‘All Stars 10’ Reminds Us That Drag Race Verses Are A Brand Strategy

RuPaul’s Drag Race, like many other reality competition shows, has recurring challenges that fans eagerly anticipate each season. For example, in addition to Drag Race contestants needing to bring looks to fit their runway themes, there are several challenges that they have to prepare for. Of course, some challenges are meant to be fresh and new to keep the audience engaged, but every fan of Drag Race knows there’s going to be 4 challenges that the queens are going to have to survive if they want a chance at winning the crown. The first being the sewing challenge where queens have to make an outfit from scratch, the second being the snatch game where the contestants have to do a funny improved impersonation of an iconic character or personality alongside their competitors, the second being the roast where the queens have to make fun of a particular host, guest, or their fellow contestants, and the final challenge being the girl group challenge where the contestants music work together to make a convincing song with their teammates and still manage to stand out.

This time around, RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 10 elected to combine the roast challenge and the girl group challenge, dubbing it the “Rappin’ Roast.” The queens were tasked with performing a song where they rapped and roasted their fellow contestants. This added a new layer to two already iconic staples in the Drag Race franchise that had already shown in prior seasons to be difficult for even the best of competitors in the show. Stacked with masters of shade like Mistress Isabelle Brooks, Nicole Paige Brooks, and Jorgeous, this challenge required not only wit, but cadence and memorable verses.

From iconic songs in Drag Race’s history like Break Up Bye Bye made famous by the Frock Destroyers in the first season of Drag Race Uk and the legendary Read U Wrote U from the final four of Drag Race All Stars 2, the contestants are no strangers to the opportunities that songs on the show can bring. There isn’t a single long-time fan of Drag Race that doesn’t know the lyrics “Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchikova, but your dad just calls me Katya.” That line, again from Read U Wrote U, gave Katya of Season 7 of Drag Race, All Stars 2, and Unhhh fame a direct link to her fans to show them her persona, creativity, and branding all at once. These songs, which later get added to streaming platforms, keep queens top of mind with fans and keep them engaged for if said queens ever release music on their own.

Shea Coulee, from season 9 of Drag Race and the winner of All Stars 5, released an EP after performing Category Is… with her castmates. Doing that offered her an avenue that inevitably led to her first EP Couleé-D while her season was still top of mind, building upon her brand and showing fans that she versatile in more than just her looks on the runway.

With All Stars 10 steady underway and queens teasing new music, alongside other queens, like Megami from season 16 of Drag Race and Ocean Kelly, a well known performer and rapper in the Drag Race orbit, who aren’t on the latest season of the show but are branding themselves by admitting they helped write and shape several of the verses fans are hearing on the stage, expanding their platforms and clientele if the verses are well received and future contestants come to them for ghostwriting.

What started as a fun and quirky challenge has turned into an entire expansion for queens to build their brands and start their musical platforms. All Stars 10 continues to prove that these challenges are always more than just being about winning or losing; they’re a vehicle for reinvention.