You might know AB Soto. The crunchy, sequin-clad kween responsible for summer anthem ‘Cha-Cha Bitch’. If you DON’T, you need to get to class, girl. Check iTunes, because bitch has a back catalogue worth catching up on. Better yet, check out his YouTube. Mr Soto is quite the visual artist, and by that, we mean the boy likes a LOOK. Underneath all that though, is an artist seeking to challenge racial and gender norms through the medium of pop music. And he’s doing it well.
Dom Top pulled out the Barbie Dream Phone once again and called up his favourite East LA banjee boy for a chat about artistry, activism and identity.
So for those who might not know, tell us who AB Soto is.
I am a performance artist that incorporates fashion, music, dance…all the things that I love. From growing up in East LA in a Latin home to then moving to New York and discovering art. I have something to say. Everything that I do has an element of activism. From my first song, to ‘Banjee Power’, to ‘Butch Beat’, to ‘Dirty Boyz’ which was about gay cruising, there’s activism in there. Those are my paintbrushes. I paint with a fierce outfit and I can reach people by having them watch me dance, but then the message stays in the back of their brains. So. I’m a performance artist and an activist [laughs].
So the look is the hook?
Yeah, who doesn’t like to be entertained? But I’m not talking fluffy, dumb stuff. There’s something there, whether I’m making fun of myself or challenging Latin stereotypes, there’s always something.
I like the subversive element of it. The first video of yours that I saw was ‘Fashionz’ which was a fun critique of people taking the look too seriously.
I worked in the industry as a designer for three years and then I quit to be a backup dancer. I was like “I’m just colouring inside the lines, I wanna create my own colouring book.” So that song was rebelling against fashion and the people that are a slave to the industry and the whole idea of what gay people need to dress like. For instance, when Queer Eye for the Straight Guy came out-
Oh Jesus
Exactly! We were so thirsty, so desperate for representation in the media that we ran with it. Everyone was dressed like one of those characters and that was ok. Then we started to push a little further and people felt comfortable wearing their scruff and before you know it, Scruff was invented. So we realised we can be whatever we want. We don’t have to stick to these stereotypes that Hollywood thinks we are. The gay sidekick, the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. That song was about rebelling against all that.
Talking about your style a little more, I’d say there was quite an evolution between something like the ‘Butch Beat’ video and ‘Cha Cha Bitch’. Is that intentional, or just your tastes developing or just being able to afford better clothes?
All of the above! I started off with a really baggy look, because I didn’t want my work to be about my body. [The gay community] is so obsessed with body. Whether it’s the friends we pick or the people we date. I’d rather have people like me for my work than have them say “Oh he’s just a cute boy”.
Also, nobody was dressing baggy like that at the time over here. I was really inspired by the silhouettes coming out of London, like Cassette Playa. There was a bunch of brands coming out of London that I was just really inspired by and I was the only kid in LA walking around looking like that. Now my style has evolved, I’ve played with a more peek-a-boo style and taken my shirt off a little bit. Now I get people saying things like “oh, I didn’t know you were fit” and I’m like “ok, so you spent this entire time thinking one way and now you’re paying attention? Take that into your daily life now and see where else you’re doing that.”
It’s like the old Hollywood trope of the dowdy girl getting the makeover and everybody suddenly liking her.
Yeah, plus with this album being a little more Latin, now I’m getting this whole new fanbase coming out and supporting me alongside my old fans. Before a lot of people thought I was Puerto Rican because of my banjee swag and now suddenly everyone’s like ‘oh you’re Mexican? You’re from East LA?’ Well, wait a minute, who says that someone from East LA, or a Mexican or a white person can’t be banjee? These are all roles that need a makeover. Am I banjee, Mexican, Latin, cunty, drag queen, butch, femme? I’m all of those things honey, and you can be too.
I’m glad you mentioned the album being more Latin, I definitely noticed the stronger Mexican influences throughout a lot of the songs, was that an intentional move on your part?
This album, Mr. Soto, was paying homage to my dad who passed away when I was 16. Going back to my heritage in East LA, which for a really long time I battled with, there were lot of demons there. I grew up in a low-income household with a dysfunctional family. My parents were always separated. I was struggling with being gay and not understanding it. Ultimately I came out when I was sixteen, the night that my dad passed away. I just had to let it out. I was like “fuck it, I have nothing to lose”. But for a really long time, I didn’t deal with his death. I didn’t go back to my mother’s house in East LA because it reminded me of that stuff.
