April 1, 2025 • 41 mins
George is joined by Bob the Drag Queen to discuss his new novel Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert, losing his mother right before filming the Emmy award-winning reality show Traitors, and why we need more class solidarity. This episode's Queer Artist Spotlight is on "Queen of the Underground", one of Bob's two original songs that come with the audio version of his new book.
This episode was edited and scored by Mitra Kaboli.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
The thing about Hamilton is that Hamilton is more narrative storytelling,
and they just happened to be rapping. And I wanted
hairtub to be a rapper, Like it's not just like
we're telling a story and she's rapping. Like Harriet Tubman
is actively pursuing a career in music and tried to
do her abolition work while doing it through hip hop.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
That's Bob the Drag Queen.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Since winning Season eight a Roupaul's Drag Race, Bob has
recorded two stand up comedy specials, starting shows like We're
Here and Traders NMC a world tour for Madonna. Now
he's released his debut novel, Harriet Tubman Live in Concert.
In it, the Great Harriet Tubman is a live and
present day and she has bars.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
It wasn't about vanity for her. It wasn't about the glory.
It was about freedom. So that was the overarching goal.
The freedom was the start.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
My name is George M. Johnson.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
I am the New York Times best selling author of
the book All Boys Aren't Blue, which is also the
second most band book in the United States. This is
Fighting Words, a show where we take you to the
front lines of the culture wars with the people who
are using their words to make change and who refuse
to be silent. On today's episode, Bob the Drag Queen.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
You ready, Bob yep?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Cool?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Hello everyone, I want to welcome you all to another
episode of Fighting Words. I am here today with Bob
the Drag Queen. Who if you wanted to tell someone
in an elevator pitch, or if you got stuck in
an elevator with Beyonce or Rihanna and they were like,
who are you?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Who is Bob the Drag Queen.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I would be really sure. I say, my name is
Bob the drag Queen. I'm a standout comedian. That's really
the whole That's the whole pitch. That's sorry that it's
not more intense than that. But like when I was
about the Dragon on Senter, comedian but me, I mean
it tells you a lot about me, you know what
I mean. I just told you I'm a drag quid
and I told you I'm a comedian, And those are
really like, professionally speaking, the two biggest I would say
(02:17):
indicators about me.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
You grew up in the South, and interestingly enough, your
mom she owned a drag bar, correct.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah, called Sensations in Columbus, Georgia. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, So what was that experience.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Like, Well, because I was a child, I didn't actually
go to the club and except for during the day
when they were like cleaning it and like doing like
office stuff. A big part of the process for me
as a kid was a bunch of lesbians in my
living room in Phenix Catey, Alabama, planning to create this club.
That's that's the main memories that I have to be honest.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
So then what was your first like introduction into drag
for yourself?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
First time I ever technically did drag was in college
or tempical was in high school on cross dress day
for a spirit week, we did crossdress and I wore
my well, I think we had to go to the
thrift store because I was much larger than my mother.
I mean, I've been six foot two since I was
in seventh grade, so I was a very tall person.
But I was really skinny, so I might have actually
(03:14):
and my mother didn't really wear very feminine clothes because again,
a bunch of lesbians planning a club. So I think
my cousin Amanda was living with at the time, and
she has pretty big feet. So I wore some of
her payless shoes, and I think I went to the
thrift store. My mom bought me a skirt, and I
remember wearing my mom's brawl. I didn't have a wig,
but I had some tracks, so I pinned the tracks
to my hair. Yes, I have hair. I pinned the
(03:36):
tracks to my hair, and then I tied a bandana
over my head. I kind of looked like Daria.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
So you have a new book called Harriet Tubney Live
in Concert.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Now we talk about Miss Harriet a lot, whether it's Twitter,
whether it's social media, whether it's if she had a
nice crown on her head, nice dress when she was
trying to take slaves, the freedom, the freedom. Harriet Tubman
comes up a lot in conversations all around the internet streets.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Where did the idea come from?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Okay, so I have a lot of silly ideas. My
brain will birth an idea and then I guess I
have to do my own mental gymnastics to figure out
if this is an idea worth pursuing or if it
was just a silly thought that I had. And I've
always loved hartupping. Every time there was a Black History Month,
report or anything. I was going to choose my person,
it was always going to be Harry Tubbing. I just love, love,
love her story. It's quite literally unbelievable. Your mind is
(04:36):
kind of like, there's no way, there's no way this happened.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I've read about her a lot too. Yeah, she lived
a lot of lives.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
And she lived really long, Like the literal life she
lived was longer than most people will ever live. And
the more you read about her story, you're like, no way,
no way, no way. But there's so many sources being
like absolutely absolutely her a corroborated throughout history. And I
also love hip hop music. I love writing rap music
(05:06):
listening to it. And then I was I was doing
Angels in America at the Birthlar Optory Theater and the
idea came to me there. I don't even know how
it came to me, but I just thought to myself,
I would love to hear Harrd Tubban's album. I want
to see it and I deserve it was.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Like the Broadway play like Hamilton in mind at all
when you were thinking about this and like how we
can creatively rewrite history.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
I mean maybe, but the thing about Hamilton is that
Hamilton is more narrative storytelling, and they just happened to
be rapping. And I wanted Hairtubban to be a rapper
like Harod. It's not just like we're telling a story
and she's rapping like Harrod. Tubban is actively pursuing a
career in music and trying to do her abolition work
(05:47):
while doing it through hip hop. African American culture is
one of the most far reaching cultures thereas in the world,
and hip hop is one of the biggest kind of
music there is. So if Harry Tubman wants to reach
Black people, she's gonna make some hip hop. You know. Well,
nowadays either you're doing country or you.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Know right, you could dram a blend exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I know for me, like anytime I'm writing a new book,
I really outlined the book first and like go through
like all of these different processes. And I also choose
a certain album that I listened to throughout the entire
time I'm writing it. What was your creative process like
for writing this book.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
That's such a smart process. I should probably adopt that,
especially the outlining part. I was writing it as it
came to me, I was like this, it was flowing
through my fingers as I was clicking, like clacking. I
didn't know what the end of the book was until
I got to the end of the book. You know. Wow.
Actually I didn't even how it started until I started typing.
I literally didn't even know.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Before going into this.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Were there any books that inspired you or any authors
that you kind of were like, ooh, this is an
author who will help kind of shape how I want
to Yah.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Have you heard of The Good Lord Bird?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Uh, Okay, So The Good Lord Bird was my biggest
inspiration for this book. It's by Change McBride. It's the
historical fiction piece about John Brown, the abolitionist, yes the
ablih Us yep. And in his mad Man abolition work,
he ends up kidnapping this this young man who's an
enslaved person because his father ends up dying in a
fight that John Brown is in and then he's like,
(07:13):
you don't have a family, so you're coming with me now.
Then in this journey, John Brown thinks that this little
boy is a girl. So this little boy has to
live as a girl for a couple of years, and
he's afraid of being found out that he's actually a boy,
but he's not trans, he's not queer. Ye, he's just
a really pretty boy. And John Brown thought he was
(07:35):
a girl and now he has to live as a girl.
And it's so absurd but also so funny but also
really heart wrenching. Like it's a really good I strongly
recommend it is a book that is genuinely hard to put.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Down, Okay, And from that you were able to, I
guess glean upon like how you wanted to make like
with your storytelling.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Well, when I was an Angel in America, I played
Belize and he talks about a fake books. It's a
book that's created for the play. He says, it's historical fiction.
And I love this idea of like writing fiction but
including real people just making up things they were doing,
you know what I mean. And I just thought that
was such an interesting concept. That was another big inspiration
(08:17):
for me. Tony Kushner's made up book in Angels of America.
I think it's called In Love with the Night Mysterious.
I believe that's the name of it. So yeah, I
was just kind of like pulling from inspiration from that,
and I liked how absurd this story was, how crazy
it sounded, and I also like to write the kind
of books that I would want to read, you know
what I mean. Yes, even started with the title that
is a title that I would see and I would
(08:38):
be like I want. I was actually torn between two
titles Queen of the Underground Harrit Tubman Queen of the Underground,
which is the name of her album. Her album is
called Queen of the Underground, so her album is called
Queen of the undergund with the book's called Harry Subman
Live in Concert. And also my audio book has two
original songs in it. So if you want to get
a taste of my delicious music making skills, the audiobook
(09:01):
has two original songs for it.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
We'll hear a bit of Queen of the Underground when
we return.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
This week's queer artist Spotlight is our very own guest,
Bob the Drag Queen. His song is called Queen of
the Underground and it's an original from the audiobook for
his new novel. Here's a short sample.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
I think it's time to write some good music. I
mean some hood music.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I'm talking about with some motherfucker wood music liberated my
people through the swamps and the ducks in the wood music.
