Kimora Blac Werking Every Angle

By Alexander Rodriguez

Kimora Blac is a Queen with many talents. She is an oft-included Drag Race persona (though her stint in Season 9 was brief), she dominates the YouTube beauty channel scene, is a fashionista, and has performed alongside Todrick Hall, Ari Gold, and who can forget her glamming it up next to JLo at the recent iHeart Music Awards? She has the lewks, she has the cheekbones, and she got that booty...a booty that has been Kim Kardashian-approved.

Fashioning her name after model Kimora Lee Simmons and her favorite color black (with the k removed for that added twist), she started doing drag very young, in high school. Her relationship with makeup started with a pimple, a mom, and unconditional love.

I had a nasty pimple. It was disgusting. It hurt so bad. And I had to go to school and my mom put foundation on my face. And I’m telling you, I felt absolutely stunning. She was always just that girl for me. My mother was a hairstylist, she owned her own salon. She was always accepting of me and growing up with my real dad (I haven’t seen my real dad since I was 12 years old), he would always look at me with disgust. I knew he didn’t love me. My mom would always give me extra love and always made sure that I was okay.

Kimora would start to wear eyeliner to school and work her way into clubs at the age of 15. By the time she was 18, she was working as a drag queen professionally. The drag world didn’t just offer her a place to perform, it offered her safety as she explored her feminine side.

When I was doing drag, I wanted to, technically the word nowadays is transition, become trans. It was the route that I was going down because I was really unhappy with the way I looked. I didn’t really fit in with gay guys. I mean, I was a skinny Asian man, I didn’t feel I was hot like the other people or other guys are. When I was a girl, I felt so right. I felt in place like this is exactly what I want to be. Then long down the road, it got mixed in with professional drag and dressing up for fun, and living a full life that I realized I wasn’t trans. I like the comfort of choosing what I want to be every single day. And I do love that because I think if I was truly trans, I would’ve done it with no hesitation whether it’s down this road or that road.

Getting into drag at such an early age was not without its bumps, but she is forever grateful for that early start. Her advice to new Queens is to just do the damn thing.

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These are not all the possible side effects of DOVATO. Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects.

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I started drinking at a young age. I think when you’re sneaking into the clubs, what are you drinking in there besides liquor? It definitely messed with my senior year a lot, but I passed, and I graduated. But I’m happy with my journey. I loved it. I love every single part of it. These baby drag queens nowadays are like, can you teach me this? Can you show me how to do this? You need to learn it yourself. This is your path. You’re going to look like shit for years… get over it! You can’t just say, ‘I’m famous on Instagram so I’m the drag queen of the world.’ No, you have to work and challenge yourself. You have to know your angles, your smile, your face, and your makeup too.

It would take Kimora three tries before being cast on the 9th season of Drag Race. She was patient with the process and never swayed from her brand.

A lot of people ask me, what do I need to do for my audition tape? I say, be authentically you. In the script (for the audition) they asked me to go to a Dollar Store to sew something. I don’t put anything from Dollar Tree on my body, so I skipped that for sure. But I think a lot of viewers don’t understand the expectations for what Queens should look like are so overly rated and that it puts us into a mental state of mind to prepare for what we authentically like to do. When it comes to the audition tape, just be you and your time will come. And if you hate doing it, maybe this is not for you be - cause you actually should enjoy doing these tapes. These tapes shouldn’t be stressful, and you should actually love doing them. So, if you don’t like to do a tape about yourself and your life, which I feel like people and superstars love to do, then this is not the career for you.

I’ve learned to deal with social media. I was pretty popular on social media before I entered the workroom, but I don’t think I was on the magnitude of dealing with that side. I think when all the girls get on the show, we are so focused on being us and doing us, but then when you get off the show, the switch is completely opposite. If you’re not mentally stable and you suffer from depression or if you take everything so seriously, it will probably break you. And this could probably be in charge of your career because Drag Race fans can be brutal. Some are rude and disgusting and you have to learn how to tune them out and pay attention to the ones that are there for you. A lot of girls go private because they can’t handle it and it sucks because this is your prime time to be your business and show you. I think that’s what I really learned when I got off the show. But I have strong, thick skin. I’m not going to get mad with someone I never met.

My grandpa was in the military, and he wanted to flee the entire family to the States. We would have to break up the family one by one because traveling together is really, really hard to get on the boat and go into the darkness and find your way to another boat to go across the sea. So, my whole family was broken up. They sent the oldest siblings first, which was my Auntie, she got to the States first. But what happened throughout the journey was two of my other aunties got abducted by pirates and then the rest went to camps. No one knew what happened to each other. I’m pretty sure they were just so scared all waiting by the shore or wherever they were, with the only hope being to get to the US. So, some went to camps and the others eventually made it to the camps. I remember my grandma telling me she would have to make little rice buns to survive and make money and sell them. Miraculously, my family all found each other in the same camp and just made their way across the United States.

It’s that same resilience that Kimora has shown with her own career. She won’t be defined by a single TV show, she won’t be cataloged as just a lip-synch.

I love the Drag Race fandom. I think what Drag Race and Ru and World of Wonder have done is amazing and I will always appreciate what they’ve done for me and I will do anything for them. But why I wanted to get away from the franchise was because there are so many other things that you can do besides just lip-syncing and being tagged on Drag Race. I will never speak badly about Drag Race. I love them, but there’s so much more you can do as a drag entertainer besides doing that. And when I started to see a lot of the girls from the show doing the same thing year by year, going to Chicago to New York to Texas, back and forth, I said, I don’t want a residency like that. I want to do other things. I want to be on campaigns for makeup, I want to do separate things, and I want to host a club versus lip-syncing.

