Why Tyler, The Creator's Gay Pri Shirt Is More Than Jt a Fashn Statement | GQ

Contents:

• IS TYLER, THE CREATOR G OUT AS A GAY MAN OR JT A QUEER-BAG PROVOTR?
• TYLER, THE CREATOR IS OPENLY GAY: WHO IS HIS BOYIEND?
• IS TYLER THE CREATOR GAY, WHY IS MSAGE ABOUT A ‘DRS’ NFG FANS?
• IS TYLER THE CREATOR GAY? EVERYTHG YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE POPULAR RAPPER
• ALL THE TIM TYLER, THE CREATOR POSSIBLY ALLUD TO BEG GAY
• TYLER, THE CREATOR COM OUT AS GAY ON "GARN SHED"
• IS TYLER THE CREATOR GAY: GIRLIEND REIGN JUDGE, RELATNSHIP TIMELE
• WHY TYLER, THE CREATOR'S GAY PRI SHIRT IS MORE THAN JT A FASHN STATEMENT
• HOW TYLER, THE CREATOR TROJAN-HORSED THE GAY AGENDA ONTO HOT 97'S AIRWAV

IS TYLER, THE CREATOR G OUT AS A GAY MAN OR JT A QUEER-BAG PROVOTR?

For years, I’ve wrtled wh my love of the mic on one hand wh my distaste for the homophobia embedd wh on the other, grimacg at the tratg ease wh which a rapper is able to say faggot, a hateful word that no straight person has any right to be g. I’ve found this pecially problematic wh the mic of Tyler, the Creator, the 26-year-old provotr whose lyrics have often aimed to shock and repulse, whether addrsg vlence agast women (“Punch a bch her mouth jt for talk’ sh”) or his apparent disgt at gay men (“Come take a stab at , faggot, I pre-orred your sket”). This progrsn has e to a crcendo wh his latt album, the dreay melancholic Flower Boy, the tle of which potentially acts as a clue to what might be his most ntroversial statement the rapper who ed the word faggot, or other anti-gay variatns, 213 tim on his but album actually be gay or bisexual himself?

In an terview, he once said he “100% would go gay for ’96 Leo”, and a recent Instagram post married a picture of DiCapr om Romeo + Juliet wh the words “y boyiend y” another new track, Garn Shed, there are a number of referenc, both oblique and obv. ”The songs have led fans to turn tectiv by lvg to Tyler’s past terviews, songs and social media posts, surg them for evince that might support the assertn that one of rap’s most seemgly homophobic figur might have been gay all along.

TYLER, THE CREATOR IS OPENLY GAY: WHO IS HIS BOYIEND?

The clu range om the slight to the slightly ’s quipped about dulgg gay sex on tracks like Seven and Domo 23, released a le of T-shirts that reappropriated a symbol of whe supremacy wh rabow lors – oh, and tweeted this out:I TRIED TO COME OUT THE DAMN CLOSET LIKE FOUR DAYS AGO AND NO ONE CARED HAHAHHAHAHA— Tyler, The Creator (@tylerthecreator) April 13, 2015. In a Rollg Stone profile om 2015, the journalist Ernt Baker noted the nstant referenc to beg gay amid the banter of Tyler and his entourage, g him to wonr what exactly was at the root. When queried about , he claimed to be “gay as fuck” and said his iends were ed to him “beg gay”, but when asked outright, he nied ’s clearly somethg fetishistic for Tyler about homosexualy and the latt bout of gay referenc uld jt be a more tempered eratn of llg everyone a faggot or equatg gay wh stupid.

I’m not phg the cynil ia that Tyler has “gone gay” to achieve the mercial succs of Ocean, but his msagg has clearly been tailored to avoid limg breakout he is straight, as he has claimed on multiple ocsns, then his ntued obssn wh all thgs gay strik me as schoolyard-level, mirrorg the tirome bag I n rell om straight teens back at school. Channel Orange also changed perceptns wh the mic dtry toward a gay artist of lor, and while acceptance of Ocean has -existed wh bigotry, progrs has been unniably monumental. We no longer take as a given that homophobia is a part of hip-hop (the recent uproar over some ill-advised ments om Migos signalg this), and artists such as ILoveMakonnen and Taylor Bent have e out early their reers whout facg as many problems as they might have ’s willgns to e speculatn over his sexualy shows that he’s now existg wh a genre that allows him to play wh labels (see also: Young Thug a drs) and even if turns out to be jt that – a game – we n at least take as a symbol of wir progrs.

