Hip Hop and Homosexuality

Only a few minutes after watching drag queen Harmonica Sunbeam host her popular Sunday night variety show at New York's Escuelita's nightclub, black and Latino men were dancing with each other to the familiar melody of Tok's "Chi Chi Man," a reggae song which appears to encourage the burning and killing of gay ("chi chi") men.

From dem a par inna chi chi man car
Blaze di fire mek we bun dem!!!! (Bun dem!!!!)
From dem a drink inna chi chi man bar
Blaze di fire mek we dun dem!!!! (Dun dem!!!!)

At a party in Washington, D.C., the same weekend, black gay men were tapping their feet to the beat of Jay-Z's new "Blueprint" CD, in which the artist uses some variation of the word "fag" three times on different songs.

And during the same weekend, black gay men across the country were rushing to music stores to buy DMX's new "Great Depression" CD, which uses the word "faggot" in the song "Bloodline Anthem."

What's going on here? What once seemed unimaginable has now become reality. We've come to the point where mainstream black gay male identity now embraces a popular music and culture that often seems inconsistent with homosexuality.

Whether or not hip hop culture is actually homophobic is still a subject of debate. Of course, hip hop is not all about rap music, and rap music is not all homophobic. Activists tend to focus on the Allen Iversons and the Eminems when they record music with homophobic lyrics and neglect to mention the scores of other hip hop artists without homophobic lyrics.

Hip hop has had a long and ambivalent relationship with homosexuality. While many of the artists, performers and key figures of the hip hop movement have been homosexual or bisexual, the on-screen, on-air musical representation of hip hop rarely acknowledges this reality. That's why so much attention has been lavished this year on "the gay rapper" Caushun, who was certainly not the first gay rap artist, but probably the first to market himself as such.

The marriage of hip hop and homosexuality has created a divide in the black community with surprising new fault lines. The new divide is not so much between black homosexuals and heterosexuals as it is among black homosexuals themselves, split along generational, political and social boundaries.

The divide appears more clearly when we focus on our music, the cultural soundtrack of our lives and communities. Ten years ago, house music reigned supreme in black gay nightlife, but today it seems an ancient religion, practiced primarily by potbellied "oldheads" in tight-fitting spandex muscle shirts.

Aided by the hyper masculinity of hip hop culture, black homosexual identity in the nineties evolved away from house music and other gay-identified representations of self and instead created the the "homothug" and the "downlow."

As a result of the changing norms, many black men have been left to reconcile their sexuality with their newly exaggerated sense of masculinity. At a town meeting of black gay men in Washington last month, one man explained that the homophobic lyrics in some rap songs don't refer to him. Another explained that the lyrics don't offend him. No matter what the explanation, increasing numbers of black homosexual and bisexual men are making peace with a music and culture that sometimes appears to be anti-homosexual and anti-bisexual.

Older black gay men should resist the temptation to criticize younger hip hoppers without first examining their own behaviors. In fact, the embrace of hip hop culture among black gay youth seems strikingly similar to the embrace of black church culture among many older black gay men who socialize in gay settings on Saturdays and then attend homophobic churches on Sundays.

In the war between hip hop and house, hip hop has already won. Whatever the reason for the shift, the cultural division is likely to have profound impact on political organizing in the largely politically inactive black gay community.

Ironically, even as black men become more comfortable with their homosexuality and bisexuality, black gay political activists are becoming increasingly irrelevant to their lives. Thus, those who are connected to the political arena will need to make an even greater effort to reach those in the social arena with a non-patronizing and non-condescending approach.

© 2001 by Keith Boykin. All Rights Reserved.