iTunes’ #1 Christian album is by a drag queen
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No images? Click here  August 8, 2023 Hey Meteor readers, We’ve got a THICC newsletter for you today so I’m not going to slow you down. But before we get to the goods, a quick announcement: We’re launching a newsletter ambassador program. Just click the banner below to enter your information and get your unique code to share with friends and family—and earn a Meteor tote bag once five of your referrals sign up. And the prizes only get better from there!  In today’s newsletter we look at the USWNT’s World Cup loss and chat with Flamy Grant, a drag queen who has the number one Christian album on iTunes right now. Jammin’ with Jesus, Shannon Melero  WHAT’S GOING ONNot goodbye, but see you later: On Sunday the US Women’s National Team was eliminated from the Women’s World Cup after its game against Sweden went into penalty kicks. It was a crushing defeat and not the send-off anyone was expecting for Megan Rapinoe’s final World Cup appearance. The loss is especially difficult to accept considering that it was the Round of 16 and even on their worst day, the USWNT is better than that. But hear me out for a moment. Perhaps this loss was actually a good thing for women in soccer overall? The USWNT and a bevy of European nations have been the dominant squads at the World Cup for 30 years. Occasionally China has made it into the quarterfinals but in general, when you think of the most competitive and dominant teams you’re thinking of England, The Netherlands, maybe France, and the United States, with a handful of strong threats like Brazil, Japan, or Canada, which can, under the right circumstances, topple the favorites. And there is a reason for this dominance: investment. Like many sports, soccer was intended to be a “gentleman’s” game, and the inclusion of women at the professional level is still a relatively young concept. The nations which have put the greatest time, money, and infrastructure behind their women’s teams have yielded the greatest results, and for some time it was the USA blazing that trail. Because of this initial investment, the USWNT was arguably the best team in the world from 1999 to 2019. But the cost of being the best is that everyone starts figuring out how to beat you. Which is exactly what happened. Sunday’s loss wasn’t as simple as poor on-field chemistry or Vlatko Andonovski’s lackluster coaching. It was the culmination of a lot of things, but most especially the growing talent and skill on the pitch. Women on teams like Jamaica, South Africa, and Colombia have been clamoring for more support and resources from their nations for years and are slowly but surely starting to get it from their local sport-governing bodies and their fans as well. Europe, as a whole, has also further stepped up its contribution to women’s athletics with some of the biggest organizations in soccer (like Manchester, Madrid, and PSG) pouring more money into the development of their women’s leagues. And now we find ourselves in a golden age for women’s soccer with an abundance of bona fide legends. In her final World Cup post-game interview Brazilian star Marta summed it up best, “When I started playing I didn’t have a…female idol. How could I? You guys didn’t show female games. Now when we go out on the street, parents stop us and say, ‘My daughter loves you…[she] wants to be just like you when she grows up.’” AND: 
 SLAYIN’ AND PRAYIN’Serving Looks While Serving the LordMeet Flamy Grant, the drag queen with a chart-topping Christian music album BY BAILEY WAYNE HUNDL  FLAMY GRANT’S ALBUM COVER. (PHOTO BY HALEY HILL) Flamy Grant is a “shame-slaying, hip-swaying, singing-songwriting” drag queen from western North Carolina. Her name is a reference to 90s Christian pop star Amy Grant, and her album Bible Belt Baby centers on her journey as a queer person of faith—which, apparently, some people aren’t too happy about. On July 26, infamous MAGA pastor Sean Feucht angrily tweeted about Grant, lamenting that “these are truly the last days,” and that Christian music from a drag queen was the “end goal” of the progressive Christian movement. “End goal?” Grant tweeted back. “Baby, we’re just getting started. 😘” And she meant what she said. Feucht told Grant that “hardly anyone listens or cares what you do,” so she rallied her fans on social media to get her songs on the Christian music charts. And by the next morning, her album had reached No. 1 on iTunes. As a drag queen/queer Christian myself, I had to sit down with this diva and get into it all: the drama, the trauma, and what she hopes to give any Christian—both queer and the other kind.  