Bob the Drag Queen has written the world’s first Harriet Tubman hip-hop novel. ‹ Literary Hub

October 18, 2024, 1:27pm

Bob the Drag Queen has written a book, y’all. And this is not the standard tell-all memoir announcement now standard practice for the cross-over artist with a brand to build.

Luckily for the world, the Drag Race winning superstar has written a novel. And one that looks to be, um, delightfully bonkers.

A log-line, for your troubles; Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert is a time and space bending piece of critical fabulation that follows the famous freedom fighter’s thwarted attempts to make—wait for it—a hip-hop album.

Set in an alternate universe where historical figures abandon their graves to repeat great lessons of old, promo press is calling the book “an inventive, wondrous novel, remixing history into a fresh, dynamic story about love, freedom, salvation, and hip-hop.”

Personally, I am seated.

Bob the Drag Queen, Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert

The alter ego of non-binary performer Caldwell Tidicue, Bob The Drag Queen won hearts, minds, and the big crown in season eight of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Today she is a celebrated actor and activist, and also co-hosts a popular podcast, Sibling Rivalry, with her drag sister Monét X Change. Her most recent gig was taking to the road as Madonna’s warm-up act.

Bob shared on insta this week that the novel took four years to write. And it is, fans-be-assured, “as absurd and camp as you believe it is.”

It’s exciting to see such a fresh entry in the cross-over canon. Performers have been writing and selling novels at least as long as “packaging” has been a verb. But “Harriet Tubman’s rap career” is quite a bit more inventive conceit-wise than the thinly veiled autobiographical bildungsromen, nostalgic mysteries, or children’s books you’ll often hear a celeb’s penned in their spare time.

Which is all to say? We applaud you, Bob. Can’t wait to hear the beat drop under this railroad.