RuPaul Takes a Knipp of Liquor

On RuPaul's new, aptly named RedHot album, she has asked funny lady Shirley Q. Liquor to record some intros and interludes between the tracks. They are hilarious, as evidenced by this audio clip. Shirley Q. is actually Charles Knipp, a white actor who performs as a woman in blackface and whose official website (temporarily down) is written in "black English." (A satirical ad on the site, for Ebonics Airways, reads, "Our stewardesses is not maids, prostitutes or waitresses. Nor is they here to deal with your luggage or listen to your screaming chirren. They also do not fly the plane, so do not axe them 'how much longer till we get there.' ")

As a minstrel man, Knipp's shows have been cancelled, shut down, and protested by antiracism groups. But Knipp has said, “To be honest, people of color who have seen my shows live or heard my CDs overwhelmingly tell me how much they enjoyed my accurate portrayal of a certain genre of the gritty, witty Southern women that they fondly remember, no matter what her race.”

"Critics who think that [Shirley Q. Liquor is] offensive are idiots," RuPaul told the Windy City Times. "They need to trust their gut because if they went with their gut they would know that she is so not a racist. . . . Listen, I've been discriminated against by everybody in the world: gay people, black people, whatever. I know discrimination, I know racism, I know it very intimately. She's not racist! And if she were, she wouldn't be on the record."

And, hey, it's all about the record, ultimately. RuPaul gives Beyoncé some, um, stiff competition on RedHot, which drops in August. And the trick here is that Ru can opine musically from both sides of the relationship. Here's Shirley's intro to Ru's "Looking Good, Feeling Gorgeous."