Every Celebrity You Know Went to Beyoncé’s Birthday Show, Here’s All the Gays
Beyoncé turned 42 yesterday, promptly celebrated with a sold out concert in Los Angeles, and every celebrity you know was in attendance. And maybe you would enjoy a gay-specific roundup of these celebrities at Beyoncé’s concert to aimlessly scroll so that you can escape your own life for even just a minute.
WELL MY FRIENDS! I am here to serve.
Janelle Monáe
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cw1uN_pONcM/
Janelle Monáe is in the middle of their own tour (my tickets are next week! And no, I cannot stop talking about it!) but somehow made the time to touchdown in LA and pay homage for Bey’s big day. Also, “the calm before the swarm” is iconic caption material.
Tessa Thompson
Tessa Thompson, of course, continued in the trend of making me want to yell the various parts of my body that she could step on or otherwise enact violence upon. It’s a gay thing. You understand.
Kehlani
A fellow earth sign herself, Kehlani easily wins “top” prize (see what I did there?) for most thorough recap of the night. Enjoy a tale in four parts: 1) Kehlani wishing Beyoncé a Happy Birthday from the car on the way to the concert, 2) a gratuitous — none of us are complaining!! — selfie from said car, 3) a shot of opening act queer DJ Kaytranada from HER SEAT ON THE STAGE, 4) the audience waving yellow and black balloons to Beyoncé in honor of her birthday concert.
And yes the yellow/black balloons were a grassroots fandom action. Adorable. I’m sorry it just is.
Fletcher
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cw07TqvvY6q/
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Niecy Nash & Jessica Betts
So if you’ve been following along, Niecy Nash & Jessica Betts are busy celebrating their third anniversary of the nationally known Black queer holiday that is their wedding day. The events of which have taken place over literal weeks because… have you met Niecy Nash-Betts??
Anyway the festivities have concluded with an epic date night and you absolutely must watch this video of Jessica finding out in real time that SURPRISE BITCHES, WE GOING TO BEYONCE because nothing else is quite like it!
Also Niecy in this cat suit. Respectfully. I am looking.
Laverne Cox & Trace Lysette
First, I’m sorry but… I just… You know.!?!?… It’s just…. suddenly I am so parched. I am walking barefoot across the Sahara. I cannot remember the sensation of what water feels like going down my throat.
Trace, you are not playing fair.
But then second, Trace met up with Laverne Cox and their friend (up-and-coming trans pop star) Mila Jam for the concert, and the edit Mila made on their mute challenge is a whole Oscar walking.
Victoria Monét
@victoriamonet STORY TIME!! 🪩 #greenscreen #storytime #renaissance #beyonce #beyoncesbirthday #virgo #virgoseason♍️ #dreams #victoriamonet
I love listening to Victoria Monét talk about literally anything in that silk soft voice she has. Yes sis, tell me about your dreams. Tell me about each and every one. Let me get closer, so that you can tell me more.
Willow Smith
Something about a blurry black and white of Willow Smith singing “Love on Top” at the top of her lungs is just so incredibly wholesome, you know?
Cynthia Erivo
I’m choosing to believe that Broadway great Cynthia Erivo purposefully picked this green photo of Bey to subtly plug Cynthia’s upcoming leading role as Elphaba in the movie production of Wicked, and that’s the kind of self-promo that we simply love to see!
(In complete and utter seriousness: the second slide of Cynthia sweaty, blurry, and smiling is worth a million trillion dollars.)
Lena Waithe
Ok there’s no image of Lena Waithe’s concert fit, but in exchange you get to listen to Beyoncé sing from the front row. I think we can all accept this even trade.
In addition to the birthday night itself, there were also other queer celebrities who came out all weekend long, so may I present to you….
Celebrities Who Came to Beyoncé’s Birthday Weekend (Nights 1 and 2)
Sarah Paulson
Sarah Paulson brought Pedro Pascal and there is a specific-subset of Letterboxd film gays who I am sure lost their ever-loving mind.
Sarah Paulson getting her life at Beyoncé’s concert is something that can be so personal to me! #RENAISSANCEWorldTour pic.twitter.com/0FVBeCrU3t
— sarah paulson's pr (@sarahpaulsbean) September 2, 2023
Also, shout out to the Sarah Paulson’s PR account on Twitter. I have no idea who this person is, but their posts cross my timeline so often!?! I am sure that they are gay. Is this person you? Are you gay? Let me know.
Amandla Stenberg
H&M invited Amandla Stenberg as their guest, and Stenberg went with a Josephine Baker-esque headpiece which I am obsessed with. Such an iconic Black queer femme tribute to the night’s festivities.
And since we are shouting out fan accounts, I have to give the team behind CelebsLoveBey their due respect, they’ve been working overtime all tour. 😮💨
Ariana DeBose
https://twitter.com/DC3_SQUAD/status/1698439325505962475
Ariana DeBose was a guest of SoFi Stadium and appeared to live out her best space cowgirl life!? I’m attributing it to her North Carolina roots.
Javicia Leslie
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cwz_kVnL2AW/
That’s that thique. That’s that keep going. That’s that never stop.
Syd
“Saw it live” is such a flex.
Keke Palmer
So! I put Keke in this section because she did see Bey for the first time on Friday, in a Black leather dress I will not soon forget. But she also returned on Monday for the birthday concert, which is some real boss-level fan shit and, as always, I aspire.
Here’s Sunday’s look:
And here Keke is doing a sneaky video of Queer Eye’s Karamo!?!? Isn’t it cute when the “stars” are just like us.
Happy Birthday Beyoncé, I’ve been rocking with you since Middle School sleepovers in ’97 — jumping up and down on my bed with my friends to Destiny’s Child first single. And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Victoria Monét’s “Jaguar II” Is Fighting for Queer R&B’s Life
I was late (relatively speaking) to discover Victoria Monét.
Monét has long had cred as a songwriter, having previously written for Brandy, Selena Gomez, and others, in addition to being the pen behind Chloe x Halle’s 2020 hit “Do It” and having written a significant portion of Ariana Grande’s entire library — including picking up a Grammy nomination for her work on Grande’s pop epic “thank u, next.” Still, it wasn’t until until Monét’s turn in front of the mic on the gay as hell “Touch Me,” off of Monét’s 2020 Jaguar EP (it’s about the amazing sex Monét used to have with Kehlani… oh, did I forget to mention that Kehlani is her ex?), that I perked up and paid attention.
The first thing that I caught about “Touch Me,” of course was how hot it was. There are few songs that I’d be willing to call “sex on a track” with a straight face — but it’s obviously at the top of that list. Second and much more lasting though, was that “Touch Me” filled something I had been longing for, craving really, without putting my finger on it and never being quite able to fulfill: it was a legit, mainstream radio play worthy, R&B ballad about two queer Black women.
Queer R&B is hard to come by (and trust, me I spend a lot of time looking). Yes, there’s Janelle Monáe’s Prince influenced love letters pansexual android queerdos flying high on spaceships, and there’s Jamilia Woods alto holding space for those of us Black girls who smell like a little too much coconut oil and our girlfriend’s lipstick coming back from the protest. Obviously, Kehlani is Kehlani. There’s a constellation, however small, of queer girls making their home in one of Black music’s longest traditions. There’s fewer still who have clawed their way to the status of being R&B’s up and coming It Girl, let alone while crooning about a preference for short fingernails or even cracking a weed joke that “it’s a bisexual blunt, it can go both ways” (which yes, is exactly how Monét opens Jaguar II in her 420 tribute “Smoke,” a duet with Lucky Daye).
Part of what has made Monét’s unofficial, but nearly uniformly agreed upon, Next Big Thing crowning so notable is that it comes at a time when R&B overall, depending on which discourse you plug into online, already has its back against the wall. In her review of Jaguar II for Rolling Stone, Mankaprr Coneth notes that “Whereas R&B divas like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and Janet Jackson once ruled pop, soul seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle of modern music… Maybe it’s because older R&B standards and the music in their lineage are less clippable for social media, relying on build up and slow burn when the internet demands speed and shock.”
To put it more bluntly, as Edward Bowser did in his Jaguar II review for Soul in Stereo: “R&B fans have watched the genre’s biggest legends abandon their core audience to chase trends; we’ve heard literal computer programs corrupt the lush harmonies that defined the genre, pumping out soulless drivel instead; and we’ve seen the art of songwriting – once poetic and heartfelt – crumble into the equivalent of your little niece’s troll tweets.”
I’ve been looking for queer R&B — because try as hard as I might, and as faithful to Mary Lambert’s “She Keeps Me Warm” as any Cancer queer who loves to cry into her morning coffee I might be, acoustic white lesbian coffeehouse jams are never going to be my thing. I grew up in the early 90s recording TLC and Aliyah mixtapes off of the radio in my bedroom. My love songs come in the tune of Keisha Cole, not boygenius. And while I’ll never join the chorus of those who worry that good R&B is dead, it’s hard not to observe the sticky and treacherous landscape it’s been forced to hold of late.
Here enters Victoria Monét’s follow up to her 2020 EP Jaguar with her debut full album, the similarly titled Jaguar II (the Jaguars were originally planned as a set of three, meaning we are smack dab in the middle of whatever Monét is cooking). Standing at just a little over 30 minutes long, Jaguar II is efficient, making the most of every second. Each single feel purposeful, with rich brass horns and smart production choices rounding out Moét’s already silk voice, creating something that I would only know how to describe as sounding like expensive incense, crystals, and the good red lingerie.
Though I would have preferred slightly more diversity in terms of tempo — melodic for melodic sake has never been my preference of choice — it’s impossible not to see Monét’s vision. A well-placed feature from dancehall legend Buju Banton on “Party Girls” expands her horizons, but without feeling like she’s stretching or trying to hard. Equally welcome is Earth, Wind & Fire’s feature on “Hollywood” (a shout out to those of us Black girls who grew up with Earth, Wind, & Fire on our Mama’s cleaning the house mix). I’ve written about “On My Mama” before, but it’s hard to undersell what a standout it is. Monét’s penchant for a earworm hook has never been better on display than in her glossed-up sample of Charlie Boy’s 2009 song “I Look Good” (Boy’s version was long a TikTok feel good sample, and now Monét’s has quickly pushed beyond every expectation). Jaguar II borrows from pop, dancehall, hip hop, disco, funk in ways that the R&B gods themselves intended. It’s the kind of album that could have landed at any point in the last 50 years and found its play cousins.
After she publicly came out as bisexual in 2018, Monét noted that one of the best changes in her life was the ability to write the correct pronouns of the love interests in her songs. It’s a small thing, really, but the opportunity to be yourself on your own terms — it tends to bleed everywhere. It makes you more full, complete, better. That same confidence is felt throughout Jaguar II and it’s wild to think: for Victoria Monét, this is still only a start.
You can stream Jaguar II now.
Cara Delevingne Directs Reneé Rapp Music Video About Meeting Your Clone at a Club and Then Making Out
OKAY, so maybe that’s not what this new Cara Delevingne-directed Reneé Rapp music video is TECHNICALLY about, but to me it is!!!!!
Delevingne has joined Kristen Stewart in the tradition of queer celebrities directing music videos for queer musical acts. Whereas KStew served up a cinematic dreamscape for boygenius, Delevingne took a seat in the director’s chair for a single from Reneé Rapp, whose debut pop album Snow Angel is out now.
The song, “Pretty Girls,” has a very similar vibe to Hayley Kiyoko’s “Curious” and other songs in the queer pop subgenre focused on the fraught relationship between queer women and closeted and/or curious women. In the case of “Pretty Girls,” Rapp sings of girls who only wanna make out late at night after a few drinks. In the Delevingne-directed music video, she encounters one such girl at the club, and the two spend a night of kissing, partaking in the lesbian tradition of sexy billiards, and a whole lot of heavy petting. The girl ultimately goes back to her man at music video’s end.
It’s all very playful, catchy, and sexy, Delevingne’s direction not exactly reinventing the wheel here but definitely conveying genuine intimacy that adds a layer to the straightforward narrative. My main thought while watching though, it must be said, is that this is a classic case of DYKE-ALIKING. Aka, when two queer women who are basically clones of each other end up in a sexual or romantic situation! Having just recently rewatched Black Swan for the 500th time, I gotta say I’m all about the Sapphic doppelbanger moments.
“I like a straight jacket / But it feels like it’s a little tight,” Rapp — gay god of wordplay — sings.
You can watch the full music video for “Pretty Girls” below and stream Snow Angel everywhere. Let’s here it for the dyke-alikes!
Playlist: We Run This, 50 Years of Women in Hip-Hop
Art by Autostraddle. Photography: Queen Latifah and Da Brat by Raymond Boyd/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images // Chika by Rodin Eckenroth/WireImage // Young M.A. by Prince Williams/WireImage // Megan thee Stallion by Steve Jennings/WireImage // Cardi B and Big Freedia by Paras Griffin/Getty Images // Roxane Shante and MC Lyte by Al Pereira/Getty Images/Michael Ochs Archive // Missy Elliott by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc // Lauryn Hill by Anthony Barboza/Getty Images // Lil Kim by KMazur/WireImage // Nicki Minaj by Steve Granitz/WireImage
There’s a story we tell about the founding of hip-hop: how on August 11, 1973, DJ Kool Herc hosted a party in the recreation room of his 1520 Sedgwick Avenue apartment building in the Bronx. He’d take to the turntables and showcase this new style of DJing that Herc called the “Merry-Go-Round,” which stitched together the danceable breaks of funk hits. Herc’s friend, Coke La Rock, would grab the microphone and rhyme over the instrumentals. And just like that, a genre — a culture — was born.
That is the story we tell but, like so much of hip-hop history, it’s an incomplete one. Like so much of hip-hop history, it’s one that erases, the contribution of women.
Here’s the truth: hip-hop isn’t born on that night without Kool Herc’s sister, Cindy Campbell. She wanted to buy some back-to-school clothes and she decided to throw a party to make some money. She paid the $25 charge to reserve the room. She designed the party flyers, by hand, on index cards that she’d gotten from school. She recruited her brother to DJ (mostly because she didn’t want to pay anyone else to do it) and leveraged his name to get interest from the community. She set the price for admission — a quarter for the ladies, two for the fellas — and sold drinks and hot dogs that she’d purchased wholesale. She was, in essence, hip-hop’s first party promoter. Without Cindy Campbell, August 11th isn’t the birthday of music’s most influential genre.
The stories of the Cindy Campbells of hip-hop can’t stay hidden forever and, more and more, we’re seeing those stories being told. Writers like Joan Morgan, dream hampton, Danyel Smith, Kierna Mayo, Clover Hope, and Syreeta Gates are leading the way in chronicling the triumphs and tragedies of women in hip-hop. Last week, Carmen and I reviewed the new Netflix docuseries, Ladies First, which chronicles the role of women in hip-hop since its inception. But what’s a celebration of women’s contributions to 50 years of hip-hop without a playlist?
I dug through Spotify’s library and picked 50 female emcees to showcase the past, present, and future of the genre. Admittedly, Spotify’s classic hip-hop selection is wanting — no Mercedes Ladies, no Debbie D, no Lisa Lee, no old school Michie Mee — but hopefully this playlist prays proper homage to the genre’s godmothers while saluting those who are carrying the torch today.
