The Kings of Joy Show — Episode 4 (Season 1 Archive) Guest: Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa
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Danica (Intro): Before Kings of Joy was a global movement, it was a series of conversations.
This is one of them.
Season One captured something raw — the early language, the questions we were asking, and the people who shaped what this community would become.
I'm Danica Lani, The King Coach. Kings of Joy is a global Drag King community helping LGBTQIA+ people break free from constraints around gender, sexuality, and self-expression so that we can be 100% at home in our own skin.
This is where it started.
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Danica: Hello. Welcome everyone. I'm Danica Lani, and this is my podcast and the Kings of Joy episodes. So I am here today with Slaychuan Peppa. Hello.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: CCA Kit.
Danica: And I've known Kit for a little while now, having been their King Coach. What are your preferred pronouns?
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: She/they.
Danica: She/they. Thank you. Although Slay has —
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: He/they. Yeah, yeah.
Danica: That's interesting. Dario di Bello is my Drag persona, and he's definitely he.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Mm. Okay.
Danica: Cool. Well, thank you so much for being here. Welcome.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: I'm so excited to be here. Hello audience.
Danica: Yeah. And it's so nice we could be here together in person.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yes. With the plant.
Danica: Yeah. Giving off talk show vibes.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: That's right.
Danica: Yeah. So I wanted to ask you about your journey with Kings of Joy and what it was like before Kings of Joy, and then what your journey was like in that process.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah. Well, I guess thinking about how I got caught up in all of it — quite by chance, and I think that happens with a lot of my friends. It's not something I ever imagined doing, actually. It's not a dream I'd had sitting on the back burner.
I was taken to Queers of Joy by my friend Laura, aka Glen 20.
Danica: Hello. Hi Glen 20.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: And I'd almost never seen a Drag show before. Now I have to think. Yeah, that was probably my introduction to live Drag performance. And I was blown away. Just the energy, the fun, the joy. Queers of Joy.
And Laura was keen to sign up and just kind of grabbed me and said, "Kit, you must do this with me." And yeah, I actually couldn't make the next round because I was going away, but then I made a promise and I said, "I will do the one after that. I'm keen, sign me up."
So yeah, got in touch with Danica and joined the next group, which was due to begin around June and perform in August. But of course that was the lockdown. The long, long, long lockdown.
Danica: Yeah.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah. So yeah. And what a privilege it was to be a part of that group that went on the lockdown journey together. We had seven of us in that group. And we met on Zoom with Danica for the first six weeks. I think we did six weeks.
Danica: Yeah. I think we went a week — went a bit further because of lockdown. I kept going and then I had to start the next group for something or other.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah. And then I think there were Showies.
Danica: Yeah. Showies and Kings of Joy All Stars. Yeah. And so I said to you guys, "Okay, just keep rehearsing. Just go."
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Just go. Yeah, go. And what actually happened — well, we had no idea when lockdown was ending. It was just that ongoing, "Who knows? Who knows? One day we'll get on stage."
But as our rehearsals started to move from practicing the choreographed dance, we would actually just chat. We would just hang out. And it was a lockdown support group of your dreams. We also had two psychologists in the group.
Danica: It was perfect.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: And we really were able to lean on each other. And it was a high point. I think we've shared amongst us — it really was a high point for all of us. That meeting on Tuesdays.
Danica: Did you know anyone in the group before?
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: I knew Nadia a little bit and got to know Nadia a little bit better. Yes. Very good. Throughout lockdown. But no, everyone else — yeah, met for the first time in the group. And yeah. Lifelong friends.
Danica: Ah, that's really — that's beautiful. Yeah. Built a bond.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Mm-hmm. So yeah, that was I guess the start. And eventually December — well, eventually lockdown finished. And Queers of Joy was locked in for December. And the Kings of Joy group number five. Wow. Debut. What a performance.
Danica: Yeah. What was it like coming out of lockdown and onto the stage finally?
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Oh, it was — well, out of lockdown and onto the stage. Oh. I don't even know. Yeah, I think for me, I had been practicing not just the Kings of Joy group performance in my bedroom during lockdown, but I'd been rehearsing or exploring a bunch of other dances as part of my art practice. In my bedroom during lockdown, dressing up.
I also went through this phase of exploring YouTube makeup tutorials, and I went deep during lockdown. I was learning kind of Drag makeup.
Danica: But also Drag — Drag King or Drag Queen?
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Both. Okay. Because I actually felt that there's such a tradition, I guess, makeup-wise. Even like a language that I wanted to learn. And I wanted to learn feminine makeup, but almost through — from a male perspective. So I kind of moved into my, I guess, masc Drag persona who was then doing femme Drag makeup. Just not making it easy for myself at all.
