Broke Boy is a trans man, sex worker (stripper, professional dominatrix and content creator) and musician. His latest single TAP can be streamed on Spotify, here.
Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
My name's Carter, I'm 25 and live in London. I'm a musician and go by Broke Boy. I'm also a professional dominatrix, so I get to beat up horrible cis men for money (best job ever) and a stripper (before covid ruined everything).
How would you define your artistic practice?
I'm a rapper, singer, guitarist and play a bit of piano. I'm self taught so I can't actually read music, but I learnt by ear. I make a lot of music that you can stomp on balls to haha but I also get in my feelings too sometimes. I express a lot of anger in my music but I'm a soft boy too, deep down.
Could you tell us a little bit about your creative process?
Well I'm constantly writing lyrics either on my phone or in note books. I have 3 huge folders full with lyrics from the day I started writing at age 13, and literally hundreds of lyrics on my phone. So a lot of the time I'll go through beats I've been sent, find one I like and go through my lyrics to see what has the same vibe and see what fits. If I can't find anything that clicks I'll write new lyrics while I have the beat playing. I freestyle a lot of stuff and quickly right it down before I forget it. If I'm writing the beat myself (which I'm still learning to do) - I'll have a vague idea of the mood I want for the beat and just play around with sounds and write something on keys - then drums so the skeleton on the beat is down and then work on some lyrics and then fill out the beat from there. Sometimes the song will start with one vibe and end up completely different but that's the fun of it, you never know what you're gonna come up.
Your latest single TAP is truly amazing, it’s a vibe and political AF. How important is it for you to convey a message in your music?
Thank you! I'm glad you like it! It is kinda important to me, as I do feel I have a lot to say especially as a queer trans boy. All my songs are very honest and about personal experiences, they all have some sort of message. Some are political, some about survivors of r*pe/sexual assault and some are more casual messages like fuck you to my shitty exes haha. I have a track called 'sorry I'm high" (it's only on Soundcloud as I didn't have the money to get it mixed and mastered at the time so wasn't good enough for me to release properly) that I wrote when I was high, as you can tell by the title lol. It's basically a big rant about how I hate the Tory government and what it's doing to people (still very relevant now). With TAP it's about exclusivity, having queer pride and trans representation. Trans and non-binary people aren't represented very well at all and definitely need more visibility, and I feel there's even less for trans men specifically. I can't think of any mainstream transgender male musicians, actors or models and that makes me sad AF. We exist! But not many people actually see us. It can be so hard when there's no one like you to look up to in the media, so I wanna change that.
What do you imagine in the future for Broke Boy?
I have my EP I'm working on at the moment which I'm aiming to have out by the start of 2021. I have the music video for my track VOODOO to finish (covid happened just as I started to film unfortunately). I think I'm gonna do a little DIY video in my flat for TAP and I have a socially distanced photoshoot coming up, so keep your eyes out for that on my Instagram. Covid has made everything more difficult for everyone but I'm doing what I can to keep creating while being safe. I'm just going to keep working towards getting my name out there and my voice heard as a trans musician.
Follow Broke Boy's journey on Instagram @ itsbrokeboy
We're currently crowdfunding for a devised theatre project created by sex workers. We want to use theatre and tell our stories to fight against societal stigma and increase the representation of our community. This can only be possible with your help, view our Crowdfunder campaign here.