This Pride month, we’re feeling particularly proud. So we reached out to LGBTQIA+ icons and allies alike and asked them to compile a playlist of their all-time ultimate Pride anthems. First up is a collection of underground house, disco, and synthpop bangers from all LGBTQIA+ artists curated by none other than the deliciously devious Daddy Squad, who when not producing for Violet Chachki is blessing us with bops like this and this. Thank you, D(z)addy!
So, what does Pride sound like for Daddy Squad? “The LGBT+ scene is hugely diverse, so we can celebrate that diversity a little more. We should be celebrating the queer artists, and holding them up,” he said. “For me there’s a lot of Pride playlists out there that have Kylie, Dua Lipa and so on. Sure, these are icons, and a lot of LGBT+ people love them. But they aren’t gay artists as such. They aren’t LGBT+ (as far as I know… maybe Dua will surprise us all yet). I wanted to focus on LGBT+ people who are making incredible music, sometimes they are more alternative, and less well known.”
When we asked him to spill the tea on what ‘pride’ means to him, he was fairly open about his feelings around the lack of diversity and visibility often experienced by the LGBTQIA+ community, “Just like my playlist, I do feel we need to celebrate the diversity of the LGBT+ scene. So often we get pasted into categories, whether you’re a bear, or a drag queen, or a twink. The reality is a lot more nuanced and diverse. I have queer friends who are graffiti artists, who are performance artists making ground breaking work, who are musicians making anything but “gay” music.”
He was also gracious enough to provide us with something visual to support his point (see below for the gag). “There’s plenty of meme’s circulating about this, with corporations showing fun loving chiselled guys representing Pride. My reality is quite different, and many of my friends feel likewise. We should celebrate equality through diversity, not just diversity from the non-LGBT+ scene, but also WITHIN the LGBT+ scene. Because it’s something to celebrate, this individuality.”
Listen to Daddy Squad’s Sound of Pride playlist, featuring his latest single The Object, below. Turn it up, and throw it down. *Boots.*
Follow Daddy Squad
