Akbar Khan
Memoir
Truth or Dare: Madonna and Me
September 29th, 2026
Material Girl
I began to learn how much I love words and language because of all the financial puns. And as she was an empowered woman, I learned to be an empowered queer.
Ray of Light
It was the height of my coke addiction. I watched it on a TV hanging from the ceiling in one of Baltimore’s iconic gay bars—which would also be the scene of Joey + Akbi Secret Affair II. I thought, “There’s something else out there…beautiful, empowering, ecstatic…and drugs aren’t helping me find it.”
Nothing Really Matters
At first, being the literal and naive thinker I am, when I heard this song title, I thought, “How dare she? EVERYTHING really matters.” Then I realized she meant none of the BS matters—only love.
2012 Super Bowl halftime show: Because it's just a fucking amazing performance!
Artist of the Year speech: It inspired me to “write the writing I wanted to write.” Her words about finding herself, writing the music she wanted to write, and believing in yourself stayed with me.
Read Madonna Made Me…ME!, my story of seeing Blond Ambition from the second row.
Also in Music:
- Like a Virgin — 1984 MTV VMAs — she shamelessly rolls around in her underwear, and I started shedding my shame about being queer because of it.
- Cherish — a beautifully directed Herb Ritts video full of Madonna’s joy in singing and dancing. I knew I could find that joy in dancing (not singing, lol) and in writing. Read Herb Ritts ↗
- Vogue — music video
- Express Yourself — Blond Ambition — because it’s just another fucking great performance!
- Vogue — 1990 MTV VMAs
- Holiday — Blond Ambition / Truth or Dare
- Sooner or Later — 1991 Academy Awards — another amazing fucking performance, and a hilarious pop-culture reference: “Talk to me, Gen. Schwarzkopf—tell me all about it! Whooooo!”
- I Feel So Free
- 2012 Super Bowl Halftime Show
- Artist of the Year speech
- Like a Prayer
- Madonna, Britney Spears & Christina Aguilera — the kisses were SO SCANDALOUS, but at that point in my queer journey I thought nothing of them. And it was another just fucking amazing performance!
- Music — during my coke days, it reminded me that the first high I experienced was dancing vigorously for three to four hours a night, three to four days a week. Those were my “halcyon days,” the best two and a half years of my life—because my body was meant to MOVE!
- Express Yourself — 1989 MTV VMAs — a harbinger of the amazing performances and the video of the same song to come. Germaine Greer once said Madonna wasn’t a good dancer. I was livid.