obsidian Femmes. Members of local music groups have also come in through classes and gatherings, whether to gain more connection to musicians like them or to even pass on their lessons, like Laura Staples of Mercury Dimes.
“For example, [there’s a] gender gap in the music industry, and [that’s one of our responses], just a safe place for girls to go play music together. Girls can be drummers too. Girls can write their own songs. The statistics in the music industry are still really low. That was a survey done in 2020. I keep thinking [that] only two percent of music producers are women. So that means, even if you write your own songs, you’re always going through this filter of a man’s perspective, which is just not diverse.”
Already in 2025, We Rock Charlotte is hitting the ground running with a full outline of where they’d like to take students this year. Currently starting now are the Rock N’ Reel program and the Amplify! Workshops, both of which will go from January to May.
For Rock N’ Reel, students ranging from the first grade and up will be working one-on-one with instructors to put together an original song, along with using the Logic Pro X application to make a music video for it. Students will also learn how to create a video storyboard, which will be used for producing the video they make, giving each participant a starting education in audio and music production.
Then, in the Amplify! Workshops, a free program that welcomes people of all ages, (each age bracket in their own individualized classes), applicants will get to learn a variety of skills as well as discuss topics based in collaboration and intersectionality. Swider and Baller laid out a preview of the Jan. 25 event for us, with the central musical element involved being Beat-Making.
Through the class session, participants will go through activities together involving both arts and social justice aspects, all before splitting into groups where everyone will work as a team to accomplish a goal by the end of the class. Other activities will be included in the workshops, from set-building to stop-motion animation, all leading to the participants using what they had learned to create, a feature-length film, to be shown on a later announced date at the Independent Picture House.
Throughout the year, We Rock aims to be extremely involved in the city’s community, teaching and sharpening music skills through programs like their kid and teen Rock Camps in July and “Rockstars: Femmes & Thems.” In 2025, the non-profit will also start putting on all-ages punk and metal shows in their newly renovated setup behind the organization’s house. With both free and paid programs available, there’s always something both fun and perspective-changing to experience from We Rock Charlotte. For more information, visit their website at https://www.werockclt.org/.