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Jody Watley responds to Gay Games plug gag order

Published Tuesday, July 25, 2006 by midnight lounge | E-mail this post

Jody Watley was in her hometown of Chicago over the weekend as part of her promo tour for the upcoming release The Makeover (heard of it?)

But things turned a bit sour after a visit to R&B station V103. The Clear Channel-owned FM gave the greenlight for Jody’s CD plug, but not to her scheduled Gay Games 7 performance at Soldier Stadium that very weekend. Jody writes about the experience on her MySpace blog "...though the entire city was plastered with Gay Games posters...it was on EVERY MAJOR newspaper. The evening news! So yes, I was still caught off guard when I was asked not to mention the event.”

Jody, long familiar with walking the fine line between genre-specific radio promotion, took the gag order in stride. She recalls the 1996 track she wrote titled “Affection” and the backlash that occurred with her message of love regardless of boundaries: “I encountered complaints because of the word 'gay' -- I didn't write it as a marketing tool - I meant it. A black artist unafraid to promote tolerance. What a concept.”

Need I express more why we love Jody so? [Photo courtesy ChateauHo]