The Top 10 ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Finalist Verses

Kevin O'Keeffe
7 min readApr 20, 2020
Spoiler: Roxxxy’s verse is not on this list.

Welcome to a special one-off Top 10 ranking, brought to you by Patreon subscriber Sacher! As part of the Drag Race Rewind project, $10-tier subscribers get to request one Top 10 ranking per month of anything RuPaul’s Drag Race-related. Sacher’s request was for a Top 10 of the best finalists’ verses in the now-regular final week’s remix challenge. If you’d like to request your own ranking, as well as getting recaps and power rankings of classic Drag Race seasons delivered to your inbox every week, consider subscribing to the project! (Or, if you’re already subscribed, consider upping your monthly contribution!)

Since its proper introduction in All Stars 2, the finalist remix challenge has become a fan favorite, if not the fan favorite, RuPaul’s Drag Race task. “Read U Wrote U” was so popular, so beloved, so instantly memeable, that the challenge concept was quickly introduced into the main show as well, starting with season 9’s “Category Is.” Those first two performances were excellence, and showed how a singing/rapping challenge — long a bugaboo for Drag Race — could be a highlight instead. This later inspired these kinds of challenges earlier and earlier, like season 12’s opening “I’m That Bitch” and “You Don’t Know Me” performances.

But the finalist performances are in a league of their own, and thus make the best comparison against each other. Who pulled out their most impressive performance at the final leg? Who stunned us so much that we went into the finale rooting for them? Here, I present my picks for the top 10 finalist verses in Drag Race herstory.

(Note that this does not include verses from non-finalist songs, which means no “Break Up (Bye Bye),” no “Drag Up Your Life,” and so on.)

10. Detox, “Read U Wrote U”

I’ve said my fair share about how hilarious parts of this verse are (“If Ru’s #1, I’m #2!”), and it’s comforting to know Katya agrees with me on it. But when I sat down to write this, any version of this list that didn’t include Detox’s verse felt wrong. Yes, she champions her own mediocrity. Yes, she says she understands if you don’t like her. Yes, she promises a slow verse and proceeds to deliver a relatively fast verse. But this verse is iconic because of all that, not despite it. And when she hits that “X”? Nothing like it. Sublime.

Best lyric: “D to the E to the T to the O to the HOLD IT! / X”

9. Aquaria, “American”

“American” is not the worst finalist remix — that indisputably goes to the inexplicably slowed down “Super Queen” from All Stars 4, which is my nemesis in song form — but it’s close. Eureka’s and Kameron Michaels’ verses are utterly forgettable, while Asia O’Hara’s is memorable for all the wrong reasons (“Her name was etched in SOR-row!”). Aquaria’s is the lone bright spot, just cocky enough for the young queen but not weighed down by ego. She also delivers what is perhaps the single best lyric from any verse, which goes a long way to securing her spot in the top 10.

Best lyric: “Turning looks, stunting pretty / I’m the bitch from New York City”

8. Trixie Mattel, “Kitty Girl”

I went back and forth on which “Kitty Girl” verse to include, largely because the gulf between the performances and the verses themselves are so disparate. Kennedy Davenport and Shangela both slay the choreography, but save a “Feel your puss down deep in your soul,” the lyrics aren’t that memorable. Bebe’s verse is full of great lines (“The OG’s back for another crack!”) but doesn’t cohere together. Trixie’s is actually the superior verse, with bold lyricism and strong delivery. Her dancing in the performance is a little wonky, but hey, I’m just critiquing verses here! So she deserves.

Best lyric: “I got bleach in the blonde like Pamela / And I’m steppin’ out the box like Shangela / I got long thick legs, a tarantula”

7. A’keria C. Davenport, “Queens Everywhere”

I like “Queens Everywhere” a lot more than most, though I get that Silky Nutmeg Ganache and Brooke Lynn Hytes’ verses drag it down a lot. (Vanessa Vanjie Mateo’s verse is good, she just flopped in the performance.) A’keria, on the other hand, soars in this verse, and were it not for one other — don’t worry, we’ll get to her — she would’ve been the standout. Declaring herself “Miss Ass Almighty” was a stroke of genius, as was her best lyric, which shows a reference pool that Ru himself would love. Very strong work from season 11’s final Davenport.

