On The Other Side of The Pandemic, These Three Black Gay Artists Are Winning
Rob Milton (Image courtesy of subject)
Three Black gay men—a Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning playwright, a Tony award—nominated actor, and a possible future Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter— are having the time of their lives professionally and creatively. And to some extent, they credit the coronavirus pandemic.
Rob Milton, 33, is one of them.
While pundits and social scientists have debated whether the pandemic has led to a “Great Revelation” of some sort, Milton, and others, credit the pandemic with giving him the motivation needed to have the career he always wanted.
“I have pretty much surrounded myself with people who are creative, and post-pandemic, a beautiful thing has happened,” Milton told The Reckoning. “In some respects, the pandemic leveled the playing field. It caused a lot of the people I know to stop and think about how important it is to do the thing or things you are called to do.”
A lot of people, Milton said, began to realize the impermanence of life.
“People’s perspectives have just changed. Tomorrow is not promised, and so people have been pushed to be more authentically themselves. I think that is important,” he said. “I wish many more of us were born into thinking that way, but you know…capitalism.”
Milton moved to Atlanta in 2017. At the time, he was living in Richmond, Virginia, but was eyeing Los Angeles. How he ended up in Atlanta is somewhat a long story. It includes meeting one of his idols unexpectedly and a visit to Atlanta that just made him feel at home.
“At the beginning of that year, I went to LA for the first time. A friend of mine was the music supervisor for “Dear White People” and invited me to do a performance with her,” he said. “We have this amazing dinner on this rooftop, and afterward, I go to set up the equipment for the performance. And in comes Meshell Ndegeocello.”
The singer/songwriter offered to help set up, which blew Milton’s mind.
“In some respects, the pandemic leveled the playing field. It caused a lot of the people I know to stop and think about how important it is to do the thing or things you are called to do.”
“I am losing it on the inside,” he remembers. “Needless to say, after that, there was no doubt I was moving to LA. But then, I visited Atlanta between the time I left LA and moving, and it just felt like a family reunion of sorts.”
One of the things he appreciates, no, loves most about Atlanta is that it’s just so Black.
“It just is,” the singer/songwriter said as he laughed, thinking about it. “Where else can you grab a few sticks of incense at the register while paying for your gas? That’s not normal.”
Little did he know that the decision would lay the groundwork for what is arguably one of his greatest professional moments. Some ten years after releasing his first project online via Bandcamp, Milton’s co-written song, “Friends,” was released. The song, a collaboration between the Grammy award-winning singer Monica, and Grammy award-nominated singer Ty Dolla $ign, will appear on Monica’s upcoming album.
While the process has been in the works for a couple of years, Milton said it came out at a great time—which also happened to be the week of his birthday.
“We want things to happen quicker than they do at times,” he said. “It is funny. I have always known exactly what I wanted to do, but what I did not know is that I could do any of it. A lot of the things I have done have just been me literally doing me.”
(From L to R) Jason Veasey (Thought 5), James Jackson, Jr. (Thought 2), Jaquel Spivey (Usher), L Morgan Lee (Thought 1), Antwayn Hopper (Thought 6) in “A Strange Loop” (Photography by Marc J. Franklin, 2022)
Big, Black, Queer-Ass Musical Journey
Like Milton, Jaquel Spivey, 23, is living his best life. A year after graduating from Point Park University in Pittsburgh, Spivey received his first major award nomination—a Tony Award nod for his portrayal of “Usher,” the main character in the 11-time Tony-nominated, Best Musical winning Broadway hit, “A Strange Loop.”
“It’s been a wild ride,” he told The Reckoning. “It’s definitely been a journey.”
The pandemic could have derailed it all.
Spivey joined the production during its run in Washington, D.C. They were preparing to transfer to Broadway, but the opening was delayed a few weeks due to COVID-19-related setbacks.
“As much pain as it brought, I must admit I am thankful for the pandemic,” he said. “In my mind, several great things came out of it. One of those things being access.”
Don’t get him wrong. Spivey isn’t insensitive. He acknowledges that the pandemic caused pain, uncertainty, and loss.
