Renee Paxson

Debra Blouch

English Composition II

14 February 2021

“Strange Fruit” and Modern-Day Lynching

Black Americans have faced racism since the foundation of America. Even after slavery

was abolished in 1865, black Americans faced violent discrimination, the worst of which is

arguably the lynching that occurred frequently up until the 1950’s, where mobs of people would

attack and hang victims from trees and bridges. Billie Holiday’s song “Strange Fruit” bemoans

the horrifying sight of lynched African Americans[ CITATION Bil21 \l 1033 ], and the song has

been covered and sampled many times over the years. Two notable covers are Andra Day and

“Monét X Change” Kevin Bertin. Although both artists covered the same iconic song, their video

presentations of the song differ, and Monét X Change was able to relate the message of the song

more sharply to the modern-day struggles of queer black Americans through pointed storytelling,

aided by strong imagery and an emotional performance.

Andra Day is an American gospel, jazz, and blues singer and actress from Washington.

She has a history of doing tributes to classic black artists and activists as stated in her Spotify bio

(Kellman), including Nina Simone and Billie Holiday, and in fact is playing Billie Holiday in the

upcoming film “The United States vs. Billie Holiday”. Day partnered with the social justice

group, the Equal Justice Initiative, to produce her cover of “Strange Fruit” in September of 2017.

The purpose of Day’s cover is to shed light on the history of lynching in America and to

remember the victims of the racist act, thousands of which remain unnamed. Day’s version has

more of a blues sound than the jazz of Holiday’s original recording and features the unsettling
Paxson 2

sound of creaking ropes in the background. The video shows seemingly peaceful scenes of trees,

bridges, fields of crops, and Andra singing alone in a room. It opens with a couple slides of text

introducing the audience to the history of lynching. Andra is dressed in a floral cream-colored

silk slip paired with a voluminous afro accented with flowers. She wears handcuffs on her wrists,

barbed wire hoop earrings, and a rope around her shoulders falling down past her feet. She is lit

with a single white light in the distance and performs with a pained expression on her face, often

reaching out for something that isn’t there. The shots of the trees pan up the rough bark and show

the light filtering through the leaves in a pleasant way, made unpleasant by the persistent sound

of the creaking ropes in the background. Shots of the bridges show cut ropes swaying gently in

the breeze. The video concludes with a list of five known victims of lynching, the day they died,

and where the people were from.

New York City drag queen and musician Kevin Bertin “Monét X Change” also did a

cover of “Strange Fruit” – to a different effect[ CITATION Ber17 \l 1033 ]. He covered Holiday’s

song in February of 2018, during the height of a civil rights movement. Unlike Day’s version of

the song, Bertin’s video tells a story of modern day lynching through an anecdote about a black

trans woman. The purpose of Bertin’s queer focused retelling of the story of “Strange Fruit” is to

bring awareness to the disproportionate targeting of black transgendered women, and black

gender-queer people in general. In the story, the main character accidentally locks her keys

inside her car at night in the city. While trying to get back into her car, a policeman pulls up and

confronts her. He assumes that the woman is trying to break into a car that is not hers and shoots

and kills her. Kevin, dressed as Monét X Change, performs her rendition of the song alongside

the story in a bar. Her outfit is bare in the chest, vulnerable, and her face is painted dark black in

an obvious call to blackface. Every patron in the bar is facing away from the performer and
Paxson 3

wearing black as if they are at a funeral. Many of them are crying. The lighting is either sparsely

fluorescent or pulsing red. Additionally, at the end of the video, the camera pans to a white man,

the only person in the bar facing Monét and presumably the cop who killed the woman the story,

calmly finishing off a beer and walking away. The claim of the video is that although lynching

no longer occurs, black people are still racially persecuted in America.

Both performances are of the same song, but they have different messages. Day’s video

was meant to share the history of lynching in America and commemorate the fallen victims of

the crime. Bertin’s video, on the other hand, paints a picture of an innocent trans woman in the

modern day being unfairly persecuted because of her race and gender identity. Bertin’s decision

to focus on the racial prosecution of black transgender women was for a good purpose.

According the Human Rights Campaign Foundation in 2018, 82 percent of the victims of trans

violence were women of color [ CITATION Lee18 \l 1033 ]. Ultimately, while both artists were

able to spread awareness of racial injustice, Kevin Bertin, “Monét X Change”, was more

successful at sharing the real life fear of queer people of color in modern-day America.
Paxson 4

Works Cited

Andra Day - Strange Fruit. By Billie Holliday. Dir. Bryan Stevenson. Perf. Andra Day. Equal

Justice Initiative. YouTube, 2017. Video.

Bertin, Kevin. About Monét X Change. 3 June 2017. February 2021.

<www.monetxchange.com/home-1>.

Billie Holiday Estate. Strange Fruit. 20 January 2021. Concord. 14 February 2021.

<https://billieholiday.com/signaturesong/strange-fruit/>.

Kellman, Andy. Adra Day - About. n.d. 21 February 2021.

<https://open.spotify.com/artist/1c4rxrxy8eDLvMVL1DTiBe>.

Meeropol, Abel. "Strange Fruit." Lady Sings the Blues. Prod. Milt Gabler. New York City: UMG

Recordings, Inc., 1956. Spotify.

Strange Fruit - Monét X Change. Dir. Kevin Bertin. Perf. Kevin Bertin and Bradford Proctor .

YouTube, 2018. Video.