Keepin It Real: Hip Hop has gone Gay!
Thursday, September 18, 2008 at 1:27AM By Tim’m T. West
This is officially a rant, not a manifesto! And for all I've already written, rapped, and freestyled about Hip Hop, my investment in deconstructing this idea that there is a "real" real to keep, is about the only real thing I know. The shit has hit the fans. Its stench is slamming them in the face with the excesses of fantasy-driven, capitalistic, agonistic, hypermasculine bullshit that is clogging radio waves and iPods alike. To be clear, far from romanticizing a "Golden Era" of Hip Hop that was ever really real, I'm interested in complicating even those who'd suggest some pure notion of Hip Hop harkening back to the days of Beat Street, Breakin', and Krush Groove. I was a kid in Little Rock, AR when those flicks dropped. The movement of Hip Hop from our boomboxes to the big screen was an authenticating touchstone. Up to that point, Hip Hop was late-disco and 80s soul. Hip Hop was the roller skating rink and all kinds of eccentric characters trying to mark themselves as the most eccentric playboys, gangstas, and pimps. Listening to Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five's The Message, one hears a litany of struggles defining inner city life. But this is no uncomplicated and romantic inner city-- there are pimps, pushers, working class folk, fag hags, addicts, and undercover fags. They all have in common capitalism's grip pushing each of them closer to "the edge". Fag in this context was descriptive, not pejorative, so I still felt like I could be a part of it. Hip Hop was the music of the people-- and for all the ways my attraction to boys distinguished me from other b-boys or emcees, I still felt welcomed to participate, if silent about my difference. Poor people where I grew up had other shit to worry about besides who you were hookin’ up with.
As product of inner city streets of that era one must understand Reaganomics and urban neglect to truly understand the alliances of the era-- how a budding sound would come to define generations to come. I was in third grade when Reagan got shot and remember saying in class, that "he ain't doing nothing for my community". I was reprimanded by teachers and told by students that the FBI was gonna get me: "You can't say anything bad about the President," they said. I believed them and took tunnels after school to get home. And it was during that dark, scary journey home that I understood Hip Hop as anti-establishment. I was one of her most vocal, if naïve, sons. There were few in 1980 who projected that Hip Hop would morph into the culture that's now authenticating everything from McDonald's sandwiches to Hummers. Capitalism is greedy. It allowed Hip Hop to be the low-wage housekeeper with the understanding that power is seductive. The art form would necessarily shift as a result of increasing market demands, and the understanding that “the next shit” almost always snowballs. With proper marketing (and a healthy enough pocket) you can market anything: White rappers, female rappers, gay rappers, and even people who can’t rap at all.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not a hater. “Do you”as they say. I support many who, through Hip Hop, find a way to, as Project Runway’s Tim Gunn says: "make it work". I'm considered one of the pioneers of the whole gay rap movement, though I reject any notion that there weren't brothas and sistas (and among them LGBT people) contributing to the sound called Hip Hop, 20 years before the so called "Gay Hip Hop" movement. This isn't to disengage the politics of authenticity about Hip Hop's roots among urban Black and Latino men. When Fat Joe says in Byron Hurt's Beyond Beats and Rhymes "We the kings of this", he's reasserting genealogical privilege to the same brothas that started the Djing, Graffiti Writing, Breaking, and rapping that you see in a film like “Beat Street”. But what happened to the DJs prominence in the scene? Eric B and Rakim became Rakim, K-Rock and MC Lyte became MC Lyte, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince became Will Smith. Perhaps Scott LaRock's untimely death and Jam Master Jay’s more recent death are a proverbial haunting about the death of the DJ. The DJs of yesterday, as we used to know them, have been replaced by the SUPERPRODUCER. The old school DJs don't as easily confirm to the dictates of the marketing boardroom. Today’s Hip Hop needed a voice, a real voice, and it is Capitalism who would mold that voice as "REAL". Where are the women, the gays, all the other people often ignored in Hip Hop history? What are the real market forces that designate "appropriate" roles for them. Women can only appropriately be bikini-clad video vixens or gay men, witty stylists or skilled managers in the scene.
