Remixes can free a song from the dictates of radio trends, marketability and the pop conventions of boy-meets-girl. It makes me think about what, on the surface, seems so irrational: a Black queer person risking alienation from the larger Black community to shape a distinct identity around the inexplicable wants of the heart. You just had to learn it for yourself.”There is another function of the remixes I cherish most: They instigate precious memories. The beat is the confession, which recognizes, changes, and conquers time.” Some remixes remind me of the 1980s and ’90s, when music forged in Black queer spaces began reaching the mainstream. Remixes were one way of preserving Black queer aesthetics amid economic incentives to make club music more commercial.

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Persons: Diana Ross, ” Jody Watley, Mariah Carey, ”, Quincy Jones’s, Arthur Baker, Baker, Chaka Khan’s, Frederick Douglass, “, Whitney, David Cole, Robert Clivillés, Oz, Glinda, “ You’ve, James Baldwin Locations: Houston