Claiming Queer Space in Hip-Hop
Story by Justin Zabel & Sean Bessette | Design & Illustrations by Sarah Stewart
In the late 1970s, the first wave of hip-hop music emerged. Over 40 years later, the genre is still working to be more inclusive of queer artists with the emerging prominence of artists like Lil Nas X, Tyler, The Creator, Frank Ocean and more.
Queer artists are changing the narrative around hip-hop music but they wouldn’t have had the opportunity to if it wasn’t for DJ Kool Herc.
Hip-hop’s origins
DJ Kool Herc is from Jamaica and grew up in the Bronx. His music career began from out of the back of his car. He would use his boombox to get people's attention to get them to the next apartment party by playing the sounds of Jamaica. He wanted everyone to come together and have a great time while listening to his words instead of those words from the boombox. At these parties, Kool Herc was the “DJ”. The DJ is one singular part of a team that creates the hip hop sound.
“You have a DJ, you have an MC, and you have the breakdancers B-boys and B-girls. It was really the DJs and the B-boys and B-girls who were the most important at the very beginning. And, you know, emphasis on live interaction,” says Dr. Mark Samples, Associate Professor of Music at Central Washington University.
In the '70s, Kool Herc started hip hop out of his car, but another great hip hop artist rose at the turn of the decade, Grandmaster Flash. Flash introduced a new type of hip hop, turntables and mixings techniques. These techniques of hip hop have transitioned into the 21st century.
Artists creating hip hop have pushed every boundary of what hip hop is.“It’s not just music. It's also, like I said, fashion, right. It's an attitude. It is a collection of cultural social musical elements and stylistic elements that loosely, can be called hip hop,” Samples says. Many of the artists in the 21st century are creating content that refers to justice hip hop. More songs are against racial, gender and religious inequalities, than origin mixer hip hop.
As hip-hop moved into the 2000s, the creation of a safer space for queer artists emerged.
Early stages of queer hip-hop artists
In 2001, Tim’m T. West, an American hip-hop artist and educator, coined the term “homo-hop.”
It was a, “Very deliberate attempt to kind of reclaim a space for queer artists in hip-hop, and it was a reaction against that widespread homophobia, anti-LGBTQ language,” says David McLemore, Lecturer of Tuba at Central Washington University.
Queer hip-hop artists were not popular in the early 2000s, in fact there was a negative attitude towards them. McLemore credits that to hip-hops roots dating back to the genre’s origination.
McLemore says there is a lot of anti LGBTQ+ language used at hip-hops roots and that there a history of normalizing heteronormativity.
In a 2000 Eminem song, the Detroit rapper says, “My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge, that’ll stab you in the head, whether you’re a fag or lez or a homosex, hermaph or a trans-a-vest. Pants or dress, hate fags? The answer’s yes. Homophobic? Nah, you’re just heterophobic.”
In a 2005 interview with MTV News’ Sway Calloway, Kanye West discussed homophobia in hip-hop. West says he became homophobic because others would call him a slur in high school.
“If you see something and you don’t want to be that because it sets a negative connotation towards it, you try to separate yourself from it so much that it made me homophobic by the time I was through high school,” West says. “Matter of fact, the exact opposite word of hip-hop, I think, is gay. Like yo, you play a record, and it’s like wack, that’s gay.”
West suggests that all hip-hop artists at the time discriminated against gay people. He ended his interview by sharing a call to action with his peers.
He made it clear that discrimination against queer artists needs to stop and compared it to discrimination against black people.
Present-day queer hip-hop artists
As hip-hop transitioned into the 2010s, more space for queer hip-hop artists emerged, most notably through artists like Lil Nas X, Frank Ocean, and Tyler, The Creator.
In 2012, Frank Ocean, the “channel ORANGE” and “Blonde” artist, wrote an open letter expressing his sexuality.
A portion of the letter read: “4 summers ago, I met somebody. I was 19 years old. He was too. We spent that summer, and the summer after, together. Everyday almost. And on the days we were together, time would glide. Most of the day, I’d see him and his smile. I’d hear his conversation and his silence…until it was time to sleep. Sleep I would often share with him. By the time I realized I was in love, it was malignant. It was hopeless. There was no escaping, no negotiating with the feeling. No choice. It was my first love, it changed my life.”
The letter was in response to his 2012 album, “channel ORANGE,” which featured homosexual themes.
After a four-year hiatus, Ocean followed up “channel ORANGE” with his next album, “Blonde,” in 2016. “Blonde” continues to present some of the queer themes presented in “channel ORANGE,” but they were not presented as notably.