Danica: Yeah, yeah.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: And hopefully confusing everyone out there as well.
Danica: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I love a bit of gender confusion.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah. So I think during lockdown, a lot of it was very private and it was in my bedroom space. In my own safe world. Just me in a mirror. You know, and the internet. Oh my god, that sounds like a great title for an album or something. "Just Me in the Mirror."
Danica: I might use that somehow in favour of releasing an album.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah. And then onto the stage. Wow, what a shift. And it was — thank goodness I had a group. That's all I can say. Yes. We really supported each other. And that friendship that we built over the weeks — it was there on the day and we were just able to hold each other and really psych ourselves up for it. And yeah. Wow. What an adrenaline kick that was.
Danica: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's one of the things that held that group together as well and really came through in the performance from the stage.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: That's so nice.
Danica: I was about to say that. In performance terms, energy is the currency of performance. So to bring that energy through and that bond and connection — yeah, it was palpable. Pretty sure you got a standing ovation.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Could, you know, potentially. Yeah. It's hard to know actually. That's — I learned so many things about being a stage performer that night and in subsequent performances. I hadn't actually been on stage before. That was my first time in the spotlight. Wow.
Danica: Yeah.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: And one of the things I learned is that the spotlight blinds you and you can't see the audience. And so much adrenaline is moving through your body and the memory is just playing a different game altogether. So if there was a standing ovation, I didn't know. And yeah, I've almost got no idea what happened.
Danica: It does go so quickly, doesn't it?
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah, yeah. Very quickly. But you've performed it a couple of times since, haven't you? With the group?
Danica: Yes.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah, as a group. Yeah. Yes. We've done two since then over the last few months. Which has also been great because we get to refine it and try out different things. And also the pressure was kind of taken off because we knew we got it right. We knew we nailed it. Yeah. So it was kind of like, "And now we just get to do it for fun." And it's already written into our bodies, like the choreography and the energy, how we want to interact with each other, the games we want to play with each other on stage. We knew. We knew.
Danica: Yeah.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah. And that was a real joy to just have that up our sleeves and be able to — "Hey, can we get together? There's a performance available for us next weekend." "Let's do it." Yeah. Yeah.
Danica: Amazing. Yeah. Yeah, it's really lovely. And so can you tell us a bit more about Slaychuan Peppa? How did you come through — you've told us a little bit about the makeup exploration, but how did you come into your Drag King persona, the name, the embodiment of Slaychuan? And also the choreography — it was all designed around Slay's coming out. It was a coming out flash mob. Right.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: So yeah. Yeah. I think after signing up — like I said, it wasn't something I had been sitting on for a long time. So actually in the first meetup on Zoom, and you were kind of prompting us and, "Who is your Drag persona? What do they like? What do they not like? What are their qualities?" — I was really quite thrown because I'd not thought about it before.
But I'm so happy I got to imagine Slay. And for me, like moving towards masculinity — I didn't feel like — I don't even know how to describe it, but Slay's not a masculine energy, I would say. They sit very much in that beautiful fluid space. Very gender queer.
Danica: Yeah, just gender fluid.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah. And also part of that was my preoccupation at the time with kind of Asian pop culture. Yes. That I was exploring kind of as my art practice on the side. And kind of Asian standards of beauty for men, I find fascinating. This kind of youthful, beautiful boy. Boy, not man.
Danica: No.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: And it was very clear to me that I was a boy and not a man. And yeah, these realisations were quite profound actually, and have — and did end up kind of shaping not just my Drag persona, but me.
Danica: Yeah. Well, yeah. Because, you know, there's you as Kit and there's you as Slaychuan Peppa. And they're all of you, right?
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah, absolutely. That's another thing that surprised me. I have so many surprises on this journey, but another thing that surprised me was how much Slay was me. It wasn't this other person. It wasn't a switch I would flick. It really was just a version of me or a — I don't think "version's" even the right word. And yeah, or just a different combination of aspects of me that I got to enhance and kind of, yeah, reconfigure and just be like, "And now this."
Danica: Mm-hmm.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah. And so Slay's ambitions were mine as well. You know, it went that deep.
Danica: Yeah.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah. If that makes sense.
Danica: Oh, it does. And I love your artist brain. I love how you see things. And what do you do for a living and your — can you tell us a bit about that and your fine arts practice as well?
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah, sure. I have an art practice, which is actually a really new thing for me as well. But I am living it. I'm living for it. But that came out of the pandemic, last couple of years. I went to art school back in the day. And then since then I've had a kind of little career in architecture, and that's what I do for my bread and butter. I'm an architect.
