Billy Porter Gets Personal

Grammy, Emmy, and two time Tony Award Winner speaks his truth.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
So I played this for everybody.First of all, I Frankie Dressel.
Welcome to my podcast. Y'all knowI love to sing too, Bayle feel
Yes, Millie Porter is my guest. Hi, Billy, Hi, how

(00:23):
are you? I'm doing well.I'm doing well. First of all,
we're gonna talk about your single.We're gonna talk about the album. But
I need to fault warn you butI love to sing. Okay, I
didn't tell you I could sing,but I sing anyway. Yes, yeah,

(00:45):
God, he love, I love. And I gotta tell you one
of my favorites of yours. Firstof all, I loved Ashton. We're
gonna talk about that, um butyou know, left the children, So
now that one ain't Billy, letthe children know what time it is.
That song just gives me so muchenergy. It's my day off. So

(01:14):
we'll talk about children, and we'lltalk about dashing coming up, and we
have to talk about Baby Was aDancer? Say that we have to talk
about Baby about the dancer. BabyWas the Dancer is number two on the
BBC Charts. Come on number two. Yes, we're working it out,

(01:34):
Come on number one. Yeah,that's awesome, Grammy Emmy two Tony's he
got on the way, Yes hegot from your lips to God's ears.
Yes, he got on the way. I gotta tell you, first of
all, I'm gonna pay pray forJamie Fox. He was in my studio

(01:57):
the week before Ray was really andI spoke and I saw the preview.
I said, you are going towin an Oscar m That movie is going
to be amazing. You are goingto get your eyot status. Thank you.

(02:17):
Let me just say that, We'rejust gonna claim that today, claim
it, prophet, whatever you wantto call it. Can we start here
before we talk about your album,because I think for people who may be
meeting you, whoever you are,and whatever planet you've been living on other
than Earth, um, that aregetting to hear about you for the first

(02:38):
time dealing you know. I loveit when Alicia Key says, people don't
know my overnight success took a year. You have been in the game for
a very long time. You haveput in, You have put in the
work. It never gave up onyour dream, never gave up on your

(03:00):
commitment. I'm so impressed by yoursticktuitness and your dream still may not have
come true, but you have arrivedclearly to a stance. Yes, ma'am,
as a performer, talk about whatit was within you, because nobody
could teach what you did. Nobody, Yes, you know there. I

(03:27):
grew up in the Pentecostal Church.There has been a calling on my life,
a purpose, dare I say,a ministry. From the time I
could comprehend thought, you know,the voice is the gift. I started
singing when I was five. Theystarted calling me little Preacher Man by the
time I was six, because inthat space, that's the only version of

(03:53):
that feeling of special on somebody thatpeople understand. And so I preached my
first and last sermon around ten oreleven, and I told my mother.
I was like, yeah, it'sthere. There's a purpose, but it's
not traditional like that. It's noton the poolpit ministry. It's something else.

(04:15):
And then I went to middle school. I was introduced to theater.
I was bent by the bug.I saw Jennifer Holiday on the Tony Awards
and I was like, Oh,that's a ministry too, that's a ministry
that's outside of the church walls.But that's a ministry because my life has
now been changed by seeing that.But maybe I can change somebody else's life

(04:41):
by doing that. So the journeyof being an artist was born. Then,
Yea. Through the years, it'sbeen interesting to try to find my
space. You know, I wastold early your queerness would be your liability,

(05:13):
and it was for decades it was, you know. And I always
say, I'm so grateful to havelived long enough to see the world change.
The world has seen. The worldhas caught up. The change has
already happened. That's why there's somuch panic on the other side. Yeah,

(05:34):
you know, the response that we'regetting is panic because they know the
world only spends forward. The changehas already happened. We will all be
humans where humans where citizens, whetheryou like it or not. Right,
And so what I get to bein the center of is this inflection point

(06:00):
that challenges the statish quo of everybody. Right, they cursed me from my
pulpits, They told me I wouldnever be blessed. That rhetoric held strong
for decades. Now it has nocredibility. I stand at the inflection and

(06:23):
intersection points of that conversation. So, Billy, would you say that you're
the planet now has become your pulpit. The planet is your pulpit. Yeah
how you were not narrowed to thisfourteen by fourteen inside four walls, know

(06:46):
that the planet became your pulpit andthe pow dare I says, yeah how
they are saying and yeah yeah.And the thing about it is, you
know, with these concerts, becauseas I was putting it together, the
Black Mona Lisa Tour Volume one,you know, there wasn't a whole lot
of you know, I had toliquidate my savings to come out on this

(07:11):
road, and you know, therewasn't a whole you know, it's like
the the you know, I camethe backway. My first R and B
album came out in nineteen ninety six, you know, on A and M
Records. The business was very homophobic. It didn't work out so well for
me that you know, now Iget a second chance, and so now

(07:33):
here I am. And you know, I joke and say I came in
the backway, but I really havebecause I'm already famous. I'm already a
celebrity. But I'm going out onthe road in this space where like there's
a little confusion, and I findit ironic because for the first twenty five

