Today we’d like to introduce you to Dorian Delafuente.
Dorian, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My name is BabiBoi and I am a queer hip-hop artist from San Antonio, Texas that is currently based out of Austin. The way I started my career in music was sort of random and kind of a long story so here we go. Since I was young, I have always pushed myself to try new mediums of art, whether it be playing instruments, dancing, singing, acting, photography, etc. and I’ve always known that I would grow up to be a performance artist. Growing up, I listened to a lot of rap/hip-hop & R&B and was inspired by the sexual, raunchy females that would unapologetically display their desires via their music. Something about a woman being autonomous of her own libido in a male-dominated industry made me feel like I could take control of my own sexual-liberation as a queer person. I’ve drawn a lot of inspiration from artists like Nicki Minaj, Foxy Brown, Lil Kim, Missy Elliott, Azealia Banks, Brooke Candy, even male rappers like Jay Z and Eminem. I appreciate an artist that talks their shit and can get away with it.
So anyways, at the beginning of 2018, I would find instrumentals on YouTube and SoundCloud and I would post little one minute videos on Snapchat of me freestyling. I received good feedback from my friends and followers so I finally got brave enough to post my freestyles to Twitter, where I was received with even more nice comments. Especially on one remix I did of Nicki Minaj’s “Chun Li. that got a few thousand retweets. Fast forward to summer of 2018. A friend of mine in San Antonio who had been on the scene for a while and had a lot of connections to club promoters and bookers comes up with the idea to start a collective of queer club performers called “The Plastik Collective.” There were five original members and we all had our own lane of artistry, and we figured if we unionized and put on variety-act shows for clubs and parties that we would all be able to elevate our platforms. We were correct.
When I first joined The Plastik Collective, I was the official photographer, but since I was based in Austin it seemed infeasible for me to travel so much without solid compensation so I told the other members I wanted to perform with them. After-all I’d been on stages my whole life, just never in the context of a club or bar. When they asked me what I would do, I told them I had a couple of freestyles on Twitter that I could perform live. They said they would give me a shot, so at our debut party at the Gallery Nightclub in San Antonio, I performed my “Chun Li Remix”. The audience lived for it, and the turn out was successful so the owner of the club offered us a residency to throw a party there every week throughout the summer. Over the summer of 2018 we threw about 18 weekly parties back to back, and I was expected to perform every week, which forced me to push my pen Hard. As. Hell. I would be driving from Austin to San Antonio listening to instrumentals, and sometimes would be penning whole verses and songs up to the point that I was walking out onto the stage.
By the end of the summer, I had put enough work in that people started to notice me in the queer club scene. I soon started getting booked all around Texas and the more I turned out performances, the wider the audience I received and the more other queer creatives have wanted to work with me. I’m definitely still on the come up, and I have yet to release a project, but with the singles and features that I have done I have had the opportunity to perform alongside artists like Charli XCX, La Goony Chonga, Shygirl, Dorian Electra, Jarina De Marco, and Banoffee as well as perform outside of Texas in cities like LA and Phoenix. I have had the chance to perform at Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio Pride and write for some Ru Pauls Drag Race queens. And I was excited to be an official artist for SXSW 2020 until COVID-19 ruined my plans. *eye-roll* Never-the-less, I’m excited to see what I can accomplish by the end of 2021. And I definitely have lots of music and content in store so stay tuned.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It definitely has not been the smoothest road and the further I get into my journey the more I discover about myself as an artist and as a person. I think being queer in the music industry is already a challenge, and then to be queer in the hip-hop genre is sort of like the next level of difficult. Besides being queer, I am also a Latinx person that is white-passing. Basically, what I’m saying is that when people see me step on a stage as a rapper they’re already thinking “Now who is this bitch?” I find that my authenticity is often being questioned and people are checking to see if I’m valid. My response to that is “…good.” I don’t blame people for wanting to be clear of my intentions and the last thing I want is to look like a culture vulture. The point is, is that I’m a sickening rapper and my music and content speak for itself. I can undoubtedly rap many straight men and women under the table, and that’s why no matter what stage I’m on people give me my 10’s, regardless of their sexual orientation. My advice for young queers and women that are coming up in the music industry is to stay true to yourself. The general public can smell what’s real and what’s for show, so just be true to who you are and what you bring to the table. And never EVER let these boys try to shake you because trust me they will try to shake you. Always walk into the room like you deserve to be there.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
When people ask me why I make rap music specifically, I always respond the same way. I say “If I can turn on the radio at any time of the day and hear a straight woman talk about how juicy her p***y is, and about all the money she makes because of it, or hear a straight guy rap about all the b*****s he’s sleeping with, and cars and jewelry he has, why the hell can’t I do it? and better!”
My music is explicit. It’s dirty. It’s in your face and down your throat. And I don’t feel bad about it. Because I think queer people have spent their lives repressing their sexuality as to not inconvenience hetero people. And I say, fuck that! The reason I do what I do is because if a queer person can see me on social media or on a stage being as radical as I am, maybe that will liberate them enough to wear that lipstick in public that they’ve always been too afraid to try on or go to the club in those pumps that they have hidden in the back of their closet. I’ve had some supporters tell me that they were able to come out to their families in response to my music, or that my success has given them the solidarity they’ve needed to be comfortable with themselves. And that’s the most beautiful thing I can receive as an artist.
Were there people and/or experiences you had in your childhood that you feel laid the foundation for your success?
I do believe that my formative years had an impact on the artist that I am today. To begin with, I was raised by a single mother. I didn’t have a great relationship with my father growing up and my sister spent most of her years in prison, so it was always just us two. My mom definitely did not have much money but she always worked her ass off to make things happen for me and to provide the most that she could, even at the expense of her own comfortability. I remember when I was around 16 she heard me crying because I was frustrated by our finances and the living situation that we were dealing with, and she smacked me right across the face and said “If you don’t appreciate what I got for you, then you get your ass up and get some on your own!” Humbled me up real quick. My childhood taught me to trust in my struggle, and that if I really wanted something, I would shut my ass up and go get it.
Contact Info:
- Email: babiboimanagement@gmail.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/babiboibitch
- Twitter: twitter.com/babiboibitchh
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5zjPJaAqMCkWVuW640H5qx
Image Credit:
Juan Sebastian Gonzalez, Javier Gonzalez, Manuel Frayre, Pim Janssen, Tess Cagle
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