RuPaul gave a fab interview to New York magazine on a myriad of topics and it’s really worth a read. Check it. Not that Mama Ru is preaching or teaching, but you might just learn something.

“How important is history for drag in general? Do you feel like there’s a generational gap with these young kids coming up who don’t know the original references but they know what has been based on them?
Yes, drag traditionally has been a sampling machine. We have always taken little bits to piece together a bigger story. It’s almost like an encrypted message. For young gay people before the 1990s, and forever, we had to speak in code. We had to speak so that we couldn’t be found out. And a lot of that came in the form of references, pictures, one-liners, a twist of phrase. And that’s the tradition of the young outsider — your tribe finds you once you send out these messages. In the ‘Supermodel’ video we’ve got the Diana Ross urban legend of the Brewster-Douglass Projects with the Supremes, how they met. We’ve got Sunset Boulevard. Mahogany was in there where she’s looking in the mirror and she puts the lipstick on the mirror. It’s all in there.

It’s a tradition, and will young people get it? They don’t have to get it as much today because it’s not like this gay underground railroad where if you’re found out, you’ll be run out of town. They don’t need to have that secret language anymore. But on Drag Race, we still put it in there because it’s our duty and our tradition to behave that way. To have little wink wink, nudge nudge references that people who do know will get it.

Do you think it’s important for the younger generation to learn it?
I don’t know.I don’t really care about them. The truth is, they’re on their own. They’ll figure it out. There’s nothing we can do to force them to say, ‘Look, this is important.’ Humans don’t learn that way. I think about New York, and I had such a fucking great time there. Do I wish young people could experience that? Yes! Yes, I do. Am I going to work it out for them? No, bitch, you’re fucking on your own. Work it out for yourself.”

David Bowie was a big influence on you. Did you ever get to meet him?
I did, yeah. I was at a dinner party and when I saw he was there, I had to excuse myself into the library of this swanky house. Actually, it’s a house that David Geffen owns now, but it wasn’t his then. I excused myself to breathe a little bit, you know? Thinking back, I guess he came in there specifically because he knew that I went in there. And he said “Hi” and shook my hand. I said, “Hi, great to see you.” And we spoke for a little bit. Then I actually escaped the party and didn’t sit down for dinner because I had to go downstairs and let out the screaming and crying that followed.

Check out the rest of the interview here.