World!! What's going on?! Glad you decided to ride with me again. This will be an interesting, yet another controversial, topic of discussion in hip-hop. By the way, shouts to the homie Jeffvory Campbell for helping me with this week's subject matter. He was quite vocal about this subject and, after you finish reading this, you might be as well.
Hip-hop has traditionally been a very macho, testosterone-driven sport much like the NFL, NBA, or MLB. However, the idea of anything involving homosexual or same-sex fascinations and lifestyles was practically a no-no in the game. Hip-hop, many suggested, was a very homophobic genre and culture, truthfully reflective of the Black community as a whole. In fact, the majority of Eminem's early material such as his debut of '99, The Slim Shady LP, and his 2001 magnum opus, The Marshall Mathers LP, were littered with homophobic lyrics that walked the lines of hate. That was until he performed his monster hit "Stan" with one of the music industry's most beloved legends, Elton John, who himself is an openly gay man.
As times changed and continued to "evolve", guys in hip-hop started wanting to be "different", with hit or miss results. In 2001, Cam'ron introduced the color pink to the hip-hop masses as a means of being "different". The next year, he started wearing purple everywhere, especially when it came to promoting his Purple Haze album. Subtle, yet overall minor, talk of Killa Cam's orientation started to surface, to which they were totally and completely shut down. However, in a culture where anything remotely resembling males in homosexual living is extremely taboo, talks started picking up about a possible "gay rapper" in the industry, especially when the "down low" phase was in full swing (sounds nasty but it's not). The rumors of the supposed "gay rapper" continued off and on for years until a young up-and-comer named Kawshun was named as hip-hop's first openly gay rapper. His career came and went within fifteen minutes, but the talk was that there were more that were in the closet.
In comes Frank Ocean, the only R&B member of the West Coast collective OFWGKTA (Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All), headed by another young emcee no stranger to controversy, Tyler The Creator. Frank was already making a lot of noise being herald as the future of R&B. However, on July 4, 2012, he confessed on his Tumblr account that his first love was a man and that he felt "free". In a very surprising move, the majority of the hip-hop community embraced him and supported him coming out. A shocking, yet refreshing, move within a community that's very known for being nervous even addressing the homosexual lifestyle.
Let's fast forward to today's era. In the pic above, Birman and Lil' Wayne had a kiss that rang alarms all through the community. Wayne has said in the past that Birdman was his surrogate father and that kissing him was okay. I reserve comments on that notion. Anyways, lately in hip-hop, artists like Young Thug and Rich homie Quan have been known to use pet names like "boo", "bae", and "baby" to describe their homeboys and friends. This is clearly a changing culture once we start seeing young rappers start talking and dressing like females and its apparently perfectly acceptable. Remember the photo a year ago with Kanye dressed in a dress and stockings while performing? What about recent pics and images of Young Thug (who has been rumored to be gay himself, although he denies these allegations) in a dress, stockings and a halter top? The confusion starts to set in at this point.
As the LGBTQ lifestyle and culture continues to be openly accepted, there are people who tend to mock the culture by dressing like women in order to either make statements or to be "different". Please keep in mind: this is NOT a gay-bashing or criticizing post. Not at all. However, what this post is about is people that continuously pronounce their status as straight men or those that proudly hail their sexual conquests with different women, but then they appear with friends and colleagues addressing them as "boo" and "bae". This subject area goes back to the origin of sagging pants. We all know by now that sagging pants started in prison as a way to promote homosexual activity, and sadly it started picking up within the community without so much as a thought. When asked why they sag their pants, the quickest response is "It's cool", but very quick to refute the claims of them being involved in that type of lifestyle. Such blatant ignorance. Now it appears that guys like Young Thug and Rich Homie Quan think it's quite okay to address their friends and colleagues as these pet names. It's totally and completely unacceptable. As a culture that tends to be followers instead of leaders as of late, this will make young Black men (and probably young men in general regardless of race or culture) imitate these guys and start calling their friends the same types of names, which could very likely cause a ton of problems.
In short: if you're not in a relationship with your partner, lover, etc., leave that kind of stuff alone. Your sexual preference is your business, but if you want it to stay that way, and you're not about that life, stop it now. Take off the skirt and stockings, and put some jeans and a shirt back on, and make sure the pants are up too. Get back to being MEN and stop acting and looking like damn idiots. I'm quite sure gays and lesbians have a hard enough time trying to defend their lifestyles and having to get scrutinized by the court of public opinion and judgment without people almost basically mocking the lifestyle just to be "different". I said it once, and I'll say it again, unless we start becoming leaders and using our own minds and intuitions, we'll continue to be seen as laughing sideshows and minstrel-era cartoons come to life. I still have hope in my hip-hop culture, but we need better people to answer to and whom we'll allow to be among the leaders of our culture. Before our leaders were people like KRS-One, Chuck D, and Afrika Bambaata. We then looked to Diddy, Master P, and Birdman. Soon after, we looked to Gucci, Waka Flocka, and Wayne. Now it's Young Thug and Quan. Are we progressing or regressing???
That's all for now kiddies. Before i go, I must leave you with not one but TWO cuts of the week. The first is a big time collaboration between Detroit's heir apparent to Dilla, Black Milk and hip-hop legend Bun B on the track "Gold Piece", which will be featured on Milk's forthcoming album, If There's A Hell Below. The second one is another ridiculous track from the duo of Ras Kass and one of hip-hop's hottest up-and-coming producers Apollo Brown. The cut, "Humble Pi", is a blistering ode to the state of hip-hop and serves as another tasty treat from the forthcoming album Blasphemy. Both albums are due October 21. Enjoy these outstanding tracks, and I'll get at you guys and gals again next week God willing!
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