Black queer artists Joseph Valenté & Sevndeep’s “THE NERVE Remix” tackles love and trust in Black gay relationships. This remix delves into the complexities of love and keeping things spicy in relationships. Set to a gritty hip-hop beat, the provocative lyrics illustrate the nuance of addressing insecurity and affirming your partner in times of uncertainty. Joseph writes about the meaning behind the song for Native Son.
I’ve always been fascinated with world-building.
Some of my earliest memories are of my hometown of Holly Springs, Mississippi, playing with leaves in rain-filled ditches on the side of the road and calling them “mermaids.”
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When we moved to Chicago, I was met with a boisterous family who would sing and put on what my Gran called “programs” instantly. I can distinctly remember going into the closet to rehearse my choreo so my brothers and cousins couldn’t steal my routine.
My Grandfather, the late Rev. Dr. Kwame John R. Porter, was a performer in my family. Every Saturday, we would go to Rainbow P.U.S.H., where he was a founding member, to see religious and political leaders speak about the state of the Black man and the preservation of the Black family. These performances manifested freedoms not yet realized and heavily informed what I saw as possible for myself.
On Sundays, my grandfather inspired a crowd of sponges who soaked in his words as if they were life itself. In many ways, they were.
All my life, I’ve been a performer. Through my own internalized homophobia, I’d lived a repressed existence cosplaying as a social butterfly. I used art to deflect from the parts of myself I wanted to keep hidden after feeling doomed to hell for years. In the current act of my life, the mask is down.
THE NERVE was a personal mantra I penned after a therapy appointment in 2017.
Enter Sevndeep. I came across Sevn’s work in 2020 when I saw a chic, blonde-faced chocolate man going for blood down a spiral staircase. I knew immediately he was my people. I reached out to see what was possible and started to think about how we could center the Black gay man’s perspective on love, romance, and sexuality.
I wanted Sevn to have creative freedom, so I sent him the original track and then left him with a full instrumental to do his thing. When I heard his verse, I immediately felt the complexities of love, trust, and keeping things spicy in gay relationships. There was sexiness in the way he approached the conversation of insecurity.
He responds to his lover questioning his popularity by saying, “Why are you mad I got options? It’s always going to be you.”
This framing prompted me to interrogate how navigating more challenging conversations can lead to deeper intimacy and even be sexy.
I have experienced great romantic love and loss several times. This collaboration feels kismet in that Sevn pushed me to explore topics I wouldn’t have been ready for when I wrote the original record in 2017.
My hope is that every gay Black man in love or looking for love will use this as an anthem.
This is for us and by us. Let’s drop the pretense, have THE NERVE to be vulnerable, and build deep, intimate connections. We deserve it!
