30 years ago today, legendary singer Freddie Mercury died from AIDS!
He was mostly known as the lead singer of Queen, though he also had some solo records as well!
He was a man ahead of his time in so many ways.
His music crossed multiple genres. He defied industry pressure to stick to a formula. While his band was mostly known as a rock band, he could also do opera, disco, synthpop and so much more. He could do the baddest rock songs ever (like "We Will Rock You") and then sing the most inspirational ballads "We are the Champions"). He could even do multiple genres in one song like "Bohemian Rhapsody". He could do gangsta lyrics alongside a disco beat in "Another One Bites the Dust" a decade before gangsta rap became mainstream.
Had he lived longer, I believed he would've performed with rappers too! His music was already sampled by Vanilla Ice and Ice Cube, but it would've been epic if he shared the stage with someone like Jay-Z, Outkast, or Missy Elliott!
While he did some synthpop (like "Radio Gaga", whose title inspired the stage name for Lady Gaga), it would've been epic if he also did some other electronic music genres that appeared after he died. Imagine him doing dubstep and making appearances with Skrillex! He might've also worked well with Avicci, another legend who died young!
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Freddie Mercury shied away from speaking about his ethnic background. Mercury, born with the name Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar (an island off the coast of Tanzania) of Parsi descent (Parsis were descendants of Persian refugees who escaped from Persia to India in the 7th century). He moved a lot during childhood, going from Zanzibar to India, back to Zanzibar. His family escaped Zanzibar when the Arab and Indian populations were being attacked by African rebels in 1964. That was when he moved to the United Kingdom.
However, Mercury didn't want to talk about his non-Western background.
Fast-forward a couple decades, and a man born in Hawaii to a Kenyan father, and spent part of his childhood in Indonesia and Hawaii became the President of the United States. That would be Barack Obama. He was able to do so even with all these birther conspiracy theories. He wrote a book about his unique background! He used his story to connect with people of various backgrounds.
Mercury also shied away from speaking about his bisexuality. He was in the closet for most of his life, only going public when he was dying. This even though it seemed that he was in the most transparent closet known to humanity, as he was not afraid to show his feminine side. But then again, Prince wasn't afraid to show his feminine side, but he only had sexual relations with women.
Fast-forward a couple decades and many musicians come out of the closet early in their careers with pride. Lil Nas X is now one of the biggest stars in rap music even while doing the most raunchy gay music videos. Meanwhile, his rival Boosie is looking like a sore loser in launching many homophobic verbal attacks on Lil Nas X!
Mercury also only publicly announced that he got AIDS less than 24 hours before his death. Such a major contrast to the announcement from Magic Johnson a few weeks earlier that he tested positive for HIV.
my blog post on Magic Johnson's announcement. https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2021/11/magic-johnsons-announcement-3-decades.html
I get that Freddie Mercury, despite his flamboyant persona on stage, was private about his personal life. But it would've been interesting if he was more open about his non-Western background and his LGBT status. He could've been more public about his HIV status. But then again, maybe by leading by example, by making great music, that might be enough for the following generations to take the baton further along in the representation of minority populations in popular media.
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As for the "where were you when you found out" questions, I honestly didn't know who he was when he died. It was 1991 and I was in the 5th grade. It also happened to be the first year I paid attention to MTV. By then, it's been years since Queen made a hit record. Yes, I already heard that "We Will Rock You" song as you can always hear in the background on televised sports games. But I was totally unaware of their other songs.
But in the following months, I sure caught up in knowing who he was. I learned where Vanilla Ice got the beat from. I learned of "We are the Champions". There was the televised tribute concert from Wembley Stadium. And of course, in early 1992, there was the movie "Wayne's World" where the characters were singing Bohemian Rhapsody while riding in a car. And because of that movie, the music video for that song got heavy MTV airplay the next few months as if it was a new track.
And every few years, a new generation gets introduced to Freddie Mercury and Queen! Whether it's because another of their songs get sampled, another movie used their song in the soundtrack, Adam Lambert joined the band on their tours, a singer naming herself after a Queen song (that would be Lady Gaga), and of course, the biopic featuring Rami Malek.
And now, a generation born after Mercury's death knows his songs by heart!
While Freddie Mercury died too soon, his legend lives on!