It never would have made it if I never had
the vision. But the whole prison I could music. I
can't reach it. I don't write it. I ain't got
no motherfucking education, but I work hard and I wrote
this with a little bit of delination. Time of liberated generation.
Y'allly can go to the correlation. I ain't even got
(10:42):
to pop the pissy. I still became my situation.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
You can listen to the whole track at the end
of the episode. And now back to my conversation with
Bob and drag Quinn. I love the notion of how
we introduce historical figures to current day readers because a
lot of times this stuff is just not taught in schools.
We know them because of historical things they did, but
(11:06):
we don't necessarily know what the day to day life
of a person is. And so you get to imagine
somewhat what was the day to day life of a person?
Do you find the importance in that and with what
you're doing with this project?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
So to be clear, I am not a historian. This
book is not a biography. This book takes place current day,
so her day to day life is very different now
right now, her day to day life in my book
is that she's writing an album and she's also still
an abolitionist working toward freedom. But what it means to
be free is constantly changing, you know what I mean.
We're pushing for more and more and more and more freedom.
(11:41):
So you will learn some things about Harry Tubman. But
I do want to be clear to you all, this
is not a history book. It is fiction. It is
made up. None of us of Harry Tubb is doing
in the book that I've written current day has ever happened.
But a lot of the stuff that I talk about
that happened from a past did happen.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Was there anything like surprising that you learned.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
I did a book on the hole of Renaissance recently,
and I've just learned so many surprising things. One that
Langston Hughes would have probably been Windy Williams if he
were alive today, because he was a little messy.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
What a black guy living in Harlem messy? I don't
believe it.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I don't believe it.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
And a lot of them were a little bit best
finding out like these intricate details about some of their.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Lives, and I was like, oh, this is this is tea.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Right, we forget that people who lived before us probably
had a lot of the same proclivities that we have. Right,
we think that our grandmas were not getting down in
the club, and they probably were.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
So I made a post one day when Beyonce's Church
Girl came out and I actually did. It went viral
because I talked about my great grandmother and I was like,
this song is for people.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Who were like my great grandmother.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
I was like, she was the mother of the church,
but she had ten kids by three different men. You know,
you don't get ten kids by not engaging in sexual.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah, by throwing it you were throwing it back on somebody,
you know what I.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Mean, and being a sexual being right, And I was like,
y'all talk about blasphemy. But I was like, no, Like
it's really important that we actually explore the full arcs
of people's humanity. Yeah, even with Harriet Tubman, I think
that's important too. I guess what went into your mind
about like shaping who she is or who you think
she would be as this character as a rapper.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Well, a big part of the beginning of the book
is the character Darnell, who's loosely based on me. He's
a much kinder version of me. He's like me, if
I was like really nice, maybe the version of me
that I strive to be or wish I was, but
I don't have the capacity because I'm just not that nice.
And he idolizes Harry Tubman, but he's trying to work
(13:33):
with her and trying to give her the ability to
be human and not just like you know, his north star,
but also let her be human. That happens a lot
in the first chapter because he has to meet her
and he has to help her write this album. So
the main character the book is actually Darnell. Harry Tubman
is throughout the entire book, but it's really seen through
the character Darnell's eyes.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
And this character, Darnell, like he said, was based on you.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
A loosely, very loosely.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, so this character is gay or queer or you
think I'm gay.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
That's crazy, that's crazy. You know, Darnella's gay. Darnell's gay,
and he's a hip hop producer who has been shunned
from the music business. Something happened to him. I don't
know if spoil the book, but had something to happened
to him that was very unsavory, and he felt like
he needed to leave the hip hop business because of it.
I also remind you, guys, it's not a trauma piece.
(14:22):
This is not trauma porn. There's no lashings, there's no
all that stuff that we hear about happening to enslave people.
That is not happening in my book. My book allows
you to explore other themes and not you know, have
to imagine yourself going through your ancestors trauma.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
My first book, All Boys Aren't Blue ended up being
the second most band book in the country currently Congratulations, Yes,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Or as they saying, she is congratulations.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
It really ended up doing that because it was one
of the first titles in young adult where, even though
it's a men memoir through essay, there was a queer
lead who didn't die at the end, right, And so
I find importance in making sure that there are titles where,
you know, the leads actually have a different identity than
what mainstream society thinks should be acceptable in a book. So,
did you find any importance in like this book, you know,
(15:17):
being about someone who of course like Harriet Tubman from
the past, but also interacting with a queer person well,
a lot of queer people.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
We wonder what our existence would be in the past
because we don't see ourselves written, we don't see ourselves reflected,
or or if we do see queer people, their queerness
has just been completely erased. Even people who are living today,
like doctor Angela Davis. Do people know she's queer? Do
they know that? I don't know if they know that.
You know, before you watch the movie Bayard about Bayard Russe,
(15:47):
did we know that he was queer? Do we know
that there was a gay man working alongside Martin Luther King?
Do we know that? I don't know that. We know that.
We found we find out, you know what I mean.
And then you know, people like William Dorsey Swan who
was quotaway being American's first drag queen. He's not in
our books. Yeah, you know what I mean. We know
so little about him. Yeah, you know what I mean.
So I wanted to I wanted to let people know that,
like queer people know that we existed in the past,
(16:08):
Like queer people are not like we're not We're not
a race. It's not like being Asian or being black,
like you need Asian people to make Asian people. You
need black people to make black people. You do not
need queer people to make queer people. If you started
a new nation somewhere on an island, some queers are
going to pop up, you know what I mean. It's
naturally occurring in the gene process. And I really like
the idea of insisting that we exist.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Exactly and being a writer, like you said, sometimes it
is hard. I always feel like we get to a
point of like knowing queer history and then it just
is like nothing was.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Written, like nothing was there, but we knew we were there. Right,
How old are you, George, I will be forty.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
So we're old enough to know that even in our lifetime,
there was a time where you just kind of hide
your queerness, Like you can exist as a queer person.
You can either hide or you just kind of like
shut the fuck up about it. Yep, Like you can
be gay, just don't just don't do it in my face.
I don't want to see that gay shit in my
fuck face, you know what I mean. And I imagine
that in eighteen hundreds, Yeah, imagine that in the early
(17:08):
nineteen hundreds, you know what I mean. Yeah, So obviously
if you were living as a queer person. It was
all done in secret or within your small group, I'm
not sure, William Dorsey Swan And you're like, I don't
care a bitch, I'm doing it out loud and in public,
you know, right right?
Speaker 3 (17:24):
I know, Like when I wrote Flamboyance on the Home
of Renaissance, it was a lot. You know, you're reading
other works about this person, yeah, trying to really figure
out what's real from what's rumor because everything isn't written down,
So it's like, can you verify this source? Like what
was the most interesting thing you found of what was
your research process?
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Like? So I've been looking I've been studying hair tubment
for years, like literally for years. I guess my research
process started in high school, you know, in theory I
love it. But then also when going back and learning
about Harot Tubman again, I did listen to a few
autobiographies actually, including the one that she had a hand
(18:05):
in writing. When she narrated her story to this white
woman whose name I forget right now. That was famously
kind of retold because abolitionists who were like well meaning,
but they wanted to get the message out there the
white people would change the stories that other white people
would feel more bad about it and want to contribute
more to the stories. Right, So when you have people
(18:26):
like Sojourn of Truth, who famously never said Ani woman,
she never said that, but the people who are writing
her story were like, more people will listen if she
talks like this, But the truth is, sir, journal truth.
