Pride Month Spotlight: Celebrating Trailblazing Black Queens of Music from the Queer Community
Queer people have played a substantial role in every facet of modern music, yet it’s not often that lesbian, bi, queer, or trans women are celebrated for their contributions. Trailblazing Black women like ‘The Mother of the Blues' Ma Rainey, Roaring Twenties’ beacon Josephine Baker, So So Def’s Da Brat, the legendary Queen Latifah, and esteemed Janelle Monáe have paved the way across space and time.
As a Bisexual Black businesswomen who initially struggled with owning the fullness of my identity, these trailblazers contributed to the soundtrack to my life, and to my realization that taking up space can be a good thing. It’s taken a long time for queens from the community to get their due, though they’ve inspired and shaped the music industry for centuries. Let’s take a moment to honor them this Pride Month.
Ma Rainey
Gertrude Pridgett
Classic Blues Vocalist
1886 - 1939
We celebrate ‘The Mother of the Blues,’ Ma Rainey, for representing many firsts in an era where being a full-figured Black woman with a powerful voice (who makes power moves and lives freely!) did not afford any elements of care, femininity, and safety.
Ma Rainey became one of the most prominent figures to not let the perception of her looks decide her fate.
One of her earliest recorded shows was in 1900, and for the next two decades, she would become a force on the minstrel show scene. Her performances were so legendary, that she sold out shows and earned the title “Mother of the Blues” after blending jazz and country blues into her music.
Once she was signed to Paramount in 1923, Ma Rainey found even more success due to her creativity. Performing with elegant costumes, using stage props for mystique, and her refined taste in jewelry made her stand out as an artist. However, what really garnered Ma Rainey fame was her attitude towards perception. After having been married twice, Ma stopped publicly dating men and became one of the first openly queer artists ever, which included her renowned relationship with fellow singer Bessie Smith.
Most famously, in 1925, Ma Rainey was arrested after a party she had with all female guests was found to be “indecent;” however she would not let the law stop her from sharing her journey. Songs like ‘Bull Dyker’s Dream’ and ‘Sissy Blues’ were filled with lyrics about queer and trans relationships, but her most iconic song, ‘Prove It On Me Blues’, became one of her signature records.
I went out last night with a crowd of my friends,
It must've been women, 'cause I don't like no men.
Wear my clothes just like a fan,
Talk to the gals just like any old man.
Between her progressive lyrics for both feminism and queerness, and her prowess as a fierce business woman, Ma Rainey represented many firsts for her era that still empower women like me today.
Josephine Baker
Freda Josephine McDonald
Jazz Age Dancer • Singer • Actress
1906 - 1974
We celebrate iconoclast French-American dancer, singer, resistance member and rights activist, Josephine Baker. The word “iconoclast” doesn’t even begin to fully explain her, but that’s the power of being one of a kind.
Josephine Baker was never known to have lived an easy life, and was forced to deal with a number of oppressive situations in her youth. However, her adversity against those trying times pushed her towards New York after living in St. Louis most of her life, where she became the highest-grossing choir girl for vaudeville shows on Broadway. After deciding to leave America once WWI had ended, due to the rampant racism, Baker chose France as her new home.
This is where the legend of Josephine Baker truly begins because, during the 1920s, her fame skyrocketed. At the time, there had been no woman like her. Josephine embraced a level of vivaciousness, sexual abrasion, and audacity when it came to her act. One of her most noted performances happened in 1926, where she debuted the famous “banana skirt” during the La Revue Negre at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Dances performed at this show became the precursor to what we would know as “voguing” six decades later. The reaction from this show garnered so much attention for Josephine, that she became the first famous Black worldwide celebrity. Because of her playful yet fierce nature when it came to sexuality, her femininity transcended race, to the point where white women would bronze themselves just to achieve a similar skin tone.
However, Josephine Baker didn’t just use sexuality to shake up culture; she controlled it. While it was never publicly addressed by her, her son, Jean-Claude Baker, admitted in her biography that she was “a lover of women”. Baker was known for intense yearning for love, and thus satisfied her desires with many different lovers throughout her years, both quietly and openly.
Josephine Baker’s life and story are extremely intricate and can never be understated. From working through WWII as a spy and protecting Jewish refugees in her own home, to being the only woman to speak at the March to Washington, everything she did was revolutionary in some manner. However, her fearless portrayal of pursuing love and embracing her feminine nature to navigate Black sexuality on her own terms makes Josephine one of the earliest and most prominent queer figures of all time, along with being an advocate for women’s rights.