1. Funky 4 + 1 – “That’s the Joint” (Sha-Rock)
2. The Masterdon Committee – “Funkbox Party” (Pebblee Poo)
3. The Sequence – “Funk You Up”
4. Roxanne Shante – “Have a Nice Day”
5. Sparky D – “Sparky’s Back”
6. J.J Fad – “Supersonic”
7. Sweet Tee – “I Got Da Feelin'”
8. Salt-N-Pepa – “Push It”
9. MC Lyte – “10% Dis”
10. Oaktown’s 3.5.7 – “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah”
11. Queen Latifah – “Ladies First”
12. Monie Love – “Monie In The Middle”
13. Yo-Yo – “You Can’t Play With My Yo-Yo”
14. Sister Souljah – “The Hate That Hate Produced”
15. Digable Planets – “The Rebirth of Slick” (Ladybug Mecca)
16. The Lady of Rage – “Afro Puffs”
17. Da Brat – “Funkdafied”
18. Bahamadia – “Uknowhowwedu”
19. Heather B – “If Headz Only Knew”
20. Boss – “Deeper”
21. Lil’ Kim (ft. Missy, Da Brat, Left Eye and Angie Martinez) – “Not Tonight”
22. Missy Elliott – “Beep Me 911” (RIP Magoo)
23. Lauryn Hill – “Lost Ones”
24. Rah Digga (ft. Eve and Sonja Blade) – “Do the Ladies Run This”
25. Foxy Brown – “Hot Spot”
26. Eve – “What Y’all Want”
27. Charli Baltimore – “Stand Up”
28. Trina – “Pull Over”
29. Jean Grae – “Don’t Rush Me”
30. Crime Mob – “Knuck If You Buck” (Diamond and Princess)
31. Remy Ma – Conceited
32. Nicki Minaj – “Did It On ‘Em”
33. Mykki Blanco (ft. Princess Nokia) – “Wish You Would”
34. NoName – “Diddy Bop”
35. Young M.A. – “OOOUUU’
36. Leikeli47 – “Money”
37. Tierra Whack – “Mumbo Jumbo”
38. Janelle Monae – “Django Jane”
39. Big Freedia (ft. Lizzo) – Karaoke
40. Little Simz – “Venom”
41. Rapsody (ft. Queen Latifah) – “Hatshepsut”
42. Chika – “Songs About You”
43. Megan Thee Stallion (ft. Beyonce) – “Savage”
44. Cardi B. (ft. Megan Thee Stallion) – “W.A.P.”
45. Michie Mee (ft. Tonya P) – “Made It”
46. Saweetie (ft. Doja Cat) – “Best Friend”
47. Latto – “Big Energy”
48. Flo Milli – “Conceited”
49. GloRilla (ft. Cardi B) – “Tomorrow 2”
50. Doechii – “What It Is”
Keke Palmer Dances in Boxers in Usher’s “Boyfriend” Video, a Well Timed Clapback to Her Ex
In July, Keke Palmer went to an Usher concert. Perhaps you heard about it.
Keke attended Usher’s Vegas residency with friends in a black and sheer body hugging dress (because mama has boddyyyyyy and when you have it, you should flaunt it). At one point during the concert, Keke was serenaded by Usher and in response to both these events (the dress, the serenade) her now-ex Darius Jackson logged onto Beyoncé’s internet of all places to say that her behavior wasn’t becoming of — gasp! — a mother (Jackson is also the father of Keke’s baby son). Presumably this is now why Jackson is Keke’s ex. And that’s a good reminder to everyone who’s ever thought that being in a relationship with someone meant you have a right to control how they adorn their body, another choice is to just sit there and eat your food.
Ok so Keke wore the dress, everyone on the internet had opinions and wrote thinkpieces about the dress and her ex, and now we have arrived here today.. with Keke Palmer having the last word.
Usher has released his newest single “Boyfriend” and the music video stars none other than Keke Palmer, dancing around in a luxurious bathrobe, sports bra, and boxers during a girls weekend at a hotel suite in Vegas. She drinks champagne and winks at the camera while lip-synching “Somebody said your boyfriend’s looking for me/… He should know I’m easy to find/ He can look for me wherever he sees you” — which yes, on face value that line is absolutely about Usher taunting an off-screen boyfriend. But, you don’t have to scratch especially deep beneath the surface for a queer line reading of Keke Palmer rolling around in a pair of boxers while crooning that someone’s girlfriend is going to be thinking about her at night.
Also, if you were wondering if there’s a deliciously well timed “I’m a muva” call out at the end there, just know you won’t be disappointed.
Bisexual R&B Star Victoria Monét Is Giving Sexy Tomboy in New Music Video
Texas rapper Charlie Boy’s 2009 “I Look Good” has long been one of my favorite TikTok audios (how can it not? With lyrics like “On my Mama, on my hood, I look fly, I look good” — an affirmation for the ages!), and I love hot, talented bisexuals who also happen to be Kehlani’s ex-girlfriend… so I was always going to be an easy mark for Victoria Monét’s “On My Mama.” For my money it’s the best song to come out this summer not already written by Janelle Monáe. It’s easily my most played song on Spotify.
Then last night, Victoria Monét did a midnight drop for the “On My Mama” music video. And these visuals?? This aesthetic??? All hell broke loose.
Every detail is exquisite. Choreographer Sean Bankhead created an absolute homage to 2000s era R&B videos. You can see Aaliyah in every hip tick. It’s hard not to take in the Southern charm and not see Destiny’s Child on the same hallowed ground. And Victoria delivers seamlessly. And then there’s the candy paint on the vintage cars and Black fraternity and sorority callouts?!?! The cameos by Victoria’s own Mama Monét and her daughter Hazel — really putting both feet into the song’s namesake? Whewww weeee.
Basically what I’m saying is, if 106 & Park or TRL was once your gay root and you just so happen to love it when queer girls dress up like a ’00s era Ciara music video, “On My Mama” was made for you.
oh she said do NOT forget that i am bisexual https://t.co/Dt4HpmuiTP
— 🌐｡ ₊°⊹ ࣪ ˖💿๋࣭ ⭑ (@maybecomputer) August 15, 2023
Let the gay ass church say, Amen. 🙏🏾
“On My Mama” is the latest release off of Monét’s debut studio album Jaguar II, which comes out August 25th. She’ll be kicking off a headline tour this fall and I feel supremely confident in saying that we can all expect even more Black bisexual babe activities to commence. Because I mean, look at the material.
Bravo Dyke Obsessively Breaks Down the Lesbian Fantasy Morgan Wade/Kyle Richards Music Video
Bravo Dykes, assemble!!!! Perhaps you have been wondering why I haven’t yet wandered into the waters of the ongoing rumors about queer country music singer Morgan Wade and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills OG Kyle Richards possibly being in a relationship together. Listen, I’ve left these rumors to the Bravo gossip accounts to obsessively document and try to prove. Over here at Bravo Dyke Headquarters, we try to stick to things that unfold in the main text — a.k.a. on screen rather than the secondary text of social media. If Morgan shows up in the next season of Beverly Hills, you better believe I’ll be all over it.
But now, I simply must dive in. Because a full-length music video for Morgan’s song “Fall in Loe With Me” starring Kyle Richards as her MILFy next door neighbor who she has a torrid suburban summer affair with? Yeah, we’re gonna count that as main text.
As a brief overview: When Morgan started showing up more and more in Kyle’s Instagram life earlier this year, certain queer viewers went…hmmmm. But Kyle’s marriage to Mauricio has always seemed like a bedrock of heterosexual stability — easily one of the last Bravo marriages anyone thought would ever change, up there with Lisa Vanderpump and Ken Todd. Then, there were shocking reports of a potential separation between Kyle and Mauricio, reports the couple denied.
Kyle and Morgan then went live on Instagram to shoot down rumors of their courtship. Kyle says she became obsessed with Morgan’s music, listened to it on repeat, followed her on Instagram, and then received a DM from Morgan asking why she’d followed her. From there, an intense friendship was sparked. Morgan and Kyle then further denied the dating rumors by saying that actually they are merely going to play lovers in an upcoming music video of Morgan’s.
Well, that music video is here. And I’m here to break it down for you beat by beat. I gotta say, even though it does seem like Kyle and Morgan are leaning into the rumors for playful effect, it doesn’t really work toward making it seem like there’s NOTHING going on?!?!?! While they are “playing characters” in the video, I shall refer to them as Morgan and Kyle below for the sake of clarity.
We open on Morgan quite literally UNLOADING A U-HAUL. Do we think Kyle already knew jokes about U-Haul lesbians prior to hanging out with Morgan or did Morgan have to tell her? Also, it’s hard to make a shot of a U-Haul even gayer, but Morgan has accomplished exactly this by making the first box she lifts be the one labeled BARBELLS.
There’s a lot of Desperate Housewives-esque horny suburban voyeurism happening in this video, starting with this opening sequence of Kyle watching Morgan unload her U-Haul from afar.
Apparently, she likes what she sees. Because next thing we know, Kyle is click-clacking in her red gloves on the keys of a vintage typewriter, presumably writing a love note. The crumpled pages around her suggest she has gone through many drafts of said love note. She has to get this right! She spritzes it with perfume, seals it with a kiss, draws on a heart on the envelope with lipstick. She wants this letter to smell and taste like her. She’s also wearing a lock on her neck, and I have a feeling a certain new gay next door might hold the key to unlocking it.
Let’s go directly from sending and receiving one love note to taking a bath together SURE WHY NOT. The whole point of this video is fantasy, right?! The neighbors bathe together and also blow bubbles…while IN a bubble bath? Seems like too many bubbles if you ask me.
Now Morgan must simply take to the page and pen a song about taking a bubble bath while blowing bubbles with her new neighbor. I assume the song is called “Bubbles.” But what is Kyle doing next door whilst this songwriting sesh is transpiring?
WORKING OUT SENSUALLY IN 80S GARB AND HIGH HEELS. Obviously. Now it’s Morgan’s turn to watch.
And it seems Kyle likes to be watched, as she makes direct eye contact while tipping her workout visor (?) in Morgan’s direction. She’s also in the splits, which as anyone who has seen early seasons of Beverly Hills knows, is Kyle’s go-to move when she’s wasted (along with swinging her ponytail around).
Next is the part of the music video where EVERYONE IS WET.
Just, like, literally wet. Water everywhere.
Then Morgan pulls Kyle in for the first of several almost-kisses in the music video. Can I get didactic for a moment? I think that if there’s a rumor you’re dating someone and you want to be cheeky about those rumors by starring in a sexy lesbian fantasy music video together then…why not just go for the actual kiss at that point? The fact that they just let their lips HOVER over each other instead of actually committing makes it seem, to me, like the rumors actually have MORE validity? And to actually kiss would be to enter the space of the “real” affair (if it really were happening). DOES THAT MAKE SENSE? AM I OVERTHINKING THIS?
Now we’re in the kitchen, but I don’t think any cooking is going to happen! Nope, just an array of fresh fruit fed to each other. Brings on a whole new meaning to GIRL DINNER. Also, more almost-kissing.
I, too, love fruit.
Then Morgan wakes up on her couch, implying this was all a dream? But also is surrounded by kiss-sealed envelopes? So was it a dream or was she just really tired from all that fruit-feeding they did together and therefore needed to take a quick nap at home????
Kyle comes over in a chest harness, and Morgan winks at the camera. And yes, I GET it. I know they’re both trying to squash the rumors by literally playacting the rumors out in the fantasy space of a music video steeped in fantasy. I know the wink is meant to tell us we’re all very silly for thinking any of this is REAL.
But tell me if I’m wrong: It really feels like it’s accidentally doing the opposite! I’ve seen Kyle in the Halloween movies; she’s not that good of an actor! And yet…here she is…acting…quite…awards worthily. And even if this is just an extreme version of queerbaiting, it works! I’m baited! And not even mad about it because the country camp laced with homoerotics feels made specifically for me! And if Kyle (54) and (28) do end up in an IRL gay age gap relationship, that’ll just be the cherry on top. Speaking of top, Kyle once said she’d be one if she were in a gay relationship:
this is the best thing that has ever happened to me!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/9EWq5YICRk
— kayla kumari upadhyaya (@KaylaKumari) December 13, 2015
(If you’re wondering if I have an archive of Gay Things That Have Happened or Been Said on Bravo Shows on hand at all times, I do. I do indeed.)
And if the rumors ARE true, I’ll have to admit Kyle wasn’t even on my Housewives Who Might Have a Late in Life Queer Awakening bingo card!!!!!!!!!!!!
You can watch the full video here:
Netflix’s “Ladies First” Recenters the Women of Hip-Hop in Their Complex Grit, Beauty, and Honesty
Yesterday Netflix released their new four-part docuseries Ladies First, an in-depth retrospective of the foundational role that women have played in shaping hip-hop music and culture, timed to honor hip-hop’s 50th anniversary. Executive produced in part by Black feminist writer and filmmaker dream hampton (Suriving R. Kelly) and featuring the stories of queer rappers like Da Brat, Chika, Cardi B., Megan Thee Stallion, and yes Queen Latifah (whose 1989 anthem is where the series gets its name) — Ladies First seeks to recenter the stories of women who built the culture from its earliest days in their complex grit, honesty, and beauty.
But even as Ladies First allows us to chronicle the evolution of hip-hop, we’re also seeing the ugly truths of history being written right in front of us, and keeping Megan Thee Stallion in our hearts and minds as news broke this week of Tory Lanez’s sentencing. Yesterday, the Canadian rapper was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the 2020 shooting of Meg Thee Stallion. It is a stark reminder that, for women, hip-hop is about more than beats and rhymes, it’s also a story of survival and sisterhood.
As much as Ladies First is a tribute to women in rap, it’s also a tribute to the women who wrote about rap. In addition to executive producing the series, dream hampton — who famously wrote for The Source — also serves as the director of the third episode. Along with the rappers and creators themselves, Black women editors and writers who had front row seats to some of rap’s biggest names, such as Joan Morgan and Kierna Mayo, make frequent appearances. These women transcribed the culture, and for Carmen, made her fall in love with it in the first place.
The women’s work behind this culture never happened in silo. So it only felt right for Carmen and Natalie to join together and talk about the series.
Natalie: So, I’ll start with a question I’m cribbing from Sid Shaw in the classic black rom-com, Brown Sugar: “When did you fall in love with hip-hop?”
Carmen: Ok so my hip-hop origin story is one that I’ve written about before on this website and I think in some retrospects has become my brand — at least three people sent me the trailer for Ladies First within hours of its release because of it — which is that I first fell in love with hip-hop at about eight years old, when I received Queen Latifah’s Black Reign album as a birthday present and proceed to learn every syllable of “U.N.I.T.Y.” from the backseat of my mom’s Ford Focus.
Looking back, I can’t believe I was so young!! Me and hip-hop, it’s really been a forever thing. So Natalie, when did you fall in love with hip-hop?
Natalie: I’d always grown up with hip-hop around me… and it’s a testament to my older sisters. Growing up, one of my sisters was really interested in poetry and storytelling and just saw hip-hop as an extension of that. My other sister really enjoyed the club bops that created a branch of hip-hop that you could dance to, so she listened to that all the time. So that’s where my connection to the genre really got started: just watching them and consuming what they were.
When I got to college, things shifted into overdrive. I’d liked hip-hop before, but I didn’t love it until college. I worked at the newspaper and the radio station was right down the hall… so I’d encounter people who were deep into the culture. I met DJs, producers, and emcees who just opened up the world of hip-hop to me and I fell in love with it.
