It’s Time for a Mainstream Gay Hip Hop Artist
Here’s a great article from a site called Those People:
Remember that time when the hip-hop industry said, “Let’s just get rid of all homophobia and allow gay artists to be who they are?”
Yeah, me neither.
Still, this mentality remains long overdue. If hip-hop is nothing else, it is a reflection of contemporary Black culture — a musical diary of what life is like for so many of us in this country. Presently, hip-hop looks like a mirror decorated with cracks and smudges.
Being gay, however, should be considered neither a crack nor smudge, but Black people are still uncomfortable with addressing the issue of being gay in our community. Mothers are still abandoning their lesbian daughters. Black men are still trying to beat the gay out of their sons.
Hip-hop’s homophobia is rather interesting.
Women kissing women is tolerable because it ties into male sexual fantasy. Men showing open affection towards men, on the other hand, is frowned upon as anti-masculine in a climate in which men want to be looked at as conquerors of everything from stages to women.
