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Raury Explains Why He Protested Dolce & Gabbana From the Runway BY MARK ANTHONY GREEN The Atlanta musician talks exclusively to GQ about why he whipped off his hoodie mid-runway to protest the fashion brand that had paid him to walk. The most expected thing happened during Dolce & Gabbana’s Spring-Summer ’18 runway show this past Saturday at Men's Fashion Week in Milan: A millennial millennial'd and spoke his mind. Raury, Atlanta native and hippie soul singer, walked in D&G's #millennial-themed fashion show—then went rogue at the very end. For the second season in a row, the Italian house brought in young social-media influencers to wear their clothes down the runway. Dolce & Gabbana, who've dealt with controversy before after Dolce's statements on gay parenthood, had taken fire recently for proudly dressing America's first lady, Melania Trump. In reaction to the criticism, the design duo launched a tongue-in-cheek meta-campaign dubbed “Boycott Dolce & Gabbana” across the label's social channels. In addition to a T-shirt bearing the slogan, they produced a commercial featuring a bunch of kids joyously “protesting” Dolce & Gabbana with Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana. As Dolce told Vogue before the show: “It’s irony! A joke! People use heavy words very easily these days. There is too much aggression." That was before Raury, walking in the finale, removed his Dolce & Gabbana bomber and hoodie to show words scrawled on his chest: PROTEST and DG GIVE ME FREEDOM and I AM NOT YOUR SCAPEGOAT. He disappeared immediately after leaving the runway, not joining the rest of the models for photos. I spoke with him Saturday night (before he left Italy early the next morning) to understand why he chose to protest the campaign from the runway—and to briefly see the world of fashion and celebrity through the eyes of a 21-year-old. GQ: Let’s start at square one. What did Dolce & Gabbana do that you felt was wrong? Raury: The “Boycott Dolce & Gabbana” T-shirt they created completely makes a mockery of what “boycotting” is. Boycotting is the people’s voice. A protest is the people’s voice. It has power. It changes things. When I came out to Milan for my first time walking on a fashion runway, ever, I was excited. I’m a stylish-ass young kid, but I don’t know everything about fashion. I knew nothing about the T-shirt until I was here. I had already agreed to walk for them. [The day before the show,] I Googled “Dolce & Gabbana” so that I could know who was who when I finally met them. I didn't want to be disrespectful to either one of them by calling them the wrong name. When I typed up their names, the first thing I saw was a headline on Fortune.com, “Dolce & Gabbana Is Trolling Melania Trump Critics with This $245 T-shirt.” National Post, AOL, etc. And then I saw a commercial featuring the boycott T-shirt, and it looked playful and lighthearted—it was a joke. It was a troll. Me, as a young man from Stone Mountain, Georgia, the birthplace of the Klu Klux Klan, I really felt this mockery of boycotting. Who knows, if boycotts didn’t happen, if Rosa Parks and M.L.K. didn’t step up…who knows if I would even exist. Boycotting matters. Boycotting is real. Dolce’s entire campaign says it’s not real. I know that if I walk out there and support or endorse anything that sits next to Trump—or support someone who even makes dinner for Trump or whatever—then that means that I support Trump also. I don’t support Trump. So I’m trapped, and I have to let people know that I don’t support Trump and I don’t support those who are trying to undermine the voice of the people. GQ: Stefano Gabbana posted many pictures of the T-shirt and campaign on his Instagram. They weren’t exactly hiding it. Did you guys know about it and what it stood for? R: This is my first time walking in a runway show. There are a lot of other kids here—and it was their first time walking in a runway show, too. Everyone was just excited. Everyone was blinded by the opportunity. First time being in Milan…Dolce & Gabbana giving us free clothes. It’s lit. This is Dolce’s “Millennial” campaign. But a lot of millennials didn't know that Dolce & Gabbana styles Melania Trump or had made this T-shirt mocking boycotting. But my nerdy ass looked into it. GQ: Why “I am not your scapegoat”? R:I wondered why I was picked to come out here and support them in a time when they’re going through some heat. So here I am, about to be like, Dolce & Gabbana is cool, but I didn’t know what they had done. And a lot of [models in the runway show] didn’t know what they had done. I felt like Dolce & Gabbana was literally trying to use the youth to wash their hands of any sort of heat from anyone who wants to protest against them. GQ: To be clear, when did you find out about them proudly dressing Melania Trump? R: I found out a day before. GQ: You were already in Milan? R: Yeah, already in Milan. Already done some of the shots and rehearsed through shit. Already made some cool friends and had a good time, and dapped up Dolce and dapped up Gabbana. I already had caught a vibe. “They had, like, a bar of security in front of the door. I had to run, like, 300 feet up and away from them.” GQ: So what ran through your head initially, right when you read that news blurb? R: