Christine and the Queens

Christine and the Queens

Christine and the Queens is the musical project of French singer and songwriter Héloïse Adélaïde Letissier, who is born in 1988 in Nantes, France. Letissier releases work under a changing set of names and personas, including Christine and the Queens, Chris, Rahim, Redcar, Red and, at times, the birth name Héloïse Letissier. The project is associated with art pop, electropop, indietronica and pop, and records on Intranquillité S.A.S.

Career

Letissier begins the project as Christine and the Queens and releases the debut full-length album Chaleur humaine in 2014. An English-language version of the album, titled Christine and the Queens, follows in 2016. The second studio album, Chris, appears in 2018 and marks a shift to the shorter name Chris, alongside a persona described as a woman playing with masculine tropes.

Name changes and identity

Letissier uses a number of personal and stage names across the project. He says he has “many names for all the layers”. In 2021 he uses the name Rahim, then later a sequence of names including Sam le pompier and a full stop before settling on Redcar, sometimes shortened to Red. In 2022 he updates his pronouns to he/him across social media. By 2023, with the release of Paranoïa, Angels, True Love, he seems to have returned to Chris, while still sometimes using Héloïse Letissier.

Selected releases

Chaleur humaine establishes the project’s profile in 2014, and its English version extends that material for an international audience in 2016. Chris is followed by Paranoïa, Angels, True Love, the fourth album released in 2023.