D.O.P./ RUPAUL/ DEEE-LITE/ HARRY, DEBBIE - MURK UNDERGROUND CLASSICS

RuPaul Andre Charles is an American drag queen, television personality, actor, musician and model. Best known for producing, hosting and judging the reality competition series RuPaul's Drag Race, he has received several accolades, including 12 Primetime Emmy Awards, three GLAAD Media Awards, a Critics' Choice Television Award, two Billboard Music Awards and a Tony Award. Born and raised in San Diego, California, RuPaul later studied performing arts in Atlanta, Georgia. He settled in New York City, where he became a popular fixture on the LGBTQ+ nightclub scene. He achieved international fame as a drag queen with the release of his debut single, "Supermodel (You Better Work)", which was included on his debut studio album Supermodel of the World (1993). He became a spokesperson for MAC Cosmetics in 1994, raising money for the Mac AIDS Fund and becoming the first drag queen to land a major cosmetics campaign. He later received his own talk show on VH1 called The RuPaul Show, which he hosted for over 100 episodes while co-hosting the morning radio show on WKTU with Michelle Visage. RuPaul's Drag Race was created in 2009 and has gone on to produce fourteen seasons in the United States. The show has also seen success internationally, with several international variants of the show being made, such as RuPaul's Drag Race UK and Canada's Drag Race. This has also inspired several spin-offs of the main show, including RuPaul's Drag U, RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars, and RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race. He is also featured as a host on other reality television series such as Skin Wars, Good Work, and Gay for Play Game Show Starring RuPaul. RuPaul has made appearances in films such as Crooklyn (1994), The Brady Bunch Movie (1995), To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995), But I'm a Cheerleader (1999), television shows such as Girlboss (2017), Broad City (2017), and Grace and Frankie (2019). He later created and starred in his own Netflix original television series AJ and the Queen (2020). In addition, he has also published three books: Lettin' It All Hang Out (1995), Workin' It! RuPaul's Guide to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Style (2010), and GuRu (2018). RuPaul is considered the most commercially successful drag queen in the United States. For his work on RuPaul's Drag Race, he has received 12 Primetime Emmy Awards, becoming the most-awarded person of color in the history of the Primetime Emmys. Outside of film and television, he also continues to write and record music; he has released fourteen studio albums as of 2022, and received a Tony Award for Best Musical as a producer for the musical A Strange Loop. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.

Deee-Lite was a dance music group formed in 1986 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and playing in NYC fusing house music, hip-hop/rap, funk and techno- before there was a word for techno. Lady Miss Kier named their production company "Sampladelic" and described their music as holographic techno-soul. They were dedicated to outrageous live shows handing out daisies, projecting Captain Whizzo's psychedelic lightshow, employing voguers and other free-styling club dancers as opposed to rigid formation choreography, and injecting a healthy dose of humor and thought provoking socially conscious lyrics. Their most successful hit was Groove Is In the Heart from their 1990 debut, World Clique. With a psychedelic video that was a success worldwide, the song also featured appearances by Q-Tip (from A Tribe Called Quest) and Bootsy Collins. Kier and Dmitry were committed to live performances and toured worldwide with several P-funk luminaries such as Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, Fred Wessely, Gary "Mudbone" Cooper, Mike "kid funkadelic" Hampton and others. Tei appeared in only a handful of live shows. The original members of Deee-lite were: * Supa DJ Dmitry (Dmitri Brill, born 4 June 1964, originally from Kiev, Ukraine) * Lady Miss Kier (Kierin Magenta Kirby, born 15 August 1963, Youngstown, Ohio) * Towa Tei (Dong-hwa Chung, born 7 September 1964, originally from Tokyo, Japan) Brill and Kirby had an ongoing romantic relationship, which ended prior to the release of their third album, Dewdrops In the Garden. Also prior to that release, Tei went in a different musical direction embracing bossa nova as opposed to break beats (appearing only on the remix for "Call Me") while a new member was brought in, DJ On-E. Deee-Lite disbanded in 1994, just before the release of Dewdrops in the Garden. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.

Deborah Ann "Debbie" Harry (born July 1, 1945) is an American singer–songwriter and actress, most famous for being the lead singer for the New Wave band Blondie. She has also had success as a solo artist, and in the mid-1990s she also performed and recorded as part of The Jazz Passengers. Harry has also engaged in an acting career with over 30 film roles and several television appearances to her credit. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.