Gay rap, the unthkable be realy | Hip-hop | The Guardian

Contents:

• RAPPERS WHO HAVE COME OUT AS GAY
• 21 BT GAY RAPPERS WHO EMBODY THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNY
• HERE ARE HIP-HOP ARTISTS WHO EMBRACE BEG GAY, LBIAN OR BISEXUAL
• GAY RAP, THE UNTHKABLE BE REALY

RAPPERS WHO HAVE COME OUT AS GAY

The self-proclaimed "big and Black, gay and vol" star was nomated for bt new artist at the 2021 Grammy Awards and has no tentns of mimizg who she is for anybody. After he me out as gay 2016, he stated Brockhampton's "Junky" that he would ntue to rap about beg gay bee there aren't enough gay rappers the dtry that are willg to talk about their own experienc.

There has been a well-known stigma towards homosexualy hip-hop which has led to some artists’ reers beg tarnished by mors that they had associatns wh people of the same sex.

While his h song “Old Town Road” was at the top of the Billboard Top 100 Chart for a rerd-breakg 19 weeks, Lil Nas X ma the brave cisn to e out as a gay rapper. In one of his tracks, he touch upon this subject wh the lyrics, “Won’t let me through ‘e I’m back like Santan, Won’t let me through ‘e I’m gay like Schofield.”. This tweet, which was both ndid and wty, required a lot of urage to liver, particularly 2017 when beg a gay rapper was still a ntroversial topic the mic dtry.

21 BT GAY RAPPERS WHO EMBODY THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNY

He distguish himself his mic by beg ndid about his sexualy and sex life, which is not unmon for heterosexual hip-hop artists but is not typil for gay artists.

Da Brat ced the pervasive homophobia of the ’90s for her cisn not to e out earlier and said that people like Ellen faced signifint backlash for beg openly gay. However, he ultimately accepted that his happs and the value of the reprentatn as a Black gay rapper eclipsed a need for acceptance wh the hip-hop muny.

She also discsed the prevalence of vlence agast butch-prentg gay women, highlightg the murr of several lbians a regn of Chile that has bee notor for s homophobic hate crim. “Beg ‘butch’ means wearg your sexualy on your sleeve, which, an age still explibly marred by homophobia, n have grave nsequenc all over the world,” she stated. The rapper also llaborated wh openly gay hip-hop artist iLoveMakonnen, provg that diversy and acceptance were at the foreont of his creative visn.

HERE ARE HIP-HOP ARTISTS WHO EMBRACE BEG GAY, LBIAN OR BISEXUAL

Although there’s a long way to go before the discrimatn agast LGBTQ+ artists be a thg of the past, the rise of gay artists is a sign that the hip-hop dtry has started to break away om the notns.

While other genr, gay sgers like Elton John and Sam Smh have been phed by labels, rappers that are gay are vastly outnumbered by their straight unterparts. In a 2005 terview wh SPIN, 50 Cent stated that homosexualy is taboo hip-hop: “In hip-hop, there’s (sic) certa standards of thgs you n’t do. There’s always been nflict at the center of hip-hop, bee ’s all about which guy has the petive edge, and you n’t be that aggrsive if you’re gay.

Emem, who famoly the slur “f*****t” multiple songs, claimed a Rollg Stone terview that he never equated the term wh homosexualy, but “[i]t was more like llg someone a b**** or a punk or a******. Pop star Lil Nas X me out as gay durg Pri Month 2019 while his song “Old Town Road” was number one on the Billboard Hot 100, tellg his fans “efore this month ends, I want y’all to listen closely to c7osure” wh a rabow emoji.

GAY RAP, THE UNTHKABLE BE REALY

” Sce then, the artist has released an album lled Hedonism, as well as several extend plays and mixtap characterized by quickfire rap, aggrsn, and unabashed gay eroticism. The artist’s name ntas a nod to gay slang, as he noted, “[i]n the gay muny, your backsi is lled your k, and I have a lot of that… [w]hen I thk about ke, I thk sweet, mpy and edible, which is one si of me. The artist has spoken out agast allegedly homophobic treatment after beg arrted Portugal and posted solidary wh Rsia’s LGBTQ muny after news of a police raid on a Mosw venue where Blan was schled to perform.

Though he never explicly intified wh a gay or bisexual label, sger and rapper Frank Ocean ma breakg news after he posted a letter on Tumblr 2012 talkg about his “first love” wh another boy that the rapper met early his life. He don't shy away om beg open his mic about his sexualy and sex life, which isn't unmon for straight artists to do hip hop mic, but not necsarily for a gay artist. ”“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. 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.

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.