Henry, August
South Ramp
Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist August Henry officially began his music endeavors at the age of nine years old, recording demos of original piano compositions in GarageBand. The summer of 2015, August attended Girls Rock! Lawrence, a camp in Lawrence, Kansas geared towards empowering girls and gender-nonconforming youth through music, art, and a strong community. It was at Girls Rock! Lawrence that the then eleven-year-old started to question his alignment with the "female" label he was assigned at birth. Henry attended Girls Rock! for four years total, across the span of which he experimented with playing bass and drums, and became more confident with vocal performance. Officially coming out as transgender in 2016 at the age of twelve, August Henry began a solo project that explored how his queerness shaped his experiences. Early original songs such as "Cure All", a vulnerable expression of his struggles with gender dysphoria and mental illness, garnered a lot of positive responses from family and friends, and reasonably, a few meetings with his middle school counselor. Deciding to take a break from writing solely on the ukulele as he had throughout middle school, August Henry taught himself guitar the summer before his freshman year. A year later at age fifteen, Henry recorded South Ramp, his debut album, in his bedroom. South Ramp is a riveting project implementing cello, guitar, keyboard, and vocals all performed by Henry. The seven tracks explore his freshman year of high school, focusing mainly on the complexity of queer relationships, mental illness, and gender dysphoria.