Mila Jam | |
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 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | February 22, 1989 Aurora, Illinois, U.S. |
Jahmila Adderley, known professionally as Mila Jam, [1] is an American transgender singer, [2] [3] songwriter, dancer, actress, [4] and LGBTQ activist. [5] [6] [7] [8]
Mila Jam | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Background information | |
| Born | February 22, 1989 Aurora, Illinois, U.S. |
Jahmila Adderley, known professionally as Mila Jam, [1] is an American transgender singer, [2] [3] songwriter, dancer, actress, [4] and LGBTQ activist. [5] [6] [7] [8]
Jam was born in the Chicago suburb of Aurora, Illinois on February 22, 1989. She was raised in Columbus, Georgia, by her mother, Stephanie Adderley, an IT technician, and Phillip Adderley, a lab technician at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. She attended Columbus High School. Before continuing her career in New York City at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, she performed in several national stage productions and television commercials. [9]
Mila Jam performed as the popular YouTube impersonator Britney Houston. [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] She was known for creating parodies of popular videos and posting them on YouTube within days of the original videos' releases. She began creating her parodies while in the national touring company of Rent . [15]
Several of her parodies have over a million hits, with her parody of Rihanna's song "Umbrella" having over two million. [16] For her parody of the Pussycat Dolls' song "When I Grow Up", Jam recruited four drag queens to serve as the "Britney Cat Dolls". [17] She choreographed and starred in the 2008 MTV original television pilot Newsical, which was not picked up. [18]
Jam has appeared on BBC Three's Lily Allen and Friends , MTV, and MTV News. She has also hosted episodes of the YouTube talk show I’m From Driftwood. [12]
Jam recorded the song "And the Crowd Goes", which was written and produced by Jonny McGovern and released on his compilation, The East Village Mixtape 2: The Legends Ball. [15] The song also features New York rapper Jipsta. [19] Jam has performed alongside James Brown, Mark Ronson, Laverne Cox, Travis Wall, Jody Watley, Lady Kier of Deee-Lite, and Natasha Bedingfield.[ citation needed ]
The music video for Jam's song "Faces" was released to coincide with International Transgender Day of Visibility and featured appearances by Laverne Cox, Tituss Burgess, Candis Cayne, Geena Rocero, Peppermint, Zackary Drucker, Trace Lysette, and Nathan Lee Graham. The song has been called an anthem for the LGBTQ movement and focuses on self-acceptance, inner beauty, and sense of belonging. [20] [21] [22] [23] Jam described the song as being "about looking in that mirror and hearing, 'Do I belong, am I enough, will someone love me for who I really am?' We wear smiles all the time but hide in fear and loathing because we feel different. The journey is universal no matter who you are." [24]
Mila was awarded Best Video and Dance Artist at the 2013 GLAM Nightlife Awards [25] and she was named Odyssey Nightlife Awards Breakthrough Artist in 2015 . [26]
The MTV Video Music Awards is an award show presented by the cable channel MTV to honor the best in the music video medium. Originally conceived as an alternative to the Grammy Awards, the annual MTV Video Music Awards ceremony has often been called the Super Bowl for youth, an acknowledgment of the VMA ceremony's ability to draw millions of youth from teens to 20-somethings each year. By 2001, the VMA had become a coveted award.
"Stronger" is a song by American singer Britney Spears from her second studio album, Oops!... I Did It Again (2000). It was released on October 31, 2000, by Jive Records as the third single from the album. After meeting with producers Max Martin and Rami in Sweden, Spears recorded several songs for the album, including "Stronger". The dance-pop, synth-pop and teen pop song features self-empowerment lyrics about a girl who is tired of her cheating boyfriend and decides to move on without him. It received acclaim from music critics, who described the song as being both musically and lyrically innovative, with some deeming it the best track on Oops!... I Did It Again.
"Boys" is a song by American singer Britney Spears from her third album Britney (2001). It was written and produced by Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams. A version of the song titled "The Co-Ed Remix" and featuring guest vocals from Williams was released as the fifth single from Britney on June 24, 2002. The new version also served as the second single from the soundtrack of Austin Powers in Goldmember. "Boys" is a R&B and hip hop song, including funk influences. The remix carries a slower tempo than the album version, and both versions were noted by critics to be reminiscent of music by American artist Janet Jackson. Some critics praised Spears and Williams' chemistry, as well as the production on the track, while others did not think the song worked well.
