Priyanka is taking ownership, and it’s “Devastatia”: On her debut album, “Devastatia”, the Canada’s Drag Race winner takes back ownership over her culture, her history and her most unapologetic self - “Nice try, fuckers!”.
Text and interview by Pedro Paulo Furlan.
Photography by Shaun Vadella
São Paulo, 12h30. Priyanka opens up our call in half drag, her hands out of frame as the manicurist does her nails and hair pulled up out of her face. Already laughing, the Canada’s Drag Race season 1 winner references the famous Gaga meme: “Sorry about all this, but these last days it has been bus, club, another club, you know how it is”.
The Drag Race star, TV Host and one of the most famous drag queens out of Canada is really in a hurry - in fact, our conversation took place two weeks before the release of “Devastatia”, her debut album, and Priyanka was already neck deep in all different promotions. “I feel like everybody, no matter what they do in their lives, always wanted to be a popstar”, she explains: “I'm overcoming all the things people said I couldn't be”.
After her win on Canada’s Drag Race in 2020, Priyanka released an EP called “Taste Test” in 2021, featuring the smash hit “Come Through”, with fellow cast mate Lemon. After that, though, music seemed to take a step back and touring, TV appearances and her online presence took the reins - but, in reality, she has been working hard on her sound, and it all leads to “Devastatia”.
“Creating an album while the world is open, while touring, while "We're Here", it was the hardest thing ever, and I was also growing into who I became now”.
Now, over two years into working on this project, newly announced as the face of Apple Music’s UP NEXT campaign, and thousands of streams on the single “GUCCIYANKA”, Priyanka is ready to take full on ownership.
“It's about ownership, if you're annoying, be annoying, just be, be exactly what people are triggered by. We should all be unapologetically our most annoying selves!”.
Photography by Nick Merzetti
“It's so devastating how iconic I am”
“It ended all being about that, about confidence, love for yourself”, responds Priyanka when I ask her about the themes of “Devastatia”. Despite telling me that, since 2022, she’s been writing songs for this project, including love songs about her boyfriend, songs about “heels clack and all that”, the queen points out that, when doing the selection for her debut album, those just didn’t fit.
Growing up gay and of Indian descent, Priyanka had to get used to hearing people point out things about her and her personality: “People would say ‘Oh, your personality is too much’,
or that I talked too much, talked too loud”. All the pressure made her quiet herself down, though, tone policing herself because “they couldn’t handle my confidence” - and that’s exactly what she’s encouraging people not to do with “Devastatia”.
That’s how Priyanka came up with the concept for the whole project, explaining to me that she wanted to create a word that signified that “It’s devastating how iconic I am”, taking back all that confidence and compiling it in a set of eight songs. And all that newfound trust in herself also meant fighting for how she wanted the album to sound like.
“It almost felt like convincing them that we weren't doing it like everyone else, we're doing it the Priyanka way, the "Devastatia" way. Make it sound polished but also new, let's think outside the box”
During the creative process of “Devastatia”, Priyanka had the desire to create music that felt like “you're already in an arena”, focusing on making pop music that could fill up a concert space. But, to create that kind of sound, the beats had to be layered, filled with influences and expansive, something she had to convince the people she was working with of.
With “Problem Pageant”, for example, Priyanka had to fire the first producer for the song, “because he wasn't listening to me”, and hired someone else to fulfill her vision. Singing about how everyone has their own problems, the singer gives out her personal view, one of emotionality, but also humor.
“It's so important to listen to a song and just giggle”, she explains, telling me that during the ad-libs for that song, in specific (for example, the lines “Make it rain, all that pain / Oh shit, my dress has a stain"), she wanted to insert this funny facet of herself, specially because she was talking about something serious and relatable.
Besides the lyrics, though, the songs also carry quite a bit of her culture. Priyanka made sure to include Bollywood sounds all through the project, for example, making this embrace of her Indian identity one of the main pillars of “Devastatia”.
It’s Bollywood, it’s 2000’s, it’s Priyanka
Photography by Nick Merzetti
“These are things that I used to be so ashamed of, and now I'm just pushing myself off the cliff and being as loud about it as I can”.
Asking her about the importance of including her culture in her music, I remind Priyanka of her dress she wore for the coronation of Canada’s Drag Race’s second winner - a clear reference to Indian garments with the prints, color and jewelry. Bringing Indian influences into her drag is, to Priyanka, a sort of “therapy”.
“I think everyone wants to see themselves represented to know that they can be successful”, she answers me, adding on: “I used to think the word representation was so stupid, it made me think that they were typecasting people, but now I get it”.
Growing up in Canada, Priyanka tells me that she could feel the ways in which being queer and being a brown person were something that really molded her upbringing - specially in the ways people talked to and about her. Since then, queerness and her racial identity have been things she has been fighting to fully embrace.
“I'd fight my mom to take baloney sandwiches to school, and now I'm like, I'll walk into the room, stink up the whole class with my chicken curry, I don't give a fuck”.
During the creation of “Devastatia”, it was really important for her to include these aspects of her culture then, bringing up the ways in which her gayness was a fundamental asset to the flamboyant nature of some of the lyrics - and, of course, the Bollywood influences all throughout the songs on the album.
Priyanka also grew up around music. Her grandparents were singers and her father was a DJ, bringing all the new CD’s and vinyls home to listen with her. That’s how she fell in love with pop music, quoting early 2000’s influences like Beyoncé and Destiny’s Child.
“Music is such a big part of my upbringing - specifically discovering new music through my dad”, she tells me, explaining that that’s where her passion for all of this came from, the origins of “Devastatia”. Now, mixing up her experiences as a drag queen, this love for music, her new-found confidence, it’s the perfect time for this new release.
“We can all be entertained by... me!”
It’s been four years since Priyanka won Canada’s Drag Race and, since then, she has taken over the world, touring non-stop, becoming one of the hosts of the HBO’s show “We’re Here” alongside fellow winners Sasha Velour and Jaida Essence Hall. Now, with “Devastatia”, she extends herself onto the music world, solidifying herself as a musician.
“There’s afrobeats, Brazilian funk, hip hop, bedroom pop. It's everything mashed together, because I'm making music for everyone - we can all be entertained by... me!”.
With “Devastatia”, Priyanka invested all of herself and made the album happen, working alongside big names like Scott Hoying, from Pentatonix, who co-wrote the title track and “GUCCIYANKA”, her song with Lemon: “Yeah, Lemon's is just like that girl, she’s a real artist”.
Fulfilling all her desires on the sound of this project, the queen expects that it’ll reach a lot of people’s hearts, who’ll see herself as the “pop girlie” she truly is.
“I need to tour ‘Devastatia’”, she tells me, when I ask her what’s the next step after the official release of her debut album. Expressing a big desire of visiting Brazil - again - Priyanka describes her last visit as “incredible, amazing”, and reveals how touched she was that everyone knew her lyrics from her first EP.
“Because when you're on the bill with Shea Couleé, Jaida [Essence Hall], icons, I'm like the spinoff franchise winner and I get it, but it didn't matter, I was Beyoncé that day”.
Photography by Shaun Vadella
Recalling the start of the interview, I take the last minutes of our talk to explain that Brazil has its own Lady Gaga memes. Because of health problems, the American popstar had to cancel her show at Rock in Rio 2017 one day before the performance - and, on her tweet announcing it, she started it with “Brazil, I’m devastated”.
Now, everytime something gets cancelled or something bad happens, Brazilians will quote it as their first reactions. Turning it on it’s head, while laughing, Priyanka finishes up our interview with her own version of the meme.
“Brazil, I’m ‘Devastatia’! But, I’m promise I’m going!”.