To Be Real: Q’s With NYC Promoter Ladyfag On Her LadyLand Festival

Ladyfag: I’ve had this idea for a few years because there wasn’t a queer, more alternative festival. Meaning, it’s not about rainbow flags and half-naked guys dancing around to circuit music. I’m not dissing that, I enjoy that tremendously, but that’s not what LadyLand is.

And King Princess and 070 Shake are about to blow up. I booked them months ago.

Eve, I’ve been friends with for 10 years and she’s wanted to do something for a long time. I’ve worked with WME for many years when I do fashion events with DJs like the Martinez Brothers or Seth Troxler. I had Nicki Minaj perform twice. Jonas Schumann, Sam Kirby, Michael Coughlin and the whole WME team has been really great, and Peter Kadin at Def Jam, which is how I got 070 Shake. All of a sudden she’s a breakout artist on Kanye West’s album. Same thing with King Princess. I went to Brandon Creed at Full Stop and he introduced me to her agent and now she has over 80 million hits on Spotify. Kim Petras comes to my parties.

It’s me and my assistant. I have a tech director who works on my raves and he’s my stage manager. And I have my two main production people when I do fashion events.

There’s tiny little sponsors. We did this literally within a few months, so there wasn’t time.

They’re $45-$65. I try to make it as cheap as I possibly can so the cool kids can come. It goes through Ticketfly and Eventbrite. I have some on Resident Advisor, they allowed me to do a percentage on my own account because I have a relationship with them.

The Brooklyn Mirage is an outdoor space but the whole compound is called Avant Gardner and the courtyard is 18,000 square feet. It’s in industrial Bushwick, but it these huge palm trees so you feel like you’re in Ibizia. There’s another space called Great Hall, a huge warehouse, that’s the rain contingency and another smaller building that’s 5,000 square feet for the Pop Souk market.

There’s a million markets for young designers but this has a non-commercial, underground vibe. Everyone is hand-picked by me. Sometimes I’m like, “That product’s not the best product, but that kid paints her face like a damn panda bear!” There’s streetwear, vendors who do bondage, a tattoo artist, DJs like Amrit, Dicap and Mike Servito. There’s cocktails. It’s a cool way to meet other artists.

I’m dedicating LadyLand to Will Munro who gave me my start and was my mentor and is quite famous in Toronto. He was an artist, activist and a promoter. We were just a bunch of queer teens when being gay was not particularly cool. Definitely there was no such thing as gender fluid and all these words kids have now. There was only really the Gay Village and circuit parties and that didn’t fit with new wave, punk and hip-hop we listened to. He started a party called Vazaleen.  And he brought in Peaches, The Gossip, Arcade Fire and ESG.

He died from brain cancer eight years ago. But his life was contagious. Being around him for so long, it kind of became in my blood. When he died, the city gave him a plaque and it said, “An army of lovers will never be defeated,” which was a quote from the gay goth scene he loved. That’s the theme of the festival.”

I came in 2005. I didn’t know anybody. I’d go to parties by myself and had no money. One night I was dancing like crazy and did a performance and Kenny Kenny was like, “You, come dance for me at Happy Valley,” which was a big party. He put me in this cage and I just went crazy. Afterwards he’s like, “You’ve got the job.” Michael Musto wrote, “In clubland, everybody’s running to Happy Valley to see the girl with the hairy armpits.” And it just grew from there.

I started going to Paris and making friends and hosting parties and then I did raves and started producing fashion events and they all started intermingling. My Holy Mountain party had live music. We had Cardi B three months before she became the Cardi B you know. We had her at a party at Slake, which is Webster Hall, now [co-owned] by AEG. I did a party there once a month for four years with lines down the street. I worked with the artist Scott Ewalt on these crazy surrealist concepts. I had Kiesza, Cupcake, Princess Nokia before anybody knew who she was. And Maluca Mala, Zebra Katz, OT Genasis. I also did a party called Battle Hymn. It’s classic house. We’ve had Danny Krivit of Body and Soul, Honey Dijon, Steve Travolta, Ted Patterson, Todd Terry.

How did you get your name?
There was a DJ in Toronto named Sook-Yin Lee and she had a show called “The Wedge” on MuchMusic. She asked me to be in a performance about outsiders. I did it with my friends who were all gay men and it was called “Ladyfag, a Love Story.” And it was this campy homage to me being this girl around all these boys.

When I came to New York that wasn’t my name, but this one night I was walking to the subway and these guys were like, “Hey,” kind of screaming at me. I finally turned around and they were like, “Holy shit, it’s a dude, show us your dick, faggot!” And they chased me. It was scary and it wasn’t the first time I’d been chased. So I got onto the subway and started bawling and called my friends. My friend, back home was like “Don’t worry, you are Ladyfag, it’s okay. “Just keep going.” So I went to the party. And the first time somebody actually spoke to me and was like, “Hey, what’s your name?” And I just went, “Ladyfag.”

Maybe I am an outsider. It just happened organically. I wasn’t planning to call myself that. I think it says something when you’re coming to my party. It’s kind of like a douchebag eliminator, you know? It’s kind of like a repellent. The average “bro” is not necessarily going to be like, “Hey, let’s go to a Ladyfag party.” It kind of weeds out people, which is good.

Yeah, but you want to know something? At the end of the day, those guys are still chasing me down the street and they’re still chasing other kids down the street, which is why LadyLand and places like it are so important and why everyone is welcome. I want it to specifically be known as a queer identified space so people can have their own space.