A Black Gay Music Critic On: How Culture Club Saved My Life

Culture Club saved my life — or at least helped me make sense of it, which is often the same thing. When Boy George and the gang hit the U.S. shores in 1983, I was 13 years old. The boners that I got looking at the band’s often shirtless drummer Jon Moss convinced me that I liked guys.

But I didn’t know what to do with those feelings. I didn’t know how to articulate them or how they fit with my identity of being a Black teen. I didn’t have many cultural figures to help me navigate these questions. Queer disco icon Sylvester was a little far out for me. I loved the live version of “You Are My Friend.” But I wasn’t quite ready to “funk” someone.

I’d yet to discover the gay side of James Baldwin (even though the paperback of Just Above My Head was sitting right there on the family bookshelf).