Oh, Moi Renee.....

Moi Renee was a drag performer and singer from New York City. Renee gained an underground following in the early 1990s. Renee became a fixture at The Shelter, a now defunct nightclub. Moi Renee's performances are noted as high camp. Moi Renee released one Dance single titled, "Miss Honey" during the early 1990s. It was made avaliable on 12" Vinyl Record from Project X Records. "Miss Honey" is noted for its dramatic spoken word vocals. The song received heavy airplay at the gay dance clubs in 1992. In 1997, Renee was found dead in a hotel room. The was an investigation however the death was eventually ruled out of to be suicide. In 2008, a video clip of Moi Renee performing "Miss Honey" live on The Sybil Bruncheon show was posted on YouTube. The video became popular. It currently has received over 114,000 hits.

@lastfm.com

When I heard Beyoncé's latest single Pure/Honey, I was like, serve, Bey! It's cunty, it's sick, it's dance the boots down honey and it's fab. Very House Music, very Ballroom scene. Bey has been very dance-y as of last and I'm here for it, of course. But the real surprise came at the end, when I hear Moi Renee singing her signature 'Miss Honey'. Wonders never cease. How come a niche, underground drag performer's little bitch track got to be noticed by the Queen Bee herself? Will probably never know. But Ballroom and Drag culture and Club Kid culture are intertwined and House Music is part of all three. 

I had heard a House version of Miss Honey many, many times, back in my warehouse days when we used to go dancing in very tiny t-shirts, JNCO jeans, jelly bracelets and carried at all times two bottles of water. (cause Molly makes you thirsty and you did not want to leave your friends dry up) Miss Honey would crowd the dance floor in three seconds. I timed it. 

Miss Honey was that song that every DJ played at one time or another during their sets and that everybody (literally everybody) would dance to. As it is the case with so many House Music favs, I had no idea where it had come from, all I knew is that I HAD to dance to it. And here it is, being sampled in 2022. Many, many years after I first heard it. You really cannot keep a good bitch track down. 

The song was popularized by Moi Renee, a fab and fierce Drag artist who was apparently very well known in the scene in the early nineties. Miss Honey is a Bitch Track, something that we used to hear all the time in the nineties and early Oughts in every gay club (and every after party, natch). I think that little is known nowadays about Moi Renee, I literally went down a rabbit hole while trying to find more about her, but here she is, being sampled by one of the most celebrated artists nowadays (28 Grammys, 29 MTV Music Awards, 13 Billboard Music Awards, and the list goes on). When I heard Moi Renee sing/speaking her 'Miss Honey...! at the end of the record, I knew there was nothing more to say. She had left her stamp. Many, many years after her untimely death, and she was being celebrated. Werk!

It's funny, how world-recognized artists reach back and are able to bring to the forefront obscure, niche artists from years past and make them sound fresh once again. Beyoncé has 'quoted' queer artists before (she sampled Big Freedia in Break my Soul, another banger) so it was really not a surprise. She seems very in touch with her queer followers. The surprise to me was how absolutely queer Pure/Honey is. 

Check my technique... it should cost a billion to look this good.

XOXO