Actress Laverne Cox has released the music video for her debut single, campy voguing track "Beat for the Gods".
While the song is her first, Cox told Out magazine that she isn't beginning any kind of foray into the music industry - the single and video is a passion project. It actually started as a running joke between her and her makeup artist, and they eventually decided to make it a reality.
"‘Beat For The Gods’ happened because one day my makeup artist, Deja, who does all my makeup—she did my makeup for an event and I looked in the mirror and said, ‘Girl, I’m beat for the gods.’ I was living for myself. I was having a moment. You put your makeup on, and you feel flawless, better than you ever think you could have looked, and I was living. I was beat for the gods. And as a joke, I said, ‘Deja, that would be a cute song for the kids, "Beat For The Gods."' It was a joke.
"She said I should write it, and I said, ‘Oh, whatever.’ But I wrote a little something, and ran it by her, and I was hanging with my friend Benjamin (K. Damptey), and he’s a recording artist, and I jokingly told him I had an idea for a song. And he said, ‘Love, we should record this. Let’s just do it.’ We went in the studio with his friend Johnny, and then I really wrote the song."
Cox said she created the one-off song as a "celebration of queer culture and LGBTQ club culture", as an homage to "the kids who vogue, the kids who drag, the nightclub scene."
"It's a campy, fun song intended to invoke liberal dancing and Kikis. It's playful and unpretentious and the clear result of a group of people coming together, having fun, and making something at the same time.
"But beyond that, it's an expression of liberated queerness and unadulterated pride."