Carmen: I’m actually glad we’re starting here, because one of the things I wanted to point out is that you’re actually a closet hip-hop head! Well, maybe not “closeted” but I remember that the first time I really came to understand the depth of your knowledge for the culture, it blew me out of that water.
Natalie: I think you’re overselling it, but thank you. This brings me to another issue. I think, if you’re a fan of hip-hop you know when you fell in love with the genre but if you’re a woman… and especially a black woman… and especially a black queer woman… there’s also a moment when you’re like, “okay, this is too much.” Have there been those moments for you?
Carmen: You know, interestingly, and I think this also came from me falling in love with the culture at such a young age… but for a long time, I made a lot of excuses. They were just little things that I swallowed and kept swallowing to be in the music, you sort of — I think especially as a Black queer woman who grew up loving hip-hop in the 90s and the 00s — you had to have a thick skin.
Nelly’s “Tip Drill” in 2003 changed things for me. I was going into my senior year of high school, and that entire year “it must be your ass, cuz it ain’t your face” became a teenage boy catcall that I couldnt bottle up or push down anymore. And that’s before you get to the objectification of the credit card scene in the uncut music video, in which Nelly swipes a card between a dancer’s buttcheeks, that was my breaking point.
I read Joan Morgan’s When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A hip-hop Feminist Breaks It Down (Joan Morgan is a frequent talking head commentator in Ladies First) not long after that, and she broke the world wide open for me. I’ll never know if I ever loved hip-hop as much as I wanted to write like how Joan wrote about loving hip-hop. That book, her writing, it’s what made me want to become a writer.
Natalie: We see that necessity to have thick skin represented well in this docuseries too, right? You have KRS-One rapping on “The Bridge is Over” that “Roxanne Shante is only good for steady fuckin'” and, at the time, she’s still a teenage girl… and she has to have this thick skin and return shots at him with a record of her own.
Carmen: She was 15!!!!!! A child!!!
And you just know that KRS-One was jealous, right? All of these grown men MCs, really at the starting place of hip-hop because we’re talking about the 1980s here, still in hip-hop’s first breaths, they’re jealous that they are being out rapped by a little girl.
This also brings to mind a few other places in Ladies First where we see this trend play out again and again, Black women are subjected to various shades and genres of trauma, over and over, while Black men go on their way to superstardom and legendary status. Of course, immediately I am thinking about Dee Barnes.
Natalie: So, can I ask: how much did you know about the Dee Barnes situation before this docuseries?
Carmen: I knew the basics, that at 19 years old (and we really aren’t emphasizing enough how young so many of these girls were when they were creating the culture we’re all now standing in, just another example Queen Latifah was in high school when she founded Flava Unit) — at 19 years old Dee Barnes is hosting Pump It Up on FOX, she’s a teenager with a national television show. I won’t go into the specifics because I think it only furthers the harm, but she ends up physically assaulted by Dr. Dre. He goes on to become hip-hop’s first billionaire, and her career effectively ends in 1991 where he left her bloodied.
Carmen: I think that Joan Morgan speaks to this well in Ladies First, that Dr. Dre goes on to have so many opportunities to reinvent how we know him, but Dee Barnes becomes frozen in time, not for her accomplishments, but as his victim.
Natalie: One thing I loved about Ladies First was that it gave her an identity outside what happened with Dre. We were able to learn about Pump It Up and how groundbreaking it was. I honestly would’ve loved to see more about her because, as you say, I don’t want her to be frozen in time.
Carmen: I so deeply appreciated that Ladies First brings some of these women, who are perhaps now primarily known as famous survivors of abuse, and instead reinstates them as being the experts and contributors who built hip-hop that they are.
When Drew Dixon first came on screen, I audibly gasped.
Natalie: As did I.
But did it feel like a weird omission to you?
Like Drew Dixon’s sitting there, telling this great story about how she created the greatest hip-hop love song of all time… and how she was denied any credit for that… and it feels like there’s this HUGE elephant in the room.
We should clarify, for folks who don’t know, Drew Dixon is one of multiple women who have accused former head of Def Jam, Russell Simmons, of sexual assault.
it was very awkward, to know this fact about her and to have it omitted, even as we’re having conversation about the violence that women in hip-hop are sometimes subjected to.
Carmen: Without a doubt. I found it awkward — to put it mildly — that they didn’t go into Drew’s accusations about Russell Simmons (I’m assuming there was legal reasons for this omission, the documentary On the Record featuring Dixon, about the allegations of sexual assault facing Simmons, had a difficult time getting out in the world just a few years ago, for similar reasons).
But to not include it, that’s perpetuating the exact same whitewashing that other parts of Ladies First calls out directly. The supposed “godfather of hip-hop” does not get a pass.
I was so happy to see Drew included, especially in a context where we could revisit all of the goodness of her work and how she was a part of indelible, seismic shifts in hip-hop as we know it. But he should never be given that pass, and each time we do it, we are adding to that secrecy and harm.
Natalie: Absolutely.
Carmen: Something that I liked about Drew’s inclusion was that it told me a story I hadn’t heard before — that she was the force behind Method Man and Mary J. Blige’s iconic “All I Need” — easily a top tier favorite love song of mine. I loved imagining a young Drew running around to Bad Boy records to drop off a cassette tape (!!) to Puff Daddy (!!!) to make it happen.
I wondered if there were any moments like that for you in Ladies First — where you had a surprise?
Natalie: One of my favorite things about the entire docuseries is the window they give us into the lives of these young female emcees (Rapsody, Tierra Whack, Latto, Kash Doll). You find out how they got started rapping and what other female emcees helped them see that there’s space for them in hip-hop.
I loved Rapsody spitting MC Lyte verses, as if those songs just came out yesterday… and Tierra Whack recalling how Lauryn Hill was so crucial to her seeing a place for herself in the genre…
Time is weird… it’s been so long since The Score and The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill… that I forget how influential she was for me too… but then they played that clip from “Cowboys” with Rah Digga and I flashed back.
I thought those vignettes were really touching and I wish there’d been more of them to be honest.
Carmen: OK! I think we’ve warmed the mic up enough now, we should talk about a part of Ladies First that did not land well with me, which was its approach to queerness.
Natalie: I agree with you, the part of Ladies First about queerness didn’t really land. The thing that frustrated me most about it is that early in the series there’s a discussion of sexuality and how the new generation of female rappers are owning their sexuality in ways an older generation couldn’t even have fathomed.
And part of that discussion is about what’s female empowerment and what’s just appealing to the male gaze. But then we have to wait until the very end of the series to talk about sexuality as it relates to queerness. When those two things are two sides of the same coin in my book.
Carmen: Right. And to put even more context on that, the section on on “sexuality in women’s hip-hop” happens in the second episode, and is using the reign of Lil Kim and Foxy Brown in the late 90s as a gateway to talk about Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, and “WAP” — but there’s an implicit understanding (it’s never directly said but it is hard to ignore) that the sexuality they are talking about here is in a context of a supposedly straight framing. If for no other reason than because “queer sexuality” then gets its own unique section at the very end of the series that clocks in at less than 10 minutes. Honestly, I’d be surprised if it went longer than five minutes.
And even more confusingly, themes of Meg and Cardi’s explicit, in your face, sexuality are not mentioned in the queer section! Even though both Meg and Cardi are queer.
This isn’t the only reason that I found Ladies First’s discussion of queerness to unfortunately be wanting, but it damn sure is a start.
Natalie: I think at one point, there’s a clip from Meg’s instagram or something when she says she needs a new girlfriend.
Carmen: Yes! And it’s never discussed, the clip of Meg saying she wants a new girlfriend is put at the end of a section where they’re discussing Trina and Nicki’s use of women’s queerness and queer sex acts as a performance in their raps, though to the best of my knowledge neither of those rappers identify publicly as queer. So I feel like including Meg in that section is… confusing to say the least, especially with no context or discussion.
Natalie: I didn’t like the segment at all. Like, if you’re going to give us something that underwhelming, you can just keep it. Even beyond just creating a separate but unequal section for queerness, it was so poorly done.
Carmen: I have been thinking about this section non-stop to be honest! And on one hand, when the conversation finally comes around to queerness I will admit my first reaction was to sigh relief — I had been worried, since the discussion of sexuality in episode two that pointedly ignored queerness altogether — that Ladies First wasn’t going to broach the subject at all.
But as the minutes dragged on, the After School Special-ification of their approach to queerness just grated, with no balm to soothe it — because immediately following “the gay section” the documentary was over! So! What happened here?
Ironically, I feel like the narrative set up of Ladies First resulted in them “only female in the crew”ing queerness, without any sense of what that siloing implied. Even though they spent two hours discussing how separating out women in rap negates their contributions to the culture! To go around and then do that same wrongful separation to queerness, when queerness is baked right into the backbone of rap — baked right into the backbone of women’s rap, especially — it did not sit right with me at all.
Queen Latifah is a central frame point of Ladies First, the documentary is named after a song that she is a part of, she is returned to again and again. And she looks gorgeous every time, a queen on her throne. So then, how are we going to be skittish around queerness? Who is that helping?
How are we going to talk about Da Brat growing up in the Black church, and her rebellion from the church leading her to Funkdafied (a take on Sanctified) and not talk about queerness?
How are we going to talk about “WAP” and not talk about Cardi and Meg’s queerness? Or talk about the abuse Meg’s suffered and then not talk about the increased domestic violence and abuse statistically faced by bisexual women? Or the many, many famous bisexual women who have come forward about their abusers lately — of which Meg is a part of that wave?
It was just all so glaring to me.
I think just making queerness a five-to-ten minute segment at the very end, as if it wasn’t what we were talking about all along, was short sighted and leaves a bad taste on what was otherwise clearly a work of love and care.
Natalie: I absolutely agree. Weave it into the full story, rather than just tacking it onto the back-end.
Da Brat’s answers about why she stayed closeted for so long… it made it sound like, “oh, I was secret about everybody that I was dating” and then “when I met Judy and I couldn’t be quiet about it, I loved her so much.” But that minimizes the fear, right?
I just think we don’t have a picture of what the closet looks like for gay women in hip-hop and so I don’t know what the point was, if it wasn’t going to illuminate something.
I want to say, I don’t begrudge people taking their own time to come out. People absolutely should do what’s best for them and keeping themselves safe. But what I also know, as a queer woman, is that the closet is a lonely and suffocating place. And if we don’t talk about that — what it’s like in the closet — we’re both not seeing that person fully and can’t work to rid homophobia and transphobia from hip-hop.
Carmen: Yes! I think it’s also only telling half the story, in a documentary that spends over two hours going into painstaking detail of nearly 50 years of history.
Natalie: Exactly.
Carmen: Because I don’t know how you can tell a story about women in hip-hop, now that we’re really going there, and not tell a story about the closet.
I’m so happy for girls growing up with Chika, Rico Nasty, Meg, Ice Spice. But that is not the entry place of that story. A lot of the queer icons in rap that I grew up adoring, I still can’t name — even in this article — and that is also a legacy.
Natalie: We didn’t just evolve magically to this place where Chika can be unapologetically out and find the Whitley Gilbert to her Dwayne Wayne or where Young MA can rap about getting head.
Carmen: 100%
And I think part of what we’re both hashing out here in real time, I’m realizing it also makes me want to be slightly more generous to the filmmakers behind Ladies First because… how do you document something that is both so knotty, but also has been rendered invisible?
Natalie: But I think it starts with you having to ask the questions.
Carmen: Yeah, you’re right.
It seems so tender. Because you’re also trying to be respectful to a lot of people who, for a lot of various reasons, aren’t at a place where they want to talk about their own queerness (or perceived queerness).
Natalie: Right. They spend all this time opining on why Queen Latifah stayed closeted for so long… and it’s awkward because Queen Latifah’s been a big part of the series… but on this portion was about her but not with her.
Carmen: That’s such an illustrative example! Ladies First spends a relatively significant amount of time in their queer section discussing Queen Latifah’s “coming out” moment at the 2021 BET Awards. But it’s hard not to notice she’s pointedly absent, despite being in nearly every other part of the documentary, from the section that is about her own “coming out.”
Again, there is something unspoken — in this case, quite literally — that is happening in these waters.
Which ultimately, undercuts so many other things, a lot of them great, that are happening in Ladies First.
Natalie: Agreed.
Just Waiting To Be Found
feature image photo by Jeffrey Coolidge via Getty Images
I think about Billy Corgan a lot.
I used to, anyway. There was a solid 15 years where his name probably didn’t escape my lips, as I moved from Teenage Music Obsessions to broke single parenting, until he reminded me of his existence via chemtrails and broke my heart.
For my entire childhood, I spent every summer in the Appalachian Mountains. One of the benefits of being at Mamaw’s was access to cable, something we only had at home for a brief period, when my undiagnosed ADHD-hyperfocus obsessions began to shift from reading and berating myself to TV schedules, which shifted from Laudable, past Acceptable, straight to Inappropriate, despite being driven by the same behaviors. Remember to channel it to an appropriate place at all times, kids.
In the open kitchen/dining room, there was a small TV on a wooden stand, tilted to a diagonal, with a VCR, so Mamaw could keep an eye on the little kids while working in the kitchen. She also used the small TV to break up fights when kids wanted to watch the big TV in the living room, regularly used by Pawpaw to watch Judge Judy, Andy Griffith, and westerns in his navy blue coveralls from His Chair™, the La-Z-Boy we’d all play-fight to steal from him, partially because it was the best chair, and partially because we were all pests.
It was rare no one was in the kitchen, particularly during the summers. All six grandchildren, three permanent-residents of the small community and three of us dropping in for the summer months, along with every Thanksgivingwinterbreakspringbreak we could, depending on where we lived at the time. When the room was empty, I loved to flip through channels slowly, seeing what was going on out there, grateful it wasn’t stuck on Cartoon Network or the Weather Channel, hoping for an X-Files rerun because Law & Order marathons weren’t quite a thing yet.
As I came up on MTV, I started channeling through more slowly, hoping to pause to see what was on. MTV was Strictly Verboten in my home. Even when we had cable access in my parents house, I was too scared to sneak it, afraid I would be caught. Since it housed Beavis & Butthead and Trashy Music, it wasn’t worth the risk.
As I scanned through, though, the “Tonight, Tonight” music video was playing, near the beginning, and my hand immediately dropped. I sat there, mesmerized, watching the recreation of A Trip to the Moon — old things and most sci-fi of the era were allowed in our home — transfixed by the orchestral instruments. I desperately hoped no one would come in, forcing me to change the channel (out of obligation for my parents, out of embarrassment for the rest), until I could find out what this magnificent thing was.
I immediately grabbed a pen by the kitchen phone to scrawl it down.
As soon as I saw the band name, though, my heart sank. I knew anything called The Smashing Pumpkins would never pass the inevitable Is It Acceptable tests at home. I would immediately have to hide it or be afraid of this cutting judgment that made me feel terrible for liking the things I liked, a scrutiny I can’t stand up to, to this day, and the reason I could never go before a dissertation committee or even finish my portfolio in my Master’s program that required detailed notes and commentary from each member of the panel. I left the program with six credit hours remaining, partially because I was too weak to face it.
