Did you say queer rappers?

Here is one of my essay, the more interesting one I think.

Queerness and Hip Hop culture

"I am a Negro faggot, if I believe what movies, TV and rap music say of me. My life is game for play. Because of my sexuality, I cannot be black. A strong, proud, 'Afrocentric' black man is resolutely heterosexual, not even bisexual."
- Marlon Riggs, Black Macho Revisited: Reflections of a SNAP! Queen, p.2

Hip hop culture, mainly through its must popular and known form, rap music, appears to be paradoxical. On the one hand, it seems to be progressive against racism as it emphasizes values such as Blackness (against racism), and, on the other hand, it represents also a regressive, or at least conservative element as it strongly condemns homosexuality. Of course, one should not over generalize as all rappers are not homophobes but homophobia appears to be, nevertheless, a strong aspect of Hip Hop.
The 1990s have seen the important development of hip hop, and rap music, as cultures coming from Black communities. Rappers aim at describing Black life within a racist system (such as the USA but not only, France is also concerned for example) and at denouncing the problems that Black people face in every day life. It is indeed a cultural reaction of Black populations to oppression. As such, rap music has developed and reinforced Black mainstream conceptions of a lot of issues, including sexuality and gender. The debate here is not to determine whether rap music is homophobic or not but rather, to determine why it is perceived as such. If one takes a close look at the lyrics of some songs of mainstream rappers such as Ice Cube, Eminem or Snoop Doggy Dogg, one can not deny that they are indeed homophobic as they use pejorative terms such as “faggots” and others. These examples have diffused the idea that hip hop is fundamentally homophobic. The question is why? As hip hop promotes a very masculine and stereotyped image of the Black male (Blackness), some authors such as Marlon Riggs have pointed out that this hyper masculine image, related to conceptions of Black manhood developed in the 1950 and 1960s during the civil rights period, does not allow any place for queerness as it is here understood as feminine, weak and in consequence, non-Black. Homosexuality is mainly perceived in Black communities as anti-Blackness because, still from this point of view, homosexuality is linked with femininity and emasculation. Here is the idea that Black and Queer are two incompatible identities.
However, very recently, some queer rappers have appeared in the USA and in Europe (mostly in Great Britain). The most famous is Caushun, a young rapper self-named as ‘the gay rapper’. Indeed, this phenomenon appears to be a strong challenge for hip hop culture because of its traditional rejection of homosexuality. This new trend has lead to the creation of a new term: “homo hop”. That is, hip hop by queer artists. Here is the mix of sexuality with music. The invention of such as term in itself proves that these artists represent an important novelty in the world of hip hop. Given the fact that hip hop is also a strong issue within the wider topic of race, homo hop concerns both the issues of sexuality and race.
This new phenomenon triggers off a lot of questions about rap music and its so-called homophobia. First of all, what are the oppressive mechanisms which concern hip hop and homo hop? Do they have to deal with them in different ways? How does homo hop interact with mainstream hip hop? The main point is to know how these two categories deal with the oppressive structures that are surrounding them.
First of all, queerness seems to share more common elements with hip hop than it could first seem, despite the strong homophobia present in this culture (I). Then, it appears that homo hop represents, paradoxically both a challenge to heteronormativity within hip hop, and continuity as it does not question some of its fundamental aspects (II) related to sexuality and gender such as sexism for example.

I. The Paradox of Hip Hop
While rap music and hip hop culture more generally speaking have developed a stereotypical image of Black masculinity (A), some aspects in these currents could be interpreted as homoerotic (B). It appears then that queerness and hip hop are both about resistance (C).
A. Homophobia

Black masculinity has been constructed, especially through discourses and theories developed during the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s, as a hyper masculine identity with strong gender prejudices. Black bionationalism, as explained by Wesley Crichlow, has succeeded in marking Black male bodies with particularly gendered stereotypical notions. Indeed, Black theorists have emphasized upon the differentiation between the two genders, if one supposes that there are only two genders. As a consequence, what is feared in Black communities from Black queers is their ability to cross the boundaries between these two genders. In classic discourses, homosexuality (more than lesbianism as these discourses target men in this particularly patriarchal community) is therefore associated with the feminine. That is, the weak and the emasculate. Queers are perceived as a threat to blackness because, through their sexual activities with same-sex partners, they challenge this gender division. As a result, they are seen as betrayers of Black community: they are no more perceived as “real” Blacks as they do not fit the expected behaviour of their biological sex.
The argument of Afrocentricity is also a strong one in Black nationalist discourses so as to discredit homosexuality. The myth that homosexuality is a White disease brought by the European settlers as it did not exist in Africa before is often emphasized. As Professor Griff of the rap group Public Enemy has explained it in an interview:

You have to understand something. In knowing and understanding Black history, African history, there’s not a word in any African language which describes homosexual, y’understand what I’m saying? You would like to make them part of the community, but that’s something brand new to Black people.

