The most straightforward way to understand what Rhyheim Shabazz has built is to look at what VoyR shipped in the last three months of 2025. On 31 October, The Party — a three-part mystery thriller set at a Rio rooftop gathering, about a killer targeting LGBTQIA+ content creators. On 18 December, BootyCamp, a written comedy feature. Both directed by Alternativa, both executive-produced by Shabazz alongside MrArchangel Adam, both made in-house.sourced
That is not what a performer's brand does. That is what a studio does.
There's nothing safe about "The Party." It's beautiful; it's dark; and it's dangerously human.— Rhyheim Shabazz to XBIZ, 28 October 2025
The three-step build
The trajectory is unusually legible. In February 2023, NakedSword signed a distribution deal with VoyR — a month-long takeover, two scenes weekly for five weeks. In October 2023 he partnered with Aylo, Pornhub's parent company, to launch Voyr.com as a paysite in its own right. By late 2025 VoyR wasn't licensing content to anyone; it was producing narrative features and distributing them through Aylo.sourced
Falcon/NakedSword president and CEO Tim Valenti put the studio's side of it plainly back in 2023, calling VoyR an industry force whose output complemented NakedSword's own.sourced
A calendar year with three Performer of the Year trophies
The performing career didn't slow down to make room. In January 2025 he won GayVN Performer of the Year — his second consecutive, making him only the second man ever to repeat and the first man of colour to do so. In May he took Most Popular Gay Performer at the Pornhub Awards. In August, Gay Performer of the Year at the Urban X Awards. XBIZ counted it explicitly as his third of the year.sourced
As a middle-aged Black man, it's surreal to reflect on what I've achieved in an industry where I've never truly seen myself as a performer.— Rhyheim Shabazz to Out, 23 May 2025
He has been consistent about what he thinks the point of it is. Asked in April 2025 to name his biggest achievement, he didn't pick a trophy — he talked about making it possible for performers of colour to see themselves with, in his phrase, main character energy, and a real shot at the top awards.sourced
Then his closest collaborator took the crown
At the 2026 GayVN Awards in January, Sir Peter — his most frequent scene partner across The Main Event, The Barcelona Job and Sir Peter Bangs Brazil — won Performer of the Year, ending the two-year run. Shabazz still took Best Duo Sex Scene with Mister Roger, and was nominated in five other categories.sourced
One thread has been running for two years now: he keeps talking about stepping back. In August 2024 he suggested retirement was months away. In October 2025 he reframed it as evolution — he doesn't know what form it takes, only that he knows when he has become complacent. In the meantime VoyR has shipped weekly and he collected five 2026 award nominations.
One distinction worth keeping straight, because it is routinely garbled: he was the third Black man to win GayVN Performer of the Year, in 2024, and the first man of colour to win it twice, in 2025. Both are true and they are different claims.