Best lyric: “I’m the Diahann Carroll of Ru’s Dynasty

6. Sasha Velour, “Category Is”

My guess is this will be the most controversial pick on my list, because it’s not really a verse in the way the others are. It’s more a spoken word segment set to music, and it’s very Sasha Velour Is Brainy, which I know rubs folks the wrong way. But I can’t help it! I like this verse top to bottom, from “Bright-eyed and bushy-browed! / Be the strange you wish to see in the world!” to her scream ending. Sasha’s delivery does a lot of work here, as she tears into every line fully in character. It’s an unconventional kind of verse, but that doesn’t make it bad by any stretch. In fact, it helps it stick out even more.

Best lyric: “I’m more true than real / I’m a magical bitch darling, that’s how I feel”

5. Alaska, “Read U Wrote U”

In a lot of ways, Alaska’s verse is the proof of concept of this entire idea. She was first in “Read U Wrote U,” and her verse showed us that we were in for something truly special. All the “RUWU” verses are long — compare hers to Kennedy’s from “Kitty Girl,” for instance — but Alaska makes the most of the time, packing in serve after serve, bon mot after bon mot. It also got at the idea of this verse being her legacy: Save a final speech, this is what we remember as Alaska’s final act on All Stars, and thus on Drag Race. It makes a pretty damn persuasive argument for her win.

Best lyric: “I’m Dorothy, you’re Toto / Get in the basket!”

4. Peppermint, “Category Is”

By all accounts, Peppermint was set to go home in the final four episode of season 9. She had just one win to her name, and two trips to the bottom two, while her competition either had just one such Lip Sync for Your Life performance (Shea Coulée, Trinity the Tuck) or none at all (Sasha), and four, three, and two challenge wins, respectively. But Peppermint made it all but impossible to eliminate her with this verse, which balanced a playful spin on her candy-coded name (“Sugary sweet confection, bad for your teeth”), her legend status in New York, and summarizing why she was better than her competition. The final line, her best lyric, is a killer hook to end on as well. This is Peppermint’s best performance of the season, and it speaks to how strong “Category Is” was that it wasn’t even the best of the number.

Best lyric: “But the number one queen is P-E-P-P-E-R / Bitch you know the rest”

3. Yvie Oddly, “Queens Everywhere”

Like Peppermint, Yvie walked into the final four with the weakest track record, but her verse had us reconsidering her for the win. A lot of that was about presentation, with Yvie pulling off impressive acrobatic tricks in the one-take number that made her competition look remarkably novice in comparison. But just crediting her choreography ignores how the choreography actually mimicked what she was rapping: For example, she did a back-bend as she rapped “I bend over backwards whenever I fumble,” a reference to her “Sorry Not Sorry” lip sync. Like Alaska’s verse, Yvie’s sums up her run on the show, and also promises more in the future. Combined with excellent flow — perhaps the best flow in any of these verses save one— and you can see why Yvie’s top three.

Best lyric: “And I know I play rough but that’s how I tumble / I bend over backwards whenever I fumble”

2. Katya, “Read U Wrote U”

Katya codified Katya in this verse, finally mixing her eccentric and offbeat style of humor with the Russian character she always promised was there, but she never really brought out in either of her seasons. Her best lyric is the best example of that, but honestly, every line is gold. It is many a fan’s favorite verse for very good reason. Katya won this performance and this challenge, and if you ask a lot of people, she should’ve won the season on it, too. History has largely vindicated Ru’s choice of Alaska, but for this one moment, we were all #TeamKatya.

Best lyric: “Lenin in the streets, Dostoyevsky in the sheets / Baby, are you ready for this Cold War?”

1. Shea Coulée, “Category Is”

I’ve been judging these verses by the same set of criteria: How well does this verse summarize this queen’s journey this season? How clever and sharp are the lyrics? How strong is the queen’s flow? How strong is her delivery? And overall, how much do I think about this verse when I think about the remix as a whole?

Shea’s “Category Is” verse aces every category. Her cocky, confident verse sums up just how dominant Shea was all season, and her best lyric gets at how she used Drag Race herstory all season to amplify her own performance. Her lyrics are catchy as all hell, and her flow is unparalleled. (Her quick rapping in the middle of her verse is the only time one of these verses feels like legitimate hip-hop performance.) Her delivery is as boastful as the song, with variations in tone and pitch to fit the line. (“I’m sickening, no?” is the best example of this.) And her verse is “Category Is,” even bleeding into the main song at the end: “My name’s Miss Coulee and I always / Bring it to the runway, runway…”

I know Katya’s verse is pretty perfect, and I can’t argue with the many fans who count it as the best verse. But Shea’s a goddamn wrecking ball on this verse. For me, there could be no other #1 but her.

Best lyric: “I’m sickening, no? And real fierce too / Chicago in the house, girl whatcha gon’ do?”

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