At some point during the short film as I tried to take in every moment, I noticed something a bit off about Billy’s hand but forgot about it. I held my breath, hoping something equally magnificent would come on, wondering if all Banned Music were that magical, and a video from Pretty Hate Machine began. I wasn’t quite ready yet and quickly turned the channel before someone heard it. MCIS had to be my entry point to the wider world of pop culture before I was ready for Trent Reznor.
My whole childhood, I was a saver. If I spent money, I very carefully combed ads, doing price comparisons of the different My Little Pony villages, to the point where my parents would sigh and say, just buy it. I always had a little stashed away, able to lend my folks a few dollars if they needed some cash because we were too far from an ATM and everything ran on physical bills.
I don’t remember how long it took me to buy Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. It may have been sneaking up the register at Walmart that summer in South Williamson, if it was open by then, or perhaps it waited until we drove back to Arizona, where we’d recently moved. That was the point, though, where I would go back and buy small things with my own money, and could slip in Fear Street books between more acceptable items. I listened to MCIS for the first time on a walkman with headphones and very, very slowly worked up the confidence to listen to it on my stereo until I felt brave enough to face any comments. Little did I know if I’d bought it elsewhere, it would have had the full song titles listed on the back and I’d have an Explicit Lyrics label to desperately peel off, as I began to do with Alanis, Veruca Salt, Pixies, Liz Phair, the Breeders, and eventually Nine Inch Nails. I slowly worked up to listening to the local alternative station by the end of sixth grade, starting off every description and justification to my parents with “They’re not bad, they’re…..”
Wherever I went, though, it always came back to the Pumpkins. Eventually, my parents were able to hear some good in it. My dad sat overnight with us outside Dillards with me, twice, to get sold-out-in-15-minutes tickets to small all-age club shows, as long as a friend’s parent also went.
I don’t know when I really started to notice Billy’s birthmark, but it was early on, and likely dug into some quality time of slowly loading articles found via Altavista or Lycos, in the era before Google existed. This was also the period where Billy always wore long-sleeve shirts (ostensibly) to minimize it, and I absorbed every word he publicly said on the topic.
I was born with vascular nevus. The top right quarter of my body was a dark black-to-red, turning more red with age, but the color changed dramatically from pink to red to purple to blue, depending on my blood pressure and temperature. A few who have gotten to know me well enough can use it as an indicator of my mood or nerves, knowing the patch that starts to turn purple if I get incredibly anxious. This birthmark has played both a huge, and also an almost nonexistent role in my life.
These days, I frequently forget it’s there, until I see a new doctor, who assumes I’m coming in for a dramatic rash and wonder why I’m not at the ER, or a new acquaintance will assume I had a terrible reaction to DC’s mosquitos and feel the need to comment on it. My favorite, though, was the time I was pushing my toddler in a cart at the grocery store, and a doctor kept following me, asking questions about it, asking if I’d come see him about it as I kept telling him no, it’s fine, it’s been monitored my whole life, please leave me alone. I’ve never met a doctor that hasn’t had 50 questions about it, that hasn’t asked me about removing it via laser with a hopeful glint in their eyes, warning of potential tumors and clumping blood vessels.
The family lore goes that it’s fairly rare in cis women, typically on the face, and rarely on the right side of the body. I don’t know if any of this is actually true or just stories for the dinner table. But other than a distant cousin who I’ve never met that had it on his left leg, every other person I’ve met with it has had it on his face, until Billy Corgan. To my knowledge, I’ve never met another cis woman with it.
When I was 16, my hand began locking in a claw, and I had surgery on it on the winter solstice. I watched Tori Amos perform on daytime TV once I was taken home with my head still in the clouds, the surgery performed by a doctor who took pictures of my entire birthmark topless, having me remove my shirt while he, the nurse and my mother were still in the room and watched, to my horror.
When I was 15 and went to my first Pumpkins show, my very best friend, who I’d met in an online chatroom years before, flew out to meet me for the first time from Albuquerque. I took her to school for a day, we ditched school for a day and watched Go at the AMC at the mall, and we went to the general admission show at a smaller theater with a revolving stage (that was stationary at the time), and saw one of the first shows since Jimmy returned to the band.
Before the show, we made friends with the kids in front of us in line — I was one of the earliest people to arrive because ADHD hyperfocus. We got them to hold our spot in line and waited in the back of the circle, where we got to meet Billy Corgan with a small crowd of teenagers. I don’t remember what I said; I didn’t have him sign anything. I just tried to thank him for opening up my world so much, for being that entry point, for helping me deal with my arm and develop the self-confidence to admit what I liked and why I liked it (a skill I’ve never quite honed and really would have helped me when I came out, very gradually, over the course of a decade). I stayed mesmerized by his arm as I shook his non-birthmarked right hand with my birthmarked right hand.
My friend and I ran back to our spot in line, near the opening to the bar, and waited with the kids from the local private Catholic school we’d met earlier, absolutely stunned. We got excellent seats despite feeling angst toward some VIPs who were escorted right past us. We patiently sat through the opener, Queens of the Stone Age.
That was the first of many times I saw the Pumpkins. There was the mini tour they did after D’Arcy left, with Melissa Auf der Maur, at a small bar in Tempe that was razed shortly after. Such a large crowd showed up that instead of doing a show in the wooden-fenced backyard of this bar, they did two performances and no signing. My sister, friend, and I were lucky enough to be in the group right after the cut-off, so we could watch the first show through the gaps in the fence, and the second show from the front.
During their break, I stayed up and bought Zwan tickets and cringed at how much I disliked Billy’s solo album, despite being delighted by how prominently he displayed his birthmark on the artwork, much more subtle than my own arm. When they reformed years later with only Jimmy and Billy remaining, one of my best friends from high school/college roommate joined me to see them at a newly constructed mid-sized venue four days before my 24th birthday, where they played music I didn’t know at the beginning and end of the show, but the middle was everything that got me through junior high and high school, including quiet renditions of “Thirty-Three” and “Perfect,” making every second worth it. Whatever changed in my life, I could always put on my Siamese Dream CD.
I’ve never listened to the new albums. I easily went over a decade without listening to the old albums, and when I was reminded of how much they meant to me, it was with the reminder that this person, who created so much that helped me come to terms with who I was, what I enjoyed, the initial judgments and literal, verbal commentaries by total strangers on my body out in the world, was aligning himself with the factions in this country that literally wanted me to either shut up or die, depending on who was speaking that day and how emboldened they felt. I’ve had almost a decade of grappling with that, finally coming full-circle and allowing myself to start listening to my favorites from time to time, remembering the years I carried the box from the Aeroplane Flies High boxset as my purse and lunchbox, and starting to let them back in my life.
10 Mountain Goats Songs, Ranked by Transness
feature image photo by Steven Dewall / Contributor via Getty Images
The Mountain Goats are easily my favorite band, and a quick survey of their social media fandom shows I’m not alone in my obsession with finding themes of gender oppression and transformation in their raw, high-wire, indie-rock lyrics about tragedy, monstrosity, drugs, and sickness.
As one fan put it: “if I had a nickel for every time John darnielle wrote something that isn’t explicitly about being trans but sure isn’t *not* explicitly about being trans, I’d have a lot of nickels.”
I recently had the pleasure of seeing them alive on their Bleed Out tour where, after nearly suffering a panic attack at dinner, I was transported to a crowd of other raving, crying queers holding each other close and trying hard to be unafraid of the future.
Singer-songwriter John Darnielle appears very aware of his trans fans. In a now-deleted twitter exchange, he wrote:
![a tweet that reads: [trying to subtly ask if a girl is trans] is she, y'know...a friend of john darnielle? The Mountain Goats twitter replies: I was so flattered by this that I immediately took a screenshot and sent it to several friends](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screen-Shot-2023-07-28-at-11.53.28-AM.png?w=590&resize=590%2C746)
This prompted fan-band INNNNI to write a whole song about being “a friend of John Darnielle,” fighting against every-day anti-trans actions. One fan even compiled every Mountain Goats song with even a hint of transness in a massive spreadsheet!
With a new album coming out about Jenny, a character from album All Hail West Texas the band describes as a woman “in the process of becoming someone other than the keyholder she’s been,” fans have speculated we may get confirmation that this enigmatic motorcyclist is some kind of trans.
With all this in mind, I think there’s no better time to write about the ten trans-est Mountain Goats songs of all time.
“Broom People” / The Sunset Tree
From the autobiographical and unabashedly vulnerable 2005 album, Darnielle flexes both his expressive voice and evocative lyricism on this track about poverty, self-harm, trauma, and the vitality of youth. It was this song that my partner and I rocked back and forth to in the front row, tears and sweat streaming like rain down our faces as we screamed the lyrics with Darnielle and backing vocalist Peter Hughes.
“Friends who don’t have a clue,
well-meaning teachers,
but down in your arms,
in your arms, I am a wild creature.”
I’ve always cried to this song. When I was a kid, I held a dozen secrets from friends and teachers — about suicide, about gender, about how achingly hard it was to get out of bed every day — and found comfort in the arms of people just like me.
“The Mummy’s Hand” / Unreleased
“Now hold on,” you ask, “isn’t it a little unfair to list a song we can’t legally listen to?” Well, it’s true that Darnielle only performed this song publicly once, but it’s my track of choice to belt alone in the car, and I make the rules. Go buy a copy of The Sunset Tree and wait to do the same for Jenny from Thebes, and I think you can dig into the archive of vanished songs with conscience clear.
“Say the spell three times, crank up the special effects
I’m gonna cast off all my bandages and see what happens next
I will rise fully formed
Like an infant, freshly born”
While not the last song on this list about rebirth, “The Mummy’s Hand” is a great example of the band’s enduring themes of embracing monstrosity. As if speaking directly to those who call any living thing a monster, the song asks “If you prick us, don’t it sting / if you kick us, won’t it hurt?”
While nominally about the Hammer Films horror icon, the lyrics are instantly relatable to anyone in the process of a liberating (if uncomfortable) transformation, and the invocation of shedding bandages evokes images of surgery and recovery. In the comments of a YouTube upload of the song, one fan wrote: “I’m going to come out at work tomorrow. I’m sick of this shit.”
“Birth of Serpents” / All Eternals Deck
On an endlessly witty album that covers everything from vampires to cavemen and Charles Bronson, this track resists definition. It’s partially about confusion: Its lyrics invoke twisting, cramped tunnels, vague visions in crystal balls, and blurry photographs. But as the vocals grow tenser and more strained, we get this delightful dysphoric refrain:
“See that young man who dwells inside
his body like an uninvited guest”
“Hail St. Sebastian” / Unreleased
Here we have another unreleased song. Darnielle claims he “promptly put [the song] away” after writing it, because “some things you have to kill, just to see if they will come crawling back,” which is both trans and metal as hell. Consider this the song crawling back, John.
“If it doesn’t crush me
It’s alright
If it doesn’t break me
It’s alright
All the petty demons trying to break me in two
I was born stronger than any of you”
“Hail St. Sebastian,” in addition to being titled after a martyr enthusiastically embraced by the gay community, fully embodies the pensive defiance of confronting hatred with grace. There’s something so liberating and heartbreaking about the lines “bless the brave assassins / who strike us while we sleep.” It always makes me cry.
This song is about any persecuted minority who goes down swinging, but the lyric “Everybody hates a victim / Who won’t stop fighting back” takes on a special heat when considering those infuriating neoliberal bigots who claim not to have an issue with whatever group is on the chopping block…as long as they’re not too loud when fighting for their rights.
“Palmcorder Yajna” / We Shall All Be Healed
On an album about addiction, this track may be the most explicit. Many trans people deal or have dealt with addiction, myself included. There was a time where I looked to anything to stop feeling, to stop thinking and be comfortable, however briefly, in my body. I put this song on the list not only for this reason, but for these lyrics:
“And I dreamt of a factory
Where they manufactured what I needed
Using shiny new machines”
Originally about the injustice of how the state treats those struggling with addiction and the lack of pure, safe drugs for those who need them, these lines are likewise relatable for anyone on hormone replacement therapy.
With climate change on the rise and trans healthcare under threat, the queer people who desire medication for transition are in fear of shortages and bans. But for another perspective, consider that the drugs we use to alter our bodies are not made for us. Estradiol and injected Testosterone were developed to treat menopause and hypogonadism in cis people, with the side effect of making some trans people happy. In these lyrics, I see the dream of drugs made for us, to help us alter our bodies at will, as best as science possibly can.
“The Young Thousands” / We Shall All Be Healed
By now, you may be asking if there are any songs by the Mountain Goats I don’t cry to. Well, yes! But they’re mostly the funny ones, like “The Monkey Song” and “The Anglo-Saxons.” Not this one.
I was in college when I first heard this track, heading to an English class taught by a professor whose philosophy of life changed me forever. It was autumn, and I stared out over the red-orange campus and felt the convulsive guitar and ringing piano push me closer and closer to coming out, like waves bearing a boat into harbor.
“The ghosts that haunt your building are prepared to take on substance
And the dull pain that you live with isn’t getting any duller
There’s a closet full of almost-pristine videotape
Documenting sordid little scenes in living color”
I identified so strongly with the lyrics it scared me. I had stomped down my gender confusion so much it left my whole soul bruised and tender, a dull pain which only got sharper with time. I tried to tell myself I was past the self-hatred and disgust that began at puberty, that I was content with my lot in life. But I, like the speaker of the song, had a closet full of evidence to the contrary, the memory of a thousand sordid scenes of gender-play and crossdressing more vibrant and real than anything I ever did as my assigned gender.
When I came out, it didn’t feel like a choice. It felt beautiful and inevitable, like the thousand ghosts of my body had decided for me.
“Hebrews 11:40″ / The Life of the World to Come
Given how queer people often have to find and forge their own families when rejected by the ones they were born into, the following lyrics on an album about death, rebirth, realization, and religion should hit close to home:
“Invent my own family if it comes to that
Hold them close, hold them near
Tell them no one’s ever going to hurt them here”
A song about surviving in any way you can, “Hebrews” reminds us it gets dark before you “feel certain [you are] going to rise again,” and echoes the solemn resolve of those aching for another body:
“Take to the hills, run away
I’m gonna get my perfect body back someday
If not by faith then by the sword
I’m going to be restored”
“Heretic Pride” / Heretic Pride
The definitive anthem of gays with religious trauma, “Heretic Pride” describes the same defiant martyrdom as “Hail St. Sebastian,” but is absolutely, positively feral about it. The second song and title track of the album, it describes a stoning from the perspective of the victim, who has nothing but spite (and yes, pride!) to show their murderers. At a show in Milwaukee, Darnielle summed up the song in gory detail: “You start to say to yourself ‘when they kill me, I hope my blood gets on them.”
“Well they come and pull me from my house
And they drag my body through the streets
And the sun’s so hot I think I’ll catch fire and burn up
In the summer air so moist and sweet”
As the ritual killing starts, the speaker “marks their faces,” as though memorizing them to haunt in the afterlife, and remarks:
“Transfiguration’s gonna come for me at last
And I will burn hotter than the sun”
That’s just the dream, isn’t it? That there will be a moment, however brief, where you can be you, the fullest, most effulgent, most fiery you there can possibly be.
“White Cedar” / Transcendental Youth
I was mooching off two college friends, living in their small apartment rent-free over the summer when I made my first appointment for gender-affirming care. I’d wronged both of them in different ways, but they were kind enough to let me live there and drive me back and forth to the clinic. When I got back, approved for HRT, I played this song and cried, turning every ounce of water to tears of joy, anticipation, and hope for redemption.
