Their names are Keiona and Mami Watta. They are huge, legs of top models elongated by high heels, flamboyant and sure of themselves. “The claws are filed, claims Keiona showing off her manicure in her presentation video, I’m ready to make scars. They are the first two French drag queens of Ivorian origin to make their mark on a national platform such as the show “DragRace France”, a French version of the American franchise “RuPaul’s DragRace”, which returns on June 30 for a second season.
What sets them apart? “First off, we’re seriously beautiful!” laughs Keiona, who prefers to keep her civilian identity a secret and defines herself as a “feminine, seductive and conquering drag”. “I like to show my body a little too much,” adds Mami Watta in the same tone. I’m 24 and I’m still young and beautiful, you have to enjoy it, right? The two queens already reign in Paris on the ballroom scene, an underground LGBT culture imported from the United States which functions as a community system of mutual aid, “a space created by and for queer and racialized people, black in particular”, explains Mami Watta.
The two queens want to impose blacks and queers on television, they who had no “role model” in their teens. “My parents are from Ivory Coast but I was born and raised in France,” recalls Keiona, who is now 31. In the 2000s, black people were not represented on TV. Well, yes: there was Magloire and Vincent McDoom. For her, drag came after the ballroom. “Watching my videos made me realize that my voguing [dance style that developed in gay clubs] performances had more impact when I was in drag. There was a real demand. »
“Totally absurd”
“I was born in Ivory Coast, and I have always been a very effeminate little boy, Mami Watta laughs. I chose to appropriate this name that was thrown at me. Mami Watta is a mermaid, she is the spirit of water, but an evil spirit. She is the one who inhabits men who are too feminine and women who are too liberated. An appearance that, in the street or in church, he has long been told to abandon. But Mami Watta has chosen to assume, and to make it “both a tribute and a snub” to her culture. She discovered drag on TV, watching RuPaul’s DragRace, while still living in Abidjan. “I immediately loved it. It’s a complete art, it really brings together everything I love: dancing, singing, putting on makeup, being on stage! She put on her first shoes in Abidjan, where there is a small drag scene, photographed by the portraitist Ngadi Smart in his series “The Queens of Babi”.
But this remains confined to the private sphere and to a handful of performers. “Most of my drag girlfriends are still in Ivory Coast, adds Mami Watta, and still in the closet [keeping their sexuality or identity secret], unfortunately. I know they support me from there, but they do it in secret. The image I show on television is that of a person of Ivorian origin who embraces his queerness to a level that has never been possible in Côte d’Ivoire. While Abidjan has long been a relative haven of peace for LGBT people, the wave of homophobia that has crossed several countries on the continent in recent years – in Uganda, Ghana, Senegal, more recently in Kenya and Cameroon, where violent homophobic acts took place – did not spare her. In May, the militant Awawalé festival, although modest in scale with half a dozen stalls dedicated to LGBT artisans, provoked an outpouring of hatred online.
Still according to the same story: homosexuality and transidentity are Western inventions, “white diseases” purposely imported to corrupt the Ivorian population. In a diatribe that has gone viral, the new president of the Ivorian bishops, Marcellin Yao Kouadio, raged in early June against a “decadent West” which would like to “continue to dominate and moralize the world, particularly our Africa”. “Immorality is exported through homosexuality,” he said. A cliché particularly common on the continent, although “totally absurd”, breathes Keiona. “I’m not gay because I was born in France!” I have several queer people in my family, and they have never set foot in Europe! »
“Above Suspicion”
Men who dress as women, Côte d’Ivoire has always known. Either for “enjailment”, i.e. partying and entertainment, in the media or in bars and clubs. Either for cultural reasons, as is the case at Abissa, a traditional festival in Grand-Bassam where men wear dresses and fake breasts to attract luck. But when a stranger gives them a questioning look, passers-by are quick to point out: “Look out, they’re not homosexuals!” »
“We find it trivial or amusing that an Ivorian dresses as a woman provided that his heterosexuality is above all suspicion”, stings Ballet Djédjé, doctoral student in anthropology and author of the book How to love yourself as a gay in Africa . Because the only attitude authorized for LGBT people living in Africa, he regrets, is contrition. “Homophobes accept that we exist, but only in the guilt of sin and self-hatred. They want to confine us to a clichéd representation: excessive drugs, sex and alcohol, diseases and shame. A thriving African LGBT person with a job and a family life? They can’t figure it out. If we love each other, if we accept each other, it bothers them. »
For the time being, each attempt at visibility in Côte d’Ivoire has resulted in a backlash, an American term from sociology that can be translated imperfectly by the term “backlash”, which designates a violent reaction of hostility. “But the backlash is a normal phenomenon, nuance Ballet Djedje. When we encounter resistance, it is because a job is being done. If we don’t disturb anyone, we don’t progress. »
Do DragRace queens also have to prepare for it? “I suspect there will be a backlash,” admits Mami Watta. But honestly? I do not care. In 2020, she was the first Ivorian drag queen to give an interview to an Ivorian media. “Obviously, it had caused quite a stir on social media,” she said playfully. I received death threats, all that. It wasn’t even worth logging on Facebook anymore, everyone was telling me to “go meet my creator: Satan”. The queen has grown accustomed to insults. Only in Paris will she be able to make a career out of drag, she says, even though “my country is still the Ivory Coast.”