But recently I felt like I rediscovered myself and fell back in love with my heritage, I wanted this album to reflect that, so I made a conscious decision to incorporate a lot of my roots in there.
When I first started out, I wanted to rap as an openly gay artist. Now there are a lot of amazingly talented artists representing gay rap. So I wanted to move into Latin music and reinvent it and make it cunty. Then maybe we’ll have a slew of gay Latin artists and I can move on to country music. Put a little ‘cunt’ in country! I’m making fun of myself at times but there’s activism behind all of it.
They say the best comedians are the ones who can highlight why a way of thinking is wrong and challenge it while still making people laugh.
Lady Gaga has this huge message and at times it can come across preachy. People are turned off by that. Nobody wants to be preached to. If I can make fun of myself and get my message across that way AND entertain someone… I mean who doesn’t love a good laugh?
You’ve been to London before, correct? I remember you performed for Larry Tee at SEPM in East Bloc last summer.
Yeah! I did a show there, I did a show at Old Blue Last and then I did a show somewhere else. I can’t remember.
How did London’s gay scene compare to what’s happening in the states right now?
I loved it! There’s a creative energy there that is unique. I made some great friends and I was able to connect with local dancers who danced with me for my shows. There’s great energy and great art happening there.
I feel like there’s a lot more bearded drag here, like more deliberately un-femme. That’s what you’re singing about in your song ‘Crunchy’, right?
Yes! I love that drag because everyone’s rebelling against these norms of being gay, being straight, being butch, being feminine. And they’re rebelling with drag as well. It’s an important social commentary that people need to pay attention to. People may think, “oh, this drag queen’s a mess and she’s not together”, actually she’s VERY together. She’s deconstructing her look and doing that on purpose to make you think.
There seems to be less femme-real pageant queen look, and more of the bearded, organic stuff that deliberately plays with gender identity.
Yeah. Not knocking the original style of drag, because there’s a lot of respect for that too but it’s a new commentary that should be listened to. A lot of the drag there reminded me of my friends back in Brooklyn and San Francisco.
It’s funny because even something like Drag Race has faced criticism for being geared mainly towards a mainstream, fishy look, so in the last season they were filtering in the bearded stuff more. It’s surreal to describe drag as mainstream now though.
It’s becoming the new mainstream! Which is good.
Is playing with gender identity something you like to do as a performer? The visuals for ‘Crunchy’ had you in a quinceañera dress, eating Cheetos and flexing your biceps in a baseball cap.
I like to make people think because I think there’s a lot of homophobia within our own community, for instance “Masc4Masc”. That is so completely homophobic. I mean, of course, who doesn’t get off to a huge hunky stud? But at the same time, you’re killing off a bunch of possibilities because someone is in drag.
“Oh, I would never date a drag queen!” Have you tried? If I can turn you on in huge baggy fucking clothes, then I can also turn you on while I’m wearing a fluffy quinceañera dress. I want people do dig a little deeper and not be turned off by what someone’s wearing.
Making attraction more about the individual and the energy. Not the dressing on the outside.
Yeah, that was my main aim with the dress. And also because I got to travel around the world with just one easy costume for my tour [laughs]. But it’s a big part of my work, putting a lot of shit on me. Whether it’s bright blue eyebrows or a yellow paper crown, or a cowboy hat. I’m putting on all these stereotypes that turn most people off, but what people are discovering is that they’re NOT turned off. They like it! So I want people to take that out into the world and feel like “Oh, wait, AB made me change my perception of how I see things. How I see a boy in a dress, how I see a Mexican Latin artist. How I see butch and feminine. I can be turned on by a feminine guy. Fuck this Masc4Masc shit.”
Seriously.Masc4Mascara!
RIGHT? You can’t knock our brothers and sisters because that’s not what turns you on.
Like with dating app profiles that say things like “no fat”, “no femme” and “no Asian”. People don’t seem to realise how damaging it is for people to keep seeing those messages.
