Drag Queens are very legitimate recording artists - and we need to start respecting them as such
Between Shea Couleé, Trixie Mattel, and even RuPaul G*ddamn Charles herself, Drag Race alum have been making bops for years, and I’m sick of pretending they haven’t.
It’s 2009. We’re still using the word “metrosexual”, skinny jeans are showing no signs of leaving our closets, Kesha’s TiK ToK is dominating the charts, and the biggest issue on our minds is whether or not we should go to the Ekka (with Swine Flu making its way onshore and whatnot). It was a much, much simpler time.
But there was one cultural phenomenon in 2009 which eclipsed all others: the premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race. And with that came the birth of a subgenre of music, a creation that I’m crediting to season one winner Bebe Zahara Benet and her debut single, I’m the Shit.
It was - as Troy and Gabriella would put it - the start of something new.
Now, of course, I’m not saying that Bebe was the first drag queen to ever release music. In fact, by 2009, drag queens around the world had been writing, producing, and releasing music for at least four decades (and that’s being conservative).
In the 80s, it was Divine (John Waters’ confidant, and the star of several of his films) who was doing much of the groundwork, releasing songs like Native Love (Step by Step) and Shoot Your Shot, and paving the way for drag queens in the dance music scene. Then, in the 90s, it was performers like Kevin Aviance (of the House of Aviance, and of Pure/Honey fame) who were contributing to this unique sound. But it was arguably RuPaul herself who, throughout the 90s and 00s, really popularised the notion that drag queens could be musicians, too.
All this is to say that drag queens (and queer performers more generally) had already created and nurtured a distinct sound prior to Bebe’s debut single. But, between these songs only being performed in front of smaller and more niche audiences, and a general distaste for queer people in the mainstream, drag queen music hadn’t really taken off.
Then, in 2011, something happened that would forever change the trajectory of this subgenre of music—Manila Luzon would release her debut single Hot Couture.
Between the heavy use of autotune (no tea, no shade, no pink lemonade) and its ever-catchy repetition, Hot Couture was the right amount of gauche and gaudy, and kitsch and camp that I’m hereby declaring it the first of its kind from a Ru Girl. And it was followed up by other camp classics like Purse First by Bob the Drag Queen, Brown Cow Stunning by Mo Heart, Ding Dong! by Katya (feat. Trixie Mattel), and, of course, Come Through by Priyanka (feat. Lemon).
In this house, we believe in Lemyanka supremacy
And even though I’ll be the first to force people to sit down and listen to these songs at pre drinks week after week, I’m also not delusional. I can acknowledge that, while entertaining as f*ck, these songs simply do not have the production value or the mainstream appeal that we wish they did.
But recently, something has changed. And I can’t quite pinpoint who or what was the catalyst for this change, but it was Shea Couleé in RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7 who first brought it to my attention with a live performance of her song Your Name during the season’s variety extravaganza. Yet, despite that song (and many others from the same album) exuding R&B excellence—from the lyrics to the vocals to the production—it still only has just over 4 million streams on Spotify.
Now, I didn’t f*ckin go to school for math, but these numbers aren’t adding up.
And it’s not just Shea releasing these powerhouse productions, either. Queens like Monét X Change (who’s a classically trained opera singer, FYI), Trixie Mattel, and Adore Delano are genuinely talented singer-songwriters who are routinely releasing tracks that should have received mainstream success…if only they weren’t performed by drag queens.
That’s wherein the issue lies.
It’s an issue because over the past 15 years, more than 300 queens have competed on Drag Race (or one of its many spinoffs) providing us with thousands of hours of entertainment; fighting tooth and nail to prove their worth; and having some of the most important discussions in the queer community (around family and intimate partner violence, eating disorders, addiction, living with HIV, and more) on a global scale, yet we—as a fan base, as a community of misfits—have not let a single one of them reach international musical success.
Rigor Morris, girl.
Even the one queen who has arguably come closest to seeing such success, Trixie Mattel, is plagued by fans criticising her musical ability. In a video uploaded to her YouTube channel in 2022, Trixie revealed that a fan screamed at her mid-performance that, “Trixie we love you, but we hate your music.” The level of unprofessionalism…far too much.
Now, I know that this was probably an isolated incident or whatever, but I fear that it’s this same damaging opinion that many a Drag Race fan share, whether consciously or subconsciously—and the queens feel exactly the same way.
In fact, while I was writing this piece, an episode of Trixie & Katya’s podcast, The Bald & The Beautiful, dropped, with Trixie and Monét (that week’s guest host) discussing their place in the music industry.
At one point, Trixie reveals, “I recently have been taking a break from music because I feel the glass ceiling so fiercely.”
She continues, “We’re only ever taken seriously about one month a year, and it just kinda takes the wind out of your sails. You’re like, ‘I wanna make music, but if I don’t have this wig on, no one will pay attention. But because I have this wig on, no one will take it seriously.”
Monét, unsurprisingly, replies with, “Like, why am I even doing this? Why am I putting all this time, effort, money, and everyone’s f*cking patience into this thing?”
It’s so disheartening to see these pillars of the contemporary queer community feel this way, and I’m determined to do something about it. So, let’s f*cking do something about it; let’s give these queens their flowers and stream their music.
“But where do I even start?” I hear you ask. I gotchu. Alongside the tracks I’ve mentioned throughout this piece, I want you to give these five fan faves a go—because they really do showcase the best of the best across a variety of genres (including rap, country, and EDM):
It’s 2024. Both the word “metrosexual”, and skinny jeans are but a distant memory, TikTok has taken on an entirely different meaning, COVID-19 proved to Swine Flu what a real pandemic looked like, and the next biggest cultural phenomenon that I want to see is drag queens entering the mainstream because we’ve supported them in doing so…and I’m not joking b*tch.
—
Ethan is a writer and pop culture fanatic based in Naarm. Much of his work is dedicated to amplifying the stories of up-and-coming queer entertainers.
References / Further Reading:
These Queens Can Sing: The 15 Best Songs by Today’s Drag Performers
The Relationship Between Music and Drag
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You're right, this *is* weird. When we go to a live drag show, a bit of cabaret singing is often (usually?) part of it, and we love it -:and we're often knocked sideways by how good the singing is, amiright?
Yay! Yes! Tia Kofi has some lovely pop songs, too.