The legendary RuPaul has remained a pop culture icon for the last quarter century, doing more to introduce the art of drag to a wider audience than anyone else on earth. He is also an established recording artist with 11 albums under his belt, from 1993’s Supermodel of the World through to last year’s American. “First thing in the morning, I have music on,” he exclaimed recently over the phone. “It is my life.” With his long-running reality TV competition “RuPaul’s Drag Race” returning this Thursday (March 22) on VH1 for its tenth season, the 57-year-old spoke with us about the albums he’s currently got on rotation.

Booty Luv: Boogie 2nite

For the past 10 years, I’ve been listening to this girl group called Booty Luv nonstop. Their 2007 album Boogie 2nite is a masterpiece—so fabulous. These two English girls cover many songs—Mary J. Blige, Luther Vandross—and they have a couple of originals on there too. It’s dance music, and they can sang. It’s just popping. I was just listening to it yesterday and was amazed at how fucking brilliant it is.

They had some success in Europe, but it didn’t get much play over here. Our country’s afraid of sexuality. When you see People’s “Sexiest Man Alive,” it’s always a man that has zero sexuality, because it reflects who we are as people. When you get into moving your body below the hips—disco, dance, and feeling so free—that threatens our puritanical culture. It threatens who we are as Americans, our views towards sexuality, and our relationship to our bodies. To get lost in the spirit of dancing—really getting the holy spirit—scares the fuck out of people, because they can’t control it. We’re such a primitive culture. Not just in America, but we as humans on this planet haven’t come very far. We’ve done amazing work on our smartphones, but we’re still fucking right out of the cave when it comes to our hearts and our consciousness.

Dancing was always a part of my life. When I was 6 years old, I would follow my sisters to their friends’ house, where they would play records. I’d beg them to let me come over, and they’d say, “The only way you can come is if you dance.” So I would dance my ass off, and they would laugh. I haven’t stopped dancing since.

Chet Baker: My Funny Valentine

I love jazz, and I like to drive out to the beach in L.A. in my convertible on Sundays and listen to Chet. It makes me feel so chic, smart, and clever. My entrance into jazz was the pop jazz of the 1970s and ’80s—Ramsey Lewis’ Sun Goddess, Chuck Mangione’s Feels So Good, George Benson, Donald Byrd. In my twenties, I discovered the great jazz vocalists. In my thirties, my ear had ripened enough so I could get on board with Coltrane, Miles, all of those guys. Weirdly, though, I didn’t discover Chet Baker’s music until about 10 years ago. The heartbreak of his voice and the beauty of the music—I just can’t get enough of it.

Some thought Ryan Gosling’s performance in La La Land was like a bad Chet Baker impression. Did you see that movie?

I saw it on an airplane, and I wasn’t that mad at it. But I’ve been spoiled—we’ve all been spoiled—by Baz Luhrmann. He revolutionized how to watch a musical. You can never go back to the old style anymore. Can you imagine La La Land if Baz Luhrmann had done it? It would’ve been wonderful.

I’ve been listening to this album since it came out in 1982. It was produced by the brothers Gibb, the boys from down under. I could start crying thinking about them, because they’re so fucking amazing. This album is just exquisite. They clearly listened to all of Dionne’s Burt Bacharach/Hal David catalog, because they mirrored some of the chords used on those records, so when you listen to it for the first time it sounds very familiar. That’s because Barry Gibb and his brothers knew what they were doing.

I performed at Andy Gibb’s 30th birthday party in Miami in 1986, and I met the brothers when I was doing morning drive radio in New York in 1997. We had a big party for the 20th anniversary of Saturday Night Fever, and they were there. I brought in all of my Bee Gees CDs, and they were gobsmacked—they couldn’t believe I was such a big fan. Afterwards, Barry Gibb found my phone number and left a message on my machine saying, “That interview was really lovely.” He couldn’t have been sweeter. I still have that message somewhere.