Please Don't Stop The Music: The Quare(ing) Work of Anthoy C. Williams II as (Tonex)

"Please Don't Stop The Music" analyzes the rise and eventual ostracism of Anthony Charles Williams II, also known as Tonex, who disrupted heteronormative gender and sexual politics through his musical artistry, clothing, and embodiment as a black male gospel artist in the early 21st century. In response to the Afro-American Religious History Unit's 2026 theme of "Black Religion, Music, Sexuality, and Afro-Futurism," this paper raises gospel music as a site of both religious constraint and quare liberatory potential. Covering the years between 2000 and 2011, this work offers a historical account of a career that constitutes a watershed moment for contemporary Afro-Protestantism, one discussed largely in popular cultural terms amongst Black Pentecostals and that lends itself to the academic study of Black Religion.