Understanding the context of New York City in the late 80s, you understand that the same clubs that hosted some of the first Hip Hop parties also hosted some of the cities biggest dance parties (e.g., club/house music). Audiences weren’t mutually exclusive, and even through the early 90’s it was not uncommon to have bboys at the Roxy wind up partying at The Garage or Better Days. Similarly, a group of Hip Hop heads at Soul Kitchen heading over to Shelter or The Sound Factory. This movement called Hip Hop was about finding some productive way to do something with the pain and hardship of inner city life. I find it curious that there wasn't quite the anxiety about sexuality in earlier Hip Hop that there seems to be now. As the stakes for realness and being hardcore were raised, so did the homophobia and gay bashing. This isn't to suggest that homophobia was absent from the early movement, but that emcees would probably have to call someone something more original than “gay” to shut a battle down. Ushered in by a Hip Hop gone capitalist and legitimized by gangsta rappers’ ability to sell more records than the conscious, nerdy, or bohemian cats, Hip Hop became a lot more than just Capitalism's hardest working noble savage. It had moved up to being Capitalism's main bitch. In 2008 Capitalism seems to be pimpin’ Hip Hop out on the corner and for the most part, she likes it.
Occasionally there is the boom and bap of “conscious” objectors to the marriage between Capitalism and Hip Hop but they eventually grow weary from burning CDs only for money enough to burn more CDs, paying gas costs for modest tours in the hooptie, and waking up to do it again. If they don’t give up, they sell out. Conscious rappers don’t escape Papa Capitalism’s gaze either (e.g., Common’s GAP ads). It was our mother who married him but now he claimin' we don't look nothing like him and wants DNA tests as proof of his parentage. And therein lies the bad news. Capitalism, like Maury, owns the DNA machine and WILL NOT raise any child who'd resist him. There will be no child support for Oedipal impulses to dethrone the father, save a few cool acts (e.g, Kanye West) he permits that can pull bank and as evidence that there is some balance. Ask the Graf writers, many of the DJs, and the bboys who are still living in the poor house out back while Capitalism and Hip Hop's favorite children get fat off the continuation of a legacy many have selectively forgotten. My nephew thinks old school Hip Hop is Snoop Dog and Master P. We’ve got more teaching to do.
I was once proud of being a part of the Gay Hip Hop movement for one reason: In the mid-late 90’s and early 00’s we were a bit truer to Hip Hop's origins than the Hip Hop mainstream many of us seem to be struggling against for basic recognition (as shown in Alex Hinton's Pick Up the Mic): Conscious Rappers, Gangstas, Punks, all races, cultures and gender expressions represented. But this inclusive Hip Hop isn't the "Real" Hip Hop claimed by many or most producers or consumers in the industry today.
My first Hip Hop tape (yes... cassette) was Boogie Down Productions’ Criminal Minded, given to me by a female cousin who was really excited about the grit and authenticity that KRS brought to this emerging movement. I was reminded of this record and other favorites on a recent trip down from Humboldt County, CA to the Bay listening to the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique. I also remember than this project, perhaps my favorite of them all, didn't sell terribly well. I remember my fascination with white and/or female rappers alongside conscious cats like PRT, Xclan, BDP, Divine Styler, because it represented a Hip Hop porous enough to understand its roots but embrace identities that would "come out" as subjects moved to join the Hip Hop Nation. As a young, closeted bboy and emcee, I secretly invested in the idea that there might come a day when LGBT folk would also be able to represent openly in the Hip Hop Nation, despite the reminders by threatened homophobes that "Hip Hop is Not Gay".
