The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Hip hop in LGTBIQ key: on the other side of the closet

2020-05-07T01:30:02.711Z


From Frank Ocean to Lil Nas X, the story of the LGTBIQ collective in a traditionally homophobic genre like rap advances at the same rate as any social struggle one step forward and two steps back


One of the biggest musical phenomena of the past year was a 21-year-old guy from Georgia (USA) named Lil Nas X. He managed to break all the records of permanence (and return) to number one of the American charts with his theme Old Town Road . Its merit is not trivial. With this cut, he managed to dignify and give universal appeal to one of the most complicated crossovers of genres that any artist can undertake. Lil Nas X mixes country and hip hop , and no, she doesn't because she lost a bet. He really is a rapper who likes country. But Montero Lamar Hill (his real name, much better than his stage name) has managed to not only succeed with a recipe traditionally destined for disaster - or hopefully, the beach bar joke - but he has also done so while being a working gay man. two of the most genres of music with a tendency to homophobia in the history of music.

Lil Nas X is not alone. But it is not the first either. What he has achieved may never have been achieved if, in the late 1990s, Rob Halford, leader of the heavy metal band Judas Priest - another genre traditionally unkind to homosexuality that Lil Nas X must now be thinking of how to attack - he would not have stated live in an interview on MTV that he was gay. "It was an accident. I had no plans to come out of the closet. I just remember he was talking and, suddenly, through my mouth came out: 'As a gay man I am…'. And look, the better. My life has been easier since that moment ”, the singer and metal god remembered years later . Contrary to what many could presage at the time, the number of Judas Priest fans who resigned as such was minimal. Sometimes it seems that some homophobia is accepted out of inertia, not conviction. This does not justify anything, but it explains a lot.

In 2002, five years after Halford's accidental confession, a group of New York gay rapemos, led by a certain Caushun, burst onto the scene. They tried to make a hole for themselves celebrating their sexual condition. 15 years ago, the manager with little respectable tendencies Russell Simmons saw potential in selling to the world three white rapemos called Beastie Boys. He was convinced - rightly so - that if there were successful kids in the genre, it could go global. Caushun saw the same move, but from sexual orientation. Plus, he was the guy who styled his wife. “Caushun is going to open a discussion on the subject, which is one of the last prejudices that still prevail on the scene. Homosexuals have a lot of influence in the hip hop back room, it is time for them to have a voice, ” Ivan Matias, one of the guys in charge of the rapper's career , told the New York Times . The bet came out regular. That same year, Madonna, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera kissed each other on the lips during their performance at the MTV VMA Awards. Months later, a journalist asked the rapper Missy Elliott if she had joined. "No, no, no ... Hip hop will never do that. Not in a million years, "he replied.

A decade later, the music world underwent one of the biggest paradigm shifts that has ever happened. Suddenly, sexuality was no longer treated as a primary desire and more as a primary condition. The artists were more interested in telling us why they slept with men, or women, or both, than in telling us what they were going to do to us if they caught us in a dark room. Taking advantage of this trend, which introduced into the discourse from queer theories to the concept of pansexuality, a new wave of hip hop and urban artists emerged who shamelessly confessed to sexually adhering to the most free and flexible concepts. Janelle Monäe, the rappers Angel Haze or Azealia Banks, Mykki Blanco - rap's great promise for about six months -, the lesbian hip-hop brooke Candy, or Frank Ocean, the voice of a generation. “Frank is the icon of the revolution, but this revolution needs some time to overheat. And we don't know what that will bring. I only know that we are used to seeing gay white men succeed. I hope we will soon see gay black men do the same, ” Iman Jordan, a r'n'b songwriter and singer formerly known as Mateo , told the Los Angeles Times . The saint from whom he took his name is the patron saint of lotteries. So, the following will not surprise you ...

Then, when everything seemed to be aligned for the final normalization, what happened almost always happened: everything remained in transitional fashion. "Now it seems cool to be gay, everyone fakes it," proclaimed Roxxan, a lesbian MC from Birmingham. It was the moment that Rihanna confessed to kissing a girl. And Katy Perry even made a song. Even for a few months Nicki Minaj announced that she was bisexual. How radical everything. Rita Ora proclaimed to the four winds her love for Cara Delevinge. Roxxan, rightly, did not trust all this: “It seems to me that it is a strategy to expand the fan base. Then, when they have already achieved it, they pass the gay roll. And look, you can't stop being gay when you're successful. ”

"What I do is explore my sexuality in a very natural way, which has to do with both my homosexual condition and the fact of being a man. I do it from a male perspective, which is very different from the female one. My personality has been shaped in the same way that Nas or Wu Tang Clan did. ” This is how he explained his idiosyncrasy to The Guardian Mykki Blanco in 2013. And this is a bit how the non-heteronormative phenomena of current hip hop have built his narrative. Something, then, remained from that year of the revolution that was not. Lil Nas X has reinvented the cowboy aesthetic from a point of view that has more to do with a light-hearted version of Brokeback Mountain than one with wagons from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert . The same Tyler The Creator, rapper just out of the closet and formerly known for his homophobic outbursts when he shared a hip hop collective with Frank Ocean (Odd Future) and who has now built a character: Igor, homosexual, theatrical, dislocated, but more than nobody owes its existence to David Byrne. Even Kevin Abstract, one of the leaders of Brockhampton, sort of boy band of the rap with a huge success in the US, last year launched an interesting solo album from the hip hop confessional gay. Everything seems to be, finally, in its place, which is anywhere you want to be. At least, until you listen to an interview with Lil Nas X on the BBC and he returns all this to the starting box: “I think I am opening doors for many people. Especially in the hip hop community , where being gay is not accepted. ”

Source: elparis

All life articles on 2020-05-07

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-15T11:20:47.939Z
Life/Entertain 2024-03-12T10:13:35.535Z

Trends 24h

Life/Entertain 2024-03-28T17:17:20.523Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.