Fans have speculated that the album cover and title showcase Ocean’s bisexuality. The album title says “Blonde,” while the album cover reads “blond.” The speculation is that the difference in names represents the conflicting femininity and masculinity Ocean is experiencing, with “Blonde” representing femininity and “blond” representing masculinity.
Ocean’s most forefront expression of his bisexuality might have been on his 2017 single, “Chanel,” where he starts the song with, “My guy pretty like a girl and he got fight stories to tell. I see both sides like Chanel, see on both sides like Chanel.”
Ocean’s music has been met with critical acclaim, with “Blonde” garnering 276,000 unit sales the first week and debuting #1 on the Billboard 200.
“channel ORANGE” won him a GRAMMY for “Best Urban Contemporary Album” in 2013.
A Frank Ocean collaborator, Tyler, The Creator, is another rapper who has expressed queer themes in his music. He is known for his albums “Flower Boy,” “Call Me If You Get Lost,” but most notably for his 2019 album, “IGOR.”
“A BOY IS A GUN,” track seven on “IGOR,” hints at Tyler’s bisexuality, as the whole album follows an alter-ego who falls in love and falls out of love. “IGOR” sold 165,000 units the first week and debuted #1 on the Billboard 200. The album won “Best Rap Album” at the 2020 GRAMMY Awards.
Rather than in his music, Tyler’s sexuality is more expressed outside his music. Following the release of “IGOR” in 2019, Tyler interviewed with GQ discussing everything from fashion to ice cream to his creative direction and his sexuality.
“I like girls – I just end up fucking their brother every time,” Tyler said in the interview.
While Tyler’s music has also been met with critical acclaim, a recurring face in the industry continued his homophobic lyricism, this time against Tyler.
Eminem’s homophobic lyrics continued into 2018 when he mentioned Tyler, The Creator, on the tenth track of his 2018 album, “Kamikaze,” where he called Tyler a homophobic slur.
Lil Nas X is another rapper who has not shied away from his sexuality in his music and is most notably known for his 2019 hit single “Old Town Road.”
“Old Town Road” was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the most consecutive week, following the remix released with Billy Ray Cyrus, and was the fastest track to receive RIAA diamond certification.
Lil Nas X came out as gay on World Pride Day June 30, 2019 with a tweet that read: “some of y’all already know, some of y’all don’t care, some of y’all not gone fwm no more. but before this month ends i want y’all to listen closely to c7osure.”
“C7osure” is the name of track 7 of his debut EP, “7.”
“True say, I want and I need to let go, use my time to be free,” Lil Nas X says in the song, alluding to proclaiming himself a member of the LGBTQ+ community. “I set the boundaries for myself, it’s time to cross the line.”
Lil Nas X released his debut album titled “MONTERO” in Sept. 2021, which sold 126,000 units first week and debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200.
Trending towards more inclusivity
The LGBTQ+ community has fought for their rights, just like everyone else does. They desereve to have equal treatment, in everyday life and in music.
There is a lot of hatred towards the LGBTQ+ community. Many times this hatred goes for people who don't understand them. This is how labels get attached. People being called homophobic or racist. But mainly these labels are only what is seen from others actions.
“Nobody is born a racist. Nobody's born a homophobe or a transphobe,” says McLemore.
“I think these artists like Frank Ocean and Lil Nas X, they have made huge strides for representation, particularly for black male queer artists,” McLemore says.
McLemore says it’s difficult to predict the future in terms of inclusivity in hip-hop due to the genre’s limited history, but things seem to be leaning towards more inclusivity.
“That being said, the trend certainly appears to be so and we’re seeing that trend, not just in hip-hop, but a little bit more broadly in the culture, in other musical genres,” McLemore says.
He’s cautiously optimistic and mentions “backsliding” has occurred while referencing previous historic trends.
“I think the work of activists needs to continue and it will continue,” McLemore says.
Bret Smith, Professor of Music Education at Central Washington University, shared a similar sentiment as the landscape and soundscape for queer artists in hip-hop continue to expand.
“And I think that's actually kind of exciting because, hey, we're living in history,” Smith says. “You know, for me, it's kind of interesting because there has been a real healthy effort on the part of content contemporary musicians and scholars you know, to to expand our vision a little bit on purpose beyond the, the candidate that we have to see are there artists whose you know, works are merit, the time spent to study them and play them that who, you know, maybe are underrepresented in terms of gender or ethnicity or you know.”