Her first language was Dutch. When she learned English, she
spoke perfect English, like she spoke the Queen's English behind me,
so she wouldn't be saying anti woman. But it made
(18:47):
more people listen. Was that bad? Was that good? I'm
not here to debate that. You know, there's a chance
that we wouldn't have even heard about sojourna Truth if
we had not heard the Ani Woman's speech, you know
what I mean. So what I'm trying to do is
when I when I write these words, I'm letting everyone
know this is fiction. I'm like letting everyone know I
am putting in my own spin on this. We don't
know for sure what harry Tebban said because harry Teban
(19:08):
never wrote anything down herself. She just kept telling people
and they would write down what they wanted to write down.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
It's like her famous quote that's not her quote I
freed a thousand slaves, I would have read thousand more.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, but she get so it's like exactly, yeah. Well,
you know, something to people to realize that the estimated
when I'm saying she's freed to somewhere between six hundred
and eight hundred actually, but lot of people don't realize
that most of them were all in the same day,
all in the exact same day. So harry Tebban is
the only woman in the history of the US military
(19:39):
to ever lead a military mission to this day, to
this day, it has never been done. And she'd let
the Kombay River raids. They went to three different plantations
and freed all these slaves in one day. So because
when she was making these trips, y'all, she wasn't not
taking like forty fifty people with her. I think her
largest group was allegedly twelve people. And that's a lot
(20:01):
of people to be traveling from Maryland to either Pennsylvania
or Canada.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yes, it is.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
And one of my favorites will Yeah, I got to say,
it's like, one of my favorite stories of her is
pulling out the gun.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Yeah, she carried she carried the Blaki, but she famously
never had to use it. Harroy Tubbing one of her
big points of privately that she never lost a single
passenger on the underground railroad. I assume that's because she
was so intimidating that people knew not to test it,
you know what I mean. And to be clear, y'all,
when she's doing this not because Harry Tump is like
a bad ass who'd love to carry. It's because if
you go back and you get caught, you could be
(20:35):
tortured and give up a lot of information that would
hurt a lot of people who are already freed, are
people who want to become free after you. So once
you start traveling Harry Tapping, you cannot turn back. You
are not allowed to turn back. You're not allowed to
turn around. You know, if you turn around and took
a step in the opposite direction, that might be the
last step you ever take.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Yeah, that was one of the stories I read. It
was essentially the person was trying to turn around that
she was like, you got two choices. You either keep
going or this is where you this is where you're
gonna like because Bigger left grest because I got my peace.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, this is where you take your last breath. Yeah,
And and those people were trying to run backs defense running,
I can almost guarantee without a shadow of it was
incredibly scary because you don't know what's on the other side.
You don't know how long you're walking. Y'all. We live
in a world with Google Maps. Y'all think they were
given slaves maps. You live on a plot of land
in a state. You don't even know what the rest
of the state looks like. You don't know what the
rest of the country looks like. You don't you seriously
(21:25):
don't know what the world looks like. You don't know
what's beyond the land that you're that you're legally allowed
to be on. You don't know how long to be walking.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
I would try to explain that to people too, because
they're like, well, why didn't you know all the slaves revolt?
And I'm like, well, you would have had to have
known that there were slaves there, Like you know what
you know from the proximity of the land that you're in.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
I don't know that there.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Are slaves in another state and exactly an the state
below me and above me. I don't know there are
slaves thirty miles from me.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
It's so easy to say what you would have done
when you weren't there. It's so easy to be in
twenty twenty five. But I would have been bought boot.
I would have did There is a key Peel sketch
where they are slaves up on the auction block and
they keep being like, well, they better not try to
fucking get me, because if they if they get me,
I'm a revolt. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that.
(22:11):
It's an interesting communic take on people today talking about
how easily they would have done what would have happened
at the time. But you know, don't fault your ancestors
for one to turn back. Don't fault your ancestors for
not knowing that they have other options.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
You Know, every time I see someone say like, I
am not my grandparents, I'll use my hands. I am
not my answers, I'll use my hands, and I'm like,
then you just don't know history, because they used more
than their hands. They used every tool possible to escape
and to just survive and to keep us here.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
And y'all talking to that, y'all talking that noise. Maybe
your descendants will be saying the same thing about you.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
The whole time.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
When they get more freedom we are now, they'll be
saying they'd be like, I'm not I'm not my answers
because I do this. And they thought you was a
fucking bitch. Honey, you're just sent this. Well, think you're
a bitch who stood for anything. So don't don't shit
on your ancestory. Don't shoot on your grandma. Your grandma
was doing the best she could with what she had.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
And now back to my conversation with Bob and drag Queen,
what do you think Harriet Tubman would to say about
like the state of progress or where we are in
Black American today?
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Again, this is all conjecture. I don't know, but I
assume that hair Teven would fight like she would, she
would continue her work. Also, y'all, harods have ben moved
in silence. Harrot Tubn had to move in silence. She
had to be a ghost, She had to be an aberration,
she had to be a spirit, otherwise she wouldn't be
able to do the work. You can't walk around. I'm
(23:55):
Harriet motherfucking top. But you know what, I'd be out
here in the streets doing, because then you can't do
what you're doing. You know. It wasn't It wasn't about
vanity for her. It wasn't about the glory. It wasn't
about having her name in the history books. It was
about freeing people. It was about freedom. That was the
That was the overarching goal. The freedom was the star. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Do you think that this novel is going to be
a one off or would you like to continue writing fiction?
Speaker 1 (24:17):
So I do want to continue. I already have my
next book in mind. I want to call it Jesus
Christ for President. In this book, Jesus Christ comes back
and he's running for president. I want to continue building
this world. And I think a lot of conservatives are
shocked that they don't want to vote for him because
he's low key a communists, not lokey Highkia communists. He's
giving everything away, he's really into socialist programs, or he's
really into helping the poor. He hangs with the hookers,
(24:38):
the hoes, the lepers. He's open borders, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah, that's an amazing concept.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Oh, thank you, now, that really is, because I mean
it is interesting how Christianity in his country has like backflipped.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I will never fathom what in the Bible would make
you ever think that Jesus would be a nationalist. And
if he was a nationalist, why he'd be one for America.
That is beyond me.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
It's been beyond me all of this, the evangelicals, none
of it makes any sense.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Are makes any sense?
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Are you Christian?
Speaker 2 (25:11):
I would say, I grew up in the church.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
What are you Christian? Though that's a hard question for
you to answer. Sometimes it is, Yeah, if you don't want.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
To know, I have to question it, like I have
to question it just based off of what the indoctrination
of Christianity looks like today. Who I am as a
person is I am community first? I am like always
going to be about helping other people, using my blessings
to help other people be blessed. This is how my
grandmother raised me. Grandma, she was my main caregiver, like
(25:43):
both my parents were in my life, but they worked
like really like a lot. Her name was Louise Louise Kennedy,
Evan's elder.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
My grandmother was Mary Elizabeth Yeah, and Grandma Grandma Julius
had obviously to Grandma and.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
My grandma Mildred was my other grandmother. It was interesting
because she also was the mother of our church, but
she had a love for LGBTQ people like I have
never seen before.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I wonder how much that was having a gay grandson.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
It wasn't just me though, right like she she used
to say, it ran in the family and she just
had an understanding of that and was like, we don't
throw people out. I can't go to church hear that
Jesus is love and then you think that love means
that this person isn't built in some way, shape or
form that you think that they are, that they're supposed
to be casted out, shut out to your grandma, Now
(26:41):
you were no stranger to reality TV.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
What you talk about.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
I hate it's called reality.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
No, I don't. I don't mind the germ reality. Reality
kind of has like a negative connotation to it. But
I'm a big fan of reality TV. I specifically love
competition based reality television. So I don't even watch I
don't watch like So, I don't watch Like Housewives or
anything like that because like it's hard for me to
watch people like living their lives, but no one's competing
for something like what y'all want? What do y'all want
Besides attension, I love attention to trust me, I'm a
(27:09):
drag queen, I'm a comedian, I'm a performer. I thrive
on attention. But like I never watched the Kardashians or
the Housewives because like they're not competing for anything. I
want to see people want something, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I keep loving hip hop on
TV because I.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Had My mom used to watch love and hip hop.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
I still my mother does I love it.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
It's just how my mom knows. Cardi B.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I absolutely love it. But you were recently on The Traders.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
I was Traders not very long, only four.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Episodes, but but you made the most impact.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
I was mentioned in every episode of The Traders. I
was mentioned in I was mentioned in more episodes than
Lord Ivory and he won the show.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Yeah, And I feel like if you didn't watch the show,
people probably think you want it because of because of
how many plants on social media, because how much press
you have gotten that season, and like it's actually interesting.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I mean in theory, didn't I win the hearts of
the of the world through my performance on The Traders?
You know what I mean? I actually had a lot
of fun doing this show. It was it came at
a really crazy time in my life. You know, my
mother passed away two weeks before I did The Traders.
Like one week after my mom's funeral, I went and
did The Traders. It was crazy. My mind was spaghettified.
It was like I went to my mind and went
(28:22):
through a black hole. I went, I went beyond the
event horizon, and I went to a point where I
could not come back. And you know, when your mom
passes away, you're part of what I call the dead
Mom's club. It's this club that you're in and I
don't know, are you both your parents still with you?
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yes, but you raised by your grandma and you mentioned
that your grandma has gone on to glory. And you know,
once you're part of it's a club that you are
in and you've already paid your dues. It is blood in,
it is blood out. The only way to got out
of the club is to pass away. Only to get
in the club if someone passes away. And it's a
club that you don't want to be in, but you
can't get out of, but you also like to be
(28:56):
in the company and people who have this experience, you
know what I mean, when your mom passed away, it's
for me anyway. It was the only thing I could
talk about for like a year. It actually hasn't been
a year yet, My god, it hasn't been a year yet.
