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Which means it is okay to stick out and make people uncomfortable. That he has influenced a new generation of artists to be themselves, push cultural boundaries, and knowing that artistic excellent is often an odd thing. Artists and lovers of art that have benefited from his legacy, can and must remember to honor him and remind the world he is a star. Many of our cherished black artists die penniless and often leave the public memory, but just like Sylvester suggested and deemed us all stars. Sylvester died in debt in the winter of 1988 due to complications from AIDS. Remembering Sylvester should also include remembering how he left us and what was done to his legacy. An artist that was one of the first to boldly declare their gender and sexual identity, as well as claim the spotlight and microphone. With artists like Mykki Blanco, serpentwithfeet, Nakhane Touré, Abdu Ali, and Fusilier creating their own universes in music and pushing the aesthetic expectation of black forward, it’s imperative we remember artists like Sylvester who broke ceilings so we can declare the sky as the limit. In 2018, we’ve arrived at the beginning black queer cultural reckoning of sorts. As Sylvester once sang on the lush groove “Stars,” “You are a star. In a culture that often deems the feminine black gay man as the humorous sidekick to the main character or the assistant (a hairdresser, make-up artist, or wardrobe stylist) to the superstar or diva, Sylvester offered the idea that that the black femme queer folks don’t just create the cool culture or assist in cultural phenomenons-we can be at the epicenter of it all. Our protests are often mistaken for parades. Black queer life is often this constant exercise of finding jubilation and camp in the face of tragedy and melancholy. In my dark room, I began to dance and weep, which I now find to be the queerest practice ever.
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As I sobbed, I looked at Sylvester’s album covers: this glamorous, androgynous black man with dark skin beaming with joy on some covers and on others he possessed an eloquent stoicism. When I finally did and closed the door to my room, I played my mother’s Sylvester vinyl that had “Body Strong” on it. I was sure that if I cried in front of all of my peers, my eyes would cry pink and glitter and everyone would finally know with certainty my big queer secret.
I was at the awkward age of 13 in middle school and I was being bullied for liking weird things and having feminine mannerisms. In that moment, a dream was born inside of me that allowed me to imagine myself as a star too. He was not a clever sidekick or an odd spectacle for the straight gaze. Sylvester looked like a fantasy, but he insisted he was real-mighty real. I saw Sylvester for the first time in his music video for “Mighty Real (You Make Me Feel)” and I was astonished: a brown black man adorned in flamboyant, Studio 54-ready garb making love to the camera. But for a moment in time, they spread their glitter-riddled gospel all over the world. His background singers Izora Armstead and Martha Wash would later get their own fame as disco sensation, The Weather Girls (1982’s “It’s Raining Men”) in their own right. In the late 1970s he became a sensation with “Do You Want to Funk” and “Dance (Disco Heat),” which turned the world into a discotech and every discotech into a pulpit. He was known on underground drag circuits as the queen with the beautiful, soulful voice able to mimic the jazz and blues legends of the past. Sylvester performed as a drag artist early in his career and covered blues classics by Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday. However, there is no black gay artist that opened up my imagination about who I can be while affirming who I am like disco icon-often referred to as The Queen of Disco-Sylvester.