RuPaul's incisive proclamation, "You're born naked; everything else is drag," has come to define the '90s drag revival that he set into motion. But we rarely recognize the significance of such moments in real time. So it's ok that most people don't (yet) recognize the day in February 1998 that gender illusionist Dréd (nee, Mildred Gerestant) put black folks on notice that drag kings were about to take pop culture's center stage.

It was, of course, black history month, and New York City's reigning R&B station, Kiss 98.7, was celebrating with a Superfly look-a-like contest. "Of all things," Dréd sighs when remembering the moment. "So I was like, 'I'm gonna teach 'em a lesson."

Dréd had been in Manhattan's drag scene for a couple of years by that point and had the pimp daddy thing pretty well down. So she entered the contest, as a male rather than as a drag king, and won second place. She waited until the ceremony's close to explain to the crowd that her biology didn't match the gender expression she'd chosen that day.

The response was predictable: First a gasping, pregnant silence, and then applause. "It was scary," Dréd laughs, "but I am just so proud of myself for doing that."

It's easy to rattle off more reasons for Dréd to be proud. She's been showcased on MTV and graced the pages of Vibe. She performs all over the world for audiences that range from Pride parties to baby showers. And she's currently featured in Gabriel Baur's drag king documentary Venus Boyz, which is drawing raves as it sweeps the international film festival circuit.

Her accomplishments are indicative of the king scene's grand emergence.

Women prominently explored drag as far back as the days of Harlem Renaissance jazz pianist Gladys Bentley. But the drag king movement's heyday began in 1996 in the East Village's Club Casanova, where Dréd and "kinging" pioneers such as Mo B. Dick (nee, Mo Fischer-who appeared as a king in John Waters' 1998 film Pecker) captivated the city's lesbian community. The club's popularity quickly drew the attention of New York City's nationally influential media. And the Manhattan kings parlayed that attention into national tours while using the Internet to lead the way in creating a global kinging network.

Today, a Columbus, Ohio troupe hosts an annual conference that draws thousands of women and new troupes are popping up in every major urban locale. Meanwhile, gender commentator Judith Halberstam's seminal 1998 work The Drag King Book is fast becoming required reading for young, hip lesbians.

Dréd is arguably this burgeoning circuit's most popularly recognized performer. But that's not the only reason she stands out. Dréd is also one of few women of color, particularly African Americans, who have taken to the king stage.

"I just don't know," sighs Hades, an African American king who helped found Washington, D.C.'s troupe, when asked about the paucity of black faces in the scene. "At first I got a lot of, 'Oh, that's not a black thing to do.'" The skeptics, mostly gay-identified, couldn't seem to offer Hades (nee, Erica Adegbite) the same license given to men in drag. "You wanna be one of those transsexuals?'" Hades remembers hearing.

It's not that black folks, gay or straight, are unfamiliar with the concept of gender illusion. The elaborate rituals of the "ball" scene-which was pushed into popular consciousness by the groundbreaking film Paris is Burning, but dates all the way back to the lavish affairs of 1920s Harlem-have long provided space for sissy boys and butch dykes to express gender in whatever way they see fit on a given night. And legions of black men dominate the drag queen scenes of most gay ghettos. So drag is far from alien to black gay circles.

Meanwhile, RuPaul's crossover appeal laid the foundation for traditionally masculine black men, from Wesley Snipes to Dennis Rodman, to transgress gender norms in the name of entertainment as well. Rodman's behavior never brought his manhood into question-his "bad boy" moniker still referred as much to his brutish on-court style as his off-court antics. And while these individuals were often dismissed as aberrant, their combined exposure nevertheless made it acceptable for straight black people to at least be entertained by, if not participate in, drag performance.

Still, while both Dréd and Hades say the ranks of black kings are growing (the Columbus troupe, H.I.S. Kings, boasts several black members, for instance), the genre's booming popularity has made few inroads into black environs. "There's Dréd and there's a few other people," Hades shrugs, "but we cater to a crossover audience. ... I don't see a lot of black women rushing to this."

Ultimately, that may simply be a function of the profoundly segregated nature of gay life in America. Kinging has by and large grown out of clubs and parties associated with white lesbians-places few black women frequent.

Moreover, however welcome gender illusion has become in black entertainment, drag king performances follow a distinctly different ethic than most other forms. They are in fact less about illusion and more about commentary. RuPaul has never shied away from similarly highlighting the politics inherent in his art, but the political ramifications of most drag queens' performances remain implicit. Not so with drag kings.

"Masculinity in itself is a kind of performance," offers Dréd. Through her interpretations of hip-hop artists such as P. Diddy, she's "trying to send a message about the misogyny and sexism [being performed by] these characters. ... For me, drag is not just dressing up in the opposite sex."

In Dréd's most acclaimed piece she morphs on stage from gender to gender, fluidly moving from the garb of "blacksploitation" characters to Grace Jones-esque androgyny to a bikini clad and unmistakably female form. "I like sharing the transformation," she says. "So much 'mask' is out there. People are afraid to show who they really are."

Her acts typically climax when she reaches into her bikini bottoms and pulls out a shiny red apple, from which she then takes a decidedly sexual bite. "Every time I bite that apple," she explains with a devilish laugh, "I reclaim my power as a woman."

Hades' act is similarly forthright about its politics. When he started out (in character, Hades identifies as a male rather than as a woman doing drag), he tried to avoid gender politics by casting himself as a softy.

"I said, ok, me working in a women's center, I don't want to do any songs that are misogynistic," Hades remembers. "So I would stay away from songs that would bash women. I would joke and say I was more of the whiney guy. The guy who just got kicked to the curb. The guy who really liked the woman but had a hard time saying so."

After establishing himself, he decided he wanted to have more fun with the act-to cash in on hip-hop and R&B's big pimpin' craze. So Hades started doing artists like Sysqo, but added hyper-sexualized male back-up dancers as stand-ins for the rap video "booty girls."

"That five minutes onstage," he explains, "or three hours prep time, allows me to explore that male side and how it would be-to have fun being a male. There's so many things that men can do that women can't, and you get to notice all of that when you're in drag."

Dréd is working on another character that will comment on gender dynamics within Haitian communities. A first generation Haitian immigrant, she's struggled to find common ground with her father on her fluid gender identity-"He loves me," she sighs, "he just doesn't understand"-and plans to incorporate their troubles into her repertoire.

That's if she finds time in between touring and lecturing on her road to becoming the next RuPaul. She and Hades are both confident kinging is still on the incline, and that more women of color will ultimately join. King troupes are militantly egalitarian, making space on the same stage for both stars and novices. This, as much as anything, has helped fuel the genre's growth. "So African American women will start seeing this and seeing themselves in it," Hades predicts. "That's all it takes. People saying, 'I can get up there and do that.'"

Visit Dréd's website at here.

Find out more about Kai Wright at: www.kaiwright.com.