My mother was my biggest fan. She thought I was
that girl. She thought I was better than everyone, and
she was right period. And so you know, going into
(29:16):
that I really had I really had a battery in
my back. I was like, this was for Martha Caldwell,
you know what I mean. I gotta go in there
and let these holes have it. My mother would be
so proud of how I performed on The Traders. I know,
she'd be like, that's my baby. He was himself. He
never diminished himself, He never hid his light under a
bushel to snatch from the Bible. He really, you know,
showed who he was and I was. I was truly
(29:39):
myself on The Traders, and that I'm very very proud of.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Yeah, what is that experience?
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Like?
Speaker 3 (29:43):
I think that's also like something that a lot of
people who are just viewers wonder because it's like we
watch a show over a span of ten weeks, twelve weeks,
thirteen weeks, but y'all are actually filming in a very
truncated time frame.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah, it's back, it's back to back. So a week
for you is a day for us, you know what
I mean? Got it? Next week? Next week for you
is tomorrow for us, you know what I mean? Wow,
last week is yesterday. So it's all happening really fast.
You're in a summer camp or anything like that before. Yeah,
when you go to summer camp, these are the most
important people in your life. They matter to you more
than anyone could possibly matter. You cling to them for
(30:19):
a little bit, and they kind of start becoming distant
memories and stuff, and you stick with a few people
here and there. But in that time, those were the
most important people in my life, Like, they meant the
world to me. And I was also murdering them and
I really wanted to win the game, so I played
really hard. It is very stressful. It is absolute distrust.
You don't trust anyone. Like, imagine a world where everyone
(30:41):
is potentially your enemy, even your teammates. That's what the
trader is for you.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Okay, I don't want to take them too much more
of your time, but I always like to just close
out one two things.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Before you close it out, I want to say this
can go to read the Drag Queen dot com and
that will give you many options by the book. And
if you want to sign a copy, go to Bob
Signed book dot.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Com and the name of your book again is.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Harriet Tubman Live in Concert.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
It's hard living in the United States some days waking
up to all of the chaos and everything. We always
have to get up do our jobs and everything. I
always wonder, like what people are tired of, like for
the week, and so barbou, I have to ask you,
what are you trying of?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
What are you dying of?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Well? I stay tired. You watch one of those movies
with all the superheroes where they all come together as Avengers.
There's a scene where Hulk is getting ready to go
fight this big giant like galactic robot slash a bug thing,
and then he looks back at I think Captain America.
He goes, my secret is I'm always angry. Well, maybe
(31:53):
my secret is I'm always tired. My secret, I'm always tired.
But I think maybe this week what I'm really tired of?
You know, I would like for some of these trumpers,
like at some point, y'all gotta admit you've been duped.
Like was it when Donald Trump did a car commercial
(32:15):
at the White House? Is that when you realize you
were duped? Was it when the price of eggs kept
going up? Was it when he sold the presidency to
the world's richest man? Like, at some point you got
to realize you were a dupe. We need some class
solidarity in here. You will never be the one percent. Ever,
you will not be. I don't think y'all can fathom
(32:35):
how much money these people have. You can't. I don't
think our brands can even comprehend how wealthy these people are.
It would take like over two hundred oprah Renfrees to
be one. Elon Musk Taylor Swift, who's a certified Billionaire's
closer an income to a person who works at McDonald's
(32:59):
this year is the So I think what I'm sick
of is like the I guess I'll call them pick mees,
the capitalist pick mes. And we all engage in capitalism.
Obviously we're here on a podcast that is being funded
by money. I'm not saying that you know just because
you engage in capitalism you're bad. But like the former
capitalism that Elon Musk is engaging in. It will never
be you. You will never have that much money. You
(33:21):
will never you will never become the world's richest man
on your crypto or by you know, sucking up to
Elon Musk. And I'm takeing tired of the people thinking
that if they just emulate what they're doing, they'll become
one of those people, right.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
And I don't know why people still haven't realized it,
but for him to be that wealthy, you have to
stay that poor. Yeah, So it's not gonna Yeah, that's
that's the thing that's not gonna change.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Listen, resources are finite. So in so much money, if
in so many house, so much food, food can be replenished.
But the sources of the food are finite, you know
what I mean. In order for the people at the
bottom to have something, the people at the top are
gonna have to give something up or have it snatched
out of their hands. Yep. And that's just the truth.
We can't all live at the top.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
You're gonna give it to me, I'm gonna take it exactly.
That's where it's at. That's where it's at. And the
final thing is I always like to leave people just
with like a phrase that like, motive is motivating you
for this year.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
I've been saying this for years. I don't even know
where I got this from. But you know, everything works
out in the end, and if it's not working out,
it's just not the end. M just keep going, just
keep going through.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
I wouldn't go see Lizzo last night at the will
Turn and I'm not really into like lovey w type stuff,
but she had a moment that really got me good,
and she was talking about love in real life. And
I live on the Internet, and the Internet is a vapid, vapid,
nasty place. It is so easy to get wrapped up
in what it feels like the world is full of hate.
There's a lot of love out there. Yeah, there really
(34:49):
is a lot of love out there in the world.
A lot of people who want to do good, who
don't know how to do good, who think they're doing good.
I've been guilty of all these things as well, you know.
And I never give message like this because I'm really
not a love it w type bitch, But like, there
genuinely is a lot of love out there.
Speaker 5 (35:05):
Look y'all, we got Bob to give a love message,
thank you for coming on fighting words today and congratulations.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
On the new book.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Thank you, it's my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
People will never fight for your freedom if you have
not given evidence that you are prepared to fight for
it yourself. This is a quote from Baird Rustin, whom
Bob mentioned. Baird was considered one of the most important
architects of the civil rights movement and mlk's right hand man,
but his name was largely forgotten until recently. Rustin was
(35:43):
openly gay and was raised by his freaker grandmother, Julia Rustin,
who always affirmed his sexuality. One of his most important
contributions was organized in the March on Washington in August
nineteen sixty three with a Philip Randolph.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
That quote makes me think about a.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Quote that I wrote in my book All Boys Aren't Blue.
The first person you have to be an activist for
is yourself. It also ties so much to religion when
you think about how faith without works is dead, or
the saying God helps those who help themselves. As a community,
we must all come together to fight against the injustices
(36:21):
that is currently happening to the LGBTQ community.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
But we must all remember.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
That that fight does start with us who we are
as people, who we are as individuals, and we must
be resilient in this fight for equality injustice. Now Here
in full is Queen of the Underground by Bob the
Drag Queen. Thanks for listening to fighting words and hope
(36:48):
you'll join us for another round next week.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
I think it's kind to write some good music. I
need some hood music.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
I'm talking about with the mother fucker wood music liberated
my people through the swamps and the ducks in the woods.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
Music.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
It never would have made it if I never had
the vision, but the prison I could music, I didn't
reach it. I don't write it. Ain't got no motherfucking education,
but I work hard and I wrote fit with a
little bit of DEMI Nation time deliberated generation. You're on, niggas,
don't the correlation. I ain't even got to pop the
pitsy and I still overcame my situation, Say what.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
Come on?
Speaker 1 (38:21):
God's going on? What I'm going and raised in America.
I'm American, but I'm also black, but the Greggs ain't
giving me Shiit spent my life trying to recognet from
slave nigga to free nigga to a saving from the
hunting ground. First name Harry, you nick name mother the picture.
I'm the Queen of the Underground rail road it tends
in hell and a nick can fail road freeing all
(38:43):
these niggas and all that ship. You don't buy the
boat bload go ahead of the water, waiting the water
because guarantee that it's going down. And that's where to
Harriet t the Queen of the underground, say what.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
The queen.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Go on?
Speaker 2 (39:02):
What myself.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
At the grave man of the free? What the fuck
does that mean to me? I got to right. This
is a A or B. It's either death or live
or tase o the first mass of conservation, abolition's amplete annihilation. Wait,
did you really put your babies allegations so we will
knock the baby out? I didn't put a little yack
in the baby mouth because he means that the baby
getting little more free. Finis right when we it's out.
I was back and forth and I ain't get caught
(39:27):
freaky change to what choke that good? Don't turn around
and don't drag your beat. It's high of self's out
back that I ain't never lost day. Everyone in his
room and the freshly down the round railroad me no
one is wrong, hold up being slave, and the one
who walks in the league now saying wait in a
what a wait? In a what a fi fine way?
(39:49):
In a way in a wait in a what a wait?
In a what a five fine wait? Say what go on? What?
Speaker 3 (40:17):
Fighting Words is a production of iHeart Podcasts in partnership
with Best Case Studios. I'm Georgian Johnson. This episode was
produced by Charlotte Morley. Executive producers are myself and Tweaty
Pochi guar Song with Adam Pinkss and Brick Cats.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
For Best Case Studios.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
The theme song was written and composed by cole Vos,
Baanbianna and Myself.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Original music by Colevos.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
This episode was edited and scored by Max Michael Miller.