“I’ll be reborn someday, someday
If I wait long enough
I don’t have to be afraid
I don’t wanna be afraid
And you can’t tell me what my spirit tells me isn’t true, can you?”
My friends kept silent as the testosterone-blocking medications briefly depressed me, made me gaunt and tired, before the full flower bloomed and I left my old life and body behind. I can’t ever thank them enough for their help, and I hope they forgive me. I wish I could tell my smaller self that the day does come; you can change.
“Attention All Pickpockets” / Letter from Belgium EP
For my money, this may be the best song to ever come from the Mountain Goats. The shortest track on this list (just beating out “The Mummy’s Hand”), “Pickpockets” describes two friends separating with an excited, anxious love for the future.
“And the cornet blows
Where the oleander grows
And us two, not the same people that our old friends knew”
On one upload of this song, someone has commented:
“This song reminds me of how much I love my sister for who she is— even if for 20 years that was my brother. We don’t change because life stands still around us and I don’t know if our old friends would recognize us. Or care.”
I’ve met up with a lot of people I knew who transitioned since the last time I saw them. Sometimes, we bond over having to leave things behind, old friends and old selves. There’s nostalgia, hunger, and hope when we part ways. But other times, it’s more simple than that. Sometimes you’ve got to take a look at your life, then get in your car and drive away. It’s hard to carve a path for yourself, but you do the best you can, and “hope they’ve got plenty of money where you’re going.”
Jenny From Thebes comes out October 27, and the Mountain Goats announced a whole suite of tour dates alongside it. I’m getting tickets just for a chance to learn a little more about Jenny. And myself.
Queer Icon Sinead O’Connor Has Died at the Age of 56
“There was no therapy when I was growing up, so the reason I got into music group was therapy, which’s why it was such a shock for me to become a pop star, because that’s not what I wanted,” Sinead O’Connor says in the opening minutes of her 2021 Showtime documentary, Nothing Compares. “I just wanted to scream.”
Now, after 56 years of screaming, sometimes literally and sometimes silently, after a wild and controversial and fascinating life during which she was consistently willing to scream what nobody else was willing to even say — Sinead O’Connor has died. (She also has gone by the name Shuhada Sadaqat since her 2018 conversion to Islam.) Her family announced her death in an official statement, and the cause of death has not been disclosed.
Singer-songwriter Sinead O’Connor performs on stage at Vogue Theatre on February 01, 2020 in Vancouver, Canada. (Photo by Andrew Chin/Getty Images)
Sinead O’Connor’s life is impossible to summarize or to even try and summarize. Every narrative thread doubles back on itself. Her journey through this dimension has been a journey — her romantic relationships, her spirituality, her mental health, her career, her political activism.
The most popular story of her life is one that begins with her first album, The Lion and the Cobra, which earned her first Grammy nomination, and ramps up with second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, which contained her first big hit, “Nothing Compares 2 U” (written by Prince), and essentially ends in October of 1992, the night she ripped up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live. The response to this political action was near-universal outrage, and it overshadowed the reason she’d done so in the first place: to protest the widespread sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church and the Church’s lack of action around it. Like so many progressive and valid points made by misunderstood women of the ’90s, it should hit different now.
To O’Connor, that was hardly the end of her story, that was a return to the one she’d wanted to tell all along. Because, again, being a pop star wasn’t her dream. In 2021 she told The New York Times: “I’m not sorry I did it. It was brilliant. But it was very traumatizing. It was open season on treating me like a crazy bitch.”
“But the overreaction to O’Connor was not just about whether she was right or wrong,” writes Amanda Hess in that same profile. “It was about the kinds of provocations we accept from women in music.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0VpfiMcPPA
Sinead O’Connor’s disinterest in mainstream popularity perhaps was part of what enabled her to come out as a lesbian in Curve Magazine in 2000, which was not a popular time to do so. She appeared on the magazine’s cover, next to the words “Sinead Comes Out,” telling readers:
“I’m a lesbian… although I haven’t been very open about that and throughout most of my life I’ve gone out with blokes because I haven’t necessarily been terribly comfortable about being a lesbian. But I actually am a lesbian… I don’t think I necessarily paved the way for anyone, but other people paved the way for me.”
By the time she spoke to Entertainment Weekly about her sexuality in 2005, she’d landed somewhere else: “I’m three-quarters heterosexual, a quarter gay. I lean a bit more towards the hairy blokes.”
In a 2014 interview with PrideSource, she said she believed that “if you fall in love with someone, you fall in love with someone, and I don’t think it would matter what they were… I don’t believe in labels of any kind, put it that way. If I fall in love with someone, I wouldn’t give a shit if they were a man or a woman.”
Sinead was married to four different men in her life and had four children. In her 2021 memoir, Rememberings, she describes herself as specifically not a lesbian or a heterosexual, but asexual.
In many ways, however, Sinead’s personal affiliation with a queer identify was only part of the reason she became a queer icon. Look at her! Her shaved head, her genderqueer presentation, her Doc Martens and her leather jackets and her ripped-up jeans. Listen: her unapologetic activism, her nerviness, her angst, her fight, her courage, her struggles with trauma and despair, her constant quest for self-discovery.
31st Annual Grammy Awards. Broadcast February 22, 1989. Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, California. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)
O’Connor eventually would release ten albums as well as participating in numerous collaborative recordings, tribute performances and tracks for charitable causes. Her favorite collaboration was “Dagger Through My Heart,” which she did for a Dolly Parton tribute record. She toured throughout the country and overseas. Her songs appeared in movies like Albert Nobbs and In the Name of the Father.
Ultimately, her last offering to the world was a new version of “The Skye Boat Song,” which debuted as the opening title sequence for the seventh season of “Outlander,” in February 2023.
Sinead O’Connor attends the “Albert Nobbs” soundtrack release party at Palihouse Holloway on January 6, 2012 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic)
In 2022, her 17-year-old son, Shane, died by suicide, after which time O’Connor, who had long struggled with her mental and physical health and had spent six years in and out of mental health facilities, hospitalized herself for suicidal ideations. She also cancelled the release of what would’ve been her final studio album and her final tour.
Her friends described her to The New York Times as “a naturally loving person” and a “generous soul” who “wears her heart on her sleeve.”
An artwork featuring Sinead O’Connor at the Hard Rock Cafe in Dublin. The Irish singer best known for her hit single Nothing Compares 2 U, has died aged 56. (Photo by Niall Carson/PA Images via Getty Images)
I saw her live only once, at Lilith Fair in suburban Detroit in 1998. She performed at dusk, as the side-stages were closing and everyone was settling in on the lawn for the night ahead, stoned or buzzed or high on life on our blankets. When she started playing Nothing Compares 2 U, the restless crowd’s attention was finally and absolutely focused. The way she sang was so raw, the song was so sad, and we all knew it, we’d all heard her sing it and we’d heard Prince sing it and that night we all sang it together. I said nothing can take away these blues. ‘Cause nothing compares, nothing compares to you.
Copyright Paul Bergen
“I’m not a pop star,” she wrote in Rememberings. “I’m just a troubled soul who needs to scream into mikes now and then.”
Janelle Monáe Will Have You Slipping Down the “Water Slide” This Weekend With Their New Video
Janelle Monáe is back at it, melting brains with the music video for their song “Water Slide”, the latest from their album The Age of Pleasure. We’re still recovering from the “Lipstick Lover” video, and now this? Life will never be the same.
I have already written about how much I’m loving the era of Janelle Monáe’s music. She said “titties out” and damn it, they’re sticking to it. And while the titties are a little less out in the video for “Water Slide”, don’t fret. It’s still very much a product of the era they’re currently in. From what I can tell, there’s a good chance Monáe filmed all of the content for this album at the same time, because the aesthetics are exactly the same. I love the idea of them spending an entire day (or maybe several days!) hanging out with a bunch of cool ass people making all of the content for the album.
“Water Slide” is one of my favorite songs on the album, and not solely because it’s very clearly about self-pleasure. That idea isn’t entirely reflected in the video, but the allusions to it are definitely there.
The video opens with Monáe standing in a backyard surrounded by people clearly dressed for a day by the pool. A few feet away, someone is standing opposite them holding on to their long braids, and people treat the hair like a limbo stick, dancing under it. This is a visual that gets repeated several times throughout the video, and it is no less enjoyable to watch each time. I truly cannot fathom having enough hair that someone could use it as a limbo stick, but the idea of dancing under such a thing tickles me to no end. Heck, it might even tickle literally.
Backyard summer party is really the theme of The Age of Pleasure in general, and we got that vibe from the slick “Lipstick Lover” video, but it really comes through in “Water Slide”. Sonically, the song feels like something you’d play while swimming in the pool and chilling with your friends. Definitely the kind of song you’d dance to after having several glasses of frosé. Monáe plays the bass alongside a band on the grass and takes center stage alongside a group of dancers mimicking the same swimming moves they’re singing about. It makes me want to spend a day at the pool with a bunch of cool, Black queer folks.
Monáe wears a series of cute bikinis in the video — the main one they wear has lemon slices covering their nipples, being held up with nothing but string. They are also topless multiple times; the scenes in the pool emulate the album’s cover almost perfectly. Several others are topless too; someone in the Autostraddle team Slack noticed that one of the partygoers had top surgery scars. It almost makes me want to go tits out in the sunshine, but I’ll leave that to the people who are much hotter than me.
Now if you’ll forgive me, I’m going to watch the video another dozen times.
Leaning Into Pleasure at the Janelle Monáe Listening Party
Three days before the release of Janelle Monáe’s Age of Pleasure album, the email invitation to their listening party arrives in my inbox as I’m contemplating my face mask. Is it enough protection as the city’s AQI climbs toward 400? Would it be worse to take it off to eat my purse burrito on the walk to the A train or inside the train car? But when my phone vibrates and I read the invite, I don’t eat the burrito at all; I just spend the rest of the ride with The Standard’s address burning in my pocket while I decide whether or not to go.
How does one decide whether or not to party with Janelle Monáe, creator of anthems such as “Q.U.E.E.N.”, “Yoga”, “Tightrope”, and “Dance Apocalyptic” whose newer single “Float” is already on a loop on my every commute? I ultimately decide the way I always do: By measuring the amount of my health and livelihood I’d be gambling with. This is a classic plight of any marginalized person: The world is not built to accommodate us, but we must navigate it anyway; we’re all gamblers.
I’ve never been on The List before. I can’t imagine why anyone would want an adjunct with a week-old creative writing degree and a private instagram on The List. I have to say my name twice when it’s my turn, and when I do, I find out someone else at the party also has one of my last names. “Isn’t that funny?” the person says with a smile before stamping a pole with legs wrapped around it onto the inside of my wrist.
The Boom Boom Room is the image of opulence. The greenery leaning in from the walls looks so real. I walk right up to the entryway arch, take an enormous bird of paradise in my hand, and tell the person standing next to it in a PLEASURE crop top that I know someone who loves this flower — can I take a picture with it? They laugh and say “of course, this is all for you!” I am handed a red-orange card titled Pleasure Guide. The rules are printed on it in warm yellow letters. They include: ‘Safety first. Fun next :), smile at a stranger, focus on the feeling, come dry leave wet, Unleash the ‘free azz mothafucka’ in you!’ A white fan with gold Age of Pleasure lettering on the side is handed to me next as I am guided to a round bar that looks like an upside-down gilded mushroom and am offered my choice of four different mezcal cocktails. I swear to myself that I’ll only have two; I must keep my promise to my sister that I’ll remember absolutely everything, but then the bartender walks away without asking for my card and I realize the drinks are free.
Above me, crystal chandeliers glow. In front of me, floor-to-ceiling windows look out on the rest of Manhattan, simultaneously glowing and fading in the post-fire-air. To my right is a fire-hydrant-red-lipped person in a pink jumpsuit with picture-perfect locs; to my left is her friend in a sheer black corset top, rolled cap, and a gold rope chain. “Are you in the industry?” they ask me, and I laugh too hard, too loud, for too long. I am nobody; I shouldn’t be here, I want to say, but the music is too good to shout over, so we dance instead. And then another person joins, we get another round of drinks, and she takes the words out of my mouth. “I can’t believe I’m here. I just moved here this week,” she says and we laugh in disbelief, turning back to dancing, but she grips my arm hard and points to show me that I am shoulder to shoulder with Alok Menon.
Moments later, Monáe appears in all of their glory. I hear her before I see her. I have just danced to Suavemente when a smooth “hellooooooooo” rings over the speaker in a voice I’ve never heard live but still recognize immediately — even through the haze of overwhelm. It rings exactly as true and clear as it does on their albums. Who is that. I scream before anyone else seems to have heard. Where is she. And then I see them, all 5 feet zero inches of them (excluding the jaunty black bowler hat), encircled in the light of everyones phone flash.
“Listen,” begins her address, “we are like, a day and a half before we are officially into The Age of Pleasure! This was my F.A.M. Free Ass Mutherfuckers. F.A.M.! Shout out to all the artsy kids… Living outside of all the boundaries this world has placed on us. Redefining what it means to be young, Black, wild, and free. This album is a love letter to us… Happy mutherfuckin Pride. It feels so good to stand up here as a Black nonbinary pansexual. F.A.M., it feels so good to be able to say that and to walk in that authenticity. Without further ado, I want to start by Float-ing into the Age of Pleasure.”
Embarrassingly, I was already weeping by “listen lil mama: you like shibari? Watch while I show you the ropes,” which is almost certainly not what they meant by “come dry and leave wet.” She danced alongside her own dancers through the flawless transitions from song to song, then pulled my dance partner up onto the bar to dance with her, took off their white cowboy boots and sent them into the crowd, and got off the bar entirely to vibe with us on the ground, barefoot, at one point leaning in within a foot of my face and mouthing something I could not process through the rush of emotion at their proximity. It should go without saying, but trust and believe: From every angle, “a bitch look pretty — a bitch look handsome.”
Float is exactly right — the whole album feels like watching a plane take off, the marvel of that disconnect from the ground that looks like an impossible divorce from gravity but is, in reality, working well within the laws of physics. After all of the Archandroid/Electric Lady/Dirty Computer/“she’s not even a person, she’s a droid” messaging, The Age of Pleasure is a fantastically deep breath of fresh air. What if, Monáe seems to ask, I was just a human all along? What if I fully embodied all that I am right now, in front of you? What if you did the same, and we did it together?
Since before its release (or any of the release parties), the album and its accompanying cover and video have been getting some predictable backlash from listeners who find Monáe’s newfound freedom from black and white suits alarming. It has also gotten plenty of praise for being so different, as the very first lines announce. But in reality, the album carries many hallmarks of Monáe’s previous music: sexuality that colors outside the lines, seamless flow from one song (and genre) into the next, an acoustic parallel to the message of the lyrics — freeing the mind and body from social constructs that just aren’t giving. I wake with a start in the middle of the night two weeks later with “Phenomenal” playing in my head and realize that the difference with The Age of Pleasure is that this sensuality is a fully embodied one. The see-through crop top is revealing more than just their whole chest; it is revealing them as completely corporeal. Inside a human form that grows and changes, not an extraterrestrial, mechanical, or metaphorical one. This acceptance of being nothing more or less than human is the kind of radical that heals like a balm, the kind that resonates deep, and ripples out through lines like “dance, ‘cause there ain’t nobody else in this bitch like you.”
