Shamir Bailey is a 20-year-old singer from Las Vegas with “no gender, no sexuality, and no fucks to give.”
He’s the most interesting queer pop artist (in the potential Top 40 sense) to emerge since Lady Gaga rose out of a swimming pool seven years ago. And he follows in the same tradition as Gaga and her heroes Bowie and Freddie Mercury– the assertive, gender-bending queer pop star who puts their idiosyncrasies at the fore. It’s something sorely missed in 2015’s heteronormative pop landscape, whose primary LGBT representative, Sam Smith, deliberately downplays his sexuality to sell records.
And in the tradition of the greatest queer pop, from Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust” to Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy,” Shamir talks a lot about how awesome he is on his debut album Ratchet. “On The Regular,” the album’s best song, frames “me on the regular” as a level of swagger none of us mortals can hope to reach. Even when he talks about being square, he says he’s on the “honor roll,” and we imagine Shamir in high school, his name displayed proudly on the honor roll list, strutting around and just being the shit while his classmates’ jaws drop in jealousy.
A lot of these songs are about partying, and as with most pop albums, there are happy party songs (“Make A Scene”) and sad ones (“Youth”). His sing-song voice on the former, as well as on “On The Regular,” brings to mind Ke$ha, the face of millennial party music. But the minimal production, strongly indebted to Thriller-era post-disco and early house, offsets any resemblance to anything on the Top 40 right now (though the rubbery bass may remind some of pop producer du jour DJ Mustard).
And it’s an intriguing contrast to hear such a weird voice sing about being so popular. Shamir’s unearthly, androgynous croon is the sort one would more likely associate with someone as off-kilter as a Tiny Tim or an iLoveMakonnen. But it’s easy to see why people are drawn to Shamir: He commands the stage, and even at his cockiest (“Make A Scene”) and most indulgent (“Darker”), he’s likable. His star power is undeniable.
His prowess as a vocalist, however, is more difficult to gauge. His strength is primarily as a diva, as the cherry on top of these great disco songs, and when he’s locked into a groove, he’s killer. (See his early single “If It Wasn’t True,” which is sadly absent from this record.) But he mangles the quiet-storm ballad “Darker”; without a groove sufficient to lock his voice in place, he caterwauls. His natural voice is a thing of wonder, but he runs the risk of coasting on it.
But for the most part, his producers know what they’re doing, and the eerie helicopter sample on “Darker” saves the song from being just another ersatz “I Will Always Love You.” He’s still working with a pretty basic sound palette on Ratchet, and I can’t wait to see what happens when he gets big enough to throw around some serious money on production. This is a great introduction to one of the most intriguing pop singers to come around in a while, queer or otherwise.

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‘Ratchet’ Review: Shamir’s debut is a promising coming-out party for a rising pop star