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Carl Ketel. Following
Rap Fighting Words, Wherever you get your Podcast
The thing about Hamilton is that Hamilton is more narrative storytelling,
and they just happened to be rapping. And I wanted
hairtub to be a rapper, Like it's not just like
we're telling a story and she's rapping. Like Harriet Tubman
is actively pursuing a career in music and tried to
do her abolition work while doing it through hip hop.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
That's Bob the Drag Queen.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Since winning Season eight a Roupaul's Drag Race, Bob has
recorded two stand up comedy specials, starting shows like We're
Here and Traders NMC a world tour for Madonna. Now
he's released his debut novel, Harriet Tubman Live in Concert.
In it, the Great Harriet Tubman is a live and
present day and she has bars.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
It wasn't about vanity for her. It wasn't about the glory.
It was about freedom. So that was the overarching goal.
The freedom was the start.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
My name is George M. Johnson.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
I am the New York Times best selling author of
the book All Boys Aren't Blue, which is also the
second most band book in the United States. This is
Fighting Words, a show where we take you to the
front lines of the culture wars with the people who
are using their words to make change and who refuse
to be silent. On today's episode, Bob the Drag Queen.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
You ready, Bob yep?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Cool?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Hello everyone, I want to welcome you all to another
episode of Fighting Words. I am here today with Bob
the Drag Queen. Who if you wanted to tell someone
in an elevator pitch, or if you got stuck in
an elevator with Beyonce or Rihanna and they were like,
who are you?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Who is Bob the Drag Queen.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I would be really sure. I say, my name is
Bob the drag Queen. I'm a standout comedian. That's really
the whole That's the whole pitch. That's sorry that it's
not more intense than that. But like when I was
about the Dragon on Senter, comedian but me, I mean
it tells you a lot about me, you know what
I mean. I just told you I'm a drag quid
and I told you I'm a comedian, And those are
really like, professionally speaking, the two biggest I would say
(02:17):
indicators about me.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
You grew up in the South, and interestingly enough, your
mom she owned a drag bar, correct.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah, called Sensations in Columbus, Georgia. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, So what was that experience.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Like, Well, because I was a child, I didn't actually
go to the club and except for during the day
when they were like cleaning it and like doing like
office stuff. A big part of the process for me
as a kid was a bunch of lesbians in my
living room in Phenix Catey, Alabama, planning to create this club.
That's that's the main memories that I have to be honest.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
So then what was your first like introduction into drag
for yourself?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
First time I ever technically did drag was in college
or tempical was in high school on cross dress day
for a spirit week, we did crossdress and I wore
my well, I think we had to go to the
thrift store because I was much larger than my mother.
I mean, I've been six foot two since I was
in seventh grade, so I was a very tall person.
But I was really skinny, so I might have actually
(03:14):
and my mother didn't really wear very feminine clothes because again,
a bunch of lesbians planning a club. So I think
my cousin Amanda was living with at the time, and
she has pretty big feet. So I wore some of
her payless shoes, and I think I went to the
thrift store. My mom bought me a skirt, and I
remember wearing my mom's brawl. I didn't have a wig,
but I had some tracks, so I pinned the tracks
to my hair. Yes, I have hair. I pinned the
(03:36):
tracks to my hair, and then I tied a bandana
over my head. I kind of looked like Daria.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
So you have a new book called Harriet Tubney Live
in Concert.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Now we talk about Miss Harriet a lot, whether it's Twitter,
whether it's social media, whether it's if she had a
nice crown on her head, nice dress when she was
trying to take slaves, the freedom, the freedom. Harriet Tubman
comes up a lot in conversations all around the internet streets.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Where did the idea come from?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Okay, so I have a lot of silly ideas. My
brain will birth an idea and then I guess I
have to do my own mental gymnastics to figure out
if this is an idea worth pursuing or if it
was just a silly thought that I had. And I've
always loved hartupping. Every time there was a Black History Month,
report or anything. I was going to choose my person,
it was always going to be Harry Tubbing. I just love, love,
love her story. It's quite literally unbelievable. Your mind is
(04:36):
kind of like, there's no way, there's no way this happened.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I've read about her a lot too. Yeah, she lived
a lot of lives.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
And she lived really long, Like the literal life she
lived was longer than most people will ever live. And
the more you read about her story, you're like, no way,
no way, no way. But there's so many sources being
like absolutely absolutely her a corroborated throughout history. And I
also love hip hop music. I love writing rap music
(05:06):
listening to it. And then I was I was doing
Angels in America at the Birthlar Optory Theater and the
idea came to me there. I don't even know how
it came to me, but I just thought to myself,
I would love to hear Harrd Tubban's album. I want
to see it and I deserve it was.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Like the Broadway play like Hamilton in mind at all
when you were thinking about this and like how we
can creatively rewrite history.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
I mean maybe, but the thing about Hamilton is that
Hamilton is more narrative storytelling, and they just happened to
be rapping. And I wanted Hairtubban to be a rapper
like Harod. It's not just like we're telling a story
and she's rapping like Harrod. Tubban is actively pursuing a
career in music and trying to do her abolition work
(05:47):
while doing it through hip hop. African American culture is
one of the most far reaching cultures thereas in the world,
and hip hop is one of the biggest kind of
music there is. So if Harry Tubman wants to reach
Black people, she's gonna make some hip hop. You know. Well,
nowadays either you're doing country or you.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Know right, you could dram a blend exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I know for me, like anytime I'm writing a new book,
I really outlined the book first and like go through
like all of these different processes. And I also choose
a certain album that I listened to throughout the entire
time I'm writing it. What was your creative process like
for writing this book.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
That's such a smart process. I should probably adopt that,
especially the outlining part. I was writing it as it
came to me, I was like this, it was flowing
through my fingers as I was clicking, like clacking. I
didn't know what the end of the book was until
I got to the end of the book. You know. Wow.
Actually I didn't even how it started until I started typing.
I literally didn't even know.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Before going into this.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Were there any books that inspired you or any authors
that you kind of were like, ooh, this is an
author who will help kind of shape how I want
to Yah.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Have you heard of The Good Lord Bird?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Uh, Okay, So The Good Lord Bird was my biggest
inspiration for this book. It's by Change McBride. It's the
historical fiction piece about John Brown, the abolitionist, yes the
ablih Us yep. And in his mad Man abolition work,
he ends up kidnapping this this young man who's an
enslaved person because his father ends up dying in a
fight that John Brown is in and then he's like,
(07:13):
you don't have a family, so you're coming with me now.
Then in this journey, John Brown thinks that this little
boy is a girl. So this little boy has to
live as a girl for a couple of years, and
he's afraid of being found out that he's actually a boy,
but he's not trans, he's not queer. Ye, he's just
a really pretty boy. And John Brown thought he was
(07:35):
a girl and now he has to live as a girl.
And it's so absurd but also so funny but also
really heart wrenching. Like it's a really good I strongly
recommend it is a book that is genuinely hard to put.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Down, Okay, And from that you were able to, I
guess glean upon like how you wanted to make like
with your storytelling.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Well, when I was an Angel in America, I played
Belize and he talks about a fake books. It's a
book that's created for the play. He says, it's historical fiction.
And I love this idea of like writing fiction but
including real people just making up things they were doing,
you know what I mean. And I just thought that
was such an interesting concept. That was another big inspiration
(08:17):
for me. Tony Kushner's made up book in Angels of America.
I think it's called In Love with the Night Mysterious.
I believe that's the name of it. So yeah, I
was just kind of like pulling from inspiration from that,
and I liked how absurd this story was, how crazy
it sounded, and I also like to write the kind
of books that I would want to read, you know
what I mean. Yes, even started with the title that
is a title that I would see and I would
(08:38):
be like I want. I was actually torn between two
titles Queen of the Underground Harrit Tubman Queen of the Underground,
which is the name of her album. Her album is
called Queen of the Underground, so her album is called
Queen of the undergund with the book's called Harry Subman
Live in Concert. And also my audio book has two
original songs in it. So if you want to get
a taste of my delicious music making skills, the audiobook
(09:01):
has two original songs for it.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
We'll hear a bit of Queen of the Underground when
we return.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
This week's queer artist Spotlight is our very own guest,
Bob the Drag Queen. His song is called Queen of
the Underground and it's an original from the audiobook for
his new novel. Here's a short sample.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
I think it's time to write some good music. I
mean some hood music.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I'm talking about with some motherfucker wood music liberated my
people through the swamps and the ducks in the wood music.
It never would have made it if I never had
the vision. But the whole prison I could music. I
can't reach it. I don't write it. I ain't got
no motherfucking education, but I work hard and I wrote
this with a little bit of delination. Time of liberated generation.