Watch Beat Street, Krush Groove, or Breakin’, look at the early photos of Grandmaster Flash and his Village people-esque aesthetic and tell me that Hip Hop wasn't at least a little gay. Hip Hop represented new freedoms and was inextricably linked to my coming out process, even founding a collegiate Hip Hop collective with a name as consciously corny as most of the other groups of the era: Duke's Enlightened Nubians. Back then it was fresh, provocative, conscious, and about social change. Back then I loved that Rhyme Syndicate had a white rap cat named Everlast who could hold his own. I loved that there crews of white boys from Brooklyn called Young Black Teenagers and 3rd Base upsetting all the black Nationalists. Women like Ms. Melody, Queen Latifah and Monie Love asserting their femmeilarity as Hip Hop heads too. Hip Hop is all them, and then some.
Today, Capitalism is desperately looking for a way to commodify and package Hip Hop's next shit. If gay rappers don't stink before they get signed they almost surely will after. It'll be thirty-some odd gay rappers calling themselves the gay version of (fill in “female black rap seductress” here) or the gay version of (fill in “gangsta I'll blast your ass with X number of bullets and feel no remorse” here) or (fill in “I'm a free spirit with more punch lines than a UT frat party” here) or (“I'm a female pimp and my hoes is tight rapper” here). I got word recently that they are even doing a gay rapper reality TV show. I can honestly say that I'm not looking forward to exposing the world to how much disenfranchised fags hate other disenfranchised fags. The Gay Hip Hop movement has degenerated into a spiteful, antagonistic, bastion of haterism and pettiness. Wow... Just like much of straight Hip Hop.
I've resolved in 2008 to align with people I "feel" are on the same page... And, many of them are queer, but just as many of them (if not more) are straight. We critique capitalism, we don't boast about it. We are about social justice and change making. And for the record, I'm not glorifying starving. I have managed a way to do okay for myself and family as an artist, but, at 36, am not about selling my soul for mainstream acceptance when I don't like most of the mainstream music I hear.
In the mid 90’s Gay Hip Hop artists tried to reconcile our differences as a subculture of Hip Hop that, like Hip Hop's origins, was trying to say something different. Not just about gay life, but about human struggle. Today, there are 5 times the number of gay rappers as when we started the so-called "Homo Hop" movement, there ARE entertainers who don't rap terribly well but who are great at entertaining, there are battle cats who each think they are the best shit to ever hit a toilet bowl, and so much other unoriginal crap that it's all starting to be as grotesque as the excesses of mainstream Hip Hop.
Maybe that's the point? Of course Mama Hop Hip and Papa Capitalism had their gay children too, and when they realized their kids are here, queer, and that they’d have to get used to it, they pimped them out in family fashion. After all: "They get it from they mama". Maybe there’s some sly queer rapper who believes she will make necessary compromises on the hoe stroll, someday make it big, and free us all. Maybe she will remember our complicated history as marginalized people-- remember when Hip Hop was the broke baby mama working hard, being creative, and making do with whatever she had. But Capitalism's a selfish and greedy motherfucker. This real that we keep hearing about, as unstable and volatile as it is, constantly needs to reiterate itself to "keep", prove, and authenticate its realness. The real turns out to be Capitalism's business as usual. Even the most marginalized can be seduced by money and power. I'll keep burning my CD’s and keep hoping people remember a different real, the one that ain't really real but is whatever we need it to be to maximize our freedom as people who love all of Hip Hop’s children: The Graf writers, The DJs, the Bboys, and yes, the Emcees too. Like I’ve sang and rapped a million times, Hip Hop ain't dead, she just needs to Get Free.
Reader Comments (15)
Tim'm, you said it better than anyone.
Thank you.
I don't even know where I'd begin to respond and/or voice my total agreement, but I will say...
I dream of a day where someone - more than one - emerges with enough knowledge of the past and present to take the concept of "gay hip hop" to a true next level.
I keep thinking in my mind... so many people want to pay tribute to their heroes by *acting just like them*. What they don't realize is that their heros BECAME heroes for being *like no one else*. You can't make a classic by copying a classic. Pay tribute to the true innovators by being a true innovator. Take risks. Be yourself.
