What’s your first recollection of the iconic Billy Porter? Belting out Cyndi Lauper-penned tunes for a starring role in a Broadway musical about a plucky shoe factory that pivots to producing glittery stilettos for drag queens? Changing the face of TV forever as the inimitable Pray Tell, a father community figure and ballroom emcee in Ryan Murphy’s glittering drama Pose, which contrasted the harrowing realities of the HIV epidemic with the glamour and joy of NYC’s vogue scene? Perhaps it’s strutting down the streets of New York in tufts of custom, Christian rainbow-coloured tulle and making headlines for disregarding the tired rules of gendered dressing?
Now, Porter wants to reintroduce himself as a recording artist. “I find myself on a re-education mission of who Billy Porter is,” the star says, taking a languid sip of his morning coffee and snacking on a very “girl dinner” breakfast of watermelon chunks. “Singing and music is the original gift and the original dream. I've been singing in the church since I was five,” he shares. “But I spent the first 25 years of my career – my multi-hyphenated career! – trying to get the gatekeepers just to take me seriously as an actor.” Porter has firmly achieved that goal, becoming the first openly gay Black man to win an Emmy in 2019, and is ready to embrace a new challenge.
The 53-year-old is ready to emerge as a vocalist on his own terms, with a new
