Written by Sage Cormack, title design by Charlotte Irvine
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past decade or have not been knee deep in the mainstream queer community, you should be familiar with the popular reality TV show and drag competition RuPaul’s Drag Race (2009-present), hosted and created by the one and only RuPaul Charles.
For the sheltered uninitiated souls among you, the aim of the competition is to find ‘America’s next Drag superstar,’ with RuPaul acting as a mentor and main judge to the drag queen contestants. The queens compete against each other in different challenges each week, covering the whole rainbow of drag artistry elements, such as design, comedy, acting, and/or makeovers.
After their performances, they must walk the runway and face the wrath of the rotating judging panel, usually consisting of Michelle Visage, Carson Kressley, the hilarious Ross Matthews, and Ts Madison. Each episode typically concludes with one competitor being eliminated, and the deciding factor, a lip-sync for your life!
Lip-syncing is an essential skill in drag world and has always played a compelling role in how performers showcase their talents. It is not necessarily about the singing or dancing, but rather it is about selling the song and its story through the contestant’s own flair and personality. Season 7 contestant Katya Zamolodchikova put it best during Episode 235 of RuPaul's ‘What's the Tee?’ with Michelle Visage when she stated:
‘The amount of work it takes and the amount of skill and devotion it takes to really master that kind of performance, and it doesn’t pay off. It doesn’t translate to any other thing! You get good at singing, you build that skill, but lip-syncing, it doesn’t go anywhere!’
Since Drag Race’s debut in 2009, the lip-syncs have been influential in both positive and negative aspects. As time goes on and the show continues to air, certain choices during lip-syncs can either become tired quickly or revolutionary. To understand how these lip-syncs have evolved, we must begin with Season 1 (grainy filter and all).
There are two notable performances from Season 1 that truly set the precedent for how competitors should or should not approach future lip-syncs: ‘Tammie Brown vs Akashia’ and ‘Akashia vs Shannel.’
Tammie was the first example of a no-go in lip-syncs—not knowing the words. It seems obvious that not knowing the words to the song you are lip-syncing can severely hamper the performance, and yet she still had the balls to wing it. Amazingly, this has since been repeated in later seasons, a prime example being Season 9’s ‘Valentina vs Nina Bonina Brown.’ Valentina initially refused to remove her mask during the lip-sync as she did not know the words, leading to a brief altercation between her and RuPaul.
With Shannel, her headpiece fell off during her lip-sync against Akashia. This was seen as a sign of vulnerability and professionalism at the time as she continued to perform. This began a brief period of queens removing their drag during their lip-syncs, attempting to replicate the iconic moment. By Season 4, however, this move had grown tired and was now seen as an act of desperation to stay in the competition. Then, in Season 5, a reveal was made that pivoted what was to be expected from drag queens: ‘Roxxxy Andrews vs Alyssa Edwards,’ where Roxxxy removed her wig… to reveal another wig! This had never been seen before and earned a place back in the competition for both contestants.
From then on, wigs under wigs were expected and replicated many times. Until Season 9, with ‘Sasha Velour vs Shea Couleé.’ There was a lot of anticipation as Sasha had never been seen lip-syncing before, and boy did she deliver! She teased the crowd with a storyline, beginning with tearing the petals off a rose and then tantalisingly removing her gloves to reveal more rose petals. But what solidified her win was when she removed her wig and rose petals fell from underneath.
Suddenly many queens relied heavily on the impact of their reveals to win over the crowd, chasing their Sasha Velour moment. However, execution is everything as Season 10 front-runner Asia O’Hara proved, when her butterfly reveal turned into a butterfly fail in the season’s finale.
Going back to earlier seasons, the quality of a lip-sync has always been dependant on how well the queen understands how to deliver the appropriate energy during the song.
This is evident in Season 4 with performances such as ‘Dida Ritz vs The Princess’, where Dida’s performance embodied Natalie Cole so much it felt like Ms Cole herself graced the stage, and ‘Latrice Royale vs Kenya Michaels’ where Latrice annihilated Kenya’s stunts through her emotional heart rendering performance. In Season 8 it’s ‘Chi Chi Devayne vs Thorgy Thor’ where this time we see Chi Chi Devayne, renowned for her choreography and stunts, opting for an impactful and passionate rendition that is remembered to this day.
Even as drag culture changes, there will forever be the consensus that there is a variety of ways to lip-sync and none are necessarily right or wrong, it depends on how the queen responds to their song and knows what to do with it. So, on that note, you better werk bitch!
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