GOD’S GORGEOUS CREATION (PHOTO BY HALEY HILL) Bailey Wayne Hundl: Over the last ten days, you have been in People, Rolling Stone, Billboard—when you put out your album, did you ever envision something like this happening? Flamy Grant: Not to this degree. You know, I saw what happened with Semler, a good friend of mine, and they’re the first out queer artist to hit number one on the [Christian] iTunes charts. So I knew that it would be a big deal if a drag queen got on the iTunes charts. But I just thought it would be a cool moment of representation. I would’ve been happy with that, but like, my gosh, to have a Rolling Stone article that I can now point to… It’s crazy. It’s massive. When you started doing drag and mixing that with Christian music, was that your intention—to get as many eyes on it as possible? My intention has been to have a career, so whatever it takes to pay my bills. That’s been my intention. And that’s just the first rule of drag. Get your bag. (laughs) Exactly. Yes. My second purpose and intention is to— I always tell people that I write for queer folks, specifically queer folks who grew up in evangelicalism or other high-demand religions who will resonate to that story of having to unburden yourself of a whole heap of oppression that was dropped on you. And then finding freedom, finding liberation, finding your sparkle. You’ve been a worship leader in church since high school. What led you to add drag to that? Well, the pandemic, honestly. I got super into drag in my mid-thirties. I’ve always been a late bloomer at everything because, you know, religious trauma. I mean, I didn’t even come out fully until I was 28. So it took a few more years to really become ingrained in queer culture. So once I fell in love with drag, I was just all about it. And the pandemic gave me the time. I live [in] this house with some housemates who are also musicians. So we started a livestream, like many artists did during the pandemic, where we would just sing cover songs every Thursday night to, like, 30 people on Facebook. I started showing up to those in drag and really that’s where Flamy developed her chops, if you will. [One day] my pastor asked me to give the sermon in drag…so I made a TikTok video to practice and gave a little [uplifting message] in 60 seconds while I was painting my face. And I woke up the next morning and it had completely blown up and gone viral. And I was floored at the responses: “This makes me feel so seen.” “It makes me feel so safe.” And that inspired you to release a Christian album. First of all, my record feels like a spiritual record, and I come from the evangelical world, so why not call it a Christian record? It’s telling a spiritual journey. It’s speaking to people who are still in the church. It’s speaking to people who have oppressed queer people in the church. That’s the audience that it’s for, really. So it just made sense to put it in the Christian category. I struggled with that a lot because the word “Christian” is so loaded in America—because it’s been co-opted by evangelicals. I always like to make this point: Evangelicalism is a sect of Christianity. It is not representative of the entire faith. What we understand to be mainstream Christianity in America is not actually, like, historically Christian.  One thing that queer people of faith get asked a lot is, “How do you reconcile these two disparate worlds?” But I’m curious: Why do you continue to reconcile the two worlds? Well, I mean, first and foremost, I think the main reason is simple: It’s representation. I don’t see anybody else who’s intentionally trying to be a Christian in the [contemporary Christian music] genre, trying to do that as a drag queen in particular. And then, because I grew up the way I did, I know what it’s like to be a kid who has just nothing to look at that looks or feels like me—to feel like you are such an anomaly and to feel like you are such a broken thing. So knowing that I can be there, present, especially in such a visible way—because that’s the thing about drag: It’s a very visibly queer art form. You know, we can see a picture of a drag queen, but then if you get to spend 45 minutes with her, listening to her heart…to hear a full record where I’m talking about this stuff…that’s gonna make [an impact]. And a good record, too, if you don’t mind me saying. Thank you! I don’t mind you saying it at all. You can say it many times. I’m very proud of it.  SHINING BRIGHTER THAN THE BURNING BUSH. (PHOTO COURTESY OF FLAMY GRANT) Last question: If you could get just one thing across to the church, what would that be? My answer might be a little skewed right now, because the past two weeks I’ve just been inundated and saturated with comments from Christians on the internet who make wild assumptions. But my encouragement to Christians would be to just listen a little bit. Go listen to three of the songs on my record. And if you don’t wanna engage with me, at least take that posture to queer people in your life. And if you don’t know any queer people in your life: Yes, you do. You just don’t know that they’re queer yet. Just push pause for just a little bit. I know you feel righteously compelled to speak. You feel educated about it because you’ve read six Bible verses. But there’s a whole life story in each of us that I promise if you really hear—it’s gonna have an impact on you. And it may not change your mind about homosexuality, but it may give you a window into a life that you would otherwise roll your eyes at or type a vomit emoji at. Just listen as hard as you can for as long as you can. And see what happens.  AROUND THE WORLD CUP ⚽️Just because the US is out doesn’t mean the action stops!
FOLLOW THE METEOR     Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? This newsletter was written by Shannon Melero and Bailey Wayne Hundl.
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