Y'allly can go to the correlation. I ain't even got
(10:42):
to pop the pissy. I still became my situation.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
You can listen to the whole track at the end
of the episode. And now back to my conversation with
Bob and drag Quinn. I love the notion of how
we introduce historical figures to current day readers because a
lot of times this stuff is just not taught in schools.
We know them because of historical things they did, but
(11:06):
we don't necessarily know what the day to day life
of a person is. And so you get to imagine
somewhat what was the day to day life of a person?
Do you find the importance in that and with what
you're doing with this project?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
So to be clear, I am not a historian. This
book is not a biography. This book takes place current day,
so her day to day life is very different now
right now, her day to day life in my book
is that she's writing an album and she's also still
an abolitionist working toward freedom. But what it means to
be free is constantly changing, you know what I mean.
We're pushing for more and more and more and more freedom.
(11:41):
So you will learn some things about Harry Tubman. But
I do want to be clear to you all, this
is not a history book. It is fiction. It is
made up. None of us of Harry Tubb is doing
in the book that I've written current day has ever happened.
But a lot of the stuff that I talk about
that happened from a past did happen.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Was there anything like surprising that you learned.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
I did a book on the hole of Renaissance recently,
and I've just learned so many surprising things. One that
Langston Hughes would have probably been Windy Williams if he
were alive today, because he was a little messy.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
What a black guy living in Harlem messy? I don't
believe it.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I don't believe it.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
And a lot of them were a little bit best
finding out like these intricate details about some of their.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Lives, and I was like, oh, this is this is tea.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Right, we forget that people who lived before us probably
had a lot of the same proclivities that we have. Right,
we think that our grandmas were not getting down in
the club, and they probably were.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
So I made a post one day when Beyonce's Church
Girl came out and I actually did. It went viral
because I talked about my great grandmother and I was like,
this song is for people.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Who were like my great grandmother.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
I was like, she was the mother of the church,
but she had ten kids by three different men. You know,
you don't get ten kids by not engaging in sexual.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah, by throwing it you were throwing it back on somebody,
you know what I.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Mean, and being a sexual being right, And I was like,
y'all talk about blasphemy. But I was like, no, Like
it's really important that we actually explore the full arcs
of people's humanity. Yeah, even with Harriet Tubman, I think
that's important too. I guess what went into your mind
about like shaping who she is or who you think
she would be as this character as a rapper.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Well, a big part of the beginning of the book
is the character Darnell, who's loosely based on me. He's
a much kinder version of me. He's like me, if
I was like really nice, maybe the version of me
that I strive to be or wish I was, but
I don't have the capacity because I'm just not that nice.
And he idolizes Harry Tubman, but he's trying to work
(13:33):
with her and trying to give her the ability to
be human and not just like you know, his north star,
but also let her be human. That happens a lot
in the first chapter because he has to meet her
and he has to help her write this album. So
the main character the book is actually Darnell. Harry Tubman
is throughout the entire book, but it's really seen through
the character Darnell's eyes.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
And this character, Darnell, like he said, was based on you.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
A loosely, very loosely.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, so this character is gay or queer or you
think I'm gay.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
That's crazy, that's crazy. You know, Darnella's gay. Darnell's gay,
and he's a hip hop producer who has been shunned
from the music business. Something happened to him. I don't
know if spoil the book, but had something to happened
to him that was very unsavory, and he felt like
he needed to leave the hip hop business because of it.
I also remind you, guys, it's not a trauma piece.
(14:22):
This is not trauma porn. There's no lashings, there's no
all that stuff that we hear about happening to enslave people.
That is not happening in my book. My book allows
you to explore other themes and not you know, have
to imagine yourself going through your ancestors trauma.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
My first book, All Boys Aren't Blue ended up being
the second most band book in the country currently Congratulations, Yes,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Or as they saying, she is congratulations.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
It really ended up doing that because it was one
of the first titles in young adult where, even though
it's a men memoir through essay, there was a queer
lead who didn't die at the end, right, And so
I find importance in making sure that there are titles where,
you know, the leads actually have a different identity than
what mainstream society thinks should be acceptable in a book. So,
did you find any importance in like this book, you know,
(15:17):
being about someone who of course like Harriet Tubman from
the past, but also interacting with a queer person well,
a lot of queer people.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
We wonder what our existence would be in the past
because we don't see ourselves written, we don't see ourselves reflected,
or or if we do see queer people, their queerness
has just been completely erased. Even people who are living today,
like doctor Angela Davis. Do people know she's queer? Do
they know that? I don't know if they know that.
You know, before you watch the movie Bayard about Bayard Russe,
(15:47):
did we know that he was queer? Do we know
that there was a gay man working alongside Martin Luther King?
Do we know that? I don't know that. We know that.
We found we find out, you know what I mean.
And then you know, people like William Dorsey Swan who
was quotaway being American's first drag queen. He's not in
our books. Yeah, you know what I mean. We know
so little about him. Yeah, you know what I mean.
So I wanted to I wanted to let people know that,
like queer people know that we existed in the past,
(16:08):
Like queer people are not like we're not We're not
a race. It's not like being Asian or being black,
like you need Asian people to make Asian people. You
need black people to make black people. You do not
need queer people to make queer people. If you started
a new nation somewhere on an island, some queers are
going to pop up, you know what I mean. It's
naturally occurring in the gene process. And I really like
the idea of insisting that we exist.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Exactly and being a writer, like you said, sometimes it
is hard. I always feel like we get to a
point of like knowing queer history and then it just
is like nothing was.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Written, like nothing was there, but we knew we were there. Right,
How old are you, George, I will be forty.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
So we're old enough to know that even in our lifetime,
there was a time where you just kind of hide
your queerness, Like you can exist as a queer person.
You can either hide or you just kind of like
shut the fuck up about it. Yep, Like you can
be gay, just don't just don't do it in my face.
I don't want to see that gay shit in my
fuck face, you know what I mean. And I imagine
that in eighteen hundreds, Yeah, imagine that in the early
(17:08):
nineteen hundreds, you know what I mean. Yeah, So obviously
if you were living as a queer person. It was
all done in secret or within your small group, I'm
not sure, William Dorsey Swan And you're like, I don't
care a bitch, I'm doing it out loud and in public,
you know, right right?
Speaker 3 (17:24):
I know, Like when I wrote Flamboyance on the Home
of Renaissance, it was a lot. You know, you're reading
other works about this person, yeah, trying to really figure
out what's real from what's rumor because everything isn't written down,
So it's like, can you verify this source? Like what
was the most interesting thing you found of what was
your research process?
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Like? So I've been looking I've been studying hair tubment
for years, like literally for years. I guess my research
process started in high school, you know, in theory I
love it. But then also when going back and learning
about Harot Tubman again, I did listen to a few
autobiographies actually, including the one that she had a hand
(18:05):
in writing. When she narrated her story to this white
woman whose name I forget right now. That was famously
kind of retold because abolitionists who were like well meaning,
but they wanted to get the message out there the
white people would change the stories that other white people
would feel more bad about it and want to contribute
more to the stories. Right, So when you have people
(18:26):
like Sojourn of Truth, who famously never said Ani woman,
she never said that, but the people who are writing
her story were like, more people will listen if she
talks like this, But the truth is, sir, journal truth.
Her first language was Dutch. When she learned English, she
spoke perfect English, like she spoke the Queen's English behind me,
so she wouldn't be saying anti woman. But it made
(18:47):
more people listen. Was that bad? Was that good? I'm
not here to debate that. You know, there's a chance
that we wouldn't have even heard about sojourna Truth if
we had not heard the Ani Woman's speech, you know
what I mean. So what I'm trying to do is
when I when I write these words, I'm letting everyone
know this is fiction. I'm like letting everyone know I
am putting in my own spin on this. We don't
know for sure what harry Tebban said because harry Teban
(19:08):
never wrote anything down herself. She just kept telling people
and they would write down what they wanted to write down.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
It's like her famous quote that's not her quote I
freed a thousand slaves, I would have read thousand more.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, but she get so it's like exactly, yeah. Well,
you know, something to people to realize that the estimated
when I'm saying she's freed to somewhere between six hundred
and eight hundred actually, but lot of people don't realize
that most of them were all in the same day,
all in the exact same day. So harry Tebban is
the only woman in the history of the US military
(19:39):
to ever lead a military mission to this day, to
this day, it has never been done. And she'd let
the Kombay River raids. They went to three different plantations
and freed all these slaves in one day. So because
when she was making these trips, y'all, she wasn't not
taking like forty fifty people with her. I think her
largest group was allegedly twelve people. And that's a lot
(20:01):
of people to be traveling from Maryland to either Pennsylvania
or Canada.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yes, it is.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
And one of my favorites will Yeah, I got to say,
it's like, one of my favorite stories of her is
pulling out the gun.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Yeah, she carried she carried the Blaki, but she famously
never had to use it. Harroy Tubbing one of her
big points of privately that she never lost a single
passenger on the underground railroad. I assume that's because she
was so intimidating that people knew not to test it,
you know what I mean. And to be clear, y'all,
when she's doing this not because Harry Tump is like
a bad ass who'd love to carry. It's because if
you go back and you get caught, you could be
(20:35):
tortured and give up a lot of information that would
hurt a lot of people who are already freed, are
people who want to become free after you. So once
you start traveling Harry Tapping, you cannot turn back. You
are not allowed to turn back. You're not allowed to
turn around. You know, if you turn around and took
a step in the opposite direction, that might be the
last step you ever take.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Yeah, that was one of the stories I read. It
was essentially the person was trying to turn around that
she was like, you got two choices. You either keep
going or this is where you this is where you're
gonna like because Bigger left grest because I got my peace.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, this is where you take your last breath. Yeah,
And and those people were trying to run backs defense running,
I can almost guarantee without a shadow of it was
incredibly scary because you don't know what's on the other side.
