The world’s most popular drag queen is singing her own song — and she’s not the only one.
Whether they’re slaying the competition on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” or doing celebrity impersonations for Provincetown tourists, drag queens are expected to have impeccable clothes, perfect hair and makeup, and a fierce attitude. But with lip syncing to songs recorded by divas the norm for a show, a drag artist’s vocal chops are rarely needed or noticed.
And yet, there was Pabllo Vittar performing music from her five albums at Coachella this month, the first time the famed festival gave a drag artist a place on its lineup. It was another first for Vittar, who had already made history as the first Grammy-nominated drag queen when her 2017 breakout track, a Brazilian funk collaboration with Major Lazer and fellow Brazilian Anitta called “Sua Cara,” was a finalist for a Latin Grammy. It didn’t win, but it’s racked up half a billion YouTube views. Such high-profile pop and dance collaborations have earned Vittar the moniker as the world’s most popular drag queen, boasting three times as many Instagram followers as RuPaul, whose long-running TV contest introduced Vittar to drag.
“I started singing as a child so it came very naturally to me,” says the bubbly Vittar on a Zoom call from a California leg of her current tour, which comes to a sold-out Paradise Rock Club on April 29. (“Me and my dancers and crew have been rehearsing since 2020, so we’re ready!” says a laughing Vittar, alluding to her rescheduled date.)
Vittar says that one of her goals is “to show the world my versatility as a Brazilian artist.” She’s made tracks in Portuguese, English, and Spanish with collaborators who include Australian rapper Iggy Azalea, electro-pop darling Charli XCX, and most recently Japanese-British trendsetter Rina Sawayama (whose May 5 Royale appearance is also sold out).
But for all of that globetrotting, Vittar’s 2021 release “Batação Tropical” was a return-to-roots project highlighting the Northeast Brazilian regional styles that the 27-year-old Vittar loved growing up: forró and brega. While traditional forró emphasizes the accordion and triangle, today Brazilian radio is full of the synth-heavy forró eletrônico sound. As for brega, it literally translates to “tacky,” and delivers an unabashedly syrupy upbeat pop sound. Its calypso subgenre was dominated by bands with frontwomen whose big voices, alluring style, and dance skills made them irresistible to a future drag queen like the young Vittar.
“Those rhythms are a very northern sound, and they were a very big part of my childhood,” explains Vittar. “Artists like Companhia do Calypso, Joelma, and Aviões do Forró — my mother was always listening to their music, so they were a very big inspiration to me.” Vittar says she was honored when one-time Companhia do Calypso singer Mylla Karvalho, now an evangelical gospel artist, sent a complimentary message after hearing Vittar’s cover of “Zap Zum.” And an artist Vittar calls “my mother,” Lady Gaga, released Vittar’s forró remix of Gaga’s “Fun Tonight.”
To be sure, the notion of a drag queen who sings is nothing new. Queer music historian J.D. Doyle says he has found drag 78s made 100 years ago — and recordings of male impersonators go back even further. Drag icons RuPaul and Divine cut discs, and Conchita Wurst won the 2014 Eurovision song contest.
The tradition continues locally. For the last few summers, the deeply soulful singer Qya Cristál has been singing jazz and standards with Bart Weisman’s trio at the Lea DeLaria-co-owned The Club in Provincetown. Cristál was already a singer enrolled at Berklee when they discovered the drag scene during a visit to the now-departed Machine club in the Fenway, and soon was part of the ribald Gold Dust Orphans theater troupe. “I realized I could do it all — I could sing and dance and act and do it in drag.”
Prior to The Club gigs Cristál had rarely worked with a live band. “There’s nothing like having that live communication between a singer and musicians that brings that level of magic to the show.”
Looking at Vittar’s success, Cristál says it’s good to see drag artists “taken seriously as musicians, where drag is an accessory, not the focal point.”
Toast, a live-singing trans drag artist (and classically trained marimbist), writes and performs their own startlingly original songs, with shows at music venues including the Middle East in Cambridge. “It’s a big goal of mine to challenge what drag can be, because I’m literally never wearing wigs or a hairpiece. [My persona] is not a human being” — Toast describes themselves as an alien “pop star/plush demon” — “so that can be a bit new for audiences expecting a pretty girl. It’s exciting to see a real expansion of what drag can be, both globally and in Boston.”
When Cristál isn’t singing live jazz, they’re still happy to lip-sync a tune at a drag revue. “Servicing the lip-sync is an art too. Some queens can snatch a dollar to a beat! There’s a lot to drag: There’s the acting, the construction, the concept, so it really is tough being a drag queen, but we do it because we love it.”
Work at Boston Globe Media