The Britney Spears doll is a celebrity doll made in the likeness of American pop singer Britney Spears. Several versions of the doll were released. Each doll is dressed in costumes that resemble the clothing Spears had worn in concerts, appearances, and music videos. The Britney Spears doll was the first doll produced by Play Along Toys.
Candis Cayne is an American actress and performance artist. Cayne performed in New York City nightclubs in drag since the 1990s, and came out as transgender in 1996; Cayne came to national attention in 2007 for portraying transgender mistress Carmelita on ABC's prime time drama Dirty Sexy Money. The role makes Cayne the first transgender actress to play a recurring transgender character in primetime. She is perhaps best known for her recurring role as the Fairy Queen on the fantasy series The Magicians.
Cara Cunningham is an American internet personality, songwriter, recording artist, YouTuber, and former pornographic film actress. As of October 2010, Cunningham's videos had received a combined 50 million plays on MySpace, and her vlog channel on YouTube was the 100th-most viewed of all time in all categories, with over 205 million video views, before Cunningham closed her YouTube account in September 2015. Her work consists mainly of short-form, self-directed monologues shot in her grandparents' home.
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The 2008 MTV Video Music Awards took place on September 7, 2008, live from Paramount Pictures Studios, honoring the best music videos from the previous year. Nominations for a majority of the categories were announced on the MTV program FNMTV after being selected through viewer online voting at MTV.com. The remaining, professional categories were chosen by a panel of music industry professionals and announced via press release on August 27. When the nomination process was first announced, it mentioned a previously-unheard professional category named "Best Story;" however, this award did not come to fruition when the list of professional nominees was revealed the following month.
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LGBT representation in hip hop music have existed since the birth of the genre even while enduring blatant discrimination. Due to its adjacency to disco, the earliest days of hip hop had a close relation to LGBT subcultures, and multiple LGBT DJs have played a role in popularizing hip hop. Despite this early involvement, hip hop has long been portrayed as one of the least LGBT-friendly genres of music, with a significant body of the genre containing homophobic views and anti-gay lyrics, with mainstream artists such as Eminem and Tyler, the Creator having used casual homophobia in their lyrics, including usages of the word faggot. Attitudes towards homosexuality in hip hop culture have historically been negative, with slang that uses homosexuality as a punchline such as "sus", "no homo", and "pause" being heard in hip hop lyrics from some of the industry's biggest artists. Since the early 2000s there has been a flourishing community of LGBTQ+ hip hop artists, activists, and performers breaking barriers in the mainstream music industry.
The transgender rights movement is a movement to promote the legal status of transgender people and to eliminate discrimination and violence against transgender people regarding housing, employment, public accommodations, education, and health care. A major goal of transgender activism is to allow changes to identification documents to conform with a person's current gender identity without the need for gender-affirming surgery or any medical requirements, which is known as gender self-identification. It is part of the broader LGBT rights movements.
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Peppermint, or Miss Peppermint, is an American actress, singer, songwriter, television personality, drag queen, and activist. She is best known from the nightlife scene and, in 2017, as the runner-up on the ninth season of RuPaul's Drag Race. In 2018, Peppermint made her debut in The Go-Go's-inspired musical Head Over Heels as Pythio, becoming Broadway's first out trans woman to originate a lead role.
Jazz Jennings is an American YouTube personality, spokesmodel, television personality, and LGBT rights activist. Jennings is one of the youngest publicly documented people to be identified as transgender. Jennings received national attention in 2007 when an interview with Barbara Walters aired on 20/20, which led to other high-profile interviews and appearances. Christine Connelly, a member of the board of directors for the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth, stated, "She was the first young person who picked up the national spotlight, went on TV and was able to articulate her perspective and point of view with such innocence." Her parents noted that Jennings was clear on being female as soon as she could speak.
Tiq Milan is an American writer, public speaker, activist, and strategic media consultant. Past positions have included national spokesperson for GLAAD and senior media strategist of national news for GLAAD, and mentor and teacher at the Hetrick-Martin Institute. His advocacy, LGBTQ activism, and journalism has been recognized nationally.
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Amiyah Scott is an American actress, model, author, and dancer. She is known for her presence on social media apps such as Instagram, as a fixture in the LGBT ball community, and for her role as Cotton in the Fox television series Star (2016–2019). She also appeared in the eighth season of The Real Housewives of Atlanta.
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Brian Michael Smith is an American actor and LGBT advocate. He is known for playing Paul Strickland in 9-1-1: Lone Star.
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