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Dancing on Crystal Waters

Chris Azzopardi

Go figure.
Renowned dance-club diva Crystal Waters learned from drag queens.
"I was so shy when I first started," she told queerday.com. "Drag queens have these amazing stories about not being accepted, but they still put their best foot forward. I've learned a lot about self-confidence by watching gay men."
The New Jersey vocalist, who majored in computer science at Howard University, points out that she used to be labeled as gay. "That used to bug me a little, but now I take it all in stride," she said. "They say you're not famous until people say you're gay."
Even if Waters isn't gay, she's aware of the legions of queers that play booty wars to her beats. "The gay clubs were the first ones to embrace me," she said. "And to have a big dance hit you do the gay clubs first, then you cross over into the pop world. I always go to my fan-base first. The other side is so fickle."
These days she's busy juggling her music career with two daughters, Morgan and Lindsay, and riding high on her single "Momma Told Me," which features production from long-time collaborators The Basement Boys and vocals from her daughters.
"If I've got a sound, 'Momma Told Me' probably comes closest to it," Waters said in a press release. "That combination of a story on top of a serious club beat. I like that sort of push and pull between the lyrics and the music."
Waters is best known for her ubiquitous club tune "100% Pure Love," a single from her sophomore gold disc "Storyteller." Her 1991 debut birthed the classic "Gypsy Woman" and cast Waters out of the shadows and into a realm where she, like any drag queen, played by her own rules.
It all began with a psychic.
"I went to a psychic and she told me that there was something I needed to do with my voice," Waters told About.com. "So I started taking some of my poems and turning them into songs."
Waters pointed out that she didn't choose her style as much as it chose her. "A friend of mine knew The Basement Boys," she said, "so he hooked us up."
When she first heard Basement Boys-produced "Gypsy Woman" on the radio, she was "in shock."
"I had recorded 'Gypsy Woman' almost two years before," she said. "Then it went overseas. It came back over here and hit out of nowhere. It was just a fortunate turn of events."
As her popularity grew in the United States, Crystal became a familiar face on the streets of New York and Los Angeles, where passersby would ask for pictures and autographs.
Waters has one quality that sets her apart from drag queens: her real name. It's not a stage name, but the one "my parents gave … to me," she said, laughing.

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