(07:54):
years of my career. I wastrying to get the gate keepers up the
acting spaces to take me seriously asan actor, because all they saw me
as was a singer. So nowI've made that transition, and you know,
I read things online or I hearoh I didn't know pray talk a

(08:16):
thing. You're like, okay,so this so this, So this concert
is what you which is what youalready said earlier, is about meeting people
wherever they got on the Billy Portertrain, wherever you got on the train.
This concert is going to fill allthe questions out, fill it all

(08:37):
out. It's a retrospective of mylife. It's a pop rock concert period,
and it has all of the otherelements historically of who I am.
It's theatrical, it's cinematic, it'syou know, it tells a nartive of
my life, credible story. Nowlet me say this so my dear friends,

(09:00):
and two things I want you toknow as I move forward. And
I'm literally getting chills on my armsbecause as much as i love radio and
I've been doing it for a numberof years, I'm also a playwright and
I've been doing theater for the lastsixteen years. So just hearing you say
that you even went into your ownbank account with the stardom that you have,

(09:22):
and it speaks to the passion andfocus that you have that you financed
your own tour. We'll get tothat, and that my dearest friend went
to the Detroit show last week andgirlfriend, if you don't see that,
I said, he's gonna be inPhiladelphia June first, So Philly, getting

(09:43):
your tickets. Listen you you don'tyou leave it all on stay. This
is a white folks up in theretoo. But you know that we're taking
she said, she sent me apart of the video. You just believe
that you are probably and I saythis to all of my AP peers in

(10:05):
the music industry and in radio today, you have the purest, strongest,
not just R and B voice onthe charts today, hands down. And
I say that in this form,which is a huge form, you have
the strongest, purest voice of anyartist on the chart today. And if

(10:30):
somebody doesn't believe me, do itversus with Billy, Okay, I just
want to better love bottle of water, all right? So yeah, thank
your sisters. Incorrect, Look,Billy, I'll finance the versus myself.
I would put if I dare anybodyif now this is Frankie yourself speaking,
not Billy, but I dare anybodyto prove me wrong on that. You

(10:54):
have the strongest voice of anyone onthe charts. Pick a format ted day,
thank you day, you leave everythingand tell that story. Plus you
said volume one, so you're doingvolume one. Now, let's talk about
volume one. Let's talk about yournew single, and let's talk about your

(11:15):
show. Because listen, I've beenstalking you for about five six years,
so this is just wonderful. Mydear to be in your space. I
am a fan girl. Honey toosaid, he goes show up saddling.
I figure this one will work.I just put less spray spray on it.
But there's so much I can talkabout, talk about, talk about

(11:39):
your show. You mention it wasvolume one. Talk about your single and
your music. I want to getthat in before I hang up on you.
It's a celebration of life, oflove, of joy, of hope,
of peace. And when I putit together, it was like,
I don't have a lot of moneyfor a lot of pop and circumstances,
so I have to focus on whatis the message, What is the ministry

(12:03):
of this. I want to comeand minister to people. I want to
give the world a big bear hugand celebrate life, you know, celebrate
being able to gather again together andhopefully start a conversation about healing too,
gatherers. You know, like musicis the universal language, and music has

(12:28):
been a healer for generation upon generationupon generation. And my music, my
new album Black Mona Lisa, comesout in September. I wrote fourteen,
I wrote thirteen of the sixteen songs. I co wrote fourteen and the sixteen
songs, and for the first timein my life as a musician, as

(12:50):
a recording artist, the music speaksand says exactly what I wanted to say.
I'm fifty three years old. Igrew up on protest music, you
know. Protest music has all beendisappeared in the market. Not with me,
you know, and all of thethings can coexist. There can be

(13:11):
love songs, there can be youknow, power ballets, there can be
celebrations, there can be flexing,there can be you know, all of
it is there. You have amessage. There's a message in your music.
There is a message in my music, and it's really important for me
and this time around. Because ofmy age and because I've lived people are

(13:37):
open to hearing it from me.You know, when I was twenty six
years old, I was doing thesame thing. Nobody was interested in hearing
it from a little whippersna work.You know, Now I can speak because
I've lived a full life pretty muchin front of the world, you know,

(13:58):
and so I have some things tosay, and I've lived through some
stuff, you know, and soyou know, I'm apologetic in your music
to stuff experiences, yes, ma'am, Yes, ma'am. And I excited
about the fact that, like youknow, Children came out and you know,

(14:20):
a year and a half ago,and then I did, you know,
Stranger Things, which is my politicalyou know, one of my political
pieces, and I came out duringthe twenty twenty election. And then you
know, Baby Was a Dancer cameout late March and has been going up
the charts in the UK. Itjust it just reached number two BBC Radio
two, which is huge in theUK. And now Fashion was released last

(14:43):
Friday and the response is just theresponse to it is just like remarkable.
And that wasn't even one of thetracks that myself and the label had chosen.
You know that track came men becauseof people like you, because you
know, we sent the album outand the response was, yeah, you

(15:07):
know, what's the radio people,we'd love to add our album. Yeah,
So I was like, Okay,I like this one and I like
that one. Everything came back fashionright now, so listen. So,
so I want I want you torespond to this. You know, you
mentioned it, um and you talkedabout the music you grew up grew up.

