Sampled on Beyoncé’s “Pure/Honey,” with a loving shout-out in concert by Queen Bey herself, and entrusted with holding the unofficial afterparty for Beyonce’s Renaissance tour, Kevin Aviance is living the life.
Aviance made his mark in the ballroom scene in the 1980s as part of Washington, D.C.’s House of Aviance before moving on to New York, ruling iconic clubs like Sound Factory and Arena. His 1996 club hit “Cunty (The Feeling),” which Queen Bey has brought to a whole new audience, made him famous in the underground. Though Aviance has made many appearances on TV and on film since then, these days he’s back on the road, on the stage—and in the studio.
I talked to Aviance in his dressing room at the Oasis club (298 11th St., San Francisco) when I was there on assignment for Pink Ticket Travel (and Xtra, Pink Ticket’s sibling). Aviance was on the second-last date of his The Cunty Ball Tour. After we chatted, some of San Francisco’s most outrageous, slay queens started the night before Aviance got on stage and performed like the superstar that he is, including his new single, “Body.”
How does it feel to have this resurgence?
It feels great. I mean, I’ve never stopped working. But life has a way of giving stuff back to you, and you either take it or not. So I’m like, it’s time to put my big-girl shoes on and to take the responsibility, and to just accept the flowers. There are so many of us, when these things happen they don’t get to enjoy it. They’re dead, or they’re sick. So I feel very fortunate that I am alive and healthy and Black and incredible. So I love it. It feels so good—I’ve been doing it for so long, you know.
What’s so great about San Francisco?
Something about San Francisco reminds me of old-school New York. There’s this rawness here, there’s this vibration, it’s like a volcano here. Everyone can find their cuntiness. Everyone can feel their own way here. You can be a butch queen if you want.
When you were on your last tour, it was branded the “unofficial” afterparty for Beyoncé’s tour, and I read that you wanted to make it the “official.”
It was hard to make it “official” because of logistics, but we met with her team, and everyone was loving everything we did. At first I was hesitant to run behind somebody. But it was really fun. I just found out today that my new song is on the radio. It’s been out for a couple of weeks, and that says a lot right there. I’m here for it. Let’s make no mistake about this, the whole thing about being Black and gay, in our families and in the Black community, has not been cute. But I know my family, after Beyoncé’s album, we’re now sitting at the table, having a discussion. So if anything has happened, it took a Black woman, a billionaire bitch, to hold us up like this and go, “They have a beautiful story to tell, and you’re going to listen to them.” She did it for Black women, she did it for the Black family, so why not do it for the Black queens? We have to understand the dynamic of this whole thing, you know what I mean?
And where it’s rooted.
Yes, where the roots are, exactly.
It’s been beautiful to see you getting your flowers, what you deserve. As a queer Black person, I hold you up high. So thank you.
Thank you.
Kevin Aviance’s new single “Body” is streaming on Spotify and Apple Music, and featured as part of the first in a series of videos where Tyreece Takes San Francisco.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
