LAVA LA RUE
Singer-songwriter & rapper
What do you stand for?
Telling a narrative that my younger teen self would have needed to hear in order to feel more understood/accepted into this world keeps me going. It feels like we live in a big, bad, dog-eat-dog society – I’d be naive to say that’s wrong – but… there’s also so many people who generally believe things can change. Look at history and see what happens when big subcultural groups come together in unity through the arts. If my music can make people feel connected to come together and change the status quo, then I’ve done my job correct.
How have you found navigating your career as a Black queer artist?
It’s a double-edged sword. I’m inherently part of a beautiful, eclectic, Black, queer music scene and instantly accepted among my peoples, but we also stick together out of support and solidarity of instantly being singled out and fetishised when we really just want to exist freely. While it’s so important to discuss and represent our experiences, sometimes I find it sad that for a lot of my Black gay/lesbian and trans friends, when they are promoting their art, they’re often asked to incorporate talking about their traumas/experiences and identity politics in contexts where it’s not always relevant to the work they are trying to promote. How nice it must be to just be able to talk about how fun it was to write that album/make that visual. We can’t reach full equality until we are also interviewing, booking, promoting Black queer work in non-political contexts, too, because it’s just as valid in everyday spaces but won’t be until it’s normalised; not just for Pride month, not just for Black History month, but every month as if it was any other day.
What are your thoughts on the conversations that have been happening around race and ‘blackfishing’ in the industry?
I do think it adds to the levels [of] problematic behaviour that more nonBlack artists are becoming incredibly successful within Black music categories and winning awards in those spaces than there are Black artists becoming incredibly successful within whitedominated fields like indie/metal/ alternative. We won’t see it as an equal playing field until there has been as many Black artists accepted into those “nonBlack” industries as much as we see all the Justin Timberlake’s and Eminem’s who have become millionaires off the foundations of Black music. With this in mind, it makes you become more understanding [of] why people would be protective over something they have ownership of which has consistently been exploited, when they additionally do not feel as accepted in other spaces.
Are you a Lil Nas X fan?
He’s not just a queer icon but I also think he’s a genius. He understands internet culture and has smashed marketing himself.
In what ways do you feel he is pushing the boundaries?
He’s not afraid of a little (lot) controversy. I think it was interesting in the MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name) video, he got accused of promoting Satanism to kids; these people not realising that in the main monotheistic religions, being queer alone is a straight ticket to hell anyway. He presented himself as an angel and a devil – and [was] not the first to, so I don’t know why everyone was so mad – and in the video he was quite literally LOVING himself… That’s what’s so boundary-pushing and, weirdly, to some people, ‘controversial’ – seeing a Black gay man create and express himself with no censorship, on his own terms, and having fun while doing it. It’s a pretty big deal to watch that now, but I hope it inspires people to normalise it.
“If my music can make people change the status quo, then I’ve done my job”