Black, Queer Mental Health: How Vocalist Otis Junior Found Self-Love Through Community & Authenticity

This story is from Queer Kentucky ISSUE 01: Exploring Queer Mental Health featuring Otis Jr. You can purchase the magazine here.

photos by Bearykah Shaw

Editor’s note: This story is from Nov. of 2022. Queer Kentucky is posting some of our older stories that never quite made it to the web. And with an update to Otis’ career, we couldn’t help but share this again. Junior is currently in the final stages of his first solo album, :One Beautiful Something.” He says it’s his truest and most vulnerable work so far, and easily the most queer art he has ever made. Each Saturday this April, he is hosting a series of house shows in his childhood home where he built his first studio. These full circle events will celebrate this new stage in his career, and independently fund the final production costs. After reserving a spot through his website, guests will experience an intimate living room Q&A, a live performance of the new album, and a special take-home gift. Grab your spot at the show, here.

At 25 years old, Otis Junior never thought that he’d be taking on a record deal and embarking upon a life changing musical journey. Junior grew up in a Black family with two older sisters. Originally born in North Carolina, his family relocated to Louisville when he was nine for better opportunities and possibilities.

He awkwardly dated women throughout middle and high school. And though he deeply invested his emotions into these relationships, he always knew something felt queer about them.

At the age of 17, he and his best friend formed a hip-hop duo. He said that discovering and creating hip-hop (for fun) with his

best friend as a teenager gave him space to flourish and explore creatively.

“Music was definitely something I wanted to do but, I just was not ready for it at the time, mentally,” Junior said. “I look back on it now and laugh because we weren’t on any kind of serious path then. At that time for me, writing and singing was more of a secret for myself. I loved to do it, but I had to make sure nobody was around first.”

Unable to escape the pressures of life, Junior accepted an opportunity for a minority scholarship to attend college at the University of Kentucky, where he did one semester for psychology, but left due to an overall poor experience.

“I’m not a person who is anti-higher education necessarily but, in an environment where I was not being represented in any sort of way, it just didn’t feel like the place for me,” Junior said.

The process to keep up with his scholarship was ridiculously meticulous and daunting, which left him completely drained. He soon gave up on all of it completely. Even his social life was hindered within this predominantly white campus and struggled to find groups and places to fit into. All these stressors are what led him to realize that schooling just wasn’t for him, and he returned home to Louisville to figure out what would be next.

One night, as he played around and sung to himself, his sister stumbled upon him to acknowledge the melodious rhythm she had overheard. She then took it upon herself to sign him up for his first ever open mic night. He performed two songs: “No Diggity” by Blackstreet and Dr. Dre and a song by Amy Winehouse.

During one of the few open mic nights he played, Junior met local music producer, Dr. Dundiff, around December 2015. The two immediately began working together, and creating amazing hits, including “Me Vs. Me, Reaching,” and “The 1.”

A music career took off so quickly that Junior barely had time to catch his breath.

“I am so super introverted that I am almost always in my own world wherever I am,” Junior said. “It wasn’t my first time performing in life because I had done theater and chorus before, despite being a very shy and introverted person. So, the aspect of performing wasn’t the most foreign thing to me, but I can only remember thinking about making sure that I gave the performance that I intended and that I conveyed what I intended. It was something that I had been working on for a long time and had been doing for fun privately. I just wanted to make sure it was good.”

Junior said that he felt that music was his natural calling, but for a long time, he didn’t think that he deserved success. In February 2016, he and Dr. Dundiff finalized a record deal from Germany, where he had a growing fanbase. During this time, he formed his current band, The Jesse Lees. The band slowly took shape and developed their sound, which they describe as “psychedelic rock, soul, and hip-hop.” Junior has been putting all his emotions into something “new new,” as he phrased it, for his fans that he hopes will showcase his most true and queer self.

“I really struggled with avoiding imposter syndrome for a while because I just couldn’t really view myself as a professional musician,” he said. “Everything up until now has felt very reactive.”

Although this will be his first solo project, he is not quite prepared to articulate exactly what it is yet. Junior has struggled over the years to understand how everything has somehow fallen into place around him. He is currently working for WFPK, a 24-hour listener-supported, noncommercial radio station in Louisville. He signs off every show by saying, “tell someone that you love that you love them, and don’t forget to tell yourself.”

Loving himself by taking care of mind and body has now become one of Juniors saving graces, but this wasn’t always the case.

“Meditation has remained one of the biggest things that I can lean on for stability,” he said. “Exercising has really become a bigger one for me as well. I’ve noticed how different my mental state becomes once I’m breaking a sweat versus sitting sedentary. I can see my mind following suit.”

Ashley Ertel, LCSW, of The Delta Group, fell into queer community and client care through various social networks and personal connections. Ertel provides affordable sessions to her clients so she may operate through a lens of support, not finances. In Kentucky, Ertel has found that Black queer communities are constantly living in fear.

“Their day-to-day looks like ‘How can I get this thing [my dreams] accomplished but

also be safe,’” she said. “I help my clients become future focused, not crisis driven. You cannot operate if you have a value of honesty but are unable to live within that fully because you must hide this part of yourself.”

Over the years, Junior’s professional career has intensified his anxiety. He felt a tremendous lack of satisfaction from past projects because none of them were self-started, intentional pursuits. Junior struggled with finding his sense of self. “I just sort of hated myself,” he said. “I just felt like, ‘well, I’m not good enough for this. I’m not worth anything so why do I deserve these things?’”

