Luke Fontana
Artists
Vincint
Meet one of the artists, disruptors, educators, groundbreakers, innovators, and storytellers who all helped make the world a better place for LGBTQ+ people.
Vincint began their career in music at age 5 when their father, a gospel singer and “the reason I started doing music,” encouraged their talent through a church choir in Philadelphia. They came out as gay at age 16, graduated from the prestigious Berklee College of Music in 2013, and first caught the mainstream spotlight as a finalist in the 2018 season of the Fox reality singing competition The Four.
Through their own music — including their 2020 debut EP, The Feeling, and 2021 debut studio album, There Will Be Tears — Vincint found their voice as an out artist who uplifts experiences not often heard on the radio.
“I get to go out into different parts of the world and [sing] about the men I fall in love with and the things that have changed my life and turned me into the artist that I am today,” they share. “I get to see people’s faces who look like me, who have skin as dark as mine and show them that who we are is beautiful.”
Vincint’s songs have appeared on Queer Eye (“Be Me” was the fifth season’s anthem) and Love, Victor (“Mission” on season 3’s soundtrack). There Will Be Tears received a GLAAD Media Award nomination last year and even inspired a short film of the same name directed by Ryan Nordin.
In addition to these professional accomplishments, coming out as nonbinary this year to Out was a milestone for Vincint. “It’s something that has been present in my body and in my soul for a really long time, and I hadn’t had the verbiage to really articulate it to the world. And having the opportunity to sit down and fully say how I’ve been feeling for all these years is something I never thought I’d have the chance to do.” @vincint
Artists
Troye Sivan
Meet one of the artists, disruptors, educators, groundbreakers, innovators, and storytellers who all helped make the world a better place for LGBTQ+ people.
Photo by Stuart Winecoff
It’s been five years since Troye Sivan’s second studio album, Bloom, was released to much acclaim. And Something to Give Each Other, which came out this October, was well worth the wait.
Sivan and his art routinely spark conversation in pop and LGBTQ+ culture. “Rush,” the album’s lead single that dropped in July, is no exception. It became (along with Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam”) the queer song of the summer. The steamy music video, an explosion of dancing, abs, and hedonism, unleashed its own rush of think pieces about popper use and body diversity in queer spaces.
Sivan, who as an actor had a role this year on The Idol — Max’s much-skewered scripted show on pop stardom— also made headlines for his candor this year. He revealed on the High Low podcast that, despite the reputation he received from 2018’s “Bloom,” which was widely received as a bottom anthem, he is, in fact, not a “power bottom.”
Whatever his preferences, Sivan has proven himself a versatile artist. The release of Something to Give Each Other was Troye’s proudest accomplishment of 2023 — along with the launch of Tsu Lange Yor. The Australian lifestyle and homeware brand, for which Sivan serves as creative director, sells candles and scents as well as home objects. “My brother and I started it together, had to trust our guts, find incredible people to work with, and have learnt so much along the way,” the 28-year-old says.
In art and in life, Sivan remains inspired by his community. “Through so much adversity, the LGBTQ+ community pushes to be a safe space for all — pulled together by pillars of love, support, chosen family, and freedom,” he says. “Queer people everywhere need to be protected and be able to celebrate themselves as loudly as they want.” @troyesivan