Madonna Makes Out With Tokischa During NYC Pride Week

June 24, 2022 E Jazz Reporter

Why take a bow when you can take a dembow?

Madonna speaks onstage during the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards at Barclays Center on Sept. 12, 2021 in Brooklyn.
Theo Wargo/GI for MTV/ViacomCBS

Longtime LGBTQ ally and honorary gay Madonna, whose Finally Enough Love remix album just dropped, celebrated New York Pride at Terminal 5 on Thursday (June 23) night at World of Women’s NFT.NYC event. Not only did the pop icon – who has recently ventured into the NFT space, covering Billboard’s World of Women NFT magazine cover – bring out a gaggle of top-tier drag queens for her NYC Pride celebration, but she tapped iconoclasts in the making such as Tokischa and Saucy Santana to help celebrate a month that separates the dilettantes from the true blues.

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There were shades of the 2003 VMAs at the NYC venue when the Dominican rapper and the Queen of Pop shared the stage on a dembow remix of M’s top 10 Hot 100 hit “Hung Up.” First, Tokischa took the stage rapping her Rosalía collab “Linda” before Madonna and “Hung Up” made an appearance. The strands of the songs began to meld together and the two (who have teased a collaboration before) began to gyrate closer and closer until the seemingly inevitable make out – and it was certainly more of a make out than a kiss – commenced. Taking it one step further, Tokischa – honoring the pop gods who paved the way — knelt down before the Queen and put her face in the holiest of holies during the late-night set. “It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it,” Madonna quipped after the heady moment.

Tokischa wasn’t the only newcomer to join Madge on stage in Manhattan, though. Saucy Santana assisted Madonna during a mash-up of his DGAF track “Material Girl” and her No. 1 smash “Material Girl,” demonstrating an effortless comfort with commanding a sizable venue’s audience.

Additionally, a slew of renowned drag queens joined Madonna at Terminal 5, including Drag Race champ Bob the Drag Queen – who busted out “4 Minutes” for about four seconds with Madonna’s son David Banda – as well as NYC mainstay Pixie Aventura and another Drag Race winner, Violet Chachki, who performed an astonishing aerial act on a chair to “Justify My Love” before Madonna even took the stage.

Before she left, Madonna was joined by all her special guests – rappers, drag queens, family – for a run-through of a song she hasn’t done live in a minute, the title track to her 2009 compilation Celebration. If NYC Pride, in a post-COVID world, wasn’t feeling like a full-on party earlier this week, it certainly was by the time Madonna left the stage (as well as Tokischa’s lips) at Terminal 5 on Thursday night.

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