Billy Porter will be appearing at The Met as his authentic self. Deal with it.

Billy Porter is coming to The Met Philadelphia on Thursday, June 1, as his authentic self to perform songs from his forthcoming album, Black Mona Lisa.

To show up any other way, he said, is to fail.

Porter intimately understands this. He released his first R&B album in 1997. Like typical R&B crooners of the time, he sported a high-top fade and was romantic with women in his music videos. He presented straight, but still, he said, the industry rejected him because he was gay. He left mainstream music for the theater, later winning a Grammy and a Tony for his role as Lola in Cyndi Lauper’s Kinky Boots The Musical and an Emmy for Pray Tell in Pose.

He’s back now, making pop music his way.

“I got a second chance at my mainstream music dream,” Porter said on a recent Friday morning from a Milwaukee hotel, in the midst of a six-week, 25-city tour. He’s sleepy yes, but he’s not tired. His tone is powerful, although is voice is stretched to a whisper. “The music industry came back to me and I’m doing it now on my own terms.”

Porter wrote 13 of the 14 songs on Black Mona Lisa, set to debut on Republic Records this summer. The lyrics celebrate his journey to self-awareness and self-acceptance. Philadelphia is Porter’s 22nd stop for the one-night-only show. I talked to Porter about the meaning behind the name Black Mona Lisa, fashion, spirituality and what he says to critics who doubt his ability to play literary great James Baldwin in an upcoming biopic.

Answers are edited for clarity.

I tried to be all of the things the gatekeepers told me I needed to be. I was good at it. The industry was so homophobic they still came for me. Even though I was able to pull it off, they still came for me. But that was the best news because I failed as somebody else at the end of the day. That was a moment of reflection for me. I did not come here for that. God did not put me on this earth for that. God bless you. I’m out. That was the beginning of my understanding that my truth is the only way.

I hooked up with [songwriter] Justin Tranter. I call Justin the “Queer Berry Gordy.” Mona Lisa came a year after working together. We were sitting in a group and the name fell out of the sky. The room fell silent for like a good 30 seconds and we wrote the song in 20 minutes. I call it the flex. I’ve never spoken of myself in my music. I grew up in the Pentecostal Church where we weren’t allowed to honor ourselves [for fear] that God will take our gifts away if we have any little bit of hubris whatsoever. I [mixed up] knowing my worth with not being able to talk about my worth, and that kept me stagnant. Black Mona Lisa is relevant in the past, present, future, and always. It’s my legacy. I’m naming it and claiming it.

I was watching Oprah several years back, and she had Iyanla Vanzant and Maya Angelou on and they said, “If you switch your intention from ego to service, everything works out.” What does that service look like for me in this industry? It was [opening up to] my queerness, the very thing people were telling me was my liability. The choice was not easy. But I have grown into it. There is a power in that.

My grandmother was a seamstress. She made Vogue and Chanel patterns. I grew up with the understanding that dressing well is a credit to my race. I’ve always been a fashion person. What I didn’t know was the impact Kinky Boots would essentially have on my fashion evolution. I didn’t know that the de-gendering of fashion was part of my service. I ran away from drag queen roles because I thought queerness would be liability. But you know what became my biggest moment on Broadway? Playing a drag queen.

Ty Hunter is my stylist, and he’s really brilliant in understanding the duality of the masculine and the feminine. That is at the center of this show. We are using up-and-coming designers like Dope Tavio, Harry Halim, and Steve Sells. [Steve] does those elegant, drapey, high-class gowns with silk organza. He did a hand-painted gown for me that says, “Respect our humanity.” I went back to him and asked him to make me another one. This one says, “The change has already happened.”

I did a lot of work for Broadway Dreams, a Philadelphia summer theater camp that I was one of the founding teachers of. I did a couple of orchestra concerts for Philly Pops back in the day. In 2007, the Suzanne Roberts Theatre opened with Being Alive, a show I directed starring Leslie Odom Jr. (Purlie Victorious) and Patina Miller (Power Book III: Raising Kanan) and featuring the music of the late, great Stephen Sondheim. Philly is a lot of fun. I have a lot of good memories being here.

It’s easy for people to skim the surface. I show up and I fulfill the assignment as an actor. Pray Tell is not James Baldwin. And I am not Pray Tell. You know what’s the most disappointing, yet not surprising, is that [the criticism] comes from Black men. Who else but me? Do you want Don Cheadle? You want someone straight? You want someone who doesn’t wear dresses on the red carpet and embarrass you? Someone who is going to make you feel better about your internalized homophobia? I stand on [Baldwin’s] shoulders. The rest of you can take several seats.

Billy Porter will appear at the Met Philadelphia, 858 N. Broad Street, on Thursday, June 1, at 8 p.m. Tickets are available here.