.gay Music Monday Feature: BINOY

 GENRE IS A CONSTRUCT

Welcome to this week’s .gay Music Monday Feature! This week we’re talking with Kenyan-born now LA-based singer/songwriter and “Borderless Pop” sensation Binoy (he/him).

In his latest release, Villain Arc we are confronted by that “evil” voice inside that pushes us towards Disney level catty mayhem. We talked about the ins-and-outs of what it takes him to create and produce a song like Villain Arc, and what it means to be an artist today.

What inspired you to start playing and making music?

I was introduced to the piano by my parents… And then at some point I decided, OK, I'm really over this classical approach to music…. It was very much my inner artist kind of coming out and being like, “oh, I like this, but I want more. I want different approaches and I want different sounds and scales to play with.” I had this really good theoretical base and framework… and I also really loved writing. So… I set up a club with a couple of friends. It was called the Composers Club. That was really my first foray into the world of creating songs. 

I kept frequenting studios just to help them out as a session musician… and that really gave me a pathway into the world of production. The next step in the journey was learning a lot more about production and composing. 

So how do you compose and produce work like your new song Villain Arc?

You know, it started with just this desire to bring to life a lot of the feelings that I have when I'm just struggling with envy… A villain isn't just born, you know, you sort of become that way. And there is a trajectory that sort of one goes through, a series of unfortunate events, let's call it. And it just ebbs and flows between feeling very empowered in this villainry and feeling very dejected. And I just think that was an important duality to reflect in the song, because that is really the nature of those kinds of negative emotions, as they can feel like fire, but sometimes it can just feel like you're actually being genuinely quite burned by it. 

And you know, when it comes to the process of how we made the song, it really was a case of I just took the idea to Arthur (Binoy’s producer collaborator). I had a few lyrics written out in my notes app, but nothing very concrete, no structure in particular, just the idea that I wanted three very distinct sections to reflect this arc kind of shape. And you know, we got to making the demo… And from there, it was just this really, really fun exercise and challenge in top lining and figuring out how to make the concept and the story work in a very, very short two and a half minutes. 

How would you describe the music that you typically create?

So I am a pop artist, writer and producer. I consider myself sort of borderless in my approach to music… I always like to say “genre is a construct.” I tend to pull a lot of references from different eras and different parts of the world, really trying to make music that brings to life my experience as a queer person of color. I think growing up, there was really a lack of representation for myself. You know, I never got to see me reflected and represented in any sort of mainstream media. I recognized what the absence of that sort of caused in me. And inadvertently, I think my goal is just to represent my experiences and do so authentically, making sounds and music that I really love.

How does your queerness show up in your work?

When it comes to specifics of the identity, something I think about a lot is this real marriage of softness from feeling ostracized and being misunderstood for a large part of our lives and recognizing what that can do to someone… Like, we are so familiar with that emotion of feeling unwelcome in a space…So I want to always try and be a welcome presence. 

But it can also… you know, you have that classic stereotype of, “oh, the gays are super sassy, the gays are just jagged on the edges.” And I think that is true for a lot of people. And I can be that too, you know, as much as I consider myself soft, kindhearted, sweetheart, I can also be a bitch, not intentionally, but, you know, there is just a sense of, okay, I have been fucked with enough in my life and don't fuck with me anymore, you know? 

Something that really has happened over these past few years is I've just come more into my own, stepped into my identity a lot more, became a lot more empowered. It's started to seep its way into my art, which is for me, just a really clear example of the fact that I am very proud about my identity and I've worked very hard to get to that point. 

As an LGBTQ+ artist, what do you want to convey with your music?

It's always interesting because I don't think I go about, you know, making and releasing things with the intention of, “Oh, I really want some person to see this and feel really seen.” It's honestly more like a process of healing for myself. Like, “oh, I am creating work that today I love listening to and watching and would have as a child or as a teenager or a young adult.” And hopefully, just through that process, inadvertently, I'm creating that same experience for someone else. 

To listen to Binoy’s full interview, and hear all the good stuff about Disney villains, bitchy gays, and the differences between the queer scenes in Kenya and LA check out the MUSIC.GAY Podcast episode, Queers Love an Unhinged Villain HERE. Listen to more episodes between host Franki Jupiter and LGBTQIA+ musicians at www.music.gay or wherever you get your podcast fix.