“You want me to play it again?” Monáe calls into the mic at the end of the album’s first play through. “It’s only 32 minutes!” And after resounding affirmation from the audience, we dance to it all again. And even after they leave, floating goodbye kisses to us all the whole way out, my new friends and I keep the dancing going, the mezcal flowing, and the phone camera lights flashing, this time pointed at each other.
One last confession: I am writing this three weeks after it has happened, in between Pride parties. I have left one early and am late for another. I am hungover from one and still prepared to toast at the next. I am texting “I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it — I’m on deadline!!!” to three different people, one of whom is family, and I am hoping these leftovers are enough to power me though this hour while being kind to my digestive tract. I shouldn’t be this frantic to get from one place to another — it’s New York City, there will always be another party. But please understand: I, too, once thought I wasn’t of this world. That I was somehow something other, something else, despite being so painfully ordinary to myself. Until I started finding the places like this party, where all of the parts of me were okay, were celebrated, and I found myself … relaxing. Calming down. It has taken time, and it still takes reminders, even today, to trust that I do fit here, on this planet and in this body. That even though (as a Black queer woman with a penchant for work that doesn’t pay) I gamble every day to live the life that’s worth it to me, neither I nor any of the things I desire are all that difficult to allow. The freedoms I need and want are so simple. Like Monáe, all I want is a little pleasure, all I want is my love — but made to measure.
Playlist: The Saddest Songs Ever, According to Queer Cancers
Feature image by CSA Images via Getty Images
“Happy” Cancer season!!!! Remember when I made all my friends mad at me by asking them to pick just ONE song as the most romantic song of all time? Well, I’m back as an agent of musical chaos, baby! This time, I made a lot of people with a lot of feelings have…a lot of feelings.
Specifically, I asked a bunch of Cancers (and broadened the poll to include anyone Cancer risings and moons) to pick the saddest song ever. People became a little too stressed about sticking to one song, so I did amend the rules slightly, as I did not want to be the cause of a Cancer’s meltdown — especially not in their own damn season!
I ended up receiving soooooo many songs covering a wide range of Cancer Sadness™ — from grief to heartbreak to loneliness to pain to death to loss to yearning to breakups to regret. You name it; Cancers will cry about it!
While listening through these decidedly somber tunes, I narrowed them down and tried to arrange them in a way that made narrative sense to me, an overthinking Taurus moon. This resulted in perhaps the greatest crying playlist of all time? See for yourself, and have a good cry along the way. It’s just under 90 minutes, which I think is the perfect amount of time to be in your feels. Scroll down for the Spotify playlist.
This post was originally written in 2022 and updated/republished in 2023.
cancer season playlist
- “Swim Good” by Frank Ocean
- “Something in the Way” by Nirvana
- “I Bet On Losing Dogs” by Mitski
- “The Glow, Pt. 2” by The Microphones
- “Silver Springs” by Fleetwood Mac
- “Promise” by Julia Nunes
- “Your Love Is Killing Me” by Sharon Van Etten
- “Sullen Girl” by Fiona Apple
- “Kiss” by Scout Niblett feat. Bonnie “Prince” Billy
- “Cry, Cry, Baby” by Nina Nastasia
- “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” by Whitney Houston
- “Hurt” by Johnny Cash
- “Ride” by Lana Del Rey
- “Bones” by Mod Sun
- “I Want You” by Mitski
- “All Alright” by Sigur Rós
- “Dark Come Soon” by Tegan and Sara
- “If U Love Me Now” by MUNA
- “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” by Ella Fitzgerald
- “One More Hour” by Sleater-Kinney
You don’t have to have any Cancer in your chart to know the power of a good cry-song. What’s on your Cancer season playlist?
“Age of Pleasure” Has a Track For Each Summer Sexy Mood
How has it been five years since Janelle Monáe released her last album? It doesn’t feel like it was that long ago, but here we are. Their new album, The Age of Pleasure dropped earlier this month, and I was not ready. When their first single “Float” was released back in February, I was curious as to the direction the album was going to take. “Float” sounds like a Janelle Monáe song, but that’s also because her style is constantly evolving. It didn’t give us a whole lot of indication of what the rest of the album would sound like, but it was definitely a departure from the android/computer persona Monáe had previously inhabited. They were going to be tapping into a new part of themselves, and I don’t think any of us could have been ready for it.
Instead of doing this like a traditional review, I’m going to take you all on the journey of listening to The Age of Pleasure for the first time. I knew this album was going to be sensual, if not downright sexy. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been paying rapt attention to the aesthetic of this album. Janelle said “titties out” and I have no choice but to enthusiastically endorse this decision. ENTHUSIASTICALLY. Who am I to question their motives? I can only respect the process. Anyways, here we go!
“Float”
The first words we hear are “no, I’m not the same.” Clearly they are telling us upfront that we’re in for something completely different than we are used to. Right out of the gate, they’re coming at us with swagger, a different kind of swagger than we’re used to. It’s confidence, not bravado. Floating through life is something that is equal to freedom. And by embracing her identity, she is freeing herself from the expectations of others. “Float” is the levity of self-acceptance.
This is the song for when you’re laying out in the sun
Whether you’re at the beach, the pool, or even laying in the grass on a blanket at the park, this song just screams summer.
“Champagne Shit” & “Black Sugar Beach”
This song comes out grooving — I instantly want to start dancing when I hear it. (I’m immediately adding it to several playlists) Like, I can immediately picture dancing to this in a dimly lit room with a bunch of other sweaty bodies around me. “Champagne Shit” has more of that braggadocious kind of swagger over an infectious drum beat. “Black Sugar Beach” is the outro to “Champagne Shit”, and you don’t even realize they’re two different songs.
This is the song for when you want to get the party started
If you want to pop bottles and put on your dancing shoes, this is the song that gets you there.
“Phenomenal” (feat. Doechii)
“I’m looking at a thousand versions of myself, and we’re all fine as fuck.” Okay! I’m liking what this song is putting down. Even through the African drumbeat at the heart of the song, it’s very sensual and even seducing. Again, it’s a song that I can picture dancing to, but also using to set the mood for some sexual activity. I like to switch up the kind of music I use for foreplay, and this song will definitely be going on the list.
This is the song for when you need to hype yourself up
We all need a little hype sometimes. Put this on and get a little hop in your step.
“Haute”
In addition to being an incredible musician and rising actor, Janelle Monáe is a known fashionista. The Met Gala is always infinitely better when they’re walking the red carpet. “Haute” usually refers to couture clothing, but in this case, it’s a play on the word “hot”, which is also incredibly clever. The whole song is a repeat of feeling sexy, hot and feeling themself.
This is the song for when you’re feeling yourself
I mean this more figuratively. If you’re feeling cute, put this song on.
“Oooh La La” (feat. Grace Jones)
Grace Jones is an absolute ICON, and I love this pairing so much. It’s only thirty-five seconds of Grace Jones speaking French, but I still love it? I do truly wish it was a full song, but this is still magnifique!
This is the song for when you need a minute to yourself
This is a brief interlude, so it gives you a second to collect yourself and get in the right headspace.
“Lipstick Lover”
I still haven’t fully recovered from the music video for this song. You may recall how it melted many brains here at Autostraddle. I’ve listened to this song many times already, but I finally figured out that the first line of the pre-chorus “Cause for your love, I’ll take my time” is a Stevie Wonder lyric! It has been haunting me every time I listen, so I finally looked it up. Stevie Wonder is credited as one of the songwriters on the track as well.
This is the song for when you want to seduce someone
It’s a sexy song, we all know this. It feels like fingertips brushing down a jaw or a back; pure seduction.
“The Rush” (feat. Nia Long & Amaarae)
Nia Long’s voice is so seductive on this song. I don’t go here, but even I’m looking twice. This song signifies the tonal shift of the album from self-love and pleasure to pleasuring someone else. “Pussy gonna lay go down, make you rest in peace, Fuckin’ you like it’s my destiny. God, what’s come over me?” Adding this to my playlist immediately!
This is the song for when you’re making your move
It’s heady, it feels like the moment you give over to pure feeling and forget how to think; you’re acting on instinct.
“The French 75” (feat. Sister Nancy)
A French 75 is a gin and champagne cocktail, and this song sounds like it was recorded in a bar. The whole song is just a long toast.
This is the song for when you’re not paying attention
This song is really just background noise, quite literally. You don’t really need to think about it.
“Water Slide”
And now I see why the album is called The Age of Pleasure. “Water Slide” is one hundred percent about self-pleasure. “I’m holdin’ my breath with my eyes closed, I can swim solo. Feelin’ all around for the right spot, Playin’ Marco Polo.” Need I say more? I do not think so!
This is the song for when you’re feeling yourself
I mean that literally. If you want to turn your body into a slip n’ slide, put this on and have at it.
“Know Better” (feat. CKay, Seun Kuti & Egypt 80)
Opening with a strong brass section and Afro-Caribbean beats, this song is pure seduction. I’m getting the energy of a person you see across the room at a bar and you are instantly drawn to them. You know it’s not going to last for more than one night, but you want that night to go on as long as it can. I really love the brass on this song.
This is the song for when you need to make a move
The beat just propels you forward, whether it’s to make your move on someone or something.
“Paid in Pleasure”
This feels like a follow-up to the song before. They were able to seduce the person into a one night stand, and now we’re getting to hear what happens during that night. With lyrics like “I lick, lick, lick from you nectar,” it sounds like it was a GREAT night.
This is the song for when you want to set the mood
This is pure, unadulterated sex. Go forth and do with that what you will.
“Only Have Eyes 42”
I don’t know if this is yet another continuation of the songs before it, but I feel like a fly on the wall of a very sexy evening. Monáe samples one of my favorite songs, “I Only Have Eyes For You”, using it to declare their interest in two different sexual (maybe romantic) partners. The song is brief, but very intimate.
This is the song for when you want to seal the deal
There is a singular focus to this song, and it will remind you to keep your eyes on the prize.
“A Dry Red”
It feels fitting to end the song with one last plea for the pleasure they’ve been experiencing for the last four or five songs. They’re almost begging, but it doesn’t sound desperate, it’s almost wistful. Clearly, this person has made an impact on them in a way that they haven’t been able to forget since the summer, and while we have no idea how much time has passed, it’s clear there was a strong connection between them and the person they’re pining for.
This is the song for when the night is over
If you’re still starry eyed, put “A Dry Red” on and be transported back to the moments of pleasure.
And that’s it!
My biggest complaint about The Age of Pleasure is that it’s only thirty-two minutes long. Just as the album starts to really hit its stride, it’s over! I know that short albums are the style right now, but I miss albums that were at least forty-five minutes long. It feels too much like foreplay; I was left buzzy and wanting more.
Eight LGBTQ+ Country Music Singers on Pride and Queering Country
“What kind of music do you listen to?” is always a question I dread. My response, “I listen to everything,” while mostly true, is a cover-up for how much time I actually spend listening to country music. I’ll admit that at any given moment you could turn on the local country radio station and I would probably know the lyrics at a moment’s notice. There’s shame in admitting that because popular country, as we know it, is for the white, conservative, heteronormative people of the world. Almost all of the top 40 musicians are cisgender straight dudes, and who among us wants to support that, right?
Since coming into my queer identity, this is one of the many contradictions I’ve felt I need to reckon with. But I am determined to prove to myself and to you, my skeptical readers, that country (and its associated genres like folk and americana) is so queer — and not just cis gay male queer but expansively, fluidly, gloriously queer! So, I went digging to find us some of the most radical, raging, talented queer country and americana artists for us to listen to this Pride.
Want to know how to RAGE this Pride? Host a cookout, bump our queer country playlist, and get these queers to the top 40.
Before I delve into the mini interviews I conducted with each of these artists, take a look at their bios to get to know them and their music a little better.
Madeleine Kelson (she/her) is a Nashville based Americana artist. She pulls from a rich tradition of folk, country, and Americana, challenging its boundaries as a queer artist, to represent the modern world.
Brody Ray‘s (he/him) music is a cross between the rock/pop influences he loved growing up and the country music and lyric that surrounded him and his whole life as he grew up and experienced life in Kearney, NE. It’s just what comes out when he writes!
Mercy Bell (she/hers) is “A potent, progressive take on emotive, modern folk” (Rolling Stone Country) and a “shape-shifting songsmith” (The Nashville Scene).
Jobi Riccio (she/they) is a songwriter and performer based out of Nashville, TN originally hailing from Colorado. They are a queer lifelong country music fan. While not all the music they write is specifically country, there is a strong twang-y thread that runs through it, and they hope to use this to challenge ideas of what it means to be both queer and country.
D’orjay (they/them) says “this ain’t your grandaddy’s country music,” despite it paying homage to the classic country music that artist D’orjay grew up with in rural Alberta. And it sure as hell ain’t stadium girls-trucks-beer country. Instead, they colour outside the lines with anthemic, bold blues, honky-tonk and rock-flavoured roots with a distinct queer twist.
Mya (Mimi) Byrne (she/her/and sometimes they) is a celebrated singer-songwriter signed to Kill Rock Stars Nashville, and her new album, Rhinestone Tomboy, has been lauded in NPR, Rolling Stone, and No Depression, among others.
Like a crackling backyard fire outside of a city at dusk, stars on one side of the sky and light pollution on the other, Mya’s music is in the pocket of traditional country and Americana, yet firmly rooted in the modern world. A proud and out queer trans woman, she is at the forefront of the queer country movement.
Meredith Shock (she/hers) is a queer singer/songwriter whose songs are her journal entries.
Kimber Springs (she/they) music is heavily inspired by their hometown, Nashville. They love giving their own take on country music.
What/Who inspired you to become a musician?
Madeleine
I grew up surrounded by music. My mom started my sister and I on violin when we were four, and we grew up singing along to the radio in three part harmony. Music and songwriting have always been my emotional outlet, so I guess the feeling of catharsis, and the adrenaline of being on stage inspired me more than any one artist.
Brody
My inspiration for music started at a very young age. My mom has video footage of me running around in a diaper and cowboy boots with a Flintstones toy guitar jamming out to whatever music video was on the TV. My mother was and still is a very talented pianist, singer, and accordion player, and when I was about eight years old, she asked if I wanted to play an instrument and she took me to the music store and we picked out my first guitar! I also picked up singing, cello, and piano and took lessons all the way through college. My uncle used to teach me piano and singing as well. I had so many favorite artists that inspired me to chase a career in entertaining and songwriting. Artists like Dashboard Confessional, Sheryl Crow, Lenny Kravitz, Michelle Branch, Third Eye Blind, Taking Back Sunday, The Starting Line, Paramore, Tim McGraw, Jason Aldean… I could go on for days with a list of all the artists and groups that have made me fall in love with music and influenced my songwriting.
Mercy
I grew up in an artistic family, and creativity was part of every day life. They were supportive of my talents before I believed in myself. I remember my mom telling me I should move to NYC and pursue music and my uncle showing me how to book gigs because he had been a promoter. And my voice teacher Marcelle, who also encouraged me to make music.
