Madrid is Browning: A conversation with Gad Yola

Abstract

Afro-LatinX drag artist Gad Yola was born in Lima in 1995, migrated to Spain in 2006, and began performing in Madrid in 2017, a year marked by the rise of Spanish nationalism. This interview acquaints us with Gad Yola's artistic vision and practices. It orients us toward the growing presence of “Brown art” in the Peninsula, taking a deeper look at the work of artists who declare themselves “migrants” or “Migrantas” and examining the use of LatinX’s X in Spain. Gad Yola’s career includes performances such as “El drag es marrón” (“Drag Is Brown”), the exhibition “Hypernariz” (“Hypernose”), and the music videos “No exotice” (“Don’t Exoticize”), “Aguanta Migranta” (“Hang in There, Mx. Migrant”), “Travesti del Perú” (“Trans from Peru”), and “Problemática” (“Troublemaker”). The analysis of these works focuses on the use of pop-reggaeton-cumbia rhythms, the politicization of Gad Yola’s fashion, and her references to colonial history and Spanish, Peruvian, and US pop culture. LatinX’s transatlantic “X” emerges on social media and webs across these geographies, accompanying Gad Yola’s oeuvre and the work of other artists from the Spanish capital with whom she has collaborated, including Chenta Tsai Tseng, Samantha Hudson, and the drag families Casa Drag Latina and House of Gad. From Madrid’s bars, squat houses, and museums, Gad Yola reclaims, invigorates, and re-conceptualizes such referents like Peruvian artist and philosopher Giuseppe Campuzano, while also coming up with characters like “Gad Bunny” and “Gadyoncé,” thus embodying a Global South LatinXness. Gad Yola’s queer, anti-racist art evokes a Global Iberian LatinX that bridges these terms and expands them, reconfiguring the cultural scene in Spain and beyond.