(15:28):
I would I be mistaken uh tosay that you are an advocate um
and an activists um? And wasit by accident or is just who you
are? Uh? Both? Youknow, I'm fifty three, I'm first

(15:50):
generation. Are you frozen? Areyou back there? We are? So
let me ask the question again.You talked about music you grew up on,
and I've seen just almost all ofyour interviews and you do it so
flawlessly and so easily, and itjust comes out so naturally. But at

(16:11):
the same time, it's so profoundwhat you're saying, which lets me know
it's your genuine Are you an advocateand an activists? Both? Yes?
And are you okay in that space? Yeah? I totally. You know,
it's a necessary space for me tobe in I'm first generation post civil

(16:37):
rights movement. So growing up,you know, that's all we understood.
We under we were taught what happenedbefore we were born, you know,
whether we learned it at school,which we didn't really learn the fullness of
it at school, but you know, our families were teaching us. And

(17:00):
then I came out as gay innineteen eighty five, and we were required
to go straight to the front linesto fight for our lives during the Age
Crisis, and there was no choice. We had to fight so that we
could live. And one of thethings I always talk about was in the

(17:22):
Broadway community. You know, Ibooked my first Broadway show in the fall
of nineteen ninety. I moved Decembertwenty seventh, nineteen ninety to New York
City. It was the second semesterof my senior year at Carnegie Mountain to
be in the original cast of MissSaigon on Broadway. And what I will

(17:45):
say is that there's an organization calledBroadway Cares Equity Fights AIDS that was launched
at that time to deal with thecrisis that was affecting the creative community the
most. And you know, itwas in conjunction when it brought me Cares,
Egority Fights, AIDS and the ActorsFund, and they taught an entire

(18:08):
generation how to activate. I learnedhistorically from the Civil Rights movement. I
learned an action during the LGBT ClubQ plus activists during AIDS. So it's

(18:33):
it wasn't by accident and sort ofkind of you know, like I didn't
have a choice, you know whatI mean. Like, it's not like
I don't feel like what was Igonna do? Just stand by and what
my friend into within you? It'syou. Yeah, you just sit.
You couldn't sit quietly if you triedto. It's just who you are.
No, and my friends were dying, you know. By the time I

(18:56):
was twenty one, I had lostmore friends to AIDS than my eighty six
year old grandmother had lost. Youknow, this is real, This was
a real thing. We opened MissSaigon on April eleventh, nineteen ninety one,
and by April eleventh, nineteen ninetytwo, four people had died from

(19:18):
the original cast. It's like wewere in the middle of the plague and
I had to do something from ourown sanity, you know. So now
I am one of the leaders youknow, like I have to step into

(19:40):
the space of being one of theleaders of activist visim and in these spaces,
and I you know, I don'tnecessarily feel as comfortable, you know,
being a leader in that sense.But if I can do but because
I can do it through my art, yeah, I'm okay. Yeah,

(20:06):
And this is a part of thatfor me. Okay, you'll see it
in the concert. It's it's allover, it's all over the work.
Yeah. Yeah. So your touris underway again. If you're touring the
country, you've already done a numberof cities. Um, you'll be here
in Philadelphia on June first. Iwill be in the huts and I can't

(20:29):
believe, and you'll come back stageafter all of my girlfriends. We're coming
together. Yeah, we're coming together. I cannot wait to see you.
UM. I always say to whomuch has given, much is required.
Um. And when you have theaudacity and spider the naysayers, those who

(20:51):
may want to ridicule, there's agreater group of people who he'd need to
hear a message. You shared themessage in spite of that. I love
your courage. I thank you forbeing who you are. Thank you for
sharing with the world and never givingup on being one who you are,

(21:12):
who you are unapologetically to bring thetalent the advocacy to the greater community around
the world. You've touched people you'llnever meet, you've empowered the people that
you'll never be in their presence,and you've educated people through your Enter team.

(21:38):
Thank you, you bad baby,baby, and I thank you for
this time with us. So takethirty seconds and say whatever these you want
to leave our audience with. Um. You know, we've all been a
collective trauma for quite some time andit's time to heal collectively. M hm

(22:06):
and whatever it is that we needto do, it's okay. Do not
fear what's happening. None of itis new. The change has already happened.
Love will always win. Take yourleft shoulder and put it near your
camera. Put your left I justwant to pat you on your back.

(22:27):
Okay, thank you. I justwant to pat you on your back.
We don't thank if we're talking.If we spend more time talking to each
other instead of at each other,we'll find out that we have more in
common than we have a difference.Absolutely about Billy. Thank you. Love.

(22:52):
You'll see i'll see you first.Thank you, thank you, darling.
Bye bye bye bye.