Thanks Tim'm!
Matt
but that's what we have here...somewhat. With this homohop thing -- not yet under corporate influence. it's pretty much as creatively free as you can get at this point. I know at least, with me, there's no one at all telling me what to do and say except me. I guess we should saver it for what it is right now?
Personally, I think it is a bit premature to pooh pooh gay hip hop reality tv shows and place "gay hip hop" in the same breath with the capitalism that runs through mainstream hip hop when not a single "out" LGBT hip hop artist is signed to a major record label.
In fact, only a couple have distribution deals, and it is very limited at that. So, my opinion is that the lumping of "gay hip hop" in with the other capitalists is a bit premature. But don't get me wrong...if it could be there, I am sure it would be there.
Just my two cents.
Crusher,
you've been around since the beginning, so I think you're seeing things as I do. Many who've only been active for only the past few years don't have the experience of those first Peace Out Festival and the unity and organizing it took to put them on. To suggest that gay rap is exempt from capitalist critique is a bit dismissive. I'm not saying that ALL GAY RAP artists are greedy capitalists. Clearly, I'm a GAY RAP artist who doesn't see myself that way. But I am meeting more and more who constantly talk about what compromises they're willing to make to get that "big deal"... and while a noble aspiration, I think it stands to be critiqued. I also believe I made clear that there were lots of queer artists who I felt aligned with, just not all.
Most of the gay rap folk on OHH weren't even around in 97-99 when the rumblings of this "movement" began to take shape. Just a bit of history... Things have changed. It's undeniable and inevitable. I just think that it makes sense to proceed with caution (not to be confused with Cashun).
Lastly, as for the reality TV show. REALITY TV, in general, is commiserate with uber-capitalism. I don't find any of it particularly interesting, save Project Runway and maybe one or two other occasional guilty pleasures. I've seen MORE OFTEN, identies on the margins being exploited for their "difference" and left with little long-standing cultural impress on the change they aspire. Reality TV, by design, is not Reality-- it's a scripted snapshot of real events organized to present somebody's self interested (and marketable) notion of the real. If all gay rappers came together and got along on a show and supported each other, the show wouldn't last a season. Tell me any different.
Tim'm, from your response it sounds like you felt I was somehow disagreeing with you. Perhaps you misattributed the comments following mine as mine, but I am 100% in agreement with you.
Matt
Timm, I'm feeling your essay. Robin
I really hope there is more to your blogs than saying "Im the first", or "back when I started the homo-hop movement"... (its not about who started it, its about where it is going)
Get off your high horse, and write about stuff we are interested in. And black power, and how the government/record labels are against us..blah blah blah is NOT it.
I dont want to hear you bash the government/record labels, or the mainstream hip hop garbage.... We've heard all that crap before.
And personally Ive seen you live, and I believe you must fall into your category of people that can rap, but are NOT really good entertainers. (not a diss, just a fact). You go onstage and tell everyone about how "when I was one of the first..."...who cares, put on a good show, or get off the stage.
Please do not give us more than the same ole Timm' that everyone already knows. Or this will get boring real quick.
-Voiceless
Voiceless is one thing you most definitely are not.
I really have to disagree and say although I don't agree with everything Tim'm says (which is why I thought he'd be perfect to blog on OHH, I am a firm believer that different opinions than my own and those that agree with me should exist), I really don't feel he was on a high horse, if anything, he was clarifying just what horse he was on, which was the horse that is committed to fighting capitalism and the bastardization of hip hop. And there most definitely are a lot of others in hip hop who feel that way.
As far as the "first" thing, there will always be a little disconnect between those who started the movement or were "community organizers" with things like Peace Out, and the people still doing things on the scene today.
One of the reasons this is called "The Out Roots" is to educate those who are not aware of the vast history of the movement, that it didn't launch with Goddes and She on MTV/LOGO for 6 months, that was a turning point but it was something that had a beginning maybe a lot of people don't know. It's a history lesson, and like most history, yes, it can be boring or interesting, but the most important thing about history is that we learn from it.
