Ray BLK jetted from south London to Portland, Jamaica for the "Chill Out" video. The defiant visuals captured by director Philippa Price show the Gully Queens, a group of transgender women who live their lives on the margins of society in the country.
The four women in the video display themselves confidently, though the scars on their skin offer a hint at what they have been through in the past. The video begins with news footage of bigoted Jamaican men shouting abuse and waving bats. “We don’t want no one, none of them in this town here,” one man says. “This is our town.”
The Gully Queens came together through necessity, outed against their wills or as the result of refusing to conform. They are named after the Kingston slums and sewers in which they are forced to live.
Ray BLK tells Vogue she was “amazed” that “something like this was going on and I had never heard of it. I thought there needed to be a spotlight on it.”
To contribute to a campaign raising money for the Gully Queens, please visit GoFundMe.