First one to move is gay

Cited as one of the first representations of black queer popular culture, Ma Rainey's sensational Prove It on Me Blues is a landmark song that had a profound and lasting effect. One night ina party in a Chicago apartment was broken up by police. Such raids were commonplace in the era of speakeasies and Prohibition, but this one was different: all the revellers were women and they were in a state of undress.

The singer Ma Rainey, the host of the party, known as the "mother of the blues", was arrested. Gay far from hushing up the incident and the outing of her sexual interest in women, she made a record about it, Prove It on Me Bluesreleased in They must've been women, 'cause I don't like no men…".

With its out-and-proud assertion in the second verse, "I want the whole world to know," this unapologetic proclamation of being what was then labelled as "a lady lover" is one of the world's earliest gay anthems. Born Gertrude Pridgett inthis icon of female empowerment actually owed her stage name to her husband, "Pa" William Rainey, a comedian, singer and dancer with whom she performed a double act in minstrel shows before their separation in As a solo artist, Rainey fused the vaudeville style of her early performances with the soulful rhythms of Southern blues.

Inshe was signed by Paramount Records and made more than recordings for them, including her best-known song Ma Rainey's Black Bottomwhich took its name from a crouched Charleston-like dance and inspired the play and film of the same name. Beyond mainstream society, marginal narratives found voice in speakeasies, dive bars and "buffet flats": apartments created within larger properties where under-the-radar entertainment took place.

Bessie Smith describes this underground scene in Soft Pedal Blueswhich urges music makers to "put that soft pedal on" to avoid attracting the attention of the authorities. Having paid Rainey's bail the night of her arrest, she knew the value of discretion. Ma Rainey had a white management team and performed to both black and white audiences, bringing black queer culture into the move of a diverse group of Americans.

For some, this was an unwelcome commodification of black culture. In a short piece titled Harlemwhich appeared in the September issue of The Crisis, the sociologist and civil rights activist WEB Du Bois lamented the "white desire for the black exotic" and the one for white visitors to come into black communities in search of "a spectacle and an entertainment".

For black performers, the blues was not just entertainment, but a sensitive art form, born from a legacy of discrimination and white oppression. The bawdy "hokum blues" genre reflected this freedom, laying a woman's claim to first satisfaction and celebrating when she found it. He handles my front yard! Female blues singers broadened concepts of black female identity, contesting the patriarchy and satirising domesticity.

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In Safety Mamafor example, Bessie Smith proposes a reversal of traditional gender roles. The way "to treat a no-good man", she sings, is to "make him stay at home, wash and iron". Appearance also played a role. Dressed up in ostrich plumes, diamond tiaras and necklaces made of gold coins, all while flashing her gold teeth, Ma Rainey made a deliberate show of financial independence and self-worth.

The advert for Prove It on Me Blues, for example, revels in her notoriety, depicting Rainey in suit jacket, tie and hat, flirting with two women while a policeman looks on. Blues singers such as Ma Rainey brought a female specificity to their music, sharing themes such as infidelity and domestic violence from a woman's perspective.

Songs such as Black Eye Blues recorded in tell a story of a woman who is not an object, whose feelings matter, but who is strong and can exact revenge. Gonna catch you with your britches down. There's a powerful defiance to these songs.