Any attempt to make it through a conversation with comedian Sampson McCormick without laughter will fail. The trailblazing gay comedian has delighted and challenged audiences with his spirited brand of Black queer comedy for over two decades. McCormick’s Atlanta fans will have the chance to experience him live during a special Black History Month appearance: “Black Joy: A Night of Laughter with Sampson,” on February 23 at MIXX Atlanta. This time around, McCormick says he’s being intentional about centering Black joy.

“As a community, we need to place an emphasis on our joy, on our ability to embrace the experiences that we have and celebrate those with reflection through laughter,” he said.

Until recently, McCormick has been the only openly, gay Black male comedian, touring the country, performing at major comedy clubs, and headlining shows.

“There’s still not a lot of us. And I’m talking about headliners that can go to the comedy clubs and carry a show all weekend. I'm still one of the only ones who can do that,” he said.

Singer and “artivist" Mykal Kilgore says, in many ways, he feels like he is starting over. Having achieved success on Broadway (Motown The Musical, The Book of Mormon, HAIR!) and television (The Wiz Live!, Jesus Christ Superstar Live In Concert), Kilgore made history in 2021 when he became the first openly queer singer to receive a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional R&B Performance. Now, Kilgore is laser-focused on his budding recording career and “The Man In The Barbershop Tour,” which kicks off in Atlanta on February 3 at Vinyl.

It feels appropriate that he would begin his 13-city east coast tour in Atlanta now that he’s a new resident. Kilgore’s sit down with The Reckoning was his first matter of business and official welcome to the South after getting settled into his new Atlanta address. Without hesitation, he made it clear why he chose to make Atlanta home.

Thanks to the recent success of Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us, Black horror has become a force to be reckoned with in the horror genre. The subgenre has always been there, but not taken seriously outside of the mainstream horror audience and academics alike. Although there were several pieces written about black inclusion, or lack thereof, throughout the years. A quick Google search for “Black Horror” pulls up a lot of these pieces, as well as suggested watching lists that chronicle not only black participation in horror, but the history of black horror itself. However, when you do a quick Google search with the terms “Black gay horror,” you will find little to nothing concerning the black queer experience in horror.

Ever so often, a piece of art is created that causes a cultural shift—an unexpected, yet welcomed reflection of the lived experiences of a segment of society that is often overlooked, if not outright dismissed by media gatekeepers. “For The Boys,” the hit SLAY TV web series now streaming on YouTube from co-creators Mekhai Lee and Ellis Dawson, is filling the void of Black queer representation on a scale that has surpassed similar projects online, and is inching closer to achieving the kind of cultural impact on a new generation of Black queer audiences not seen since the early 2000s.

“For The Boys” follows three Black queer best friends as they navigate the intoxicating and exhausting minefield of love and friendship in New York City. Set in Brooklyn, the series follows the lives of Anthony (Chandler Bryant), Jamal (Andrew Coleman), and Syed (Lamont Walker II), each on their own roads to personal self-discovery and fulfilling relationships.

To say that 2016 was a whirlwind for Academy-Award-winning screenwriter Tarell Alvin McCraney would be an understatement. Five years after the film release of “Moonlight,” based on McCraney’s play “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue,” and four years since taking home the top prize of Best Picture during an unprecedented live television mix-up—McCraney’s ascension from Liberty City, Florida, to Chair of Playwriting at The David Geffen Yale School of Drama, to creating the OWN series “David Makes Man”—now in its second season — has made the MacArthur “Genius” Grant recipient a creative force of stage and screen. In his first interview with The Reckoning, McCraney opens up about his queer identity, collaborating with director Barry Jenkins to create a masterpiece, being awkward and reveling in going unnoticed on the street, and reactions to the last 20 minutes of “Moonlight,” and why much of it, for him, was troubling.

After a successful world premiere at Outfest in Los Angeles, the cast and creative team behind the new short film “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade” are preparing to screen their lush queer Harlem Renaissance drama for Atlanta audiences during the annual Out On Film Festival on September 26, at Landmark Midtown Arts Cinema. Directed and produced by married filmmaking duo Quincy LeNear Gossfield and Deondray Gossfield (The DL Chronicles, FLAMES), and adapted for the screen by writer Robert Philipson from Richard Bruce Nugent's short story by the same name. The film also includes voice narration by Emmy award winner Billy Porter (POSE, Cinderella).

Lil Nas X is a self-affirming Black gay millennial, a megastar still rising, and an impresario of social media. His releases shatter sales and streaming records. His videos and live performances display unambiguously queer Black sexiness before mainstream audiences.

The term “Black Hollywood'' gets tossed around often in Atlanta. With so many people acting, directing, and producing their own content, it becomes easy to get overwhelmed by the immense amount of talent Atlanta offers, especially within the Black and Brown LGBTQ+ community. Creatives are staking their claim on the vast abundance of representation and visibility. Though, sometimes the voices become oversaturated with one-dimensional characters and repetitive stories. This is where content creator W. Wesley Henderson enters the conversation.

With his own streaming network, WatchACTV (aka Aconnectiontv), the Atlanta-based writer, director, and producer has been engaging audiences with his specific brand of content for years. Henderson’s roots reach back to the infancy of YouTube before it became a powerhouse within the online content creation realm, but before then Henderson was a young Black gay kid trying to make sense of what set him apart from the other kids in his neighborhood.

