RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 10 standout Aja is always going to tell it like it is.
When asked how she was doing at the top of her recent interview with us at Blavity’s Shadow and Act, she answered, tongue-in-cheek, “I’m alive, but at what cost?”
“I am in Colorado Springs, and I literally was just in New York a few hours ago for the premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 10,” she said. “So, you know, life is lifing. I probably need a nap, baby. The grind is grinding.”
The grind is indeed grinding as Aja quickly became one of the top queens out of the first bracket of contestants. After giving a stellar performance in the “Winner Winner Chicken Dinner” metal group challenge, she immediately gave an iconic Lip Sync for Your Legacy performance to Ice Spice’s much-talked-about hit song “Think You’re the S**t (Fart).”
How Aja’s ballroom background and Crystal Labeija tribute shaped her drag legacy
But giving iconic performances isn’t new to Aja. Between her first appearance on Season 9 of Drag Race to her time on All Stars 3, Aja has captivated fans with her attitude, dancing and love for ballroom culture, such as when she channeled House of Labeija founder Crystal Labeija for All Stars Snatch Game.
“You know, I still to this day think I should have been in the top two for that, and I’m not taking it back,” she said. “I feel like no matter what nobody says I was working a full séance because Crystal was in my body at that moment.”
Aja on Santería, Oshun, and finding power in femininity
This season, Aja is fully inhabiting herself after taking a break from drag to get in touch with who she is as a woman. She talked about how Santería, also known as Lucumí within the community, helped her understand herself better.
“We believe in the Orisha, Oshun, which are not necessarily gods or goddesses, but they are these sort of personified energies and beings that have all these stories and they teach us lessons,” she said about the religion, which has its origins in the Nigerian Yoruba religion.
“For me, personally, I’m initiated to the Orisha, Oshun, and she is the essence of femininity, but also resilience,” she continued. “That has played such a part in me as an artist because I sort of feel like being initiated to Oshun helped me become more comfortable with my feminine. It allowed me to kind of make my transition smoother, and it was a chain reaction because then it made me more comfortable to do my drag. It’s just been an amazing thing. It’s something that I definitely wanted to bring to the main stage of Drag Race.”
“I feel like when people hear about Lucumí, it’s always this sort of punchline. People talk about, ‘Are you gonna kill a chicken? Are you gonna do this? Are you gonna do that?’ And it’s not even about that,” she said. “This is such a beautiful cultural thing where we have music and food and we have language and community, and it’s so uplifting. That’s impacted me a lot.”
From reluctant return to full circle: How Drag helped Aja rediscover herself
Aja said that coming back to drag was “really tough” for her. But her house members at her former house, the House of Labeija, asked her to become Crystal Labeija for a news segment on Pride.
“At first, I was like, ‘Absolutely not, we’re not doing this. This is not gonna happen.’ But, baby, let me tell you something. Somehow these people coerced me and, bitch, I got up in full geish, went on television and, you know, I always make the joke [that] the geish just never came off.”
“And at some point, my ex at the time was like, ‘Hey, you know, you’ve been in drag every day for the last two weeks for no reason, but it’s also the happiest I’ve ever seen you. Do you think you might be trans?’ And in the moment, I was kind of like, ‘Whoa, like, what are you trying to say?’ But then I was also kind of like, ‘Whoa, you talking some real s**t right now. Hold on — you kind of pulling out a string, like I need you to slow your roll.'”
That evolution has transpired into the drag we’re currently seeing on the main stage, especially through Aja’s Pokémon-inspired outfits. As fans know, Pokémon are known for their transformations, and Aja said that where she is in life is “definitely an evolution” for her as a person.
“I feel like the world has not seen Aja at this capacity, the way that I am just being so unapologetically me for All Stars 10,” she said. “One thing I can say is that I walked into this and I said, ‘Bitch, win, lose or draw, I’m going into this and I’m going to act a f**king fool. I’m going to be myself. I’m not filtering nothing, and whoever likes it likes it, and whoever doesn’t, doesn’t and that’s okay with me.”
“You should never apologize for who you are, and I feel like I did a lot of apologizing for who I was for a very long time,” she continued. “You know, I let a lot of people, including the public, the fans and other people take control of my narrative for a while, and I felt like I just couldn’t get it back. And it wasn’t until I realized that instead of trying to change a narrative someone else is putting on me, I have the power to rewrite it by simply just living out my truth and writing my own story that way.”
After All Stars 10, Aja is ready to continue reintroducing herself to the world.
“This is just the beginning again because, baby, let me tell you something — I am a woman of big artistry. I’m ready to spread the Aja brand all around the world once again,” she said. “I’m ready to model. I’m ready to walk runway shows. I’m ready to be on the cover of magazines. I’m ready to release more music, do more concerts. I’m ready to do more television. I’m ready for everyone to see me so much and want to be so sick of me, but they can’t because they love it. That’s what I’m ready for. I’m ready for this renaissance of Aja and I’m ready to just hit it big. And I feel like that’s the attitude I went into All Stars 10 with. It was like, ‘Bitch, you have this chance, don’t f**k it up. Let’s go.'”
RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 10 currently airs Fridays on Paramount+.