Despite the fact that homosexual acts could probably occurred without any word identifying them as different, as a consequence Black queers are seen as betrayers, not only from a gender point of view as explained earlier, but also from a racial point of view because they are thought to be linked with White population. The fact that many Black queers “seek refuge” in gay and lesbian communities (mainly composed of White people) confirms this impression from this Black nationalist point of view.
Homophobia in hip hop comes mainly from these conception of Black manhood as this cultural movement comes itself from Black communities and is a mirror of their experiences and theories.

B. Hip Hop culture as homoerotic

In one of his articles, Touré develops a very interesting and original idea: he describes the homoerotic elements involved in rap music. He first points out that, as this musical style is a male one (female rappers are very few and devalued) rap music could be interpreted as “a very public celebration of intense black male-to-black male love”. If this love is not necessarily sexual, it is nevertheless a demonstration of male relationships. Emotions in rap music are in a dominant way a male concern and links between rappers (hatred or love) are extremely developed. Rappers often declare their attachment to their band and there are several rap groups in rap involving celebrities who do want to stay in these groups. The most famous are D12 (with Eminem), G-Unit (with 50 Cent), the Neptunes (with Pharrell Williams), Mos Def and so on.
Touré establishes a comparison between rappers and drag queens in their relation to performance. The approach of the body for example in rap concerts/videos and in drag queen shows could be compared: in both case there is a stylization of the body (in two opposite directions though) and gendered markers are emphasized as much as possible. From this point of view, hip hop could be seen as queer because it is based on the notion of performance. Queer people perform through the stylization of their bodies with specific kinds of gender-marked clothes for example. This phenomenon is the same in rap music: if one watches rap videos, the place of gender-marked symbols such as clothes have a huge importance in order to specifically mark the performers as masculine and Blacks. This brings to the idea that rappers and queers have, through performance, a common point: the resistance to oppression.

C. Resistances

Both hip hop and queerness, as performances, aim at weakening oppressive structures. The former targets racism or White supremacy while the latter targets heteronormativity or heterosexual supremacy. The main problem appears that their struggles, while laying on the same model (performance of the body), are likely to develop oppositions. While hip hop attacks racism, via its strong prejudices upon Black masculinity it also reinforces heteronormativity. And queerness is also likely to develop some forms of racism. So these movements could become in conflict on these issues. This is due to the fact that each focuses on the criterion that is fundamental for its oppression: race for Black individuals and sexuality for queer people. This focus on only one element of oppression leads to the exclusion of other categories of oppressed people, mainly those who have several identities such as Black queers.
As Doug Norman underlines it, both homo hop (queer hip hop) and hip hop represent disidentification processes, in Muñoz’s sense, through performance. Trough their actions, these artists create what Muñoz calls ‘minoritarian counterpublic spheres”. That is to say that, through their performance, hip hop artists for example challenge traditional ideas about Black people: the idea is to deconstruct racist ideas by exposing themselves. The same is true for queer rappers: through their simple presence, first, and their work, then, they aim at deconstructing received ideas on both queerness and hip hop. They demonstrate that hip hop is not intrinsically homophobic with their presence. They deconstruct prejudices upon queerness in Black populations because they adopt masculine attitudes, contrary to the idea in Black nationalist theories that gay people are weak and effeminate. By doing so, they prove that rappers could be both queer and Black (in the nationalist meaning of this world). The only problem of this approach is that it does not challenge these structures of thinking that are at the base of oppression (see next chapter).

Given this paradoxical character of hip hop culture toward queerness, homo hop, this brand new trend in hip hop music represents both a strong challenge to the hip hop world and, paradoxically reinforces oppressive structures present in hip hop culture.

II. The paradox of Homo Hop

While homo hop appears to be an interesting example of a subculture within another subculture strongly challenging traditions (A), homo hop seems to be paradoxically very respective of oppressive cultural structures within rap music such as sexism (B). Finally, the economic aspects of this new trend highlight some interesting elements of this subculture (C).

