Madonna and Dominican rapper Tokischa rekindle their Pride season spark with a reinvention of the Queen of Pop’s hit dance track “Hung Up” and a music video that is raising more eyebrows than the infamous MTV VMA kiss!
Pride Season 2022 will be marked not only for the fact that after 2-years of quarantine it was also the first time that everywhere across the country the LGBTQ+ community came out in person to show their resolute and celebrate but also Madonna took the opportunity to herald the release of her greatest remixes compilation Finally Enough Love, an unprecedented achievement for an artist who has had 50 number ones on the dance charts. In her more than 40-year career, The Queen of Pop has continuously evolved artistically, and musically, and always benefits from pushing the boundaries of social norms and expectations.
In 2022, Madonna proved she was still as relentlessly a rebel as ever. To promote the pending release of the greatest hits package, she treated a gathering of fans to a special live performance in New York City, and in honor of PRIDE season, invited several of the most irreverent OUT artists in the industry to share the stage with her, while performing a setlist of some of her greatest hits — reworked and reimagined. Madonna twerked like the best of them in her duet with queer artist Saucy Santana performing “MATERIAL GOWRRLLLLLLLL!”, but it was her collaboration with the provocative Latina rapper Tokischa who joined her for a reworking of “Hung Up” that drew the most attention.
As the song drew to its climax the pair engaged in a deep tongue kiss, that left many in the audience gasping! The song itself is also radically repurposed from its original nu-disco flare to a bass-heavy reggaeton Dem Bow drug anthem with Madonna expressing her infatuation with Tokischa, who is leaving her “high” and hung up! The pair cavorted sensuously on stage together, before moving in for the forceful lip-lock which paled in comparison to the smooch the Mercurial Girl shared with Britney Spears on the MTV VMA stage years before.
Throughout her career, Madonna has always played up sexuality and sexual roles, and famously released an entire photo essay that celebrated the virtues of same-sex attraction, so the flagrant display was far from surprising to anyone. The two also appeared to recapture the intensity of the moment for the music video to the track which has been since released as a single. During the filming of the video, which was shot in Washington Heights to capture the authenticity of it all, police were called to the set due to noise complaints as the production carried on into the late hours.
HUNG UP ON TOKISCHA | by Madonna & Tokischa | is available to download on iTunes and additional digital music store outlets. Download from iTunes here.
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