One On One with Vicki Powell
This month I sat down with my old friend, Atlanta DJ and nightlife legend, Vicki Powell. It took some convincing, as Vicki can be painfully shy and is an extremely private person. With a little coaxing, I convinced her to come out from behind the turntables and share her story with the Georgia Voice in this month’s “One on One.” Read the full interview at thegavoice.com.
Tell me a little bit about your history. Where did you grow up?
I am an Atlanta native, which is rare. I was actually born at St. Joseph’s Hospital on Courtland Street, which is a skate park now. The hospital was in a predominately African American neighborhood called Buttermilk Bottoms.
Growing up in Cobb County as a queer kid had to be hard. Did you get bullied at all? How did you adapt to being an outsider?
I had really red hair growing up and the kids would call me Red Headed Wood Pecker, which in hindsight is hilarious, but I knew I was different. There were two things I used most as defense mechanisms: music and my sense of humor.
Tell me a little bit about Atlanta in the ’80s. I had a best straight guy friend who I used to roller skate competitively with named Clay Mathis who had a gay sister that went to UGA. I was underage and completely naïve, but I think his sister knew I was queer because she drove us both up to Athens and took me to my very first gay dance club that was down a long, dark country road called Club Rendezvous. I was so nervous. It was so nondescript; no gay Pride flag was outside the door. I had no idea what to expect until I walked in, and Sylvester was playing. I immediately knew I had found my people. I was hooked. It was a 12 on the gay Richter scale. The entire placed smelled like sweat and poppers. It was then I realized, “fuck roller skating, I’m a dancer now,” and I went back to Atlanta and started to explore every gay dance club I could.
The first gay bar I went to in Illinois was down some old country road as well. I don’t know if the kids today realize that it wasn’t that long ago that our safe places were usually located in nondescript locations off the beaten path.
That was so true until I got to Midtown Atlanta. There were gay and lesbian bars on what seemed like every corner back in the ’80s and ’90s … The Sports Page used to be located where the Heretic is now, and it was a lesbian bar for years. They had one of those Saturday Night Fever style dance floors, and Alicia Bridges, who sang “I Love the Nightlife” would DJ there. It was the first time I had ever seen a woman DJ, and it inspired me. A few years later Atlanta icon Yvonne Monet hit the scene DJing all over town, and I became obsessed. I stalked her
“I had really red hair growing up and the kids would call me Red Headed Wood Pecker, which in hindsight is hilarious, but I knew I was different. There were two things I used most as defense mechanisms: music and my sense of humor.”
and was a total fan girl. I was just trying to soak up as much as I could from her. I think I annoyed her! I was only 16, so I guess I would have been annoyed with me as well.
I love it that your dream to become a DJ finally came true.
It did eventually, but not until after a lot of pain and heartache. As soon as I became comfortable with myself and finally found my tribe, everyone started to die. The AIDS epidemic hit Atlanta hard. I was losing friends every week. It was horrific. It seemed like the nightmare was never going to end, and the only way people found any solace was by losing themselves on the dance floor. It was an escape from the horror, even if just for a few hours. I saw the power in this.
You love hard, you give a lot to your community, and you even mentor young and up and coming artists that want to be
DJs. How have you learned to manage the risk of getting hurt or taken advantage of when you give as much as you do?
We come from a generation of LGBTQ humans who have had to be tough to survive. It wasn’t easy for us to come out. We didn’t have marriage equality. You could still get fired for being gay, and we grew up in the middle of the AIDS pandemic where we didn’t even know if we were going to live or die. I have thick skin because of all of this. I may get my feelings hurt from time to time, but I have learned how to be resilient thanks to all the strong people in our community that fought for their lives before me. Music is what heals me and hopefully my DJ sets will help others find joy as well. If I can accomplish that, then there is absolutely nothing that can bring me down. I will survive.
Yes you will honey. Just like Gloria Gaynor, you will survive.