Billy Porter isn’t shy when it comes to talking about the ebbs and flows of his career. Before becoming an Emmy-Award-winning actor, he was a smooth-talking rising star in R&B. He even dropped a self-titled album in 1997. It spawned a single titled” Show Me,” which was well-received by fans. However, his music dreams came crashing down quite fast. Porter, who is openly gay, claimed his queerness is what led to him being pushed out of R&B.
In an interview with Evening Star, Porter says he was labeled as a “liability.” He added, “Not just in the music industry, but across the board. And it was a liability.” The actor would later pivot into Broadway, eventually earning himself a Tony Award for his role in Kinky Boots. “[I] made a name for myself, period,” he said. “Not just Broadway. I won an Emmy. I’m a fashion icon. Now they need me. Winners write their history, because I’m not supposed to be here looking like this,” he says.
As of today, Porter is more confident than ever and ready to make his return to music. Last month, he dropped off a new single, “Break A Sweat.” The track is expected to be featured on his upcoming album, The Black Mona Lisa. “I lost my watch/I left it back in purgatory,” he sings on the upbeat tune. “Go on, call the cops/’Cause I don’t fit inside your story.” Porter also talked about the inspiration behind the project’s name.
“Being a pop star is about the imagery that you create. So what would be the strongest image? It’s the Mona Lisa — past, present, future, always relevant. The Black Mona Lisa: that’s what I am.” Throughout the rest of the interview, he opened up about surviving the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. The virus predominately affected queer men. A few years back, the actor revealed that he had been battling with the auto-immune disease since 2007. “I lived through the Aids crisis, honey! I lost a whole generation of folks. [But I] know that I’m part of the generation who kicked the door down.”
Reneé Rapp is seen as a “huge inspiration” by SZA.
The 25-year-old artist performed SZA’s Good Days in the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge, accompanied by two acoustic guitarists and a harp player. SZA, 35, was deeply moved by the rendition.
She posted a short video of the moment on Instagram Stories and wrote: “Renee is a HUGE inspiration, energy, voice spirit.”
During her chat with the BBC, Renee shared her thoughts about the track. She said: “I mean, I love SZA. I mean, she was one of my favorite artists in high school. And she's remained one of my favorite artists to this day. I think she's amazing. She's also, I mean, she's an incredible songwriter, but I think because she has so much swag. People don't realize how good of a singer she is. She's a fantastic vocalist and is really, really, really articulate. And I don't cover a lot of songs anymore. So I wanted to cover something that was, like, slightly challenging and also really vocally impressive, and frankly, hard for me to do.”
Renee is currently in the middle of promoting her second album, Bite Me, and opened up about how much more enjoyable it was to create compared to her first project.
She explained: “I mean, I feel like everything was incredibly different. I stopped listening to people that don't make music, because if you don't make music, then why the hell am I listening to you. And I also think the biggest difference, I think I just got a lot better. I think I have just become a better songwriter. I think I understand how to make pop music now in a way that I didn't really before. And I was very sure about what this album was and thematically, what it needed.
“So I felt like I was quite like, headstrong in like, what was gonna work and what wasn't. Because, nobody knows something better than yourself. I think a lot of things were different. I also just, like, had a lot of fun making it, like, I made it with like, three people, mostly, like, it was always like, four of us in the studio all the time, and we got so close, and some of us were already so close. So it was also just like a mess. It was such a mess, like we were just tweaking every day. It was so fun. And I don't think I enjoyed making the first one as much.”
