‘There was a lot of addiction and trauma in my family’: why Drag Race winner Jinkx Monsoon plays a perfect Judy Garland

As she takes on the icon in musical drama End of the Rainbow, Monsoon recalls a childhood spent watching Wizard of Oz on repeat – and explains why audiences are ready for trans performers in non-trans roles If these are strange times in America, they are particularly strange for Jinkx Monsoon, the 38-year-old actor, singer and drag artist who, since winning RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2013 and Drag Race All Stars in 2022, has become a huge breakout star. Monsoon, who has the white-lead-and-vinegar glamour of a 1930s movie star, has appeared on Broadway, at Carnegie Hall and in countless viral clips from Drag Race – and in other words is widely well known. And yet, she says, when she walks down the street in certain American cities, it is in a state of “not knowing if someone’s going to recognise me and be excited to see me, or recognise something about me and be hostile. It’s a really interesting dichotomy.” She lets out a huge laugh. “But it also keeps me humble, I gotta say.” We are back...

It’s a rap: what are the greatest hip-hop movies?

The genre, which turns 50 this month, has led to surprisingly few movies but the best include a black-and-white comedy and a starry documentary

Fifty years ago, on 11 August 1973, a young woman named Cindy Campbell hosted a small party in the Bronx. Her brother DJ Kool Herc was spinning some records, using two turntables to loop a breakbeat. That moment is said to have given birth to hip-hop. No one made a movie about it.

The landscape for hip-hop movies is starved, all things considered. We’re talking about a musical genre, currently celebrating its golden anniversary, where the aspirational stories of overcoming struggle and systemic oppression, building community and, eventually, dominating pop culture, are rarely told on the big screen.

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