Jobi
My first musical loves were angry female country artists: The Chicks, Miranda Lambert, the list goes on. I was obsessed with the way they sang with such attitude and power and spent hours in my room singing along to their CDs. It wasn’t until I began writing my own songs and was supported by older musicians in my local scene that I felt confident enough to start playing out, so I owe a lot to their support and the support of my family.
D’orjay
I think certainly just growing up in a musical family. My mom just was a fan of the arts in general. Even growing up in a small town, and in particular, growing up on a farm on an acreage at a young age, there was still just a bunch of value that was put on music and creativity and acting and imagination and that kind of stuff in my family. As much as listening to other artists was a part of it, I think it really started there.
Mya/Mimi
Since my childhood, I wanted to be a musician, ever since I saw a guitar being played. My earliest influences were Elvis and Madonna, to be honest, and Jimi Hendrix really showed me the extent of expressiveness I wanted to aspire to. Once I found him, there was really no turning back.
Meredith
I’ve always wanted to be a singer. As a young kid, I was constantly singing along to the country songs my mom would play in the car. There isn’t just one performer that I can point to as inspiration — the country women in the 90’s were my favorite! Eventually Taylor Swift inspired me to write more truthfully and continue to want to chase my dreams.
Kimber
My father was a singer, so I was surrounded by good music and some of the best musicians around, including my guitar teacher Regi Wooten. He had a huge impact on me.
What are you most proud of thus far in your career?
Madeleine
In the past couple years, I’ve gotten to play with artists that I really look up to and was featured a couple times in NPR, which has been a bucket list thing for me! Even more than that, I’m really proud of a queer country song I put out last year called “The Way I Do.” The tag is “if I don’t get to heaven for loving her true, god has never loved a woman the way I do.” It was essentially my career coming out. I was so nervous to release it, but the response has been incredibly encouraging. Hearing people say that they grew up on country music and felt like it didn’t represent them as adults until they found this song is really moving. Being able to be that artist for people makes me feel like I’m doing something right.
Brody
I think the one thing I’m most proud of so far is the opportunity I got to sing on America’s Got Talent season 13 when I came out as trans to the whole room and world. From all the thousands of messages I got on social media, I realized it really helped a lot of people understand what it means and looks like to be trans and for others like me to come out, transition, chase their dreams, and just be authentic and happy. That was such a huge moment for me as a person and an artist and for representing trans people around the world. It really boosted my musical career as well! Recording and producing my cover version of the first song I sang on the show “Stand In the Light” was a big deal as well. It has over 1,270,000 streams on Spotify. I’m super proud of that!
Mercy
That I’ve made the music I want to make without anyone restricting me. I’ve made all my albums through crowdfunding (and maxing out my credit cards) so I’ve had complete artistic freedom. I can be myself.
Jobi
I’m really proud of my choice to come out as queer professionally, not just personally, which I did via social media in 2020. I feel like when I perform now, I can show up as my whole self and not like I’m playing a character and wearing a costume like I often felt before I came out.
D’orjay
Honestly, I think just that I went for it you know. I guess for some people, it doesn’t really resonate. But I felt like before I went down this music route, I already had lived a pretty full life and kind of really went for some things. And this is just something for myself I really wanted to do. And I had to just overcome a lot of internal and certainly some external barriers. So to kind of pick up the microphone, quote, unquote, at around 35. And just kind of going for it. I think that’s what I’m proud of. Everything else is, honestly, a cherry on a nice cake. I’m proud that I did this, so I won’t regret that.
Mya/Mimi
Quite frankly, staying alive and continuing to work without compromise. On a career goal level, playing in front of 18,000 people at the Love Rising concert in Nashville this spring, sharing the bill with Allison Russell, Maren Morris, Yola, Jason Isbell, and other heroes. Kissing my trans partner Swan Real in front of all of those people, showing the world that trans love is sacred…that’s my proudest moment onstage. But offstage? Probably the person who came up to me after a recent show who told me that my openness was the catalyst for them coming out to their parent as nonbinary. It made me cry.
Meredith
I’ve played two really energetic shows this past year — one being a single release show that my mom and aunt flew out and surprised me for. This was my first full band show with all original music, which was just crazy to hear that happening in real life! The second show I’m proud of was for Louisville Loves Emo. I did three acoustic emo cover songs to a crowd of over 600 people. This was the largest crowd I’ve ever played in front of, and I felt like I was on top of the world.
Kimber
I am most proud of my songwriting. I have always struggled to feel like my words were any good, but I feel like I’ve gotten to a place where I really believe in what I have to say.
Have you ever felt out of place in the industry?
Madeleine
One hundred percent, yes. When I first moved to Nashville, I played a lot of country shows and wrote with a lot of country writers. Country has a long history of excluding queer people (and people of color, women…basically anyone that’s not a straight, white, Christian man…) and although we have the same taste in women (cue the laugh track), as a queer, Jewish woman, I don’t exactly fit that bill. I thought coming out publicly would kill my career before it could even take off. There are still times I find myself not playing more overtly queer songs at shows. Fortunately, in the past few years, the Americana community has made an intentional effort to not only include, but uplift queer artists, and artists of color.
Brody
I think I have always felt out of place in the music industry and country music mostly, mainly because I feel like most of the industry people would run if they actually knew I was trans, and I think that it has kept me from really getting much further here in Nashville. I just feel STUCK, and that’s is such a terrible feeling. I could be wrong though, and I think it’s worth sticking around to find out. I have been met with only kindness and love for the most part here, but most people don’t know I’m trans until I tell them.
Mercy
Not in indie scenes. Not with other artists. Yes, in the music industry proper. Music Row in Nashville doesn’t know I exist, or if they do they’ve never reached out. I’ve also kept my distance somewhat, because there’s a lot of sexual harassment and misogyny. I had enough instances of being around creeps that I finally just stopped seeking out those industry spaces. Music journalists have been really kind to me and my lifesaver. They’ve always taken notice and helped me out. (I’m talking to you, case in point). And fans. Fans have given me my career.
Jobi
I’ve felt a little out of place in lots of spaces both musical and otherwise; I think lots of queer people feel this in all facets of our lives. In music, I’ve been called “too country” for the indie scene, and “not country enough” for the country scene — in a way it’s perfectly representative of who I am as a person and the music I make, kind of somewhere in the middle of a few different things.
D’orjay
Yeah. All the time? I don’t know. All the time. I think it’s too much for me to even go into that further. Other than just to answer the question directly. I feel out of place in the industry often and all the time. And it’s why I I don’t think I really participate in a ton of things traditionally that musicians in my position do.
Mya/Mimi
I often feel out of place. Despite being lauded by my peers and industry allies, I’ve been told more than once that I don’t fit in, literally, to so many of the wonderful places I aspire to play, or to agents who want to put me in a box. At the end of the day, I just want to make a living, and since the anti-trans laws started ramping up last year, I’ve found it extremely difficult to get work.
Meredith
I’ve most definitely felt out of place in the industry — maybe even most of the time. I live in Nashville, so you’d think it would be easy to feel comfortable being a musician in “music city” but it’s quite hard. It’s easy to fall into the habit of constantly comparing yourself to everyone around you. Luckily, there’s a wonderful and supportive queer music community here.
Kimber
I have definitely felt out of place in the industry. I think in any genre, there is a lot of pressure for women and perceived women to be feminine and sexy, and I don’t exactly fit that mold.
Why is it important for us queer folks to make country music?
Madeleine
I think at its core, music is supposed to represent and resonate with people’s feelings and experiences. Country is no different. Any time you exclude the perspective of an entire group of people, you miss out on their stories and experiences. We deserve to be heard, and we deserve to hear music that we can hear ourselves in. The best way to make that happen is to keep showing up, keep being loud, and keep making music.
Brody
I think it’s so important for queer folks to keep making country music, because representation and visibility is the most important thing. Music, no matter the genre, is a human experience we all connect with in some way. It speaks for us, it helps us process things, it brings people together, it helps us feel things we need to feel and express. It’s therapeutic. It unites humans in a way nothing else can. Having queer representation in country gives hope to queer people around the world that country music is for ALL and ALL are welcome. Unfortunately, more than any other genre, I think country music has always had a stigma around it that straight white religious/conservative people hold the reigns of country music, and to have queer folk infiltrate that space is sinful, forsaken as queer folk try to scale the conservative walls that so many of us queer country folk seem to run into at some point as artists. As if we aren’t included or welcome. It’s the signal I’m getting anyways. But as time goes on, more and more artists are emerging and coming out AFTER they have made it big. Which is kind of discouraging for me as a person who’s already come out. But if we don’t have these big artist infiltrating country music this way, how will it ever change? It’s almost like a trojan horse hahaha. So I totally get it. They are coming out from within and unlocking the doors from inside for the rest of us to come in. Music doesn’t discriminate. Everyone, queer, Black, white, brown enjoys country music just because they do! We as humans don’t need to have reasons for enjoying a certain genre of music. We just like what we like! I think being open in country helps unite our people and country. There is no other genre of music out there that singles out a certain type of person for the way they were born. Knocking down those barriers is so important for progress. If we don’t talk about it or see it, we stay stuck.
Mercy
Harlan Howard said “‘All you need to write a country song is three chords and the truth”, I’m pretty sure queer folks have a lot of truth to tell.
Jobi
Up until very recently, I feel like it was understood in the broader culture that country music belonged to primarily straight cis white conservative people. Of course, LGBTQ country artists have always been here — pioneers such as Lavender Country were writing and releasing queer country music long before the internet — but they were either never taken seriously by the industry or silenced by it. Because of this history and those who paved the way, it’s a huge deal that queer country artists and fans feel empowered enough to create spaces that celebrate our love for — and our place in — country music.
D’orjay
Because it’s hard fucking music man. Three chords and the truth. I think queer people are always at the forefront, and the trailblazers of living their most authentic and genuine lives and being their most authentic selves and striving for that and creating space for more people to be able to do that. And I feel like that is the essence of country music in my mind.
Mya/Mimi
Queer people and trans folks have always been a part of country. Our lives carry a gravitas that are in line with what is most cherished in this music…stories, relatable stories, of the outsider, of warmth, of love, of simple enjoyment of moments. We are the ones who can truly lay claim to being the children of the outlaw country movement, and we have that in our bones. There’s a throughline from Waylon to Willie to Jessi Colter to all of us queers. And the more visible we are, the more we can change the status quo. I’m a firm believer in the power of being out, and there are still so many in the closet. I hope all of us who are doing it inspire more folks to be able to do so.
Meredith
I moved to Nashville wanting to do country music because it’s what I grew up listening to. The first songs I released really show that country side of me, but my music has since evolved. Heteronormative narratives are woven so deeply into country stories, so as I started to relate less to the genre, I started aligning more with the soft pop genre.
I’ve still embraced the storytelling style of songwriting that country music is all about. This country influence will always be the core of my musicality, and I am so excited when I see queer country artists perform. I think it’s important for folks to stake a claim within a space that might not always be tolerant and accepting. This is really the only way the genre will grow. I don’t ever want kids now who love country to look up and walk away from the genre because they don’t see themselves in these stories.
Kimber
It’s important because there’s a lot of country ass queer people. I don’t think people realize how many of us are out here.
Can music be an act of protest? Celebration? Love?
Madeleine
I think music is innately all of those things. With queer music, it’s often all three at once. When I play a queer love song, its existence alone is, for better or for worse, an act of protest. On the one hand, making music is a genuine and meaningful way to be visible. On the other hand, it kind of sucks that any time I write a love song, it’s not just a love song, but a political statement.
Brody
I think that’s exactly what all music IS. It’s all human emotion. Fear, anger, sadness, grief, celebration, love, happiness, freedom, protest, education, fiction, letting go, moving on, partying and having fun, overcoming, soaking up life’s many turns and experiences. Especially country music. It’s all about heart, and we all have that. Music is uniting if done correctly and with the right intentions. It’s how we express our individuality. It should always be that way!
Mercy
A catchy song has power. It gets stuck in your head rent free, no matter who you are. Think of how much impact that is if you start saying things that are subversive and true. That’s the ultimate protest move.
Jobi
Music, like all art, is a documentation of human history and culture. In my opinion, any art created by people who’ve been silenced and oppressed is a form of all three of those things: protest, love, and celebration. I recently came across a sermon from a trans preacher based out of West Virginia (@the..reverend on tiktok) who put it beautifully so I’ll share their words here:
“Let’s use our rage to make art and dance. To leave so many beautiful pieces of ourselves in the history books that no one can burn us away entirely”
D’orjay
Yes, yes, and yes, absolutely. I feel like I have songs that are an act of all of those things in “New Kind of Outlaw” and my album.
Mya/Mimi
Music can and is celebration, catharsis, love, hope…when you can create a moment that resonates across boundaries that separate us as human beings, when music carries a power, it breaks down the divisions in the working class and brings us together. And that’s why so many people are scared of our power and our love. It’s our freedom that frightens those who push against us.
Meredith
I think all of the above! Music can be anything we want it to be. Even songs that I’ve written with personal experience in mind, people have come up to share that they connected with the lyrics in a completely different way — and that’s okay! A song doesn’t have to have one meaning. Relating to a song is about what you think it means, and in some ways, what you need it to mean in the moment — even if the writer didn’t intend for this.
Kimber
Country music has always been rooted in speaking your truth and questioning the status quo. Artists like Charlie Pride, Dolly Parton, and Willie Nelson are great examples of that.
Pretend we could hook you up with anyone in the industry to collaborate on a single? Who would you choose and why?
Madeleine
I’m a huge Brandi Carlile fan! I used to think that I couldn’t be queer and have a successful career in country or Americana. Watching her success showed me that I could be out and have a career. I think I owe a lot of my courage as an artist to her. She’s such a massive talent, and she’s also just so cool.
Brody
Oh gosh that’s a hard one! I think it would come down to probably Sam Hunt because I LOVE his style of songwriting and wish I could be as good! I feel like his style is exactly what I hope to achieve. Maren Morris, honestly the same, she’s so talented and has so much love for the queer community. Can we throw Hayley Williams and Dolly in there? Cuz why not? What’s not to love?
Mercy
Jack Antonoff and Taylor Swift. I think they’re pop geniuses, and Taylor Swift is one of my favorite songwriters.
Jobi
I would love to do a song with Aaron Lee Tasjan. His latest record has been on repeat for me basically since it came out, and I really relate to how he writes about and celebrates his queerness in his music. I’ve always identified with being both masculine and feminine and have come to celebrate that, so his song “Feminine Walk” really hits for me.
D’orjay
Oh, man. I’ve got a few. Like, I want k.d. lang. I would love to because we’re from a really similar region. And in terms of like, queer country music and tickets to the music. She’s making the 80s so good. I think it’d be cool to do a song with Lil Nas X for so many obvious reasons. I think it’d be cool to have a country tune produced with Pharrell or something like that or just a cool producer that you wouldn’t normally expect to do a country song. And Pharrell was behind so much of the music, you know, r&b and hip hop, that I listened to in that era when he was part of the Neptunes. And then as always, Garth Brooks, you know, he’s always gonna be that guy. He was a big part of my connection to country music and family and just growing up honestly, just sitting in a garage. You know, singing songs with my best friends growing up.
Mya/Mimi
Well, there are so so so many people I would love to collaborate with. Willie Nelson. Chris Stapleton. Yola. k.d. lang. Harry Styles. Brandi Carlile. These folks all share my love of truth telling, of sharing the resonances of life’s observations that I believe are the cornerstones of the best songwriting, and the truth is that trans artists need to be platformed by our peers who *are* highly successful, because we are still diminished and invalidated by so so many folks. When trans people are being treated as equals, boundaries break down. I think we could write some real bangers, too.