But my art practice is really where I want to move to now. And so yeah, I do installation, I guess kind of sculptural work. But performance — I love performance. And so Drag for me has really integrated so nicely with my life.
Danica: Yeah. Yeah. Have you had the performance bug now?
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah. Maybe, maybe a little bit.
Danica: Tell us about what's happened since Kings of Joy.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah. Well, definitely gave me the performance bug. That's for sure. And I've been wanting to continue performing, and I was really lucky to, through a friend, get in touch with Dion Tai, who runs Worship Collective and the Dynasty events that have been going for the last few months. And I've been helping out as much as I can with those events.
And I was given the opportunity to perform on stage recently. Solo.
Danica: First solo. First solo.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: And that was at The Bearded Tit a few weeks ago. Yeah, and that's been huge. And the performance that I devised for that, I would say, is very much my art practice.
So I was lucky enough — with Worship Collective, it's queer Asian performers. That's the platform. And with my art practice, I do explore my cultural heritage. So I am Eurasian. I'm part British and part Hong Kong Chinese. And so in my debut Drag performance, Slaychuan Peppa — yeah, it was a mashup of kind of pop culture that was coming from Asian pop culture, but also kind of Western pop culture. And I was doing all these TikTok dances as my boy. Yeah. As Slay wanted to do. Um, yeah. But it was really — it was an expression of who I am. And yeah.
Danica: I love it. Give Slay a stage.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah.
Danica: And go and do the things that he wants.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah. Yeah. And he loved it. He'll be doing it again, that's for sure.
Danica: Oh, yay. So happy to hear that. Yeah. Yeah. And what else is in store for you as an artist and Slaychuan Peppa in the future?
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: I think at the moment, hit me up. Yes. I guess as an emerging performer, you're there for any and all opportunities. Yes. But you know, they're few. They are few.
Danica: Tell us — how do we get in touch with you?
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Definitely on Instagram. My Instagram thing is kitchen sink, which is spelled "kitchn" with no E, and then "sink" as in like NSYNC, like the band NSYNC.
Danica: Yeah.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: So yes, definitely Instagram if you want to have a chat. But yeah, I think I'm definitely keen to continue having Drag as a medium for my art practice and to be a part of queer community and kind of helping to lift up everyone around me. Yeah. It's really integrated into who I am at this point.
Danica: Yeah. Awesome. So great. Love that. And any other projects on the boil in your art? Small.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah. Yeah. Things are happening. I've got a wonderful show with my two best friends in August. And we are gonna be doing a wellness centre where we'll be performing and maybe Slay will be there too.
Danica: Ooh.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: You know, I think it's entirely possible. And then I'm going to LA in September for another show I'm doing. So —
Danica: Oh, fantastic.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Things are really picking up.
Danica: That's great.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah, it's good. Great.
Danica: Oh my gosh. Well, fabulous. Well, thank you so much, Kit, Slaychuan Peppa.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yay.
Danica: So happy to have you here and thanks for everything that you are pioneering. I know that you're inspiring other people. I know that there have been people who've come up to you after your performances.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yes, I've had people who I don't know recognise me as Slay in my everyday life, maybe because of the hair.
Danica: Yeah, yeah.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah. And just tell me, you know, yeah, basically how inspired they are and how to begin that journey. Yes. And so, you know, the amount of times I've talked about you, Danica, I can't even count.
Danica: Thank you. Well, yeah, I'm just thrilled that you've gone on this journey and to have gone from being not a performer, debuting as Slaychuan Peppa in your own coming out flash mob, and then seeing you evolve and all the amazing contribution that you're doing with Worship and Dynasty and all of that. Really important work as well. It's really inspiring people. So, oh, keep doing it. Keep going.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Doing it with a wind beneath your wings.
Danica: Yes. That's you. That's you Drag — in the background.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah, that's right. Fanning.
Danica: Yeah. So thank you. Thank you. Anything else you want to share?
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Just thank you.
Danica: You are welcome.
Kit aka Slaychuan Peppa: Yeah. What a journey. What a journey.
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Danica (Outro): This is where it started, but it's not where it ends.
Kings of Joy is now a global Drag King community with over 150 first-time Drag Kings crowned since 2020. We are still having these conversations. We're still asking the questions. We're still becoming.
If this episode sparked something in you, start here. Claim your Drag King name at danicalani.com/dragkingname.
The movement is growing. You are part of it.
I'm Danica Lani, The King Coach. Thanks for listening.
