Lil Nas X, Tyler, the Creator lead wave of gay/bisexual rappers - Los Angel Tim

Contents:

• THE ENDURG FERVOR OF GAYLOR FAN THEORY
• IS TYLER, THE CREATOR G OUT AS A GAY MAN OR JT A QUEER-BAG PROVOTR?
• IS TYLER GAY TURNG RED? DIRECTOR NFIRMS "A LOT OF" TYLER'S STORY WAS CUT
• TYLER, THE CREATOR IS OPENLY GAY: WHO IS HIS BOYIEND?
• COLORADO'S GAY GOVERNOR WR TAYLOR SWIFT AN EPIC OPEN LETTER
• TAYLOR SWIFT IS GAY, AND I HAVE EVINCE FOR DAYS
• IS TYLER THE CREATOR GAY, WHY IS MSAGE ABOUT A ‘DRS’ NFG FANS?

THE ENDURG FERVOR OF GAYLOR FAN THEORY

”“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.

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

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. 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.

IS TYLER GAY TURNG RED? DIRECTOR NFIRMS "A LOT OF" TYLER'S STORY WAS CUT

” 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.

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

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. 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. But the mors didn’t lim themselv to jt one of Swift’s female iendships; Lawrence was alludg to somethg more accurately scribed as a cematic universe of fan, or the theory that Taylor Swift is gay, is a clter of distct yet overlappg supposns about Swift’s sexualy (bi, pan, queer, fluid?

COLORADO'S GAY GOVERNOR WR TAYLOR SWIFT AN EPIC OPEN LETTER

It has followed Swift sce her but album was certified Platum seven tim as an unrcurrent beneath mastream celebry media that spent over a fascated by her real—and sometim PR-appearg—relatnships wh a long but diligent search through any social media se, you n learn all the tails of Gaylor. The Swifti who subscribe to are of urse lled Gaylors (even if a Gaylor’s belief skews lbian or pansexual), while those who cha themselv to the altar of Swift’s heterosexualy are lled Hetlors. And most Gaylors treat every song, photo, piece of social media ntent, and terview related to Swift wh the re of someone attemptg to the Rosetta Stone.

TAYLOR SWIFT IS GAY, AND I HAVE EVINCE FOR DAYS

Now, at the height of her power as an artist and bsperson full ownership of her art, the woman who blurred fans to iends n’t ntrol the gay universe they’ve created her —and Gaylor—Fd Mastream SuccsRebec, a 29-year-old Texas who prefers to e a psdonym bee Swifti n be btal onle, was 17 and drivg home when “Tim McGraw” me on one of the four rad signals that reached her isolated hometown. The Gaylor theory do have legs when you nsir that when Swift secured her first mic al, g out would have certaly meant a reer not supported by mastream labels. From there Gaylors, fans too, formed their own foced discsn spac on Tumblr, Redd, and regularly studi Ameri’s great divas, and when she stumbled across #gaylor on Tumblr, turned to a “robt and plited” rabb hole of Swift rearch.

She then anized SwiftCon, a multi-day amic nference about all thgs Taylor Swift 2021, and joed a panel discsn about Gaylor theory wh fellow amics lled “I don’t want you like a bt iend”—a reference to “Drs” om reputatn.

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

” But when she went to Redd to talk about them wh the rt of the Swiftie muny after the release of folklore, she saw that ers “would down-vote posts that were more Gaylor-que. The media (cludg Jezebel) had a lot to work wh when me to figurg out who each song uld be about, as did Gaylors, who had nothg but love for their snake queen.

The nsens amongst onle Gaylor spac seemed to say reputatn was not about her current boyiend, but rather Kloss and how Swift was gay for her. For Gaylors, the album troduced a new Swift world full of secrecy to analyze—no matter that Swift didn’t want the lyrics to be hyper-analyzed for relatnship subtext, she still weled her fans’ close readgs of the lyrics as posn.