Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 506 i GAY TIMES

ALMA has been crafting pop smashes with ease for her whole career. Early tropical-tinged single Chasing Highs has well over one hundred million streams, while her Heavy Rules mixtape served massive club vibes and oozed with self-confidence, rightly referring to herself as a “legend for life” on its opening track. She’s even lent her songwriting talents to the likes of Miley Cyrus, Rudimental and Matoma. But now, ALMA has bigger goals than just making you dance - she wants to make you feel something. “It was easy to release songs that were talking about partying and love,” she explains, “but it definitely took me a long time to figure out how to write songs where I’m vulnerable, because the culture that I come from, we don’t speak about stuff like…

“As a queer black woman raised from immigrants, my entire existence is political,” says Chika. “For me to have a platform and be like, ‘Oh, I don’t do politics because that makes people uncomfortable’ is tone deaf to people who have to be political.” Over the past four years, the 23-year-old Alabama rapper has cemented herself as one of the most outspoken and political wordsmiths in the music industry. Although she’s only been signed to a major label for less than a year, Chika has become a viral sensation on multiple occasions and amassed a huge following thanks to her unmatchable freestyle skill, campaigns for body positivity and self-love, and her no-holds-barred approach when it comes to her fellow rappers and their unflinching support for racist, homophobic and sexist leaders.…

COMO Metropolitan There’s a man in the lift with a Gucci cap and so many tattoos, it looks like he’s wearing Paisley pyjamas. That’s part of the group you can expect at this offshoot of the London Metropolitan (the one where the famous Met Bar once was) and the one in Turks and Caicos where Donna Karan has her own unit. But it’s not the whole story. For all of Miami Beach’s famed partying this is more the ‘gin and jazz’ crowd, much more fitting for a 1939 deco building that was lovingly restored in 2014 by Italian designer Paola Navone. The trick with proper deco Miami Beach hotels is you keep the deco loveliness – in this case huge pillars and pastel floors – and slick it up. Rooms…

Where is it? Well the airport you fly into is Bodrum and that airport – all concrete and glass loveliness, which we weren’t quite expecting for some reason – bodes very well and very appropriate for what you’re about to experience just a short car ride through the Turkish countryside. Or a short boat ride if you fancy that instead. Why so lovely? It’s a toss-up between the architecture and the position but the architecture probably clinches it. Actually, definitely clinches it. Yes, you are set on your own bay with rocks to have hidden drinks on and beaches and gardens with three-legged dogs and nothing else anywhere to be seen – oh and easy access to two of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (the classical ruins around…

On the 25th of December 1996, I unwrapped a box-shaped present that would transform my eight-year-old world. Under the festive-patterned wrapping - now in torn-up shreds on the other side of the living room - was a state-of-the-art JVC boombox. It was shiny black, heavy enough to know it could blast out some serious sound, and light enough to know I could take it anywhere I wanted. Moments later it was plugged in and playing my first ever CD, the enduring compilation album of legend known as Now That’s What I Call Music! 35. For months I would sing along to The Beautiful South’s Rotterdam, dance along to the Spice Girls mega-hit Say You’ll Be There, and get lost in Dina Carroll’s severely underrated pop gem Escaping (honestly go listen…

With the kind of production we’d expect to hear on a Charli XCX mixtape, and collaborations with many artists in that same musical sphere (HANA, LIZ, SOPHIE), SONIKKU is ditching the Sega sound chip and 16-bit house he once heralded and is establishing himself as a fully-fledged pop artist, delivering the big bangers your weekend needs. As he prepares to release his first album Joyful Death, with features ranging from Little Boots to Chester Lockhart and Douglas Dare, we spoke to SONIKKU about his musical transformation, how he came to work with critical darling SOPHIE, and the queer community’s decades-spanning connection to dance music. How did you first get into music? I remember playing around with a really shitty cheap laptop when I was a teenager, I was trying to…