You don't know how long you're walking. Y'all. We live
in a world with Google Maps. Y'all think they were
given slaves maps. You live on a plot of land
in a state. You don't even know what the rest
of the state looks like. You don't know what the
rest of the country looks like. You don't you seriously
(21:25):
don't know what the world looks like. You don't know
what's beyond the land that you're that you're legally allowed
to be on. You don't know how long to be walking.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
I would try to explain that to people too, because
they're like, well, why didn't you know all the slaves revolt?
And I'm like, well, you would have had to have
known that there were slaves there, Like you know what
you know from the proximity of the land that you're in.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
I don't know that there.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Are slaves in another state and exactly an the state
below me and above me. I don't know there are
slaves thirty miles from me.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
It's so easy to say what you would have done
when you weren't there. It's so easy to be in
twenty twenty five. But I would have been bought boot.
I would have did There is a key Peel sketch
where they are slaves up on the auction block and
they keep being like, well, they better not try to
fucking get me, because if they if they get me,
I'm a revolt. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that.
(22:11):
It's an interesting communic take on people today talking about
how easily they would have done what would have happened
at the time. But you know, don't fault your ancestors
for one to turn back. Don't fault your ancestors for
not knowing that they have other options.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
You Know, every time I see someone say like, I
am not my grandparents, I'll use my hands. I am
not my answers, I'll use my hands, and I'm like,
then you just don't know history, because they used more
than their hands. They used every tool possible to escape
and to just survive and to keep us here.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
And y'all talking to that, y'all talking that noise. Maybe
your descendants will be saying the same thing about you.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
The whole time.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
When they get more freedom we are now, they'll be
saying they'd be like, I'm not I'm not my answers
because I do this. And they thought you was a
fucking bitch. Honey, you're just sent this. Well, think you're
a bitch who stood for anything. So don't don't shit
on your ancestory. Don't shoot on your grandma. Your grandma
was doing the best she could with what she had.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
And now back to my conversation with Bob and drag Queen,
what do you think Harriet Tubman would to say about
like the state of progress or where we are in
Black American today?
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Again, this is all conjecture. I don't know, but I
assume that hair Teven would fight like she would, she
would continue her work. Also, y'all, harods have ben moved
in silence. Harrot Tubn had to move in silence. She
had to be a ghost, She had to be an aberration,
she had to be a spirit, otherwise she wouldn't be
able to do the work. You can't walk around. I'm
(23:55):
Harriet motherfucking top. But you know what, I'd be out
here in the streets doing, because then you can't do
what you're doing. You know. It wasn't It wasn't about
vanity for her. It wasn't about the glory. It wasn't
about having her name in the history books. It was
about freeing people. It was about freedom. That was the
That was the overarching goal. The freedom was the star. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Do you think that this novel is going to be
a one off or would you like to continue writing fiction?
Speaker 1 (24:17):
So I do want to continue. I already have my
next book in mind. I want to call it Jesus
Christ for President. In this book, Jesus Christ comes back
and he's running for president. I want to continue building
this world. And I think a lot of conservatives are
shocked that they don't want to vote for him because
he's low key a communists, not lokey Highkia communists. He's
giving everything away, he's really into socialist programs, or he's
really into helping the poor. He hangs with the hookers,
(24:38):
the hoes, the lepers. He's open borders, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah, that's an amazing concept.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Oh, thank you, now, that really is, because I mean
it is interesting how Christianity in his country has like backflipped.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I will never fathom what in the Bible would make
you ever think that Jesus would be a nationalist. And
if he was a nationalist, why he'd be one for America.
That is beyond me.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
It's been beyond me all of this, the evangelicals, none
of it makes any sense.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Are makes any sense?
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Are you Christian?
Speaker 2 (25:11):
I would say, I grew up in the church.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
What are you Christian? Though that's a hard question for
you to answer. Sometimes it is, Yeah, if you don't want.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
To know, I have to question it, like I have
to question it just based off of what the indoctrination
of Christianity looks like today. Who I am as a
person is I am community first? I am like always
going to be about helping other people, using my blessings
to help other people be blessed. This is how my
grandmother raised me. Grandma, she was my main caregiver, like
(25:43):
both my parents were in my life, but they worked
like really like a lot. Her name was Louise Louise Kennedy,
Evan's elder.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
My grandmother was Mary Elizabeth Yeah, and Grandma Grandma Julius
had obviously to Grandma and.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
My grandma Mildred was my other grandmother. It was interesting
because she also was the mother of our church, but
she had a love for LGBTQ people like I have
never seen before.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I wonder how much that was having a gay grandson.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
It wasn't just me though, right like she she used
to say, it ran in the family and she just
had an understanding of that and was like, we don't
throw people out. I can't go to church hear that
Jesus is love and then you think that love means
that this person isn't built in some way, shape or
form that you think that they are, that they're supposed
to be casted out, shut out to your grandma, Now
(26:41):
you were no stranger to reality TV.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
What you talk about.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
I hate it's called reality.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
No, I don't. I don't mind the germ reality. Reality
kind of has like a negative connotation to it. But
I'm a big fan of reality TV. I specifically love
competition based reality television. So I don't even watch I
don't watch like So, I don't watch Like Housewives or
anything like that because like it's hard for me to
watch people like living their lives, but no one's competing
for something like what y'all want? What do y'all want
Besides attension, I love attention to trust me, I'm a
(27:09):
drag queen, I'm a comedian, I'm a performer. I thrive
on attention. But like I never watched the Kardashians or
the Housewives because like they're not competing for anything. I
want to see people want something, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I keep loving hip hop on
TV because I.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Had My mom used to watch love and hip hop.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
I still my mother does I love it.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
It's just how my mom knows. Cardi B.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I absolutely love it. But you were recently on The Traders.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
I was Traders not very long, only four.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Episodes, but but you made the most impact.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
I was mentioned in every episode of The Traders. I
was mentioned in I was mentioned in more episodes than
Lord Ivory and he won the show.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Yeah, And I feel like if you didn't watch the show,
people probably think you want it because of because of
how many plants on social media, because how much press
you have gotten that season, and like it's actually interesting.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I mean in theory, didn't I win the hearts of
the of the world through my performance on The Traders?
You know what I mean? I actually had a lot
of fun doing this show. It was it came at
a really crazy time in my life. You know, my
mother passed away two weeks before I did The Traders.
Like one week after my mom's funeral, I went and
did The Traders. It was crazy. My mind was spaghettified.
It was like I went to my mind and went
(28:22):
through a black hole. I went, I went beyond the
event horizon, and I went to a point where I
could not come back. And you know, when your mom
passes away, you're part of what I call the dead
Mom's club. It's this club that you're in and I
don't know, are you both your parents still with you?
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yes, but you raised by your grandma and you mentioned
that your grandma has gone on to glory. And you know,
once you're part of it's a club that you are
in and you've already paid your dues. It is blood in,
it is blood out. The only way to got out
of the club is to pass away. Only to get
in the club if someone passes away. And it's a
club that you don't want to be in, but you
can't get out of, but you also like to be
(28:56):
in the company and people who have this experience, you
know what I mean, when your mom passed away, it's
for me anyway. It was the only thing I could
talk about for like a year. It actually hasn't been
a year yet, My god, it hasn't been a year yet.
My mother was my biggest fan. She thought I was
that girl. She thought I was better than everyone, and
she was right period. And so you know, going into
(29:16):
that I really had I really had a battery in
my back. I was like, this was for Martha Caldwell,
you know what I mean. I gotta go in there
and let these holes have it. My mother would be
so proud of how I performed on The Traders. I know,
she'd be like, that's my baby. He was himself. He
never diminished himself, He never hid his light under a
bushel to snatch from the Bible. He really, you know,
showed who he was and I was. I was truly
(29:39):
myself on The Traders, and that I'm very very proud of.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Yeah, what is that experience?
