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Chappell Roan is on a steep rise to fame. You may have encountered her current hit Good Luck, Babe! on the radio, at cafés or out in bars and clubs. If not, the song is a must-add to your favourite playlist.

Good Luck, Babe! is an upbeat, contemporary pop track with clear influences of 1980s pop-synth. Roan’s vocals soar across the track and offer a nostalgic recall of Kate Bush’s ethereal power and pitch. Roan is gifted with an impressive vocal range and her lyrics paint a vivid array of images, people and places.



Her 2023 album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, is described by Pitchfork as “a bold and uproarious pop project stitched with stories about discovering love, sex, and oneself in a new place”. Roan moved from small city Willard, Missouri, to Los Angeles upon signing with a record label in 2018. Living in California, she started to come to terms with her queerness.

Somewhere in the process of exploring queer identity and community, while dwelling in queer performance spaces (likely bars and clubs), Roan has emerged as a drag artist. In interviews, she speaks of the influences of drag on her visual and musical aesthetic, alongside fashion, theatre and other cultural forms. But can a cis woman be a drag queen? A mainstream understanding of drag is informed by traditional acts of cross-dressing from one’s assigned birth gender: those born male become drag queens; those born female become drag kings.

In such a formula, the act functions by the audien.

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