Meredith
Easily Taylor Swift. Her writing is remarkable, and to see how she has grown as an artist and successfully transitioned to a different genre is so admirable. You can tell she loves what she does.
Kimber
It’s my dream to collab with Shania Twain. She’s such a living legend, and I think we would make a banger together!
How are you celebrating this Pride?
Madeleine
Honestly, probably by spending time at home with my fiancée and our dog. I love Pride, and I think it’s so important to celebrate the beauty and joy of being queer. I feel fortunate enough to be surrounded by a community that never makes me feel othered. At the same time, I live in Tennessee, which is essentially at war with queer people. At this point in my life, celebrating Pride looks like taking a moment to hit pause on the fight, and taking time for myself to forget that there’s anything “different” enough about me to celebrate.
There will always be work to do, but there is something so important about letting yourself rest. I know that might sound like kind of a buzzkill, but it has been a really freeing feeling and an empowering act of caring for myself.
Brody
This Pride month, I’m going to spend my time performing for a few Pride-related events like Delaware Pride June 10, the Pride round at the Bluebird Cafe June 22, and Dallas Pride street festival June 24! I always make some posts on social media and put out my Pride flag and lights on the porch. Maybe a Pride photoshoot with my family and always supporting and celebrating inclusive businesses as well.
Mercy
I’m headed to Chicago to help with rehearsals for a queer musical I’m co-writing called “Leather Daddies.” It’s a rock opera about the underground gay sexual revolution in 1950s/60s Chicago. It’s being workshopped through About Face Theatre, and we got a National Endowment for the Arts grant. We’ll have a performance, free to the public, on June 18.
Jobi
I’ve been struggling with this in the wake of so many horrific attacks on the queer and specifically the trans community nationally this year. As cliche as it sounds, I think the best thing we can do in moments like this is be in community with each other and support and uplift those of us who need it most. I think leaning into community is the whole point of Pride and especially important to remember amidst all the rainbow capitalism and heavy drinking culture that tends to really miss the point. Pride is a protest as much as it is a celebration, and it is for us and by us and it can look however we want and need it to look.
D’orjay
Man Prides’ every day. I’m celebrating being queer every day.
Mya/Mimi
One of our sweethearts is flying into New York to stay with me and Swan, and we are going to walk around this city, kiss and hug our friends, and generally be as gay as humanly possible.
Meredith
I will be going to Nashville’s Pride! The day of the festival is also my four years with my girlfriend, so we will be celebrating us, too!
Kimber
I’m celebrating Pride this year by getting the hell out of town and going fishing.
Anything you want to plug?
Madeleine
Check out my most recent album here!
Mercy
Lookout for my song with Melody Walker, “Jesus Was a Drag Queen,” released June 2!
Brody
Hmmm, I did release my new single on Valentine’s Day called “Make A Love Song With Me” and I’m really ‘PROUD’ of this one. I have another queer artist featured on it; her name is Carmen Dianne and she takes the song to a WHOLE different level. Let’s just say I picked the right female vocalist! She’s so amazing, and I want everyone to hear it! I wrote and produced all the parts and went through two producers before I found Gabriel, who brought it all together the way I always imagined it would sound.
Check out his audition on AGT and so much more here and this cover of Carrie Underwood’s “Heartbeat”!
Jobi
I have a new single “Sweet” coming out June 20 I wrote as a queer country self-love anthem for my younger self. You can also preorder my debut record “Whiplash” that will be out in September now!
D’orjay
Yeah, I’m working on a little bit of a rebrand right now; I’m just gonna kind of be going by myself and then including my band in that as well. And just working on some new music. I’m really excited about the next album to come out. When it gets out, who can say, but yeah, I’m starting to do some recording again next month in June, and so yeah, I’ll be releasing that soon.
Mya/Mimi
My record is out now, and I do hope y’all will love it and share it…and buy the purple vinyl! The most important thing to me is getting the word out to trans and queer people that artists like me exist and that there is a world out there for them, that no matter what the genre is, it can be yours. Especially country and Americana.
Meredith
My debut EP was released in the Fall and it’s basically about my entire relationship! It’s catchy, queer, and sweet!
Kimber
I have my first single called “Small Town Love” coming out very soon! Stay tuned.
While these artists couldn’t make it in this piece, I wanted to give some shoutouts to musicians who are 100% queer, country, and phenomenal. Amythyst Kiah (check out “Black Myself”), Thao & the Get Down Stay Down’s (check out “Holy Roller”), and Crys Matthews’ (check out “Prodigal Son”). Check them out in the playlist!
Countdown to Pride: 100 Songs To Get You Ready for Running Into All Your Exes Next Month
As we countdown to Pride this year, there’s a lot to celebrate and a lot to rage about. There’s no one decided-upon way to feel about it, and there’s no one right way to celebrate June. Maybe you’re spending the month partying with friends, organizing a protest, taking a trip with your partner, hosting a community event, or staying home alone to reflect and take care of yourself. Pride celebrations can look like whatever feels honest and exciting to you.
For those looking to get out and celebrate with their communities or vacate your city’s local queer joints, you might find yourself running into exes, past lovers, future lovers, or estranged friends who did or do run in the same circles as you. And depending on who you’re bumping into, you may or may not need to give yourself a pep talk beforehand. Or maybe you like to embrace the chaos for all that it is and bask in it.
No matter where you are, who you’re planning on celebrating with, and what you’re planning to do this month, let’s get pumped up for Pride together and everything that could mean. Even if that implies sharing a space with someone from your past or reconnecting with an ex. Enjoy these 100 songs for your Pride month to prepare to run into all your exes or just to have fun with — the choice is yours! I’ve personally had a hell of year so far and we’re only halfway through it, so I’ll be using this playlist as a roadtrip soundtrack for my partner and I while we skip town and celebrate Pride somewhere different this year.
Get angry, get horny, get introspective! Metaphorically, I’m raising a glass to your and yours this Pride month. Here’s six full hours of sounds for setting the Pride mood this year.
Countdown to Pride is an Autostraddle miniseries leading up to Pride 2023. There are nine days until Pride month — are you ready?
Janelle Monáe’s “Lipstick Lover” Music Video Has Fully Melted Our Brains
I am here today because some extremely gay and evocative Janelle Monáe just dropped (a music video for her new single “Lipstick Lover,” from their just announced new album The Age of Pleasure which comes out June 9th).
I’m supposed to write about it, which is unfortunate because also I think watching it broke my brain and I don’t… remember how to words.
I… I just… I…
I’m not to be trusted with this music video, this queer Black feminist sex positive pool party has shattered everything inside me. But even if all the good sense that the Lorde (word to Audre) gave me has left my body, I knew I wanted to celebrate this momentous occasion with family. So I immediately popped into the Autostraddle QTPOC slack and promptly @‘ed everyone I knew.
Let’s check in on the group chat and on how the gays are doing, shall we?
Carmen: my thoughts and feelings are… what
followed by… w h a t
Nic: My thoughts are: how do I get invited to that party
Also: huh?
And: i am so gay
Honorable mention: WHAT
From Nic: “Screenshotted the video and opened the layout app SO FAST”
shea: Holy shit
My my my, how far we have come from them little black/white fits.
Carmen: My brain has fully broken.
shea: Also, the elder smoking a cigar is me in 30 years.
Dani: I’m hyperventilating.
This is how I want pride to be this year.
Carmen: My thing is… ok my thing is maybe the ass grab?
but also the cigar smoke?
but also WHEN THEY LICK THE HEEL
like.. my thing is… many things
Nic: Is it bad that I want to gatekeep this album so badly?
Shelli: I’m just saying we should do a tag yourself.
Dani: I love this era of Janelle being hot and thotty
This is me:
shea: Do y’all think Janelle was like “what will make them hot?” and then said “cool, cool. let’s do that!” to every suggestion?
Dani: YES
Shelli: This is me at a pool party to a T.
Wearing a beret in my own world.
Shelli: Me as a queer elder supporting the girls.
Carmen: omg
omg shelliiiiii
Nic: Unrelated but the AESTHETIC of this photo 👩🍳💋
Shelli: Me in so many ways
Dani: I JUST WAS GONNA ADD THIS
Carmen: Wait I was ALSO going to be licking the heel!
We can’t all be licking the heel.
Nic: CANT WE
Shelli: I shan’t be the licker but the wearer
Carmen: 👆🏾
Shelli: Also, I could have used more fat babes in the pool party yes and I don’t care if that upsets people. But that was literally my only qualm.
Dani: Yes, totally.
Carmen: No, that’s facts though.
Carmen: How am I just seeing this? They are so unserious!
Titties out for the next 15 years. 😝
— Janelle Monáe👽🚆🤖🚀🪐 (@JanelleMonae) May 11, 2023
For the next 15 years!!!
Sai: I’m sorry, I’m late… I think I stopped breathing for a few minutes.
Carmen: THE ALBUM DROPS DURING PRIDE!!
ooooh say less, it’s up.
Nic: 🔥🔥🔥
I remember when Dirty Computer came out and I thought THAT was going to be peak Janelle for me, but wow I am so thrilled to have been wrong.
Shelli: 2nd Janelle 6:9 — The Age of Pleasure.
Carmen: I am ready to read from this scripture.
Shelli: 69!!
Nic: OHMYGOD
Shelli: THEY ARE A SNEAKY DEVIL
Dani: The theme of pride is PLEASURE I’m so excited.
Dani: How do I already know the lyrics?
Shit is on REPEAT
shea: Me, all summer:
Nic: Oh damn shea, that’s me too.
shea: What I’d like to be doing:
Honestly, they need to sell the print of this shot.
Like I need this on my wall.
Carmen: Immediately.
Dani: I need the pleasure shirt.
Now!
Sai: Me when i realize this is the last slice of pizza:
A. Tony: A thank you to Janelle Monáe, I hope the sapphic vibes of the universe relay this message to you.
Christina: I clicked play and meant to type by my brain literally shut down so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Natalie: Understandable.
Let’s recap. First, drink your water because hydration is key. Second, it’s been five years since Janelle Monáe gifted us with an album to soundtrack our queer lives, and that’s about to change. You can listen to Janelle Monáe’s “Lipstick Lover” wherever you do your music, and you can expect us to cover the countdown to June 9th’s Age of Pleasure with a hyperfocused, obsessive level of detail that only the gays do best.
Speaking of, let me use my one final brain cell to say this: Have you read adrienne marie brown’s Pleasure Activism? Because that feels like a thing you could do.
And one last thing — if you’re a Black queer person reading this, I love you and all of this is for you. I hope the sun kisses your melanin today.
😉
Eurovision 2023 Starts Today! Here Are the Songs by Bisexual Contestants Loreen and Alessandra
Calling all my high camp, pop-loving, theater kid energy gays! Eurovision 2023 — the longest-running original song competition in the world — kicks off today with part one of the semi-finals, and two of the contestants competing for international pop song glory are openly bisexual women!
The first is past champion Loreen, who is representing Sweden again after winning Eurovision in 2012. Loreen won 11 years ago with her song “Euphoria” and received what was, at the time, the second-highest number of points ever. While she wasn’t publicly out as queer at the time, she came out on Swedish television in 2017. This year, she’s competing with her new song “Tattoo,” which you can check out below:
Heading into Eurovision 2023, Loreen is already strongly favored to win. If she does, she’ll become only the second person to ever win Eurovision twice (Ireland’s Johnny Logan won in 1980 and 1987), and she’ll be the first woman to ever do so. Speaking to the Gay Times, Loreen touched on the LGBTQ community’s support of her first winning song “Euphoria” and on the creative freedom of the competition. “This was the community that accepted me for who I am,” she said in the interview.
Also competing this year is openly bisexual artist Alessandra, who will be representing Norway. The Norwegian-Italian singer most recently competed in the seventh season of Norway’s version of The Voice in 2022. She will be singing her song “Queen of Kings.” Check it out:
Another bop! When talking about the meaning behind her song with Eurovision-specific news site Eurovision Fun, Alessandra touched on her queerness, saying:
“This song shows the power of women, but also the power of all people, about how important it is to feel yourself. I am bisexual and when I lived in Italy I had to hide who I was because some of my friends and relatives would not approve it. So I think it’s important to accept who we are, without caring about the opinion of others, as well as to accept that there are also bad moments in life from which we become stronger!”
Other gay contestants this year include Serbia’s Luke Black and Belgium’s Gustaph. Luke Black will compete in today’s Semi-Final 1 alongside Loreen and Alessandra, while Gustaph will compete in Semi-Final 2 later this week.
The Eurovision Song Contest features artists representing countries by singing original songs for the globally televised event. Eurovision 2023 is the 67th iteration of the global singing competition, which is being hosted in Liverpool, and 37 countries are competing. Points are determined by viewer voting, and for the first time ever, viewers located in non-participating countries are able to vote, which means U.S. viewers can cast votes this year. The hosts of Eurovision 2023 are Julia Sanina, Graham Norton, Alesha Dixon, and my Ted Lasso wife Hannah Waddingham.
Semi-Final 2 will air on May 11, and the final goes down on May 13. All three segments of Eurovision 2023 will be streaming on Peacock at 3 p.m. Eastern/noon Pacific on the respective days, starting today with Semi-Final 1, when you can catch bicons Alessandra and Loreen sing for glory.
Who are you rooting for this year?
Playlist: What I Think Each Yellowjacket Would Listen To
Warning: this contains some spoilers for the current season of Yellowjackets, including mentions of songs in episodes and scenes. If you want to catch up and if you haven’t been watching weekly and religiously following Kayla’s amazing episode recaps on here, you should definitely read those first.
So whoever is picking the music for Yellowjackets truly knows what the people need. When I watched the first season, I was floored by how many wonderful, meticulously chosen songs there were. Last season one of my favorite needle drops was Portishead’s “Glory Box,” and this season I got the chills when episode one opened up with Sharon Van Etten’s “Seventeen” and screamed when Radiohead’s “Climbing Up the Walls” marked the girls’ descent into cannibalism. My ear(s) could fall off — the music curation is just that good. Hell, they even got Alanis Morissette and Florence + The Machine to do covers for the show.
The music has been so consistently good that I was inspired to make individual playlists for our six main Yellowjackets — Shauna, Taissa, Misty, Van, Lottie, and Nat.
Listen to them all or just your favorite!
Shauna’s Playlist
Do you have a penchant for handling garden pests and serving them to your family? Perhaps in your darkest hours you turn to makeup artistry?
Taissa’s Playlist
We all need to make some sacrifices in life to make our dreams come true. Perhaps not in the crawl space under our home though? No? Okay just me then.
Misty’s Playlist
Good friends set up hidden cameras to monitor their friends and do coke for them so they don’t relapse! Good friends also help their friends take out the shit bucket and then bare their darkest secrets… right?
Van’s Playlist
Queers will literally tie themselves to their partners to make sure they don’t wander off a cliff and write “I love you” in blood on their partner’s arm before they say it out loud.
Lottie’s Playlist
Purple is soooo your color! Also, do these antlers make me look mysterious?
Nat’s Playlist
Purple isn’t really my color you know?
69.9 FM is a series of playlists from Julie’s poorly organized Spotify.