“I am actually grateful that my career didn't pop off when I thought I was entitled to have it pop off,” Billy Porter tells Ebro on the latest episode of The Message. “Because I was not ready for the calling that is on my life. There's a purpose. There's a ministry. It's untraditional.” We know singer and actor Billy Porter as an otherworldly talent—a muse of the fashion industry and a voice on the front lines of LGBTQ+ empowerment—but to let the 54-year-old tell it, self-assurance came gradually. “Words have power,” Porter says. “All I said was, ‘I just want to work.’ I was not specific about what kind of work, who I was inside the work, what I wanted to do with the work—you got to get specific with your words.” As he releases his latest album, Black Mona Lisa, Porter has made a playlist for The Message containing songs from a diverse array of voices, like Kendrick Lamar, Saucy Santana, Yolanda Adams, Kelly Clarkson and Jessica Molaskey—some of whom speak directly to his theatre background, but all of whom speak to his soul.