IS TYLER THE CREATOR GAY, WHY IS MSAGE ABOUT A ‘DRS’ NFG FANS?

This article was amend on 26 July 2017 to change the 213 of faggot on Tyler, the Creator’s but album to 213 of faggot and other anti-gay lyrics. In a 2015 terview wh Rollg Stone, Tyler, The Creator listed a number of well-known men he'd like to hook up wh and referred to himself as "gay as f*ck. Fans around the world have been led to believe that Tyler is anythg but straight by everythg om his long-standg fondns for Leonardo DiCapr to tweets wh Kendall Jenner where he outright clared he is gay.

The relatnship between Tyler, the Creator and queer culture has taken an tertg turn: His 2011 album Gobl, which featured 213 of the word "fag, " was rife wh homophobic slurs. Tyler sisted that his gay fans wouldn't be offend by his language, and 2015 his crew Odd Future released a le of Pri T-shirts as part of their merchandise.

The nversatn that seems to have taken place between Tyler and another rapper, Maxo Kream, has left many wonrg if the former is homosexual. ’s eher “i’m gay/an ally to the queer muny” or “i’m a terribly queerphobic wannabe edgelord and i’m verg up by sayg my favoure artist is a queer black man.

IS TYLER THE CREATOR GAY? EVERYTHG YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE POPULAR RAPPER

”“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.

ALL THE TIM TYLER, THE CREATOR POSSIBLY ALLUD TO BEG GAY

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. 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.

TYLER, THE CREATOR COM OUT AS GAY ON "GARN SHED"

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.

IS TYLER THE CREATOR GAY: GIRLIEND REIGN JUDGE, RELATNSHIP TIMELE

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.

” 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. 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.

WHY TYLER, THE CREATOR'S GAY PRI SHIRT IS MORE THAN JT A FASHN STATEMENT

”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. 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..

But don’t have to be turbo-homo-DL-thug [stuff], eher, ” a snipe at the reali that face black queer artists when tryg to get their mic heard. While hip-hop and R&B, had been monly wrten off as herently homophobic, the rponse to Ocean’s emotnal letter was mostly posive, wh many praisg the one-of-a-kd talent for his bravens and honty. As a young gay Black boy who grew up stgglg to reckon my love for hip-hop, rap, and R&B wh the homophobic sentiments often rattled off, Frank’s g out was a pivotal moment — one that let me know I wasn’t alone and that society uld be ready to accept others like me, too.

Durg a recent holiday episo of Zane Lowe’s #AtHomeWhAppleMic show, Lil Nas X, an openly gay rapper himself, revealed how much Frank Ocean — and his close llaborator Tyler, The Creator, who is also openly queer — has meant for his reer. ” Elsewhere, he search for a lover who looks like Leonardo DiCapr and brags about drivg wh a guy who looks like River Tyler’s now “out, ” ’s a landmark moment: He’d be the hight-profile queer male rapper a genre that, like all pop genr to varyg extents, has long trad homophobia.

HOW TYLER, THE CREATOR TROJAN-HORSED THE GAY AGENDA ONTO HOT 97'S AIRWAV

In 2015, he tweeted, “I tried to e out the damn closet like four days ago and no one red hahahhahaha, ” and he rapped, “How n I be homophobic when my boyiend’s a fag? Ocean’s news me om an open letter which he talked about a relatnship wh a man; he still hasn’t publicly intified wh a label, whether “bisexual” or “gay” or “queer, ” and his songs sp stori about affairs wh both genrs. Tyler has cheekily accepted and rejected the term “gay” over the years, and he don’t e on Flower Boy, an album preoccupied wh matters of the heart.