![gay bars baltimore drag queen gay bars baltimore drag queen](https://img.hoodline.com/uploads/story/image/143760/Slowhands4.jpg)
He got the party hype and that's all that mattered. I'm sure Miss Tony went through a lot when it came to his sexuality in the scene but he transcended it at the same time. Looking back on Baltimore Club and seeing how it was accepting to a lot of different people, even with its challenges, it shows a unique culture being birthed here. When you grow up in the hood, in comparison to more contrived areas like the suburbs, it doesn't seem diverse but it's more diverse because you have to accept people's differences. Even in the neighborhoods, it's misunderstood. We always talk about homophobia in the black community or the black church but if you go into the church, you're gonna see gay people because that's where some feel most comfortable. It wasn't like he was being made fun of but more like, he was this bigger than life person who was much different than what you were accustomed to. Boulevard, walking to the corner store and Miss Tony would walk in with a crazy hairstyle or a piece of track hanging off his hair. As a kid, everybody like that is bigger than life to you, so I remember being in West Baltimore around Martin Luther King Jr. Growing up, we would see him around and everybody on 92Q was a local celebrity so anytime you saw somebody whose voice you heard, it was so exciting. Don't follow no trends or anybody else's norms. He's one of the people that inspired me to just do me, no matter what it is. He just started going in about undercover dudes on the mic like, "Half of y'all I done fucked so don't even come at me with that shit." He was so bold and I think that kind of energy as an artist inspired me to just be myself. They tried to call him out and he said the funniest shit. Through the years, with me just getting older and partying, I would see him out at The Paradox, and when he changed his life, it was funny because I remember one time he was at the club and somebody tried to say something about him going to Christ. Everybody that was around him was glad to be around him. So, he was like, "What's up Eze, you cute." That shit scared me. She introduced me like, "Tony, this my boy Eze." He may have been her cousin or uncle or something like that. My homegirl was from around his way, and I was around there one time walking around.
![gay bars baltimore drag queen gay bars baltimore drag queen](https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/ff1/928/d8bc2e18b447a4fba26d05d200fb9646a7-Tempest-DuJour-DragCon-LA-NYMag-052619-0.2x.rdeep-vertical.w460.jpg)
As Scottie B, legendary club DJ and co-founder of label Unruly Records, pointed out in the 2014 Baltimore club documentary, Baltimore Where You At?, in the late 80's and early 90's, if you didn't have Tony talking shit and shouting out neighborhoods on the mic at your party, you hadn't arrived-his co-sign meant that your party was one that needed to be attended. If anything, he was the connector that the city needed to construct a booming nightlife scene that drew attention from cities along the East Coast.
![gay bars baltimore drag queen gay bars baltimore drag queen](https://www.pride.com/sites/www.pride.com/files/2016/03/31/6_17.jpg)
He wasn't pigeonholed or marginalized for his lifestyle. Yet when Baltimore locals discuss his music, Tony's sexuality is never the primary focus. Tony's audacity to fully be himself-a gay man in drag talking about his sexuality in spaces where he may not have been fully accepted-that has made him a hero to many. Without Tony, there would have been no blueprint for some of Baltimore club's most iconic songs like Rod Lee's "Dance My Pain Away" or Blaqstarr's "Rider Girl." His songs like "Pull Ya Gunz Out?," "How U Wanna Carry It?," and "Living in the Alley" turned what started as DJs editing house records into proper tracks where he would talk about everything from being a social outcast, to the struggle of everyday life, to just wanting to party. His local legend is equally about music as it is identity. Widely recognized as the first club music emcee, he'd often snatch the mic at a club to complement the DJ's skills, threaten to take people's men home, and shout out different neighborhoods (for a fee). Miss Tony was a 6-foot, 300-pound queer icon you'd frequently see voguing through dancefloors, dressed in drag.