Out gay rapper QBoy was the first of his kind on the UK scene. As he readies his latest EP for release, we had a cheeky chirpse about…well, a bit of everything!
Hey QBoy, it’s been a while! What have you been up to?
Juggling – finding a balance between surviving in London and creating. I have been working on my new E.P. for some time, in fits and starts. Finding the time, energy and money to get everything finished is difficult but finally I am nearing the point of releasing it, which I am so excited about. It’s been a long pregnancy. Fortunately I have my DJing to keep me going and active in between releasing new music.
This new photoshoot is amazing, where was it shot?
I traveled to Los Angeles to record one of my new music videos ‘Set It Up’ directed by ArcFame Films who are based there. UK stylist Emma Darling was also in LA at the time and she got her team and photographer Davide Laffe to set this shoot up. She really pulled it altogether.
We love the Marco Marco looks. How did you get involved with them?
Again that was Emma’s doing, she got in some really cool looks for the shoot, and I loved a lot of those Marco Marco clothes – he was kind of enough to let me take 2 of his caps home with me.
You’re releasing a new E.P. called QING. Tell us about that.
It’s a 5 track E.P., with each song having a music video. I have been playing many more DJ sets recently, especially with my residency at Heaven and ‘R & She’ and I think I’ve become pretty good, playing what’s going to work and keeping everyone dancing without compromising my own taste. So I have made the E.P. from my perspective as a DJ. I am not trying to be too smart or clever or deep. I just wanted to make songs and videos that would make people dance, and/or entertain them. Every song still has elements of truth and seeds of messages, because I am unable to produce work that has no meaning or sense of honesty to it, but on the whole it’s meant to be received as a fun project. It was also especially important I raise the level of production quality from my last album, which I feel I have achieved, it’s sounding really hot.
You released the first of the songs on the E.P., “DragOn” featuring London boys Ray Noir and FRANK.co, last year. How did that collaboration come about?
This is the first video to come from the QING project. I had actually already recorded DragOn and it was finished, before approaching FRANK.co and Ray Noir to do this remix with me for the video. I knew both from the scene and I am always keen on promoting and working with fellow queer artists. Ray is really delivering something totally unique, which reminds me of when I first started. FRANK.co laid some really cool vibes, and with it being a weed smoking anthem, he was a perfect fit at the time. I don’t think a lot of people really got it though because of the Game of Thrones theme (the main lyric is “I get my DragOn like the Queen B Khaleesi”). I didn’t want to do yet another hip-hop song about weed – there must be 500 of those already, and I really do LOVE Game Of Thrones, and my fav character was def the Khaleesi. So mixing the two, I thought, gave yet another song about weed a definitive concept, was a clever lyric and was genuinely combining two things I really enjoyed, an honest expression. Yet some were quite cynical in their reaction to it. Never the less, visually, it was really impressive, and that was down to director Kassandra Powell and her team, she did an superb job.
You’ve also got ‘Pop Muzik’ and ‘Show Me Your Deck’ coming up soon. They both sound amazing, what’s the story with those tracks?
Both of these videos again I made working with Kassandra Powell. ‘Pop Muzik’ is a cover of the 1979 classic and is a simply shot film which doubles as a lyric video. I wanted to demonstrate how hip-hop music and hip-hop culture has influenced pop culture over the years and has actually become the leading pop culture. I did this by paying homage to key hip-hop icons and style icons throughout the ages of hip-hop: LL Cool J, Run DMC, Fresh Prince, Nas, 2Pac, Eminem, Drake. ’Show Me Ur Deck’ is about exhibitionisim and cock appreciation, under the thinly veiled premise of card playing. It’s very tongue in cheek with lots of double entendres and discusses the gay communities use of apps like Grindr and sites like Cam4, and my personal favourite, guys in grey jogging bottoms and visible bulge – which there seems to be a lot of these days! I also have a Salt-N-Pepa moment of social consciousness at the end, commenting on Grindr’s increasing amount of drug users, slamming in particular.
You’re releasing a video for each song as well, correct? Very Beyonce!
