Colman Domgo on the succs of Ma Raey's Black Bottom, Euphoria, and what would be like if Beyoncé was gay.
Contents:
ON THIS GAY DAY: BLU SGER MA RAEY DIED 1939
Was Ma Raey Gay? Who Was Ma Raey's Hband? * is ma rainey gay *
Keep md that as recently as the ’80s, gay, whe artists such as Gee Michael and Judas Prit volist Rob Halford worried that the pfalls of g out publicly would be too great for their rpective reers to survive. We pored through the lyrics of Ma’s numero rerdgs search of most ground-breakg gay lyrics. Although direct referenc to homosexualy n be unted on one hand, more obscure nods n be found as she sgs l that dite her disda for the abive men her life.
Check out the awome exprsns om one of Ameri’s earlit pro-gay voic mic below:. As opposed to her other nods to homosexualy, which were often sprkled spargly wh a le or two of a stanza, seems Ma wrote this particular tune explicly om the viewpot of a lbian woman. But further along, she seems to be scribg woman drsed men’s “brogan sho, ” footwear that wouldn’t be worn by any woman unls she was cross-drsg or gay 1920s Ameri.
She don’t scribe anythg that uld really be nsted unequivolly as a gay lyric, but she sgs, “I don’t want no man to put sugar my tea, ” which is perhaps to say she’d prefer a woman did stead. We thk that Robert Philipson (the director of ‘T’A’t Nobody’s Bizns: Queer Blu Divas of the 1920s’) said bt— “I don’t want to overplay the signifince of the three songs that Ma Raey wrote and rerd that had some referenc to lbianism and homosexualy. Her nfn is overstated, and maybe liberately ironic: Like her mil mentor Ma Raey, Smh had numero sexual relatnships wh both men and women, and was que faiar wh gay and lbian subcultur.
The history of pop mic, and of black pop mic particular, has always been gay history. * is ma rainey gay *
Lyrilly she rarely flirted wh homoerotic material as did Ma Raey and Bsie Smh, and her only referenc to lbianism her tobgraphy are rogatory.
Billy Strayhorn, pianist and wrer wh the De Ellgton orchtra, was openly gay.
Hugh' private life was also much ls public than Raey's—but most scholars believe he was gay, and he did wre sympathetilly about gay characters a number of his works. Gay performers, and sometim gay subtext, ntued to be a part of blu and jazz and their rivativ.