Bambi Banks-Couleé is resplendent in a bridal-white jumpsuit with spaghetti straps festooned with fringe as she introduces the episode. In case you didn’t catch the drift of the chyron in the bottom left corner that announces her as “the HBIC of THC,” she tells you outright: “I’m not just baking—I’m baking baking.”
Banks-Couleé points to a conversation during her time in theater school that shaped her view about creating art: “Even in my young state of drag, I always knew that I wanted to produce my own creations. I met this amazing professor in my senior year who gave me this advice that stuck with me. He said, ‘You are going to be so much happier when you can produce your own thing, when you can produce your own art.’” And Banks-Couleé’s drag career has followed suit: she is often responsible for both creating and hosting the nightclub shows she hosts at bars like Lake-view’s Hydrate, and she was a driving force behind Chicago’s first drag festival, Chicago Is a Drag, which made its debut in June 2019 in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the riots at the Stonewall Inn, and continued in a digital format for 2020.
Streaming on YouTube
