'Old Town Road' rapper Lil Nas X appears to e out as gay

Contents:

• 21 BT GAY RAPPERS WHO EMBODY THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNY
• HOW LIL NAS X IS REVOLUTNIZG HIP-HOP AS AN EMPOWERED GAY STAR
• LIL NAS X'S SONG ABOUT GAY SEX EARNS 3 GRAMMY NOMATNS
• 'OLD TOWN ROAD' RAPPER LIL NAS X APPEARS TO E OUT AS GAY

21 BT GAY RAPPERS WHO EMBODY THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNY

Lil Nas X Do It Aga And Go Even Further Wh 'INDUSTRY BABY': #NowPlayg As Lil Nas X be bolr his lyrics and creative visn, he transcends nf of "The Gay Rapper" stereotype, rvg out space as an unapologetic msiah for today's queer generatn. Lil Nas X is unprecented: he emerged om the pths of stan Twter to take over the pop charts, all the while growg as an unabashedly gay rapper.

The song is one of his bt, but s real power om the acpanyg, highly-stylized vio where Lil Nas X breaks out of a prison populated wh Black gay men (and, for an unspecified reason, Jack Harlow an unseemly role as the Straight Whe Savr who livers a verse that is mid at bt and appropriate at worst).

Bee of stctural vlence herent this untry's rceral system, posng the stutn as a gay utopia is a risky choice. However, when nsirg Lil Nas X's reer path, Montero State Prison is a settg that mirrors realy; as he is repeatedly cricized by evangelil Christians and Twter trolls alike for elevatg gay reprentatn — particularly for the prison's namake, his last sgle "MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)" — 's unrstandable Lil Nas X would nsir homophobia a prison, clstrophobic and imposg, pecially the mic dtry.

HOW LIL NAS X IS REVOLUTNIZG HIP-HOP AS AN EMPOWERED GAY STAR

As he be bolr his lyrics and creative visn, Lil Nas X begs to transcend nf of "The Gay Rapper" stereotype, rvg out space for himself as an unapologetic msiah for today's young, queer generatn.

”Overnight, the 20-year-old Atlanta native — born Montero Lamar Hill — beme the biggt gay pop star the world. ”“It’s hard to be out genr where beg gay, or exprsg your sexualy, is owned upon, ” add platum rapper and sger iLoveMakonnen, born Makonnen Sheran, who rose to fame as a protégé of Drake and me out as gay 2017.

”Before the viral sensatn of “Old Town Road” turned Hill to a pop star and gay in, hip-hop was already reachg a turng pot s clivy, as more young black men explorg sexualy and terrogatg masculy their work are gettg mastream attentn.

LIL NAS X'S SONG ABOUT GAY SEX EARNS 3 GRAMMY NOMATNS

) Kev Abstract, founr of hip-hop llective Brockhampton, me out as gay 2016. Rap culture has always been powered by unbridled machismo, and one would be hard prsed to not fd a gay slur embedd the lyrics of any of the genre’s most famo archects.

In fact, an entire lexin dited to potg out disfort wh gay men has permeated rap lyrics. Slang such as “s” and “No homo” and “Pse” that e queerns as a punchle have been thrown around sually for as the old guard has been replaced wh a younger generatn unncerned wh rigid labels and unbothered by genre, today’s rap and R&B scene isn’t as exclively heteronormative as once was.

“We know folks our muny have always been religly nservative, and beg gay is still seen as taboo, ” said Ebro Darn, the global edorial head of hip-hop and R&B for Apple Mic and host of “Ebro the Morng” on New York’s Hot 97 rad statn. ”Over the past uple of years, Ocean’s former Odd Future llaborator, Tyler, the Creator, has transned om a bratty provotr who hurled gay slurs wh reckls abandon to a thoughtful nfsnalist, one who surprisgly and rather matter-of-factly raps about his own attractn to men. A diverse array of talents such as Brockhampton ontman Kev Abstract, Steve Lacy (also formerly affiliated wh Odd Future) and Skype Williams have all prented works this year that are eely crafted through a black queer his “Arizona Baby” album, -produced by Jack Antonoff (Taylor Swift), Abstract reflects on growg up gay and Corp Christi at the turn of the lennium.

