We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jamez Hunter a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Jamez thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I have always been a visual learner, so when it came to doing my own makeup or performing stunts on stage, I had to watch videos over and over again before my first attempts. Makeup wise, it was trial and error due to everyone’s facial features being different and realizing that certain techniques do not translate well on everyone’s face. Performance wise, dancing and doing stunts, it’s more of practice makes perfect. I try to study the videos closely and watch how they turn each part of their body, the speed of their movements, and space used to do whatever it is that they doing.
To speed up the makeup process, I should have been practicing at home regularly. I usually only get my practice by doing my makeup for an actual show. Only about 3 times have I experimented on an off day. The most essential skill to learning any craft is determination. Without it, you’ll fail.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am a recording artist (Jamez Hunter) and drag queen (The Baddest). I love to perform. Considering I am very much an introvert, it seems weird how I don’t like a lot of attention on myself, but love to have all eyes on me when I’m on stage. What got me into making music was me constantly listening to it at all times growing up. It was my escape. I used to sing, but when I was in college I had caught a severe case of bronchitis and lost my singing ability. Talking was very difficult for the first 3 months and singing was nonexistent for 11 months. I could not hit a single note. It was scratchy and squeaky. At some point I could kind of sing again, but it wasn’t the same. My range was reduced to a mere fraction, the power was limited, and my vocal stamina was depleted. My dreams of being a singer were not in my favor anymore. I had always enjoyed rap music and wanted to still do something with music, so I started writing raps, mostly remixes to other artists songs like Nicki Minaj and Lil Kim.
I never wanted to do drag. I thought that it was weird that a man would want to dress up as a woman and grab money from strangers. My friend made me watch a few seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I slowly started to get invested in it and would express how I would do certain challenges or runway themes differently than how the queens in the episode did. After moving home from college, a theatre friend and I said that we would do drag together one time for fun. I picked my name “The Baddest B*tch In The Pet Store” in reference to lyrics from a Nicki Minaj song titled “Wave Ya Hand”, where she says “I am the baddest b*tch up in the pet store!”. A few years later, I ended up dating another drag queen and they put me in drag a few times for fun. One night I randomly decided to hit the stage in an open show. It’s been up hill from there.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
Comparing me to other drag queens is very easy when trying to spot the differences. For one, I do not have a persona, character, or alter ego. I act the exact same in and out of drag. My dark, sarcastic, and sexual humor when hosting drag shows is still the same. The only difference is that I have a microphone. Also, I don’t sell out and perform top 40 music really. Others do so because “that’s what the audience wants”, music that most of them know the lyrics to. What I do is give the audience what they thought they didn’t want, but then soon realize that it is what they needed. I only perform music that I listen to on a daily basis because I’ll have the most with it. If you’re not having fun on stage, it is very apparent and therefore the audience wont be entertained or have fun either. I mostly listen to female rap, k-pop, and alternative rock music, usually the songs or artists that are not mainstream.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
After performing in drag for roughly four months, I had to take a two year hiatus due to health issues with my diabetes. Unfortunately I ended up in the hospital a total of 3 times during the pandemic. The diabetic neuropathy was affecting my feet and legs. With swollen and partially numb feet, my balance was not good at all. I was put on insulin and after two years, I made myself get back into drag because I missed it so much and a few drag friends of mine were asking me to perform in their shows, but I had to sadly keep declining them over the course of my healing process. Even now, doing shows my blood sugar crashes either right before I perform or after I do a number and can sometime be rough because I am still affected by the neuropathy, so slight balance issues and pain are constant. I push through it all so that I can dance, flip, high kick, and do splits. Diabetes is only a disability if you make it one.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hausofthebaddest.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jhuntinghoes/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JHuntingHoes
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/JHuntingHoes
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JamezHunter