“But if not for the pandemic, I am not sure A Strange Loop would have been part of my life. I was able to audition for the show from my room while in school.”
“I do want people to understand there are fat Black men out here. They are in loving relationships. We are joyful. We are sexy. There is elegance and purity in our lives. I laugh my ass off every day.”
- Jaquel Spivey (Photography by Daniel J Vasquez)
At the time, he was in his senior year and enrolled in what he describes as a required course. He received a call back to audition for Usher, but that would have meant not only missing school but also figuring out how he would get to New York. He can’t help but reflect on how much it would have cost him, financially and academically, if he had to travel to New York for the opportunity of his career.
For people in his circle, he said, the pandemic forced many people to look inward. Not having anywhere to go, they had to sit and do some self-work. But not only that—for many in his generation, he points out, some of them were able to connect to what others experienced during the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
“Many of us didn’t live through the AIDS crisis. We don’t have that connection to it. We don’t know what it was like,” he said. “With how precious time is, you have no choice but to leave your mark. Before the pandemic, people felt they had time to create. With the pandemic, everything stopped.”
On this side of things, what Spivey is also committed to is his authenticity. As a proudly self-proclaimed fat, Black, gay man, he is adamant about one thing—not shrinking who he is on and off the stage.
“A Strange Loop is proof that it works. All of these Black queer folks on stage being who they are, and they are celebrated by the end of the show. Many of our audiences have never seen a Black, fat, male body as a fully dimensional character,” he said. “I do want people to understand there are fat Black men out here. They are in loving relationships. We are joyful. We are sexy. There is elegance and purity in our lives. I laugh my ass off every day.”
Michael R. Jackson (Photography by Beowulf Sheehan)
Fat black boys are winning, said Michael R. Jackson, 41, playwright of “A Strange Loop.” In 2020, Jackson won the Pulitzer Prize for “A Strange Loop.”
“I think it’s kind of a reflection of the world we live in, especially when you see images of gay men with a specific body type. Even if you are straight, you see certain types of bodies all over the place, and they are the same,” he told The Reckoning. “Fat Black boys, we have a perspective, and we take up a certain space in the world. We have an interior light, and I think it is important we don’t take for granted what people look and feel like in their bodies. To me, in this moment, fat Black boys are winning and standing in our truths—plural.”
Spivey and Jackson move differently in the world, Jackson points out.
“He is way more confident than me,” Jackson admits. “Especially when it comes to men.”
“Fat Black boys, we have a perspective, and we take up a certain space in the world. We have an interior light, and I think it is important we don’t take for granted what people look and feel like in their bodies. To me, in this moment, fat Black boys are winning and standing in our truths—plural.”
Moments, Jackson said, are fleeting. One moment, something is happening, and the next, something else is happening. For him, it is hard to say what kind of moment the pandemic has created for other Black gay creatives. But, he has come out of the last two years inspired him to continue raising the bar for himself in everything he does.
That means for him not to repeat himself and to be ambitious in his personal and professional life. His new musical, “White Girl in Danger,” will make its world premiere off-Broadway in March 2023.
“It has inspired me to not be afraid to be uncompromising in what my expression is,” he said. “It was such a dark moment in time that it seemed like it would never end,” he said. “But in the midst of that, I felt like if we ever get out of this, I want to put my whole heart and soul into this artform because tomorrow is not promised.”
Mashaun D. Simon is an equity and inclusion advocate who centers his preaching, writing, and scholarship on cultural competency, identity, and equity.
He has written for NBC News and the Atlanta Daily World, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Black Enterprise, Bloomberg News, TheGrio.com, Ebony Magazine, BelieveOutLoud.com, and Essence Magazine. He has also created and managed cultural competency and affirmative action programming and training and in 2018, Mashaun organized and facilitated Kennesaw State University’s Faith and Sexuality Symposium on behalf of KSU’s Presidential Commission for LGBT Initiatives. In 2021, Mashaun was selected as a member of the inaugural cohort of the Rising Leaders Fellowship.
He holds a professional writing degree from Georgia Perimeter College, a Bachelor of Science in Communications from Kennesaw State University, and a Master of Divinity from Emory University's Candler School of Theology.