You Don't Know KING NOIRE

A rapper, community organiser, educator and SexPert born in New York City and raised in New Jersey

- ANITA LITTLE

When I call Hasan Salaam, he’s quarantining at his home in Tampa, Florida. I hear dishes clattering and a child cooing in the background.

The 39-year-old is confident but ruminative, always allowing some silence to pass before he responds to a question. Salaam has been on the move—touring in some form—for more than 15 years. Now during the pandemic, he’s been forced to pause for the first time in quite a while, and he’s basking in the stillness. Besides, he has an all-consuming reason to be home irrespective of a pandemic that’s showing no signs of abating: a bouncy, bubbly two-year-old son named Majesty.

“Not being able to go shoot or see clients all over the world is semi-frustrating. But at the same time, I got this one opportunity to watch my son grow up,” Salaam says. “I get to see all these little things he’s picking up. He’s doing colors and shapes and letters and numbers, and I get to watch all of that every day.”

Salaam’s quarantine-era fatherhood goes as one might expect. He spends the day changing diapers, cooking meals for his family and going on walks with his son. When he has a bit of downtime, he works on his rap music, plays football and responds to the daily inundation of messages on his OnlyFans account.

Salaam’s alter ego—what most of his followers know him by—is King Noire, and he’s one of the most well-known male entertainers in the adult industry.

His beginnings were humble enough. At 18, he was kicked out of his home. Unmoored, he bounced from couch to couch until a female friend asked him to appear in an adult magazine with her. His interest was piqued, and the rest is history.