Hip-Hop artists who support gays

R&B/hip-hop music gets a vicious rap for being sexist and homophobic. Sadly, many people in the hip-hop community help to perpetuate this attitude with artists like Tyrese, Busta Rhymes, 50 Cent and countless others. Earlier this week, on my site, ClayCane.net, I detailed some of hip-hop's “gayest” moments, debunking the myth that gays don't exist in this extremely homo-social sector of the music industry.

There are a group of artists (while small) who outwardly speak of their support for the LGBT community and recognize the toxic force of homophobia — in any community. Sometimes their voices get lost in the mix of the ignorance that surrounds them. Nonetheless, they are still there. Here are just a few:

A legend in hip-hop, Russell Simmons has been openly supportive of the LGBT community even when rumors swirl about his own sexuality. Earlier this month the Dallas Voice questioned the hip-hop mogul on the rumors. He answered, "I believe gay people deserve dignity ...Listen, I'm not gay. If I was, I would have the gift of another burden, and I would probably be instantly out. I fight for gay rights all the time. How about that?"

Russell also makes an interesting point about many homophobic rappers, "I know that 50 Cent is perceived as a homophobe. But if you asked him about gay marriage, I’d bet you 10-to-1, he’d approve. And if you asked Ludacris, he’d say the same thing,” Simmons adds, "Are rappers as violent as our government? No. Are the gangster rappers as gangster as our government? Hell no.”

Regardless of these rappers politics it does not take away the damage hateful music does to every community, but I would agree that President Bush is more "gangsta'" than 50 Cent.

Grammy-winner and rapper/actress Eve outwardly supports the gay and lesbian community. In my May 2007 interview with Eve I asked if she was comfortable with her strong gay and lesbian fan base being a hip-hop artist. Eve responded, "Why exclude? First of all, the gays, when they love you, they love you. They are very loyal. I have a huge gay men fan base - I love them."

In addition, I quizzed her on if she thought an openly gay rapper could ever be successful in hip-hip, "No. Especially if it’s a man, only because there’s a lot of frontin’ in hip-hop. A lot of the personas and perceptions of hip-hop is pretending to have more, be more. A lot of the stories the rappers talk about - they’re pretending." Just like Russell Simmons, Eve has her own lesbian rumors, but that hasn’t stopped her from supporting the gays.

Destiny’s Child has a history of a gay fan base, but not much of a history of directly reaching out to the gay community — at least not until the girl group became solo artists. Kelly Rowland of Destiny's Child, who has a new solo record Ms. Kelly, which hit stores this week, opened about up the perceived homophobia in hip-hop/R&B to the EDGE. "All I can think about are people like Kanye who made the comment about the gay community supporting him and not thinking anything of it because people are people, like I say. It doesn’t matter if you are gay, straight, or whatever -- music is music." Kelly stresses, "I don’t get why it has to be separated, or why people have to be separated."

Above all, no one said it better than Kanye West in 2005 during an interview with MTV. He admitted to his own homophobia when he was a child, but when he discovered his cousin was gay he realized how hateful he was being. In relation to hip-hop Kanye explained, "Everyone in hip-hop discriminates against gay people. Not just hip-hop, but America just discriminates. And I wanna just, to come on TV and just tell my rappers, just tell my friends, 'Yo, stop it.'"

Many thought Kanye would experience extreme backlash for his comments, but little to no backlash occurred and it was the most progressive statement from anyone in hip-hop for over fifteen years.

Maybe this is a sign that it’s no longer quite so marketable to be homophobic. Would Eminem have the same success in 2007 with homophobic lyrics as he did in 2000? I would like to think things are changing and although few, the artists above are great examples.