Queen Latifah
Dana Elaine Owens
Rapper • Actress • Singer • Songwriter • Film Producer • Talk Show Host
1970 - Present
All hail the Queen! We celebrate one of the biggest musician-to-actor success stories ever, Queen Latifah. First debuting in 1989, Queen Latifah used a rap style that focused on Black feminine encouragement to combat the aggressive misogyny that hip-hop was known to have. Over her 30+ year career, she has released seven albums as both a rapper and singer, along with her Grammy-winning single U.N.I.T.Y., one of the most prolific rap songs of all time.
Queen Latifah’s also the first female solo rapper to receive a RIAA certification for her second album, Black Reign; the first female rapper to join the Hollywood Walk of Fame with her own star; and inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame, along with countless awards and nominations.
However, it is Queen Latifah’s venture into acting that took her career to new heights. From her beginnings as Khadijah on Living Single, through countless movie roles to-date, to her current main feature role on The Equalizer, Queen Latifah has pushed boundary after boundary as a Black woman in Hollywood. Even further, she has always been an icon for full-figured women and advocating for the appreciation of Black bodies as a whole.
For most of her career, Queen Latifah kept firm on her private life and avoided media scrutiny. Her role as Cleo in the movie Set It Off, was the first depiction of Latifah as queer, which lead to speculation from such thoughtful representation. That very role became a significant moment of representation for Black queer women and she continued to embody pivotal roles ever since. Her embodiment of Bessie in the HBO biopic positively rocked the screen by showing the beauty of loving freely in an era where it was already frowned upon to simply be Black, let alone a Black queer woman.
In 2021, Queen Latifah publicly came out as she thanked her long-time partner Eboni Nichols and their son Rebel during her acceptance speech for the BET Lifetime Achievement Award. This pivotal moment further solidified every relatable moment of emotional rawness and freedom in her skin we witnessed her shed on screen as Cleo or Bessie.
Da Brat
Shawntae Harris
Rapper • Actress
1974 - Present
We celebrate So So Def Records infamous Rapper and actress, Da Brat. She was the first solo female rap artist to go platinum off her 1992 debut album, Funkdafied. Over Da Brat’s three-decade rap career, she has amassed four high selling albums, countless features, two Billboard Awards, TV & movie roles, as well as two co-host jobs for syndicated radio shows.
Upon her debut, Da Brat rocked baggy clothing to fit with the 90’s fashion mystic and also maintained an equally impressive mystique about her personal life. Her dynamic image and impressive rapping skills let her stand firm on what she could do, rather than traditional limitations around how she should look. Although there was a point in the early 2000s when Da Brat began to showcase more of her range, she is one of the few female rappers of that era who was not forced into a typecast in order to maintain her career, making her a standard within hip-hop.
Da Brat did not publicly discuss her relationships throughout the early part of her career (to maintain a quiet dating life and escape much of the public eye when living her private life). However, Da Brat has been more vocal about her queerness in recent years and is currently staring her journey in love and life in the reality show, Brat Loves Judy, with her wife, Judy Dupart. It has been refreshing to learn more about her across the board since she defied so many standards in the male-dominated music industry.
Janelle Monáe
Janelle Monáe Robinson
Singer • Songwriter • Rapper • Actress
1985 - Present
We celebrate the world-renowned Janelle Monáe. Janelle Monáe is a direct result of the various roads paved by the queer icons highlighted above. A culmination of sass, spirit, insight, talent and fully representing the term “marching to the beat of their own drum,” Janelle Monae is a trailblazing musician and actress.
First debuting in 2005 after being discovered by Big Boi (Outkast fame) and Sean Combs, Monae’s style of music infused folk, R & B, electric and funk together and earned her recognition as an alt-pop artist. Her futuristic ideals culminated in three musical projects, three released albums and creating her own record label, Wondaland.
Monae has also transitioned into film and television, with stand-out roles in Moonlight and Hidden Figures, along with several voice acting nods. Between music and acting, Monae remains in high demand for creativity.
For the early portion of her career, the character Monae portrayed focused on space age ideology, with her calling herself an ‘android,’ and only being intimate with androids. She played with the notion of how the media represented her, as she chose outfits like tuxedos and robotic patterns, in an effort to be seen as androgynous. After numerous outings with at-the-time girlfriend Tessa Thompson, Monae came out in a Rolling Stone interview.
“Being a queer black woman in America," she said in the interview, "someone who has been in relationships with both men and women – I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker.”
If anything Janelle Monae may be one of the most famous artists of today based on her ability to strongly uphold her boundaries and self-definition. Her work constantly focuses on education and the uplifting of the LGBTQIA+ and does not seem to be bending any time anytime soon.
"I want young girls, young boys, nonbinary, gay, straight, queer people who are having a hard time dealing with their sexuality, dealing with feeling ostracized or bullied for just being their unique selves, to know that I see you.”
Key Takeaways 🔑
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