In 2010, a 12-year-old Greyson Chance sat at a piano and sang Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi.” The school talent-show performance went viral, leading to an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and a record deal.
More than a decade later, Chance is 29, openly gay and making music on his own terms.
His new album, Boystown, arrived on September 25. It is a striking contrast with the young performer many people first encountered online: not because Greyson has abandoned that history, but because he has grown into an artist who gets to define the story himself.
Chance made the album independently after a painful breakup. For the first time in 17 years, he says, there was no label, A&R team or manager directing the process. He wrote the record in just three weeks.
The title comes from Chicago’s historic Boystown gayborhood. Chance wanted the album to feel like a gay neighborhood, with different streets and back alleys leading into one another.
That idea gives Boystown more than a location. It becomes a way of describing queer life: many moods, many routes, and many ways to find a place where you belong.
The boy who once became famous at a piano grew up in public. Now the openly gay artist is making a record that sounds self-directed, personal and unmistakably queer.
From viral “Paparazzi” cover to Boystown, this is Greyson Chance taking the keys back.
Read the interview via BuzzFeed.
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