The Blessed Madonna On Touring Places With Anti-LGBTQI+ Rhetoric Laws

What does it mean to tour places that have anti-LGBTQI+ laws a deejay doesn’t agree with? For The Blessed Madonna, it’s a question that’s difficult to answer, particularly as a member of the queer community.

“I have tried,” the artist says, “to make a decision, like, ‘Okay, this country itself is not progressive, but is the party progressive?’ Are you doing a good thing by going in and being a counterpoint or a person who can flaunt a law or whatever it is?”

For example, Florida has passed a number of anti-LGBTQI+ laws recently: The “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” expansion (HB 1069)—extending last year’s legislation from K-3rd to 8th grade—a gender-affirming care ban (SB 254) with impacts on transgender youth and adults, an anti-drag bill (SB 1438) that looks to censor art and a bill restricting transgender students from accessing bathrooms aligned with their gender identity in K-12th grade schools and public facilities (HB 1521). How does one perform in a state that is against who you are fundamentally as a person? The Blessed Madonna, legally known as Marea Stamper, questions this not only in Florida but in states with similar laws, such as her birthplace of Kentucky and Tennessee, where her family resides.

“If you become a citizen of the world the way that you do when you’re a deejay, there are very few countries I have not been to once or twice, and there’s a lot of countries I’ve been to many times,” she says. “You don’t expect your own country to end up on that list.”

This predicament extends outside of the U.S. and to places around the world, such as Uganda, where Stamper is heavily involved in helping refugees. “How do I break the law creatively or am I acting in solidarity in some way? I do want to get it right, but at the same time, I also know that you don’t always get it right,” she says.

Stamper adds that she believes Pride is important, though she worries people may have lost the reason why that is. She fears that the current hostile conditions around the globe will be remembered more than Pride because of “some major steps backward in the last years for people around the world.”

As a non-binary person, the producer says that she has had relationships with men, women and non-binary folks. She is now married to a man, which she says allows her to be straight-passing.

“I think when you are a person who has the privilege of, whether you intend for it or not, passing as straight, then you live in two worlds where you understand that you are who you are, that is enough and you certainly don’t owe anybody any explanations for who you are,” Stamper says. “On the other hand, though, as a person who lives in a lot of safety compared to say, trans people who are trying to or have gotten gender confirmation surgeries or procedures, I live in a safety that they don’t live in. I’ve become an ally. You live in two worlds all at the same time. It’s complex. But I’m lucky enough to have been kind of in the first generation that was allowed to just sort of be out.”

The tastemaker believes that while it is important to “break the glass ceiling” when it comes to diversity in dance music, it’s imperative that all types of people make their way through. For example, women have made strides in recent years by being booked more, but Stamper says it’s mainly white and financially well-off women. People of all races, genders, sexualities and financial means should be benefiting from the recent rise in the dance music scene becoming more inclusive. Indeed, Stamper proves to be more than an artist as she is also the voice of inclusivity and unification outside of the industry.

While the sound designer’s father was born in one of the poorest counties in the United States, Stamper has since made a name for herself. Whether it’s promoting illegal raves to 50 people in sweaty Kentucky basements as a teenager to headlining the biggest stages and festivals around the world and working alongside house legends like Frankie Knuckles, the producer’s joyful and energetic sound proves to get people grooving. The artist boasts a collection of impressive work to date: She was the vocalist on Fred again..’s lockdown anthem, “Marea (We Lost Dancing),” has been immortalized as a GTA5 character, has become the voice of Saturday night radio and has remixed top talent including The Chemical Brothers, Florence & The Machine and Elton John.

When it comes to the past, present and future of dance music, Stamper’s sound embodies just that. She also respects the past, present and future of LGBTQI+ legislation, and her work in places such as Uganda proves that she is among the people in dance music spearheading a way to make the scene more inclusive.