Houston’s drag scene has thrived for years. Why is it getting national attention now?

Long before she became a famous drag performer and a reality TV star, Blackberri – born Darius Vallier – was a fashion design student at the now shuttered Art Institute of Houston. She tried drag for the first time in 2016 after learning about pageant icon and Houston-based performer Dessie Love Blake’s popular, career-launching competition, “Dessie’s Drag Race,” through friends who had performed. They would frequently tap Blackberri to curate their costumes or hem them when they needed repair. She decided to compete and chose the stage name “Blackberri” from the late rapper Tupac Shakur’s poetic lyric: “Some say blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice,” in his 1993 hit “Keep Ya Head Up.”

Blackberri won the competition and from there her career blossomed. As a contestant on the fifth season of the reality series “The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula,” she is one of Houston’s trailblazing performers to cast the city’s drag scene onto a national television stage. Her stardom follows the footsteps of Mistress Isabelle Brooks, a plus-sized, Latina queen who appeared on the 15th season of MTV’s “RuPaul’s Drag Race” as the first Houston queen on a reality series. For decades, Houston has maintained a thriving drag scene with countless drag shows around town each day of the week and a host of drag brunches, trivia and bingo nights, and pageants. But now the city is finally getting its turn in the national spotlight with two queens showcasing the diversity of the city. This comes at a time where trans people and drag performers in Texas have been targeted by legislation and right-wing groups. “With me and with Mistress being on Drag Race last season, I think (it) opened up the conversation and people know that Houston has impeccable drag,” said Blackberri. “We have amazing personalities. We have such a diverse pool of entertainers and I think because we’ve gone out and opened the doors, now the floodgates are about to open for the city.” Those floodgates opened for Blackberri as an amateur with no experience after her first competition on Dessie’s Drag Race in 2016.