In Lynks Afrikka, Brett has crafted an onstage persona that treads the thin line of being politically-correct, whilst also getting modern culture to laugh at its own fads – an impressive feat that’s catching attention.
In Herne Hill’s Brixton Park, ten minutes from where he was born and raised, I see Elliot Brett for the second time in two weeks. Surrounded by the pushchairs and infantile wailing typical of a sunlit park-café’s lunch service, the scene could not be more different to when I last saw him, in Dalston, performing as his unashamed, energetic drag-queen act: Lynks Afrikka.
Quite frankly, not a single item would have jolted my memory; his white shirt and jeans being comically unlike the jumpsuit and mop-like, denim face-mask he wore on stage. But there’s an obvious, performative reason for Lynks Afrikka’s attire – all of which Brett makes himself.
‘If I’m the one who looks like the biggest idiot,” he says, “no one else is going to feel weird because by comparison to me there’s no way they could possibly look like an idiot; even if you’re dancing in a way that looks f***ing stupid, you’re not going to look nearly as ridiculous as I do, so it gives everyone permission to go crazy.”
Calling himself an idiot, however, seems overly self-deprecating. In reality, Brett has crafted an onstage persona that treads the thin line of being politically-correct, whilst also getting modern culture to laugh at its own fads, without being offended – laughing being one of the two things, along with dancing, he tries to reap from his audiences (“I’m a bit perfectionist and I feel like if I don’t do one of those things, I’ve failed”).
Credit: Guy Woods
A typical set opener, which cutely sings a chorus of ‘Arts and London: that’s what I’m about’, sets out his stall from the beginning of his shows. I start my set with that because you’re in these spaces where you have super-hipsters and they’re standing there, arms-crossed, ready to judge, and hugely bearded.”
“It’s the elephant in the room that all these people look like w***ers, ready for this alternative queer performer in this renovated shed, or, a converted loft-garage, or whatever it may be. If the second you come out, you call them out for it, that’s so much tension lifted in the room. People look at each other and go ‘yep, that’s us: millennial, arty f***boys’.”
Such crowd-pleasing antics from the recently-graduated psychology student has given Lynks Afrikka impressive support in just a short time of performing live. In the intervening period since I last saw him, for instance, Lynks Afrikka played the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for a second time.
The project only began, though, in February last year when a band pulled out from a night organised by Brett’s friend. “It wasn’t developed at all at that point, but I’d been making lots of music on my laptop that was so intense.”
Credit: Guy Woods
“I’ve been into club-kids for ages and I was thinking ‘imagine if you were at a gig and someone came out to that looking like Leigh Bowery’ – I really wished someone was doing that. Then I thought, I’ve got a week, I can make this work.”
And who else, aside from the Australian performance artist popular in the 80s, has inspired Lynk’s Afrikka’s look? “Aesthetically, it’s really clear. Alexander McQueen, Bjork as well, and then countless other drag queens, my favourites being Yovska – who is unbelievable – and Shrek 666. Let me find Yovska for you – it will change your life,” he says before excitedly showing me the oddly-reptilian, yet striking Yovska – if there were more time I’m sure my life would be irrevocably transformed.
Perhaps more surprisingly, Brett regards Tómas of The Orphanage (2007) – an eerie young boy that dons a bag over his head – to be “an icon. I like scary stuff, I like creepy. I like humanoid but not human.”
There may not be a common association between the aesthetics of horror and the style of drag most imagine, yet Lynks Afrikka is the product of a drag style that doesn’t necessarily seek to conform to the likes seen on drag legend RuPaul’s popular show. Whilst not proclaiming to be “reinventing the wheel,” Brett speaks in a humorously disparaging tone about current perceptions of drag-queens.
Credit: Guy Woods
“I think right now drag is either this massive phenomenon through RuPaul’s Drag Race or still an underground community that really isn’t in the public consciousness. I feel this has created one very particular form of drag that’s now dominating. Almost all acts have started because of that show. With some acts you can kind of piece together things which you’ve already seen happening on the show.”
“For me, drag isn’t about just dressing up as a woman, and I don’t just dress up as a woman. I think it’s about taking every single aspect of creativity and swirling it together and spitting it out through yourself. It’s taking all the different disciplines and putting them through the prism of queer imagination and seeing what comes out the other side.”
Certainly, that imagination is in full-flight when I’m told of an idea for a future show “with a zombie apocalypse plot – imagine a massive gate at the back of the stage and you have twenty back-up singers crawling up the walls, singing.”
I ask if, amongst all the artistry, Lynks Afrikka had the capacity to perform more emotional, tender music. “I’m actually writing a show at the moment – being so inspired by Fringe – about Lynks trying to find love. It might not make anyone cry, but it’s going to try and deal with dating as a gay person in 2019.”
The verve with which Brett has fuelled his brainchild with so far, and which has taken Lynks Afrikka from a give-it-a-go idea to a fully-fledged musical act, makes it likely he will find a way to such a show done.
But if the show about Lynks finding love doesn’t come to fruition, audiences will be guaranteed to find it should they catch him performing at any point.
