A while ago a producer said my voice inspired him to create a show. He said it was going to be a jazz show ,live music was going to be a focus.

I noted that his main singer, main musicians, main performers were white and slender. I’ve only performed there once.

Since then he’s said he wanted me back but money… then he’ll turn his head a few degrees to the thin white performer next to me & offer them a date. I take the same pay as everyone else in the show for the most part. He knows it.

He reminded me of those guys who wanted to fuck with me but didn’t want to be seen with me. He kept doing this until I called him on his shit and then activated Virgo Superpower #14 “The Elsa”:
You are so dead to me that you never lived (because ewww bridge burning is so messy)

I finally valued myself more than I valued an opportunity to come play.

So when a producer and creator I greatly admired wanted to have me come sing and have a white person be the face of my voice I was hurt but I was ready.

I explained the historical erasure of fat black femme bodies, I explained that my voice and my aesthetic are inseparable.
Visibility is resistance.
We’re cool now
Not Frozen

There are people who say they are going to hire me to sing because my performance inspired them, made them feel, made them cry.
Then silence
Then I see a smaller bodied singer on their stage
Then they see me and say they want to hire me
Repeat repeat repeat
You looking all uncomfortable because you’re sizest and maybe racist and it’s not cool to be that way in this industry but you are and we both know it.

I’m used to the discrimination
It’s made me creative
It’s made me branch out

It’s also made me hypercritical of myself
It’s made me feel unsafe, unwanted and unloved
And that is a gift because I’ve had to forge better armor, learn to want and love myself.
I’m struggling through this now
Wanting and loving myself
But I know that this will turn into the best relationship I’ve ever had.

I see you and I’m laughing
And I’m not going to comfort you by participating in a guilt inspired false conversation
There are plenty of stages that do hire me, all of me and you’ve been Elsa-ed AF ❄️💙❄️

Photo by Patric Carver
Taken at Monday Night Hubba Hubba Revue

DNA Lounge SF