In between the prosaic every day of Market Street – Five Guys wrappers bobbing in the breeze, Primark onesies sparking up in the sun – and the proper salubrious King Street, where Real Housewives of Cheshire pound the scrubbed cobbles in their Manolo Blahniks, is a wedge of forgotten, grand old Manchester. There was a Pizza Express knocking about, when Pizza Express meant something - especially if you were too intimidated by The Restaurant Bar & Grill on John Dalton Street back when Posh & Becks went there so The Restaurant Bar & Grill actually meant something. But not much else worth bothering with. Dusty unloved offices, the odd underground gotta-be-in-the-know bar, crumbling Victoriana and Edwardiana and probably some other –ana. Silly, bearing in mind just how slap bang in…

DUA LIPA: FUTURE NOSTALGIA (album out 3 April) Following the runaway success of her debut album and its worldwide smash hit single New Rules, it was unclear where pop’s next big thing Dua Lipa would go next. Well, we honestly can’t imagine a better sophomore era than Future Nostalgia, an album full of big bangers that brings disco-pop firmly back into the mainstream. Everything from the music videos to the photoshoots and of course the songs themselves (Physical has already been deemed song of the year by The GaysTM) has been flawlessly executed, and Dua has blossomed into the pop star we need by finding her own visual and sonic identity that appeals to both the mainstream and a queer audience - a necessity for any pop superstar. Expect to…

“Now looking back, I think I was really blessed that I was dropped when I did because that was right around the time that on a personal level, I was discovering that I was gay,” says Greyson Chance during a sunny morning in Los Angeles. It’s a week after our shoot with him in London during a promo trip for his latest single Dancing Next To Me and we’ve linked back up over FaceTime to talk about the next era of his extraordinary music career to date. This year marks a decade since a video clip of Greyson sat at the piano performing Lady Gaga’s eclectic hit Paparazzi went viral and launched him into the public consciousness. His rise happened during a period when viral moments made their first overnight…

With dreamy production and ethereal lyrics, Raveena is making music for those who wear their hearts on their sleeves when it comes to life and love. She’s released two beloved EPs and a full-length album, directs her own music videos and maintains creative control over her art, making her an inspiration for many. But perhaps more importantly, she’s doing this as a queer Indian-American woman. It’s an intersection of multiple identities we don’t often see in music – not least music that’s racking up millions of streams online – and it’s something that’s helped her find self-empowerment. “I think being a minority person, a queer woman and a person of colour, I’ve had so much authority and control stripped away from me since I was little,” she explains. “Owning that…

Desa Potato Head, Bali These days, if your hotel isn’t sustainable, it ain’t worth knicker elastic. Oh and while we have you, if your hotel is just a common-or-garden, well, hotel, the kids are gonna get restless. Which is where Desa Potato Head comes in. If you’ve been to Bali – specifically, Seminyak, the pulsating heart of the (in)famous Indonesian pleasure island – you’ll know Potato Head, the lifestyle hub where revellers in all the right sunglasses party till the sun goes down (and often right back up again) at their Beach Club, while it’s heads-down at Katamama, their outrageously stylish hotel. But that was just for starters. Part of a decade plan to create ‘a visionary utopia’, these next few months sees the unveiling of the final stages of…

Fluctuating temperatures, air pollution, and many other evils can seriously sabotage your skin. But instead of just sighing into the mirror, take control and combat these elements with products that hydrate, nourish and give you a surge of sunshine straight from a bottle. Call it science or cosmetic physics, regardless, it’s definitely what the beauty doctor ordered. Dr. David Jack British aesthetic doctor, Dr David Jack brings a whole new meaning to painting your face. Introducing his new at home face peel treatments, the treatment is split into three primary colours, each targeting different skin concerns. RED: is designed for oily and acne prone skin. The formula helps reduce oil/sebum production and helps balance out the skin microbiome bacteria. BLUE: targets dry skin, and those prone to rosacea to help…