Emell Derra Adolphus
Detroit Artist Bakpak Durden Paints the Beauty of Becoming
When most people first encounter Detroit artist Bakpak Durden, they're looking up at a photorealistic mural more than four stories tall. Towering above the Fisher Freeway Service Drive in downtown Detroit, the portrait introduces the [...]Read more about Detroit Artist Bakpak Durden Paints the Beauty of Becoming
A. Nzere Kwabena’s Cancer Diagnosis Revealed LGBT Detroit’s Next Generation of Leaders
LGBT Detroit Executive Director A. Nzere Kwabena has stewarded Hotter Than July’s organizing, programming and coalition building for nearly three decades since co-founding the Highland Park-based Black LGBTQ+ festival in 1996. But when a cancer [...]Read more about A. Nzere Kwabena’s Cancer Diagnosis Revealed LGBT Detroit’s Next Generation of Leaders
'Black Summers' Turns Detroit Summers Into Stories of Black Queer Joy
Summer is more than a season in “Black Summers: Growing Up in the Urban Outdoors," published recently by Wayne State University Press. Among the anthology’s 32 contributions of poems, essays, illustrations, creative nonfiction and even comics: a [...]Read more about 'Black Summers' Turns Detroit Summers Into Stories of Black Queer Joy
How Da Brat’s Gender Remixing Brought Up Big Questions in My Black Family
Growing up in a Black middle-class household in the early ’90s, the only force more powerful than God was gender. In our childhood home, there were boys and there were girls. Boys did boy stuff, and girls did girl stuff. There was little tolerance [...]Read more about How Da Brat’s Gender Remixing Brought Up Big Questions in My Black Family
How Lil Nas X Is Leading Black Queerness Out of Purgatory
If it feels like Lil Nas X releases a new video for "MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)" every day, it is because the Twitterverse and Lil Nas himself haven't had a moment's pause since the video's premiere last Friday. With each public pan or praise, [...]Read more about How Lil Nas X Is Leading Black Queerness Out of Purgatory
Pride & Poise: How Community Leaders Cornelius Wilson, Robert Tate Shaped Hotter Than July into Detroit's Premier Black LGBTQ Pride Event
When most Pride celebrations are winding down at the end of June, Pride is only just beginning in Detroit thanks to Hotter Than July, the second-longest LGBTQ Pride celebration in the country. But whereas the first Pride was a riot, Hotter Than July [...]Read more about Pride & Poise: How Community Leaders Cornelius Wilson, Robert Tate Shaped Hotter Than July into Detroit's Premier Black LGBTQ Pride Event
Car Craftsman
In his work as senior creative designer at General Motors Industrial Design, Christopher J. Webb draws on a childhood fascination for the engineering and elegance of automobiles. "I used to call out the name, make and model of cars," Webb recalled [...]Read more about Car Craftsman
Distant Dispatches
To take a trip requires a ticket, but only a journey begins with friends. Such is one of many themes stowed away in author Julién Godman's debut work "Andanzas, Vol. I, Friends" published by Bang Pang Editorial earlier this year. The staging across [...]Read more about Distant Dispatches
Boy-lesque
International Erotic Art Exhibition Detroit Saturday, Feb. 9 and Saturday, Feb. 16 Russell Exhibition Center Russell Industrial Complex 1600 Clay St., Detroit Tickets start at $40. For more information, go online to dirtydetroit.com. As soon as [...]Read more about Boy-lesque
Close Quarters
If Alexander Weyer had to put a postmark on when he decided to build a tiny home, he'd guess it started about three years ago just as most of his thoughts begin: under the stars. Weyer, an openly gay practicing astrologer and herbalist, was visiting [...]Read more about Close Quarters
Team-WERK: Gays Bond Over Scoring Goals in the Detroit Drive Soccer League
Considering the number of LGBTQ athletes who have taken center stage in the last five years — Caitlin Jenner, footballer Michael Sam, ice skater Adam Rippon and freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy, to name a few — the stereotype that gay people are not [...]Read more about Team-WERK: Gays Bond Over Scoring Goals in the Detroit Drive Soccer League
Wayne's World
A Local Designer's Breathable, Butt-Hugging Underwear Line for Men Who Want to Feel Comfortable While Feeling Sexy Designer Perry Wayne taught himself how to sew and used that skill to start creating the type of fashionable clothes he dreamed to one [...]Read more about Wayne's World
Healing Words
Poetry for the Purpose of Community Engagement The strong sense of resilience that permeates Natasha "T" Miller's poems was shaped by dealing with great loss. Missed opportunities, misconceptions, queerness, ex-lovers and lost identities all make [...]Read more about Healing Words
The Pope of Pride
Longtime Ferndale Pride 'Mascot' Gordon Matson on Living Long, Proud and Out Loud Whenever someone references "standing on the shoulders" of those who came before them in the fight for equality, they are talking about people like Gordon Matson. [...]Read more about The Pope of Pride
Talking Body
Decorative Artist Matt Lambert Explores Queer Body Politics To fully consume the queer concepts in Matt Lambert's body of work, use your primordial senses: touch, sight, sex. The 28-year-old decorative artist has a BFA in printmaking and ceramics [...]Read more about Talking Body
Making It: A Native Detroiter Makes His Mark in New York
Jeremy Martin was nearly 5 years old when he received an art kit of paints, drawing pencils and brushes from a family friend. With his newfound creative tools, Martin began experimenting with coloration, he remembers, producing the kind of abstract [...]Read more about Making It: A Native Detroiter Makes His Mark in New York