Totally. It creates hostility and homophobia within our own community. That makes it much harder for the outside world to accept us and see us with love because we’re too busy fighting. We have all these different ‘cliques’ and the community is divided. I think we need to unite again. If the outside world sees us all united, then they have no choice but to be like “ok, we give in, they’re great people”. We have to end homophobia within our community first.
One reason that’s been put forward for this kind of homophobia is the fact that, in our culture, boys are raised to believe that having traditionally feminine qualities is a bad thing, so this is an unconscious rejection of that.
Right. I think it takes a lot more courage to be feminine than take on this straight, stereotypical macho role though. Whether you’re gay or straight. Who says that just because you’re straight you have to be butch and act a certain way? You can be feminine and be straight.
Let’s talk ‘Cha-Cha Bitch’? It’s kind of blowing up right now.
Somebody uploaded it on Facebook and it went viral overnight. In three days it had like three million views and I think it’s up to five million now. I wish those hits were on MY YouTube but what can you do? I just did a remix of it with RuPaul so that’s gonna come out. That song was about being out in a club and seeing your hot, cha-cha Latin friend just dancing for. Her. Life.
I love the song ‘Fuk Dat’ where you talk about stars claiming to be bisexual as a PR stunt.
Yes. It bothers me. You name any major recording artist out there, whether it’s a female artist, or a Latin artist or a female rapper, they all pull that card at some point in their career to get the gay dollar. The gay community needs to look at that and stop supporting it. We need to start making room for real gay people up there in those positions.
A lot of these artists, they’re styled by a gay person, their lyrics are probably by a gay person, their producer is probably a gay person, the director of the music video is probably gay, their booking agent and manager are probably gay. But they’re not. They’re pretending to be something and not letting us in. They’re using us as a PR stunt. It is homophobia at it’s finest.
The scary thing is that it’s so ingrained. We just accept it.
We need to wake up. When I was a little gay boy, I wanted to sing and dance and the only people I had to look up to were pop divas. I want men up there. A real role model. What if Ricky Martin was able to come out when he was a lot younger? Maybe I would have been inspired by him and I would have felt a little bit more confident. There’s a bunch of little gay boys, little Latin boys, different boys all over the world that are gonna… what? Look up to Britney Spears for another twenty years? Are they gonna look up to Iggy Azaelea? Or Ariana Grande? Because that’s where it’s going. We’re just dumbing down our generations of gay kids to think that this is ok. Something has to change.
We need to focus on supporting our community’s artists. That’s why we’re speaking. I wanted to talk to an artist who I feel is representative of our community. Not someone out to take my money by taking their shirt off or pretending to be bisexual.
Exactly and that’s activism! That’s what it’s about. Little by little, we push and in twenty or thirty years now, Rolling Stone and Out magazine will have this kind of authenticity. We need more of that.
The other thing you mention in ‘Fuk Dat’ is people calling you ‘papi’ because you’re Mexican. Which ties into the whole idea of people prescribing you a sexual identity based on your heritage.
If you wanna call me that in bed and it turns you on, fine. But don’t call me ‘papi’ in the middle of the street because you think I don’t know English and that’s the only Spanish you think you can address me with. It’s like asking me “did you eat tacos when you were growing up?”. That’s just racist. It’s like calling me a ‘wetback’. I have a name and I’m more than just where I come from. That’s where that whole lyric came from.
I think as well, the term ‘papi’ has been popularised in mainstream representations of Latin culture in the media, like that Jennifer Lopez song. But also in gay pornography, the representation of Latinos in gay porn is usually based around the cholo/Mexicano thug aesthetic.
It’s limiting, really limiting. It doesn’t bother me that much now, but in the beginning when someone would find out I was Latin, they would instantly start talking Spanish. Like on a date or something. I would be like, “you look so dumb right now”. I don’t wanna sound like a Debbie Downer though. We should keep it light. Let’s look at these things with love, like the word ‘papi’ and the gay stunts from straight artists and and figure out how to change it. Little by little we can make a difference. Let’s not be angry activists, let’s proceed with love.
• Mr. Soto is out now on iTunes and Spotify. Look out for ‘Cha-Cha Bitch’ Remix feat RuPaul coming soon!
www.absoto.com
• Photo by aaroncobbett.com