What I had to do was breach my contract with my manager and then I hired two managers that had nothing to do with Drag Race. I took that gamble and now they’ve taken me to be working with liquors, they’ve got me working with venues and there’s so much more out there that I want to taste. And who knows? I can always come back to Drag Race, but don’t let one brand define you, it’s limiting. There are like 180 girls, you’re not the special one. You have to hustle. If you’re on Drag Race, you just can’t finish your season, and then hashtag Drag Race on every post you do and sit and wait for the doorbell. I feel like a lot of the girls that are on the show just expect the show to do a hundred percent of all the work for them.

Kimora is never afraid to speak her mind. She often calls members of the LGBTQ community out for their flimsy support of the actual drag world.

I try to stand for feminine men because we are looked down upon and frowned upon. For someone like me growing up and struggling with that, it was harder for me to live and it made me question my gender. Guys want to praise Bad Bunny for having nails and being in drag, and you guys think he’s so hot, but you guys don’t do this for your fellow brothers and sisters at the club or someone that you know. When’s the last time you went to a gay bar and walked to a drag queen standing by herself and said, Hey, beautiful. How are you? Or just kind of giving us the time. A lot of people in our community treat us just like scum until we’re on stage. What’s the difference between that drag versus the drag in your community?

It’s like a lot of people pick and choose what they want to hate and love and it doesn’t stay at a hundred. Why can’t you just love? So, when it comes to the Bad Bunny situation, this guy’s not even gay and he’s basically dressing like us and being praised by our community. And when a gay guy does it, it’s almost like shame. We’re just gross, we’re too feminine, or his drag is not right. Wait, what? I want people to support the sisters in your house. Like that drag that person that comes to the club that’s dressed to the nines. You don’t know what it takes, the bravery to dress like that. So stop pushing more negativity into the community you’re trying to fight for.

Kimora’s fans remain loyal, her social media channels grow by the day and her makeup tutorials are more life happy hours where she intimately talks about her life while she transforms from Von to Kimora. What is it about her that fans love so much?

Either you’re on the Kimora train or you’re not. I’m a true Sagittarius, whether you like me or not. I’m very unapologetic. The reason why I do and say certain things is that I want someone to take that energy and live their life as well. I think it’s really hard to live life in a time like this where we care what everyone thinks. We always want confirmation when we post a photo. We always want confirmation that we’re hot when we post on TikTok. We wait for the rates and the numbers. And I think it’s just toxic and I think it’s easier to live life by not giving a shit to be quite honest.

Her message to her fans?

I love you guys. Thank you for your support. I’m always going to be original. I’m always going to be authentic.

You can follow Kimora on IG: @KimoraBlack

By Michael Westman

Brothers of the Desert, a non-profit organization, is growing the Black gay men’s community in the Coachella Valley through collaboration, respect, integrity and honesty.

BOD’s mission is to “nurture and support Black gay men and allies through philanthropy, volunteerism, mentorship, education, advocacy, and social networking. Our purpose is to change the dynamics that produce isolation, disconnection, and inequities among Black gay men,” says Eric Davis, BOD Vice President.

With a growing membership, BOD meetings are hosted at the LGBTQ+ Community Center in Palm Springs second Saturday of every month. Their membership encompasses men who identify as Black or of African descent, gay, queer, bisexual, or same gender loving. Allies are also welcome and include individuals of any race, gender, or sexual orientation who support or contribute to community well-being.

BOD events are open to everyone, with most being free or donation based, and such events include: an annual Wellness Summit, which emphasizes holistic health and community engagement; a quarterly speaker series; a bi-monthly social event called “Brothers Got Talent”; and the monthly newsletter, Drumbeat. BOD programing is enhanced by special events for important dates such as Martin Luther King Day, Black History month, and Juneteenth.

According to brothersofthedesert.org, “The seeds of our group were planted in 2017 in response to these feelings of isolation and disconnection among a group of Black gay men in the Coachella Valley – both Black gay desert pioneers and Black gay desert newcomers. The founding group hosted a progressive dinner party on New Year’s Eve 2017, and in 2018 began discussing the need to intentionally support the Black gay community in a strategic and meaningful way. We began by assessing who was in the valley by reaching out to personal contacts; we asked each other about the needs and dreams of the community in facilitated focus groups; and we learned about the experiences of long-standing Black gay residents and prior organizing efforts.”

Also engrained in the BOD mission, is giving back to the community. In 2019, BOD partnered with Better Brothers of LA and began raising money for scholarships. Since organizing, BOD have dedicated more than $10,000 to scholarships for LGBTQ+ students and Black students in the Coachella Valley. Brothers of the Desert was formally incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in 2020.

In recognition of their efforts, in 2020, BOD received the City of Palm Springs Human Rights Commission Community Service Award, in 2021 Community Service Award from the Palm Springs Black Chamber of Commerce, and the 2022 Community Service Award from the Desert Business Association.

“Living your best Black gay life” is not just a motto with BOD but an action item, allowing its members to connect and socialize with each other, while sharing vital information on mental, physical, spiritual, and sexual health. BOD is truly building community in the Coachella Valley and beyond.

For more information on upcoming events, membership, or to donate, visit www.brothersofthedesert.org