Despite the severe weight he started taking on mentally, he continued moving forward with his music. Early in his career, he said he experienced nausea before shows, and explained it as a “bodily reaction to uncertainty.”

Junior was very avoidant as an artist and said he was never sure of himself as a person. This created a ton of pressure and confusion for him, which eventually put him deep into the throes of some of his worse depressive episodes. The worst symptom of his anxiety was inaction – sitting and thinking about doing something all day but never being able to do it.

Junior’s battle with anxiety and depression was a long, treacherous one but he had supportive and loving friends and family that he used their love as a blueprint on how to love himself.

Junior explained this love through the words of RuPaul. She always says, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?” Though he understood the importance of self-love, he’d surrounded himself with relationships that mirrored what that love should look like, he couldn’t grapple with how exactly to give that type of love to himself.

Kamaria Batiste, LPCA, at Intuitive Insights Counseling Services, has been continuously educating and working to familiarize herself with the complications of anxiety and importance of self-love for five years. Batiste specializes in trauma and trauma resilient care for her patients.

She operates through a lens of transparency and vulnerability so that her clients feel seen and can connect with her more easily. “Learn how to tune into your needs,” she said.

“Don’t be afraid because it is necessary to get the need met and find whatever it is that makes sense to help with whatever you’re trying to do. There are spaces for you and your specific needs. Whatever they may be. It doesn’t need to look like traditional therapy. Know your needs and be okay with seeking them out. And don’t put pressure on yourself to figure those things out either. Be okay with yourself until you can find the thing that works best for you.”

In early winter 2019, Junior finally realized his needs. He and a group of his close friends took a trip to Nashville to see Noname, an American rapper, poet, and record producer from Chicago. Noname specializes in neo-soul and hip-hop recited in poetic style. She is an outspoken activist whose following consists of radical individuals mirroring herself. Junior said that something within him changed during that trip. He felt an overwhelming sense of welcome, acceptance, and community when he was introduced to a group of Black queer people at the concert.

“There was so much love, and the energy was just…I felt more comfortable than I had ever felt in any setting before,” he said.

When he returned home, Junior immediately made a Tinder profile, which allowed him to come out to himself first. He later came out publicly at the end of June that year through a very nonchalant Instagram post that allowed him to grow comfortable with himself throughout the rest of the year.

“Alright, let’s make this quick/clear: queer af,” the post said. “If you’re looking for someone to judge, judge your mother. Happy Pride. It’s still June, right?”

Junior always had a supportive queer community around him, but the social conditioning he suffered through for years completely blocked him from living out his queer experience. Once he finally allowed himself to be free publicly, he was able to find love in his current partner of two years.

“The trip made me realize that I’m not a super weird person that needs to be ‘fixed,’” he said. Batiste believes that therapists can do more for Black queer mental health issues by getting in

touch with their more spiritual side as this has helped her to better understand the holistic person and go beyond the surface.

“Something I’ve noticed is that almost all queer people feel unseen to some degree, but the Black subculture is even worse. People tend to blanket queer people and think they go through the same things, but this is completely untrue. Therapists need to understand generational trauma and how conditioning is passed down. Let’s get to a place where we can identify what we’re feeling, validate what we’re feeling, and FEEL what we’re feeling. Then channel those through healthy outlets. Who are YOU? Not what your trauma tried to make you into.”

Through finding this love and acceptance for both him and his partner, he was able to learn how to check in with himself. He knew that he’d never treat anyone how he’d once treated himself.

Junior added the more he’s learned to love himself, the more he’s brought so much love and good fortune into his life. Awareness has helped him overcome depression, but more than anything, it’s been meditation that’s helped as it recenters and grounds him through those tough moments.

Although he, like most of us, still struggles with mental health, he’s learned how to channel darker times into healthy expulsions of emotion. At 31-years-old, this spicy Aries finally said he feels that now is in  the beginning of his life and he’s the one leading the rhythm.

“Everyone grows up with their own trauma, which is an idea that has become more normalized with time,” Junior said. “But, I do feel like the traumas within the queer community aren’t looked at in the same way. I’ve closed a lot of doors of my identity just based on witnessing how others in society move. If I grew up in a naturally more affirming environment, I’m sure I would have less mental hurdles to pass.”

Ervina Desaussure, family therapist at Metropolitan Mental and Sexual Health Center, said there is a dual identity role in daily life, where Black queer people are seen as Black but may not necessarily see them as queer.

“Black therapists don’t understand queerness,” she said. “Queer therapists don’t necessarily know how to address race.”

She added that there are not nearly enough therapists in the state of Kentucky that focus on or understand these issues and believes it to be necessary for all therapists to undergo training for both race and queerness in a way that intersects and shows the trauma connections between both, historically. Desaussure has a message to all Black queer individuals struggling with these issues:

“Don’t quit. Hold your therapist accountable. If they list that they work with racial and queer issues, then hold them to that. The client shouldn’t have to teach the therapist. The therapist should be responsible for going out and getting that knowledge for themselves.”

Junior himself is a resilient individual. He uses his music career to advocate and empower Black queer individuals. Junior’s existence alone is proof that Black queer individuals are beautiful, strong people that matter.

“There are things that Black people are told and queer people are told that need to be broken down. “Society conditions us to view both through a very toxic lens. The more I learn about my Blackness and queerness, I understand how untrue and dangerous the stereotypes are. Seeing Black queer people for who they truly are is paramount in addressing their mental health.”