Boy George (The Culture Club) - "Karma Chameleon"

In support of National Pride Month, for the entire month of June I will only post artists who Identify as somewhere on the LGBTQI Spectrum. We are loud, we are proud, and we deserve to be heard. 

He challenged masculinity out of the gate. He was a warrior in makeup and braids and he told the world you don't have to listen, but you can't make be shut up. Soft spoken in his daily life he lights up the stage.  There were other queer artists on the cutting edge of music, but there are none like Boy George. 

 He is the lead singer of the pop band Culture Club. At the height of the band's fame, during the 1980s, they recorded global hit songs such as "Karma Chameleon", "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" and "Time (Clock of the Heart)" and George is known for his soulful voice and androgynous appearance. He was part of the English New Romantic movement which emerged in the late 1970s to the early 1980s.

His music is often classified as blue-eyed soul, which is influenced by rhythm and blues and reggae. He was lead singer of Jesus Loves You during the period 1989–1992. His 1990s and 2000s-era solo music has glam influences, such as David Bowie and Iggy Pop. More recently, he has released fewer music recordings, splitting his time between songwriting, DJing, writing books, designing clothes, and photography. In 2015, Boy George received an Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors for Outstanding Services to British Music

When George was with Culture Club, much was made of his androgynous appearance, and there was speculation about his sexuality. Although he never flatly denied that he was gay, when asked in interviews about his sexual orientation, George gave various answers. In 1985, when asked by Barbara Walters about his sexual orientation, George said he was bisexual and had various girlfriends, as well as boyfriends, in the past. He gave a famous, oft-quoted response to an interviewer that he preferred "a nice cup of tea" to sex.

In Take It Like a Man, George stated that he had secret relationships with punk rock singer Kirk Brandon and Culture Club drummer Jon Moss. He stated many of the songs he wrote for Culture Club were about his relationship with Moss.

In 2006, in an episodic documentary directed by Simon George titled The Madness of Boy George, George declared on camera he was "militantly gay". In a 2008 documentary Living with Boy George, he talks about his first realisation he was gay, and when he first told his parents. He discloses that he understands why men fall in love with one another as well as with women.

Concurrently with developing his career as a DJ in the late 1990s, George adopted a macrobiotic diet, which he had been attempting to follow since 1988. In 2001, he published the Karma Cookbook, co-written with Dragana Brown, a private macrobiotic cook and teacher who George met in 1986.

So today, with warriors and angels all around me, I choose Boy George & The Culture Club's "Karma Chameleon" as my, burn brightly, shout from the rooftops, do not hesitate to be yourself song for a, who can stop me, let them try, you are stronger and more courageous than you know, Thursday.