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Like?
Speaker 3 (29:43):
I think that's also like something that a lot of
people who are just viewers wonder because it's like we
watch a show over a span of ten weeks, twelve weeks,
thirteen weeks, but y'all are actually filming in a very
truncated time frame.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah, it's back, it's back to back. So a week
for you is a day for us, you know what
I mean? Got it? Next week? Next week for you
is tomorrow for us, you know what I mean? Wow,
last week is yesterday. So it's all happening really fast.
You're in a summer camp or anything like that before. Yeah,
when you go to summer camp, these are the most
important people in your life. They matter to you more
than anyone could possibly matter. You cling to them for
(30:19):
a little bit, and they kind of start becoming distant
memories and stuff, and you stick with a few people
here and there. But in that time, those were the
most important people in my life, Like, they meant the
world to me. And I was also murdering them and
I really wanted to win the game, so I played
really hard. It is very stressful. It is absolute distrust.
You don't trust anyone. Like, imagine a world where everyone
(30:41):
is potentially your enemy, even your teammates. That's what the
trader is for you.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Okay, I don't want to take them too much more
of your time, but I always like to just close
out one two things.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Before you close it out, I want to say this
can go to read the Drag Queen dot com and
that will give you many options by the book. And
if you want to sign a copy, go to Bob
Signed book dot.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Com and the name of your book again is.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Harriet Tubman Live in Concert.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
It's hard living in the United States some days waking
up to all of the chaos and everything. We always
have to get up do our jobs and everything. I
always wonder, like what people are tired of, like for
the week, and so barbou, I have to ask you,
what are you trying of?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
What are you dying of?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Well? I stay tired. You watch one of those movies
with all the superheroes where they all come together as Avengers.
There's a scene where Hulk is getting ready to go
fight this big giant like galactic robot slash a bug thing,
and then he looks back at I think Captain America.
He goes, my secret is I'm always angry. Well, maybe
(31:53):
my secret is I'm always tired. My secret, I'm always tired.
But I think maybe this week what I'm really tired of?
You know, I would like for some of these trumpers,
like at some point, y'all gotta admit you've been duped.
Like was it when Donald Trump did a car commercial
(32:15):
at the White House? Is that when you realize you
were duped? Was it when the price of eggs kept
going up? Was it when he sold the presidency to
the world's richest man? Like, at some point you got
to realize you were a dupe. We need some class
solidarity in here. You will never be the one percent. Ever,
you will not be. I don't think y'all can fathom
(32:35):
how much money these people have. You can't. I don't
think our brands can even comprehend how wealthy these people are.
It would take like over two hundred oprah Renfrees to
be one. Elon Musk Taylor Swift, who's a certified Billionaire's
closer an income to a person who works at McDonald's
(32:59):
this year is the So I think what I'm sick
of is like the I guess I'll call them pick mees,
the capitalist pick mes. And we all engage in capitalism.
Obviously we're here on a podcast that is being funded
by money. I'm not saying that you know just because
you engage in capitalism you're bad. But like the former
capitalism that Elon Musk is engaging in. It will never
be you. You will never have that much money. You
(33:21):
will never you will never become the world's richest man
on your crypto or by you know, sucking up to
Elon Musk. And I'm takeing tired of the people thinking
that if they just emulate what they're doing, they'll become
one of those people, right.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
And I don't know why people still haven't realized it,
but for him to be that wealthy, you have to
stay that poor. Yeah, So it's not gonna Yeah, that's
that's the thing that's not gonna change.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Listen, resources are finite. So in so much money, if
in so many house, so much food, food can be replenished.
But the sources of the food are finite, you know
what I mean. In order for the people at the
bottom to have something, the people at the top are
gonna have to give something up or have it snatched
out of their hands. Yep. And that's just the truth.
We can't all live at the top.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
You're gonna give it to me, I'm gonna take it exactly.
That's where it's at. That's where it's at. And the
final thing is I always like to leave people just
with like a phrase that like, motive is motivating you
for this year.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
I've been saying this for years. I don't even know
where I got this from. But you know, everything works
out in the end, and if it's not working out,
it's just not the end. M just keep going, just
keep going through.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
I wouldn't go see Lizzo last night at the will
Turn and I'm not really into like lovey w type stuff,
but she had a moment that really got me good,
and she was talking about love in real life. And
I live on the Internet, and the Internet is a vapid, vapid,
nasty place. It is so easy to get wrapped up
in what it feels like the world is full of hate.
There's a lot of love out there. Yeah, there really
(34:49):
is a lot of love out there in the world.
A lot of people who want to do good, who
don't know how to do good, who think they're doing good.
I've been guilty of all these things as well, you know.
And I never give message like this because I'm really
not a love it w type bitch, But like, there
genuinely is a lot of love out there.
Speaker 5 (35:05):
Look y'all, we got Bob to give a love message,
thank you for coming on fighting words today and congratulations.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
On the new book.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Thank you, it's my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
People will never fight for your freedom if you have
not given evidence that you are prepared to fight for
it yourself. This is a quote from Baird Rustin, whom
Bob mentioned. Baird was considered one of the most important
architects of the civil rights movement and mlk's right hand man,
but his name was largely forgotten until recently. Rustin was
(35:43):
openly gay and was raised by his freaker grandmother, Julia Rustin,
who always affirmed his sexuality. One of his most important
contributions was organized in the March on Washington in August
nineteen sixty three with a Philip Randolph.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
That quote makes me think about a.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Quote that I wrote in my book All Boys Aren't Blue.
The first person you have to be an activist for
is yourself. It also ties so much to religion when
you think about how faith without works is dead, or
the saying God helps those who help themselves. As a community,
we must all come together to fight against the injustices
(36:21):
that is currently happening to the LGBTQ community.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
But we must all remember.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
That that fight does start with us who we are
as people, who we are as individuals, and we must
be resilient in this fight for equality injustice. Now Here
in full is Queen of the Underground by Bob the
Drag Queen. Thanks for listening to fighting words and hope
(36:48):
you'll join us for another round next week.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
I think it's kind to write some good music. I
need some hood music.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
I'm talking about with the mother fucker wood music liberated
my people through the swamps and the ducks in the woods.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
Music.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
It never would have made it if I never had
the vision, but the prison I could music, I didn't
reach it. I don't write it. Ain't got no motherfucking education,
but I work hard and I wrote fit with a
little bit of DEMI Nation time deliberated generation. You're on, niggas,
don't the correlation. I ain't even got to pop the
pitsy and I still overcame my situation, Say what.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
Come on?
Speaker 1 (38:21):
God's going on? What I'm going and raised in America.
I'm American, but I'm also black, but the Greggs ain't
giving me Shiit spent my life trying to recognet from
slave nigga to free nigga to a saving from the
hunting ground. First name Harry, you nick name mother the picture.
I'm the Queen of the Underground rail road it tends
in hell and a nick can fail road freeing all
(38:43):
these niggas and all that ship. You don't buy the
boat bload go ahead of the water, waiting the water
because guarantee that it's going down. And that's where to
Harriet t the Queen of the underground, say what.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
The queen.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Go on?
Speaker 2 (39:02):
What myself.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
At the grave man of the free? What the fuck
does that mean to me? I got to right. This
is a A or B. It's either death or live
or tase o the first mass of conservation, abolition's amplete annihilation. Wait,
did you really put your babies allegations so we will
knock the baby out? I didn't put a little yack
in the baby mouth because he means that the baby
getting little more free. Finis right when we it's out.
I was back and forth and I ain't get caught
(39:27):
freaky change to what choke that good? Don't turn around
and don't drag your beat. It's high of self's out
back that I ain't never lost day. Everyone in his
room and the freshly down the round railroad me no
one is wrong, hold up being slave, and the one
who walks in the league now saying wait in a
what a wait? In a what a fi fine way?
(39:49):
In a way in a wait in a what a wait?
In a what a five fine wait? Say what go on? What?
Speaker 3 (40:17):
Fighting Words is a production of iHeart Podcasts in partnership
with Best Case Studios. I'm Georgian Johnson. This episode was
produced by Charlotte Morley. Executive producers are myself and Tweaty
Pochi guar Song with Adam Pinkss and Brick Cats.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
For Best Case Studios.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
The theme song was written and composed by cole Vos,
Baanbianna and Myself.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Original music by Colevos.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
This episode was edited and scored by Max Michael Miller.
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Carl Ketel. Following
Rap Fighting Words, Wherever you get your Podcast
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