Well it’s a much harder feat to pull off when you are independent like me! In this multi-media forum, a video is needed to go with your song or no one will notice it. Plus visuals have always been a huge part of the interest for me, part of the creative process. Once I have written and recorded the track it’s just the beginning. I love doing the visuals. I always have very clear ideas and treatments for each of my videos – it’s part of my total vision.
You were one of the very first out gay rappers, at least on the London scene, how do you feel things have evolved since you first broke out?
I was the first in UK. Actively recording and performing. I was also involved in Pac-Man, the first gay hip-hop club in the UK, which was with DJs NineBob and Gideon from Block9, fashion artist Noki and I was editor of gayhiphop.com, which was years ahead of it’s time thanks to brainchild DJ MistaMaker who created it. It was tough back then, because you had the homophobia shadowing of 90’s gangsta rap so hip-hop didn’t want us, and gay clubs and promoters were still so stuck on house and pop music – and this was before R&B and hip-hop has become pop and mainstream itself – so we were getting no love and no representation on the queer community either. However, that made our voice, our purpose, all the more valid, important and louder. In todays world, hip-hop is pop music, its much less homophobic in the mainstream, queers in hip-hop is nothing new, punk, or political, and the internet is flooded with new indie artists everyday – which all makes it a lot harder to be seen or heard. What is great now is the fact that queer hip-hop artists are being signed by music labels, management and agencies – that would have never happened back when I started out. That’s progress.
“Every song still has elements of truth and seeds of messages, because I am unable to produce work that has no meaning or sense of honesty to it, but on the whole it’s meant to be received as a fun project.”
You presented a Channel 4 documentary called ‘Coming Out to Class” back in 2007, focusing on homophobic bullying in schools. Is this still a cause you’re supporting?
That documentary was about what I experienced at school. How homophobia in the classroom affects so many of us when we are young. We then looked at gay teens in the present day to see if their experience was any different, better or worse. Sadly it wasn’t. That documentary was pretty revolutionary – even before the successful USA ‘It Gets Better’ campaign that came after. It’s the thing I am most proud of. I still get messages now from people, young and older alike, who have seen it, saying how important it was or is to them. The work I did off the back of that, going into schools with a workshop programme designed to challenge homophobia, was especially rewarding for me because it had such a positive impact of LGBT teens and their straight classmates alike – so this will always be something I support and have time for.
You’re also one of the co-founders of ‘R & She’, the homo party for the Queens of Hip-Hop And R&B. The party’s massive now! Did you expect it to become such a huge thing?
R & She is a non-stop blessing. I have DJ’ed many parties in my 15 years on the deck – and let me tell you, quite a few were empty! When Neil Prince and David Oh approached me to do the party with them, I thought “wow, I get an opportunity to play all my favourite female rapper tracks, that sounds great”. The first party was rammed packed full of other gay men, all with the same amount of love for Lil Kim, Destiny’s Child, Ciara, and Salt-N-Pepa as me and the boys – singing and dancing, cheering along to every song. It was so easy. We play our favourites, which are their favourites too. Every single party has been the same ever since and we are about to celebrate our 4th birthday. Our crowd is loyal and always happy and friendly. It’s not just the gay men that love what we do either. Everyone comes to our party and it keeps growing. We have a regular date in Berlin too, plus another summer terrace special at The Magic Roundabout and Bristol Pride approaching. I know I may be biased but ‘R & She’ is my most favourite party ever. I feel very lucky to be part of it.
You also helped start similar parties in Spain, is that right?
Yes, I started the first gay hip-hop party in Madrid called ‘YO!’ with my boyfriend, Pepo. We then included a local DJ and journalist and the three of us did parties in Madrid and Barcelona, while Pepo was still living in Spain. It felt good to be pushing some boundaries again. American culture, especially hip-hop, was not so prominent in Spain during the 90’s so it doesn’t have quite the same climate as London for example – still it was fun and helped pay for my flights to visit Pepo!
What else is in the pipeline for you? Are you doing Glastonbury/NYC Downlow again this year?
I have got a slot to DJ at Glastonbury but as of yet I am unsure if I can make it – what with releasing my new EP and 4 new music videos, I am pretty snowed under – I don’t have a team of people working for me – it’s just me. If I don’t get shit done, it doesn’t happen!
