The stage for the night is light with blue and purple lights. People crowd around the stares anxiously waiting for the show to begin. From the side of the stage, a length gown enters Miss Toto. As the first note of the song begins to play, the crowd immediately begins to scream. Hands hold dollar bills begin to pop up from the mass of people as Miss Toto makes her way closer. As she makes her way through the audience the lights above reflect off her shimmery dress. The gold glitter and blue hues give her skin a bronze statuesque glow. As the song comes to a close, the crowd erupts in cheers. Miss Toto grabs a mic.
“Welcome to Unfriendly Black Hotties; I am one of your resident Hotties and tonight is Aunty night.”
On this Friday night, Splash on Boystown’s main Halsted strip is hosting the Unfriendly Black Hotties drag show. The all-Black drag show calls Splash home on a monthly basis. It is only the second all-Black drag show to be given a residency in a Boystown bar, with Black Girl Magic presented by The Vixen being the first. When Miss Toto, Bambi Banks and Khole Park started the show just a few months ago they did it with a mission of uplifting Black queer folks.
Boystown is known for being queer-friendly, however; it is also known to be extremely white as well. Black, queer folks have not been able to find as comfortable of space in Boystown.
In the Summer of 2016 when a white Boystown frequenter posted on Facebook that “Southside trash ruined Pride.” Chicago’s South Side is where huge populations of the city’s Black residents reside. The accompaniment of calling these folks “trash” adds to the harshness of the statement. The implication of the statement is clear: Black people ruined the Pride celebrations for that year. They did this by merely existing as Black, queer folks meanwhile the white, queer people attend the event did not seem to a nuisance to other white people in attendance.
This was the inciting incident that led The Vixen to create her Black Magic Show. She wanted to highlight the talent of so-called “South Side trash” in a place where people were openly voicing their existence there.
This type of discriminatory behavior is not new to Boystown nor has it dissipated over the 4 years.
In May of 2019, Progress Bar found themselves being accused of racial discrimination after an employee leaked an internal document the management at the bar wanted to play less hip-hop and more pop to keep out undesired groups. When the email of the policy was leaked, Progress faced immediate backlash for the policy. The explanations they offered did not do much to assuage the feelings of prejudiced felt by Black queer people.
With situations like the ones mentioned above through Boystown, the explicit creation of a Black space begins to hold clear importance.
“It was a response to the lack of diversity we say on the strip,” said Bambi Banks-Coulee.
The strip, in this case, the section of Halsted that holds a majority of the Boystown bars that host drag shows.
“Putting together Unfriendly Black Hotties was trying to put more spotlight onto Black in Boystown and Chicago in general,” said Miss Toto, “To give people who don’t typically get the spotlight, an opportunity to be highlighted.”
Bambi, Toto, Khole along with Kenzie Coulee, who now lives in New York, hosted their first show in August 2019. Since starting their monthly show in August, the Unfriendly Black Hotties have been able to grow their brand and events.
It is another Friday at Splash Bar. The Unfriendly Black Hotties are hosting their inaugural screening of RuPaul’s Drag Race. The show premiered its 12th season on February 28 and the Hotties secured a weekly screening at Splash Bar for the entirety of the upcoming season.
Drag Race screenings are common on the Boystown strip. With the Roscoe’s Tavern screening being among the most popular. The screening with the Unfriendly Black Hotties felt cozy and welcoming. Bambi, Khole and Miss Toto sat with the audience; chatting with them about outfits, performance and the queens of the show. There was offered free pizza and popcorn for the attendees to break bread with each other and the queen.
An hour and half after Drag Race ended, the monthly Unfriendly Black Hotties show kicked off.
Splash Bar had become packed like it has been the fourth Friday for the past 6 months. From the stairs of the tiny stage in the back of Splash Bar to the entrance, a sea of people had filled the space.
Miss Toto introduced the show again. Reminding the audience that the theme for the show was “My Bloody Valentine”, but more importantly that it was the end of Black History Month as well.
The name Unfriendly Black Hotties comes from the lunchroom scene in which Cady, Lindsay Lohan’s character, has the table configuration explained to her. One of the tables holds the Unfriendly Black Hotties.
The real-life Unfriendly Black Hotties are anything, but unfriendly.
Recently on social media, the Hotties announced “a weekly competition made to prepare upcoming drag stars for a career in Chicago’s drag scene.”
The competition is set to start April 9th and will feature upcoming drag performers being mentored by their choice of Hottie. This new mentorship program will allow new drag artists to began to cultivate their brand and build their skills.
When creating this space Bambi Banks said they really wanted it to feel like a get-together, not space where audience members felt preached at.
Even behind the scenes, the queens expressed that being in a dressing room in a show that is Black-centered feels more like sisterhood as opposed to being backstage at a regular show.
This is not to say that regular shows are not welcoming to them, but to be in community with people that you can identify in multiple marginalized identities creates a different atmosphere. The Hotties hope that the community atmosphere extends beyond the dressing room.
They hope to bring Black people out into drag shows and other queer spaces.
“This is a safe space for y’all because we’re here,” said Miss Toto, “So then that can extrapolate to other shows that we’re booked at.”
By creating one Black, queer space the Unfriendly Black Hotties hope to make Boystown more friendly to queer, Black hotties in general.
There is a version for spaces similar to Unfriendly Black Hotties to extend throughout Chicago and beyond and for more queer people of color in general. One for Asian, queer folks is Fake Noods. In a similar vein to Black Girl Magic and Unfriendly Black Hotties, Fake Noods is trying to assert a place for queer, Asian people in the LGBTQIA+ community.
For the Hotties simply having performers is not enough to diversity Boystown.
“Media is a really big outlet too, where people who produce the media also need Brown versus just the artwork or the subject being Brown,” said Bambi Banks.
Because the Hotties have been intentional with ensuring their show is produced in this sense, they have created a show that they say would not be seen at a white-ran show. And the show being them means that show is also very authentically Black.
Kenni Terrell, a Black queer student, attending the show noted the importance of being able to see yourself in a variety of settings in order to feel truly represented and seen. She further noted the importance of Black drag artists.
“Without us, drag wouldn’t exist,” said Terrell.
Spaces like Boystown would not exist without the Gay Rights movement that began to kick off in the late 60s with the Stonewall Riots, the anti-police riots by trans-women of color and the reason why Pride Month is in June.
Looking at the history of drag and particularly the Ballroom scene of the 90s, Black queer folks helped to shape the art form as it exists today. FX’s series Pose chronicles part of this scene and queer and trans people of color who helped make it popular.
As drag has entered the mainstream a bit of this history has been lost. As evidenced by the different race issues that still plague Boystown, there is a need to reintroduce Black people into the queer spaces they helped to shape.
This is the purpose of a show like Unfriendly Black Hotties. To give Black people a space to reenter queer space and to give non-Black people an idea about Black queer culture in the larger LGBTQIA+ community. When the Hotties got together to start this show, they wanted to showcase Black queer people and Black drag. They wanted to create a space for Black queer to comfortability exist in Boystown. They want to create an authentic and wholly Black drag experience.
At the end of the night, it is simple Unfriendly Black Hotties is show by, for and about Black queer folks.
“It’s us,” Khole, Bambi, Toto all said.