Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 | Gustav

Gustaph sings for Belgium: a man of forty-two, with somewhat ruddy cheeks, in an extravagant suit by designer Walter Van Beirendonck. When he won the Flemish preliminary round, he asked everyone around him for minutes: ‘Is this real? Did I really win?’ But he sings his song, Because of you, bloodless, and aided by his background singers and the visuals, Gustaph blasts into the living rooms. And all together, the Belgian contribution to the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest tells a proud story. This is that story.

love (1)
When the world drives me crazy
I hold on
and it’s all because of you.

This is – in translation – the first sentence of Because of you, and it essentially contains the entire song’s message. That message is one of resilience in the face of adversity and of love. Love for what? To start with house music, because Because of you can be categorized as classichouse from the eighties: a four on the floor beat, an electronic riff, a deep bass line, a soulful vocal part. And the love for music from that time goes back a long way.

MTV
As a little boy, Stef Caers (Gustaph’s real name) often watched MTV and was inspired to perform just like those people on television. His parents help him with his dream – they encourage him to go to a music academy. Shortly after graduating – he is eighteen – he gets a recording contract, and in 2000 there is a first hit under his stage name Steffen: Gonna lose you. But Steffen is not entirely happy with the success.

Industry
He has already come out as gay to friends and family at the age of fourteen, but the music industry asks him to keep his orientation ‘mysterious’. “I got into a very commercial segment of music,” he says. ‘The idea prevailed that you could score hits but you couldn’t be completely yourself.’ He will still perform the single Sweetest thing out, but then stops as Steffen.

love (2)
He focuses on writing songs, becomes a backing vocalist, enters the house scene and ends up with Hercules and Love Affair in 2012. This electro-disco group, with DJ Andy Butler as the pivot, draws from a pool of singers, often queer. Slowly but surely, during the six years he spends with the group, Gustaph – the ‘out & proud’ queer artist – emerges.

Now I love myself much more than I did yesterday,
because life is short and we really got to celebrate.

And throughout that process, Gustaph becomes connected to a subculture: the ballroom culture.

Love (3)
Ballroom culture emerged in the African American and Latino gay and transgender scene in the 1970s, particularly in New York and surrounding cities. People who could not participate in society because of their gender and orientation and who were often ostracized from their conservative families united in ‘houses’.

Remember when they tried to break us?
Well, look at us now

This is where the concept of ‘chosen family’ comes from, because these ‘houses’ were families of chosen siblings (gay and trans, black and Latino mixed), headed by a ‘mother’ or a ‘father’, who often had also once started as a brother or sister in another house.

Need
They had to unite. Because in the outside world they were reviled and lived in poverty. Without a house they would be homeless. Some of them contracted AIDS, some made their living as sex workers, and with the pittance they earned bought or sometimes stole the clothes during the ballrooms (where the families gathered to celebrate the glory and fame of their own house). defend) appear.

Vogue
Not only are the participants dressed in (often in drag), but also on dance moves. The leading dance style in ballroom culture is ‘voguing’, where performers briefly freeze in mesmerizing poses, as if starring in a photo shoot for Vogue magazine. Houses that often win trophies are referred to as ‘legendary’. Houses that have existed for more than twenty years are ‘iconic’. All terms that are used in the queer scene to this day, and also on many Eurovision blogs. And now Gustaph is bringing the ballroom to Eurovision.

Love (4)
Then you came into my life
and you changed my world forever.

He has appeared on the Eurovision stage twice before as a background singer: for Sennek in 2018, and for Hooverphonic in 2021, both times out of the picture. But now he wanted to be in the foreground himself and so he participated in the Flemish preliminary round. “I wanted to claim a place for queer culture, both for myself and for others. I was very focused on my own goals. So I wasn’t really concerned with the competition.’ And he ends with a difference of one point for the duo The Starlings, including former Eurovision participant Tom Dice, who is seen as the winner in advance by everyone.

Secret weapon
On social media, Gustaph discovers that it is mainly the reference to ballroom culture that attracts people in his performance. “That’s our secret weapon and we’ve focused on that.” That’s why PussCee West, a ballroom dancer straight from the New York scene, joins him on stage. But PussCee is not alone.

Love (5)
Sandrine, Monique and Chantal, the backing singers, are Gustaph’s best friends, he has been working with them for over twenty years. Occasionally he sings backing vocals of them, occasionally for them – the project determines who is leading and who is backing. The song is about them. It’s about my gratitude for the people I have around me.’ Like Jaouad, who wrote the lyrics for the song, like designer Walter and, oh!, Gustaph’s husband Roen. That man is responsible for the act and the visuals. Gustaph is thus surrounded in the performance by his ‘chosen family’. By the house he founded. House of Gustaph.

And it’s all because of you.