'OLD TOWN ROAD' RAPPER LIL NAS X APPEARS TO E OUT AS GAY

And a young black gay man has the No. 1 song Ameri and jt eclipsed a chart rerd that Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men set 23 years ago wh “One Sweet Day, ” a song spired by the AIDS crisis and the tragic peril brought to so many black gay men this untry.

Walter Thompson Innovatn Group back 2016 found that only 48% of 13-20 year-olds intified as exclively heterosexual, pared to 65% of the generatn before is an dience that shgs when Tyler, the Creator do an about-face the way he did on 2017’s stellar “Flower Boy” where he sually rapped about beg attracted to men after years of g gay slurs — a topic he still ref to addrs outsi of the mic (he cled to be terviewed for this piece). “Tth is, sce a youth kid, thought was a phase / thought ’d be like the phrase; ‘poof, ’ gone / But, ’s still go’ on, ” he that’s not to say the rt of the mic dtry is that much further mic had lacked an openly gay superstar before Adam Lambert and Sam Smh ma history wh their chart buts and Grammy victori, rpectively. And spe their stat as legendary rock hmakers and gay ins, there was much hand-wrgg over how bpics for Queen and Elton John would handle the queerns of s evolutn hip-hop is signifint, albe more gradual and ls pronounced than the larger shift pop culture over reprentatns of black male was Fox’s hip-hop drama “Empire, ” which ma a powerful statement by makg one of s leads a gay black R&B sger (for a time, the rerds released by the character — played by Jsie Smollett — were the only mic by an out gay black man gettg mastream rad play.

)“Moonlight, ” a g of age tale about a gay black boy, won bt picture at the Amy Awards 2017 and for the first time queer people of lor outnumbered their whe unterparts on TV, acrdg to GLAAD’s annual TV diversy report. Seri such as “Queen Sugar, ” “Dear Whe People” and “This Is Us” feature storyl abound nuanced black LGBTQ characters; meanwhile, Ryan Murphy’s “Pose, ” which has exposed the world to a part of black queer culture that has spired pop divas for s, is up for two Emmys, cludg one for Billy Porter, the first openly gay black man to receive a lead actor nod. A long history of homophobia.

Sce the genre’s dawng, nearly five s ago, homophobic attus hip-hop have been the norm. A and the Beastie Boys boasted about their disda for gay people lyrics. 50 Cent once said wasn’t OK for men to be gay, but women who like women?

”Nicki Maj ced her sizable queer fanbase by g a gay slur on her latt album. ” And Emem has yet to retire his age of “faggot” the 18 years sce he famoly performed wh Elton John at the Grammys as a PR-orchtrated act of good will agast his vicly homophobic lyrics.

So much of gay culture is fluencg the world, cludg hip-hop, and yet the culture is ashamed of .

A wave of black queer rap artists, cludg Le1f, Zebra Katz, Cak Da Killa, Mykki Blan and Hoe of LaDosha, broke out of New York at the start of the wh mic and visuals that upend the very same genr nstcts that have been weaponized agast gay men for the last century by pairg hyper-feme athetics — high fashn looks, weave, manicured fgertips — wh braggadocs’ rhym. ”Jt a few weeks ago, New Orleans rapper Young KSB went viral wh a glorly rnchy o to anilg that’s as sexually explic as anythg domatg Spotify playlists — but ’s impossible to image that viralns transng to the as Hill was celebrated for breakg rap’s gay glass ceilg, the jok about his sex life also ma to the news verage. When asked about Hill’s g out, Young Thug — a rapper who jumped on an “Old Town Road” remix and has toyed wh genr norms by drsg uture gowns — said that Hill “probably shouldn’t have told the world” he was gay.

Soon as the song on, everybody’s like, ‘This gay ass... Dcribg the spiratn behd “Sorry I’m Late, ” he clared that “work ma by gay people don’t necsarily need to be like Troye-Sivan-twk-lily-whe-lhe-pastel-pk-pop..