Dreamer Isioma 2,179

Serena Isioma, better known by their stage name, Dreamer Isioma, is a Nigerian-American multigenre singer-songwriter and guitarist from Chicago (though they spent their childhood moving across cities like London and Lagos), where they began learning music theory at three years of age.

They also extensively studied classical piano and violin later and attended a Catholic high school where they came out as nonbinary and queer. Their defiance of the convention is reflected in the fluidity of their music, which cannot be defined as one genre, but borrows influences from multiple, such as Afrobeats, psychedelic R&B, and Indie pop. During their junior year of high school, they became passionate about making music and cited their influences as Paramore and fellow Chicago native Chief Keef.

They made the transition to making music professionally in 2018, and their breakout song, “Sensitive,” went viral on the social media platform TikTok in 2020. The success of “Sensitive” propelled Isioma to then release two EPs in 2020, Sensitive, and The Leo Sun Sets, and then their debut, genre-bending album, Goodnight Dreamer in 2022.

They describe themselves as a “creative director” rather than conforming to a specific label of a performer.