A. A strong challenge to hip hop

By their simple presence in hip hop, queer artists challenge the idea that queerness and hip hop culture are not compatible, that the two identities exclude each other. Homo hop constitutes the perfect example of the reappropriation of a mainstream concept by a minoritarian group. In this case, Black queers adapt hip hop to their own values and transform it in ‘homo hop’. There, one element of oppression of Black queers (rap music) is transformed as a support for queer rappers such as Caushun or Dutchboy so as to express themselves. Surprisingly these movements of resistance in rap culture not only come from boys but also from some girls such as Queen Pen who created the first lesbian rap song. Seemingly, such polemical actions by women in rap are less taken into account, probably because it is a male-dominated society where women have no (or almost no) place.
The appearance of queer artists in rap music is a strong refusal of the concepts of Black bionationalism. As Black queers are investing rap music, a strong component of Black identity, they affirm their ‘blackness’, different from the oppressive definitions of Black nationalist discourses but blackness still. They then reject the racist idea that homosexuality is a White disease. In the same way, by being very masculine in their performances, they deconstruct prejudices according to which queerness is effeminacy and weakness. Here, the notion of style appears to be decisive: behaviour, clothing, music are components of this concept. As Dick Hebdige explains it:

The meaning of subculture is, then, always in dispute, and style is the area in which the opposing definitions clash with most dramatic force…it ends in the construction of a style, in a gesture of defiance or contempt, in a smile or a sneer. It signals a Refusal.

Homo hop could be seen as one symbol of resistance to oppression from the Black queer community toward the more general Black community.

B. Traditional clichés


While on the one hand homo hop appears as a challenge to hip hop, on the other hand it could be interpreted as a very conservative and traditional performance of hip hop. Indeed, if one took a close look at the way queer rap artists performs on scene, they do not question the traditional codes of clothing and behaviours which characterize mainstream rappers. By doing so, queer rappers do not seem to challenge other oppressive structures than sexual oppression. For example, by accepting and emphasizing the hyper masculine aspect of gay male rappers, queer artists imply a strong distinction between men and women has to be maintained. Therefore, sexist codes in hip hop are not challenged. So, if from a queer point of view, queer hip hop appears challenging, from a feminist point of view, it could be seen as conservative as regular hip hop. They succeed in questioning sexual oppression but not gender oppression. This triggers off the question of legitimacy and representation.
Are current queer rappers representative of Black queer populations? If Caushun named himself “the gay rapper”, some protests have been expressed by other rappers: by using “the”, Caushun reduces the Black rap community to him. But, of course, as queers, rappers have a lot of different personalities to perform. The main characteristic of queerness is its diversity: one could not reduce it to a style, an attitude. The queer rap community seems to offer such diversity. The fact that Caushun is not present in GHH (Gay Hip Hop) group may be interpreted as a refusal of any generalization on queer rap.

C. Economic aspects

Homo hop is both a social and an economic phenomenon as it occurs in the music industry. As a brand new phenomenon, homo hop is likely to become surrounded like its mainstream counterpart in an important economic system of marketing. This fact, combined with the increasing importance of the concept of ‘pink money’ and of the gay niche market may be the reasons for a foreseeable economic development of this particular market. This issue is important because, as marketing is the image-maker of artists, queer rappers will have an important part of their public image determined by it. How are the record companies going to make gay rappers selling? As a polemical subject, gay rappers are likely to have access to press and to some publicity. Paradoxically, one could be surprised that the artistic productions of these artists seem quite hard to obtain, except via their websites. So, even if gay rap represents a strong commercial potential, it seems that they are not as helped as one could first think. If these artists interest because they represent a polemical phenomenon, one gets the feeling that their work is not valued. Does this fact implies that the polemical aspect submerge the production of queer artists? It is too early to answer this question yet.



As a conclusion, homo hop appears to be a very interesting phenomenon because of the issues it gathers. Homo hop is new and underground today but one could imagine that it would soon become a popular music, like a lot of musical styles such as disco which came from Black queer communities. Nevertheless, its role concerning the oppressive structures in Black communities such as homophobia and sexism should be carefully taken into account.


Sources:

1) http://www.phatfamily.org/dadislist.html ‘Da Dis List’: created by Phat Family (rap group), this list repertories all the homophobic lyrics in hip hop/rap songs.
2) Buller Men and Batty Bwoys: Hidden Men in Toronto and Halifax Communities, Wesley Crichlow, University of Toronto, 2004.
3) Hip Hop Comes Out, Derrick Mathis, The Advocate, May 13th 2003.
4) Black Macho Revisited: Reflections of a SNAP! Queen by Marlon Riggs, in Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality (edited by Rudolph P. Byrd and Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Indian University Press, 2001).
5) Hip Hop’s Closet: A Fanzine Article Touches a Nerve by Touré, in The Greatest Taboo: Homosexuality in Black Communities (edited by Delroy Constantine-Simms, 2001).
6) The Identity Politics of Queer Hip Hop by Doug Norman (www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~norman/papers/QueerHipHop.pdf)
7) http://www.thegayrapper.com/, website of Caushun
8) http://www.gayhiphop.com, website of a union of queer rappers
9) A Feisty Female Rapper Breaks a Hip-Hop Taboo by Laura Jamison, The New York Times, January 18th 1998. In The Greatest Taboo: Homosexuality in Black Communities (edited by Delroy Constantine-Simms, 2001).
10) Subculture : The Meaning of Style by Dick Hebdige, London: Routledge, 1988.