Drag performer followed artistic heart onstage

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This article was published 24/10/2024 (647 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Queen Priyanka is exploring new domains — both geographic and professional.

The Ontario-born drag performer and winner of the first season of Canada’s Drag Race stops in Winnipeg tomorrow for a concert at the West End Cultural Centre in support of her new full-length album, Devastatia.

It’s her first time touring since pursuing a full-fledged music career — a rarity in the world of drag, where lip syncing is often the standard — and the grind has taken some getting used to.

“Hats off to those musicians who have packed into their vans and made their music careers come true,” she says during an early morning phone call. “The biggest learning lesson in all of this is that you can be the face of a kid’s network and the winner of Drag Race, but nobody can prepare you for what is your first-ever music tour.”

Prior to achieving royal drag status, Mark (Suki) Suknanan spent a decade working as a television personality with YTV, including as host of the channel’s flagship kid’s program, The Zone.

Suknanan started dabbling in drag seven years ago after connecting with Canadian drag queen Xtacy Love at a party.

Since stepping out as Priyanka, the Indo-Guyanese performance artist has staked a claim in the North American entertainment industry as a rising pop star and actor, having been cast in the latest season of We’re Here — an HBO reality series featuring Drag Race royalty — and with an appearance on Netflix’s Glamorous.

Stardom, one way or another, has been a lifelong goal.

Free Press: Your new album opens with the song I’m a Star. What’s the story behind it?

Queen Priyanka: I did say out loud in high school that I wanted to be a star and my guidance counsellor told me not to pursue it — to be a dentist because you’ll make more money. So it’s my love letter to those people: your destiny is within you … it’s just a matter of taking the risk and doing it.

Sing this song in your shower and just believe that your wildest dream could come true — because mine did.

FP: Was starting a career in music always part of the plan when getting into drag, or is it something that followed?

QP: It became the plan because I realized my natural artistic heart was taking me into music and so much success has come out of it.

Making Rolling Stone’s list of best drag songs (for the 2021 single Come Through, performed with fellow queen Lemon) is no small feat for a little brown boy from Whitby, Ont.

So not part of the plan, but also meant to be.

FP: What can audiences expect from your live show?

QP: It is a really awesome drag show, but it’s also what you’re used to seeing with your favourite pop stars: backup dancers, costume changes and singing. It also doubles as a cabaret, because of my natural ability to talk a lot. All the things I’ve gone through to get where I am are told on the stage during the show, but it all connects to the music.

FP: Both your parents are Guyanese and you’re heading to Guyana in December on this tour. Tell me about that concert and what it means to you.

QP: Once I did We’re Here and realized how powerful we are as human beings and we can make real change, I was like, ‘I want to go to Guyana.’ I want to perform and I want to show people that you can go to these countries where they just made it legal to cross-dress — it’s still illegal to show same-sex PDA, but they just made it legal to, basically, do drag. So, now I can have a concert there and raise money for the (local) Pride organization.

FP: How has your cultural heritage and things like Bollywood informed your approach to drag?

QP: When I started drag, I was starting to be more proud of being brown. When I was like five or six, I was playing with a neighbour — we were both young boys — and he said, ‘Oh, you’re brown.’ I ran home crying … and my mom had to, like, break it to me that I’m brown.

Here I was for the first time as a child being told I was something different and it shook me. And being shook so young made me hide my culture more and more growing up. I listened to Bollywood music, I loved soca and dancehall music, but when people would ask me what I was listening to at school, I’d be, like, ‘Britney Spears.’

So, when I started doing drag, I was becoming more confident in who I was out of drag and my cultural heritage. I was able to wear saris and lehengas … and perform Bollywood music in the bars, because if there was one brown person in that bar … I wanted them to see that they can be a motherf—-king rockstar and still listen to their Bollywood songs.

That’s how I was able to take my culture and use it for good, versus hide it like I used to.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

X: @evawasney