Earlier this year, trailblazing multi-hyphenate artist Our Lady J released “Future Of Us,” an empowering queer anthem for the community featuring the vocal harmonies of the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus—her first major music release in over 10 years.
But it’s not like Our Lady J (who is a trans woman and uses she/her pronouns) has been sitting idly by in the past decade. In fact, she’s been very, very busy.
After making a name for herself as a performer and musician—counting big names like Dolly Parton and Sia among her fans—Our Lady J made a move into television writing. When she joined the team behind Amazon’s Transparent in 2014, she became the first out trans person to be hired into a Hollywood writers’ room, and helped earn the show a Peabody Award.
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Since then, she has written and produced for FX’s ball culture drama Pose (earning her second Peabody Award in 2018), written for horror anthology American Horror Stories, and was a key creative force in American Horror Story: NYC, even making her directorial debut with the season’s penultimate episode.
And she’s not stopping there! “The Future Of Us” is just the first taste of even more music to come, including a new musical she can’t share more about just yet. Plus, it was recently announced that she’s co-executive producing and writing for Netflix‘s upcoming The Boroughs, the next series from Strangers Things creators The Duffer Brothers. She’s understandably can’t say more about that yet either—but we can’t wait for what’s in store!
In the middle of Our Lady J’s incredibly busy summer, she spent some time with Queerty as the latest guest in our rapid-fire Q&A series, Dishin’ It. In our conversation, the artist opened up about what inspired her return to composing music, shares what it was like to debut “Future Of Us” at the Met Gala, and teases a bit more about her “scary and weird” work ahead!
Is there a piece of media—whether a movie, TV series, book, album, theater, video game, etc…—that has played an important role in your understanding of queerness and the queer community? Why does it stand out to you?
As far as pop culture goes, Madonna‘s Sex book was an early influence on how I saw myself in the queer community. In one of the scenes, Madonna is dressed in diamonds and a gorgeous gown as a gay *rgy unfolds around her. She loses her date in the crowd of men, but she remains calm, poised, and glamorous, having the time of her life. I didn’t want to be any of the men in the scene—I wanted to be the glamorous woman, surrounded by bacchanalian pleasure.
This year you’ve made your glorious, official return to music for the first time in over a decade. Can you tell us a bit about the circumstances and the inspiration that brought you back to writing and recording original music?
I made the decision to leave music in 2014 because my experiences in the industry taught me that there was indeed space for a solo trans artist, but they would have to look and sound “cis” to get to the level that I wanted to be at. I am physically incapable of sounding like a cis woman, and at the time, I couldn’t afford the surgeries to look it either, so I stopped casting my pearls before swine and turned to screenwriting, which gave me the opportunity to disappear behind the scenes and make art at the level I knew I was capable of.
The writers’ strike last summer put a pause on my tv and film projects, but I couldn’t just stop creating, so I put that energy into music. I ended up writing a ton of songs, most of which are going into a new musical, but several of the songs didn’t fit, so I’m releasing them one by one as singles. Now that the strike is over and I’m back to work, I’m looking at my music as an art project, rather than worrying about the business of it all. They’re not conventional pop songs. They’re weird, and I’m proud of them.
Listening to “Future Of Us”—recorded with NYC’s Gay Men’s Chorus—feels like a spiritual experience. When you listen back to it, what does it make you feel? Especially giving how sweeping and anthemic it is, what’s your dream venue or setting for conducting and performing it live?
Thank you. It was a spiritual experience to compose, which was probably more important to the process than the million times I listened to the song while recording, mixing, and mastering it.
The lyrics describe a well of panic—an endless list of everything that seems to be wrong with the world. We often lower ourselves into that well to try to learn more about what makes us feel unsafe or unloved, but the lower we get, the more anxiety we put on ourselves. If we go low enough, we realize there is no bottom to the well, so we can either sink lower and lower into despair, or we can get the hell out of there and turn to hope.
This is the heart of the song. It’s an appreciation of the shadow side of humanity. It says, “thank you, but I’m going to turn to love right now, because it’s what I need to survive.”
On that note, you had the honor of conducting “Future Of Us” live at this year’s Met Gala. Do you have any fun memories or favorite encounters you can share from your time there?
I signed too many NDAs to talk about it! Haha. But yes, I was thrilled that the song was performed at the Met Gala by the glorious Broadway Inspirational Voices, and that I had the opportunity to wave my magic baton while conducting it, surrounded by so many extraordinary artists. Photography and recording wasn’t allowed, but you can hear the performance in the background of the viral clip of Olivier Rousteing cutting Tyla out of her Balmain sand dress. It was an incredible experience.
In these trying times, what’s something that makes you most proud to be part of the LGBTQ+ community right now?
I’m proud of our resilience. We get knocked down, but we get up again.
Outside of your music, you’ve been doing award-winning work in TV, writing, directing, and producing for shows like Pose, Transparent, and American Horror Story. What’s a strength of yours you’ve learned about during your time in writer’s rooms or on set?
Detaching from ego to get the job done is something that my music teachers tried to instill in me when I was studying to be a classical musician, but accomplishing this can only be done through practice in the real world. Writers rooms and editing bays have given me this space to practice, as have the countless meetings you find yourself in as a producer and director.
Sometimes I’ve gone too far with detachment, allowing others to take credit for my work, but that’s also a part of the practice. Creating and deconstructing, while maintaining the whole.
And speaking of TV, you’re writing and co-executive producing The Boroughs for Netflix, the first project from The Duffer Brothers since Stranger Things became a smash success. What—if anything—can you tease about the show thus far?
We just finished the writers room last month, and we begin principal photography in the fall, so I can’t say much right now, except that I’m very very excited to get this show out there. It’s scary and weird, and it’s gonna be a lot of fun.
Who is a queer or trans artist/performer/creator that you think is doing really cool work right now? Why are they someone we should all be paying attention to?
It’s incredible that there are so many trans artists who come to mind, a sign of positive change. Zackary Drucker is someone who continuously puts out high-level work as a producer and director. I was lucky to work with her on Transparent, and since then, she’s created some really extraordinary shows and films, from The Lady And The Dale to The Stroll, both with HBO Documentary Films. She makes things happen.
