How a Gospel album featuring a drag queen topped Christian music charts
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Nashville, Tennessee-based musician Derek Webb expected the attacks from conservative Christians about his new Gospel album. But he didn't anticipate how the protest against those attacks would propel a singing-songwriting drag queen to the top of the Christian music charts.
Webb, a former Contemporary Christian music star, just released his new album, “The Jesus Hypothesis,” and as part of that, collaborated with drag musician Flamy Grant for a song and music video.
The collaboration fueled backlash from a rightwing Christian musician, creating a scenario that Grant leveraged to find new levels of success and attention to her solo work.
Though it happened a different way than Webb expected, the two artists achieved the same goal they originally sought after: to reclaim the definition of contemporary Christian music.
“I like the idea of a Christian church staying in that space and trying to catch all the people who were being cast out of evangelical spaces,” Webb said in an interview. “The same group that was doing the hurting is now doing the healing.”
That contrarian ideal has guided both Webb and Grant in their recent careers.
'They're not alone'
After 10 years playing with Caedmon’s Call, an evangelical Christian band, Webb embarked on a solo career that allowed him to make music that challenged religious traditions. Grant, also drawing from her evangelical background, released her 2022 album “Bible Belt Baby,” which she calls “the world’s first contemporary Christian music record by a drag performer.”
Inspired by a small group church discussion, Grant wrote a track on her 2022 album called “Good Day” about reconciling one’s faith and their identity as an LGBTQ person. Grant’s offstage name is Matthew Blake.
“I want to place myself squarely in the (religious) space and take up the space so that other people know they’re not alone,” Grant said in an interview.
That sowed the seeds of the eventual collaboration between Grant, an emerging artist, and Webb, who’s well-established and was looking for creative ways to speak to the present discourse about drag and gender identity. Out of that emerged “Boys Will Be Girls,” a track on "The Jesus Hypothesis" that Webb collaborated with Grant for the vocals and a music video. In the music video, Grant dresses Webb in drag.
Tennessee’s recent legislative fight over drag shows was an event Webb said directly inspired the music video. “I was extremely conscious of that and was really hoping that it would be provocative in a constructive way, especially in Tennessee, in my home state,” Webb said.
In June, a federal judge in Memphis struck down a new state law aimed at severely restricting some drag performances.
The Nashville region is also notably the home of the contemporary Christian music industry.
Taking it a step further, Webb and Grant performed “Boys Will Be Girls” at a local church, GracePointe Church in Nashville, at a July 23 album release event for “The Jesus Hypothesis.”
Webb posted a photo on social media after the July 23 event, drawing the ire of Sean Feucht. Feucht, a former worship leader at the prominent Bethel Church in California, is a controversial figure who's known for his musical performances at far-right political rallies.
“These are truly the last days,” Feucht said in a tweet about Webb’s photo, commenting on how Webb’s collaboration with Grant is an example of the perilousness that follows someone who abandons orthodoxy. Feucht said in another post nobody listens to Grant’s music, a comment that energized Grant to mobilize her fans to defy Feucht.
“I thought it would be a win if we could just see a drag queen’s face literally on the Christian charts, that would have been awesome,” Grant said. But she didn't just crack the charts.
Opinion: I'm a drag queen who loves reading to kids. Those protesting me are the real danger.
Rising on the music charts
Through TikTok posts and word-of-mouth, Grant’s 10-month-old album, “Bible Belt Baby,” and the track “Good Day” climbed to the top of the iTunes Christian music charts.
Feucht did not respond to a request for comment.
Webb and Grant are aware of the combative nature of their work and are somewhat intentional about it. They also don’t expect widespread reception from the gatekeepers of genres in which their work is labeled, such as Gospel or contemporary Christian.
But Webb and Grant also didn’t foresee their ability to invert those rules by using momentum generated by those same naysayers.
“I’m just trying to get people to wake up and pay attention and to think about their presumptions,” Webb said. “If people stand up and clap or if people stand up and leave, I’m equally pleased and feel like I’ve done my job.”
Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean. Reach him at ladams@tennessean.com or on Twitter and Threads @liamsadams.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How Gospel album featuring a drag queen topped Christian music charts