Victor Jackson deserves your attention. Throughout much of the pandemic, the quadruple threat (singer, actor, choreographer, creative director) never stopped creating. Over the last year, Jackson has longed for the moment supporters of his latest EP, “Man. Muse. Magic.” could convene in the same space for a live performance absent the threat of COVID-19. On July 28, at Parlor, a Black-owned bar and performance space in downtown Atlanta, he partially got his wish. Jackson kicked off “Man. Muse. Magic. neat,” an intimate live performance residency scheduled to run once a month through November.

Every time abstract artist Emmy Marshall, 36, sells a new painting he places a red sticker on the back of his bedroom door. So far this year, there are 52 stickers and counting. It’s one way the Atlanta native and openly gay artist visually celebrates his success, which doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon.

“This train is moving,” says Marshall during his interview with The Reckoning.

“I don't know how these things are happening, but people find me and they put my name in hats and in rooms and conversations and people are reaching out,” he says.

Besides producing quality work, one theory the self-taught artist has for his recent success is his ability as an abstract artist to tap into the imaginations of art consumers.

“How can you believe in something you’ve never seen?”

It’s a question that plagued a young Jamal Jordan during his formative years in Mobile, Alabama as he acknowledged his same-sex attraction as the thing that made him different from some of the other boys in the Gulf Coast community that he called home. The something that he’d never seen was queer couples of color. It would be decades after a young Jordan’s initial realization of the erasure of Black LGBTQ+ couples in mainstream media that the adult journalist would take control of the narrative in a viral story for The New York Times, and the subsequent book by the same title.

In between breaks on the red carpet at the July 1 launch party of iElevate+ TV, a new Black LGBTQ+ on-demand live streaming platform, CEO OC Allen III emphasized that the time is now for a digital space to center Black LGBTQ+ content and storytellers.

A throng of supporters filed into "Book Boutique," a new Black-owned bookstore inside Atlantic Station to celebrate the beginning of an exciting era in Black LGBTQ+ entrepreneurship and collaboration. The event preceded the holiday weekend sneak peek that gave viewers a glimpse of the content Allen and his team have curated over the last six months—setting the stage for underrepresented Black LGBTQ+ content to be seen on a global stage to an underserved audience.

Filmmaking and producing duo Deondray and Quincy Gossfield have been back at their East Point home for over a week since their successful debut at The Tribeca Film Festival, but the energy of New York City and the industry buzz generated from their short film FLAMES is showing no sign of being extinguished anytime soon. Emmy-Award-winning lesbian filmmaker Lena Waithe is responsible for the Gossfield’s return to the director’s chair after spending the last 11 years as reality television producers.

According to the New York Times, I Was Born This Way, released in 1975, is “the first record to feature lyrics about being an out-and-proud gay man.” At face value that statement is significant, but when you look further, it has a much deeper meaning. Here’s the truth: Charles Valentino (then known by the mononym “Valentino”), a Black gay man, sang the first record to feature lyrics about being out and proud. The lyrics were written by Bunny Jones in 1971, a Black woman. CNP plans to honor the legacy of this groundbreaking song in LIBERATION: Remembering I Was Born This Way—a two-part event kicking off in July.

On June 25, 1996, Meshell Ndegeocello released her sophomore album Peace Beyond Passion, and “Leviticus: Faggot”, released the day after my 19th birthday on May 21, 1996, was one of the lead singles. The sky opened and the way I listened to music shifted.

Xavier Logan, 18, wasn’t even an idea in his parent's mind when the legendary Debbie Allen as Lydia Grant said the famous line to a studio of hungry dancers in the beloved 80s dance series “FAME.” But for nearly a decade, Logan, an Atlanta native and recent North Springs Charter High School of the Arts & Sciences graduate has arrived at this moment through nothing less than sweat and determination, and it all appears to be paying off.

If Kipper Jones, 59, could go back in time to give himself advice, the celebrated songwriter and vocalist says he would simply say, “don’t be afraid.” For the man who famously penned hits for Vanessa Williams (“The Right Stuff,” “Comfort Zone'') and Brandy (“I Wanna Be Down,” “Brokenhearted”) that catapulted their careers and made them superstars, Jones has spent most his life running towards success and running away from himself. As a self-identified same-gender-loving man, Jones often wrote about love in songs that shot up the Billboard Hot 100 chart, while denying himself the experiences in his lyrics.

“What happens when a Black boy puts a flower behind his ear?”

In a perfect world, free from the constraints of societal and cultural expectations, a Black queer boy would have the permission to just be. But we don’t live in a perfect world, which is why the imaginations of Keith F. Miller, Jr. and Terrance Daye, the creative forces behind the upcoming animated film “Pritty: The Animation,” have created a world that shows how life could be when Black queer boys have the freedom to love, play, and heal.

Prentiss Matthews III is a playwright, director, actor, and singer who made quite an impression after we met a few months back. I wanted to learn more about his work, artistic vision, and his approach to his craft. He graciously agreed to sit down and chat with me. Here is what we discussed.

Eventually, Agarrat’s work ethic would command the respect of Barclay, and the hungry intern who began making coffee would be trusted to write music video treatments alongside the in-demand music video director, ultimately becoming responsible for Snoop Dogg’s 1993 debut single, “What’s My Name?.”