‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’: RuPaul Himself Chooses the Lip Sync Songs
Since it first premiered in 2009, RuPaul’s Drag Race and its growing international spinoffs have seen hundreds of lip sync performances. The Lip Sync For Your Life is a foundational part of the Drag Race experience. And on the American version of the show, RuPaul himself is extremely hands-on with the selection process of the songs that are used in the lip sync battles.
The ‘Lip Sync For Your Life’ is an essential part of ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’
From the first-ever battle to “Supermodel (You Better Work)” to grandiose finale performance in front of hundreds of people in a packed theater, lip syncs on RuPaul’s Drag Race are as competitive as they are entertaining.
Most episodes culminate in a Lip Sync For Your Life between two (or more) queens to determine who will shantay and who will sashay away. In more recent years, seasons culminate in a Lip Sync For the Crown tournament, as the winner is determined by who wins the most lip sync battles. And on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, queens Lip Sync For Your Legacy for a cash tip and the power to eliminate one of their fellow competitors.
Over the years, there have been plenty of unforgettable lip sync moments, from gag-worthy reveals to snafus like Valentina’s mask and Asia O’Hara’s finale butterfly massacre.
RuPaul is involved hands-on in choosing the lip sync songs
When it comes to choosing which songs are used for lip syncs, RuPaul himself is more involved in the process than many would think. Drag Race executive producer Tom Campbell spoke to The WOW Report in August 2022 about how songs are chosen for the lip syncs. He credited the show’s music supervision team for their work behind the scenes, and noted that RuPaul is involved with the process of choosing a track.
“He will reject songs because they’re the wrong tempo, they don’t build… there’s all of these factors he’s thinking about,” Campbell said. “Back in the iPod days, when RuPaul gave you an iPod that he had loaded with music, it was a gift from God. He is truly a Ph.D. in pop culture, especially when it comes to music.”
Licensing songs for ‘Drag Race’ has become a big business
In the early days of the show, licensing songs for lip syncs was no easy task with a small budget and no name recognition. Lack of proper licensing, for example, is what led to Season 1 of Drag Race being unavailable to watch for so long and dubbed “The Lost Season.”
Tom Campbell told The WOW Report about how difficult it was for the Drag Race team to secure licensing rights to certain songs when the show first premiered on LogoTV back in 2009.
“We were this little show that nobody knew. We were trying to get clearances, and it was really tough,” he said.
As the show skyrocketed in popularity and started racking up Emmy Awards over the next decade, the music supervision team had to do less reaching out, and instead, artists started coming to them. Paramount Global’s Senior Vice President of Creative Music Strategy, Rochelle Holguin Cappello, explained how the song choice process has changed.
“The number of artists and labels that approach us has grown to a weekly cadence,” she said. “The pitches include A-list artists just as frequently as emerging acts. We’ve been told so many times that it would be an artist’s dream to have their music performed on the show.”