Have we?
-Humpty
Yo Crusher/Matt,
My bad for not clarifying that the latter half of my post was not directed at you. We're eye to eye.
Voiceless
- i never said i started the gay hip hop movement; only that i was one, among many, many pioneers who seem to get forgotten in the now. And I'm also talking about the graf artists and bboys (Sundance), the producers and DJs (Monkey, Maker, Fixx) etc...
-it's called the Roots, yo. That's what the blog is for. And from what I'm hearing from outhiphop, the blog is drawing great attention (hits) to all of OHH (newbies and old headz). Stop hatin
-boring artists don't tour all year yo. (to mostly standing room only audiences). I may be boring, but (as Crusher states) there's nobody as originally and uniquely boring as I. Holla
Brilliant post Tim'm! I've always been amused with the notion of "keeping it real" the tension between comodification and comodified rebellion. How the way for me to be REAL is to dress in a costume, walk a certain way, speak a certain way. Not that I don't like to but it's still murky territory. Where do these patterns come from? The dominant class. Am I the dominant class? If not, how is that keeping it real? If being authentic is acting in a way that's not natural, what's up? How is it that we've lost what REAL authenticity is? But to complicate the matter even more--who is WE? A half hour ago I was speaking to a room full of senior citizins about hip-hop and had this sweet older lady from Canada come up to talk about how much she loved krump. Lady knew RIZE frontways and backways. Is she keeping it real or cannibilising my culture? My community is the folks I get down with. Keeping it real is doing what we do and continuing to do it. Definition is for packaging and selling and while we all got to get paid we also gotta stop conflating the message for the content. WORD
Excellent! As someone who came of age in the '80s, I can definitely see how much the world has changed in the last 20 years. So much of Hip Hop has lost its soul...the radical, inclusive, righteously indignant edge that it had in the early days. Not to mention the downright fun!
Thank you for your thoughtful commentary.
Very articulant, informational and historical blog Timm! Kudos to what you have done and are doing for the Movement! I honor you! One.
I've never once been bored at one of your shows. LOL. Thank you for critiquing the scene, but we know that Gay Culture has been co-opted for a minute, and the same with hip hop culture. It was and is inevitable that gay/hip hopness would be sold/dissected and sliced up.
i feel what you are saying. And I think a lot of LGBT people think they are better (capitalist) just because they are queer (or gay), but really, we are all in the Matrix.
Keep writing. Keep performing. Keep thinking.
Fam,
SP
Voiceless.....lol....some people actually are, which is why movements like this gay hip hop thing never gets past a quick gimmick artist with minimal talent (lol... KAUSHUN).
I honestly appreciate Tim'm because, although he DID NOT start the gay hip hop movement(nor has he ever said it that i know of in conversation or otherwise), he is definitely the voice of gay hip hop who has recognition and it's subsequent influence far beyond the achievement of any other entity in the genre. So to speak for people whom you haven't touched in any way, seems a bit pretentious and assumptive to say the least. It is through my observation of many facts, that for a campaign as heartfelt, hopeful, dear and necessary for social growth as this movement of ours, there needs to be an educated voice that speaks to multiple audiences on the many levels that we can understand(Think MLK, JFK, RFK, KRS One and 2pac).....
The very foundation of hip hop is rooted in people voicing their struggles against oppression and belittlement. Seeing that everyone had a role in it from the seed that was planted yesterday all the way to the tree of many fruits so to speak that it is today, you as a hater are included and you should feel proud dear Voiceless.
I just had the idea that perhaps it's easier for people to talk about rap as pure entertainment and the blah blah of struggle and racism, when they don't daily encounter instances of racism or class oppression. yeah...blah blah... but it sounds a lot like white privilege to me, even if assumed by a non-white. might be another blog-worthy subject. I've been thinking a lot more about white privilege in the context of even our queer hip hop movement.