I was up against so much confusion and fear. I was confused by the fact that none of us knew this. Did anybody care? Should I say something? Should I not say something? If I say something, will it ruin any opportunities in the fashion world because I’m unpredictable or some shit like that? I didn’t know if I was going to do it or not. But then there was a moment backstage when they started passing out the shirts, when [the models] didn’t have any context for what they meant. They were coming out of the shower and the robes, after getting makeup put on, to someone saying, “Hey, now put this on and let’s start Snapchatting.” They were making us represent something that only I knew what it was about. These kids are about to co-sign this, and they don’t even know what it means. They’re using the shit out of us. We’re not scapegoats. You are not about to wash your hands with us. They were really pushing for me to wear it, too, specifically. GQ: To be fair, anytime an influencer or celebrity partners with a brand, it’s a business relationship. They get paid and the brand gets a new representative. Isn’t this just the nature of agreeing to something like that? R: That shirt had so much heat on it, and the kids didn’t know that. And Dolce & Gabbana knew the kids didn’t know that. I knew. Why? Because I couldn’t type in Dolce & Gabbana without seeing a lot of negative energy around this shirt. It’s a whole different ball game. I believe our contract didn’t say anything about that. I agreed to walk on a runway and show up to some parties. Backstage, they kept approaching me and asking really particular questions. The most alarming one was when someone came up to me and said, “Hey, can you put on this shirt and say, 'Hi, my name is Raury and my heart belongs to this and this and Dolce & Gabbana.’” They tried to put words in my mouth. I have a soul, I have a mind. I don’t make my living off of shapeshifting and being what people tell me to be. So when that happened, I just hid in the bathroom. I didn’t want them to think they could manipulate me. I pulled aside some friends that I had made while in Milan. Ryan, Michael, Fucci…I just wanted to talk to them to see if I was tripping. GQ: Did they know by then, an hour before the show started, what the shirt meant? R: No. Michael didn’t know. Fucci and Ryan didn’t know. They were like, oh shit. I told them what I was thinking of doing, and they said I shouldn’t do it. They told me not to ruin it for myself. It’s us versus a giant corporation. GQ: What happened after you took your shirt off and did the reveal? R: I knew I had to get out of there. I didn’t know what could happen to me. I was dealing with a lot of energy. I was thinking: Oh shit, what does this mean? This is their city. They're some of the most powerful people in this city. This is fueling something against them, and who knows how ruthless they are? So when I walked out of there, I made a beeline to the exit and a security guard wrapped me up. I juked his dumb ass but got stopped at the door. I kept saying, "Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me. The only person I will talk to is my manager, Che." Che brought me my clothes—I took off all of the Dolce & Gabbana clothes I was wearing and tried to leave. They tried to stop us. They were trying to keep me in there. Why? I’m not stealing anything from you guys, you have everything you gave me. But they had, like, a bar of security in front of the door. I had to run, like, 300 feet up and away from them. GQ: Then you stopped and talked to a crowd of people, right? R: The sad thing is that even as I talked to them, I felt like they weren’t listening. I was afraid that, after all of that fear and maybe never working with a fashion brand again, what if it doesn’t even matter? GQ: Should designers and fashion get into politics? Or keep them completely separate if possible? R: Honestly, fashion, music, movies, art, people, construction workers, human beings, everyone mingles with politics at work. That’s life. Show your true colors. And if you show your true colors, shit like this might happen to you. That’s just the truth. If your message is cool, then it’s cool. But if it ain’t, millennials are going to come and let you know. And we won’t let up. GQ: Do you think Dolce & Gabbana had good intentions? R: It was very insulting to know that Dolce & Gabbana was selling all of this millennial, pro-forward shit, but everything that they’re doing and saying is a step backwards. They’re speaking for the 1950s. They’re saying our voice doesn’t matter, and they fuck with Melania and Trump. It’s sad. But the future is now. I actually felt like they were asking me to do it. A part of me was like, does Dolce know Raury is going to go up there and do that shit? [laughing] Was it a test to see if millennials weren’t about shit? That was another thing racing in my head. I felt like if nothing happened, then they would be right. And that T-shirt would be right. Dolce would think they can talk shit about people boycotting, support the first lady of a president who is very parallel to Hitler, and bring the millennials and put them in that shit and nothing would happen. But it’s basic math. One plus two equals three. And this is what will always happen.

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