Taking the Homophobia Out of Hip-Hop: A Progress Report

These may seem like small changes on the surface, but anything that helps humanize gays in the eyes of hip-hop culture may be seen as progress. Such changes open creative doors for other rappers to explore, evolve and mature in their relationship with gays and gay issues.

Currently, although anti-gay lyrics have not vanished completely from the hip-hop scene, they have at least changed qualitatively, into a somewhat less directly offensive form.

The homophobia in older rap releases tends to be the kind that addresses homosexuality as a whole. As song lyrics it can take the form of the rapper speaking directly to, or about, gays. It is often presented in the context of promoting violence and outright persecution.

Nowadays, anti-gay hip-hop more often takes the form of personal “faggot” type name-calling between two straight rappers. In this kind of misconstrued macho bravado, emcees challenge each other's manhood by calling each other queer. In rap land, gay terminology is synonymous with all that is negative, weak, and abominable.

While such “dissing” does not technically target gays, it is still highly insulting and degrading to be caricatured so negatively. To have to witness thuggish men hurling anti-gay slurs at each other is bad enough. To be publicly referred to as an archetype for all that is undesirable and anti-masculine in manhood is not only false but bigoted. It is especially damaging to expose young, impressionable gay minds to this kind of hurtful cross-dissing.

A watershed moment in the history of hip-hop and homosexuality came in August 2005 when hip-hop megastar Kanye West opened up on the subject during an MTV interview. West not only spoke on how gay-bashing should stop, but even spoke of his own past homophobia and his struggles to overcome it.

Kanye discussed how he changed his ways when he discovered that his cousin was gay. "It was kind of like a turning point when I was like, 'Yo, this is my cousin. I love him and I've been discriminating against gays.'"

West reminded listeners that hip-hop was always about "speaking your mind and about breaking down barriers”, but that unfortunately, “Everyone in hip-hop discriminates against gay people." He noted the sad truth that metaphorically, “gay is the opposite, the exact opposite word of hip-hop”.

Considering that in hip-hop it's almost de rigueur to gay bash, Kanye's coming clean on the subject was truly extraordinary. His brave move, in his own words, “to come on TV and just tell my rappers, just tell my friends,`Yo, stop it'”, caused jaws all across the traditionally anti-gay hip-hop establishment to drop.

Feedback from Kanye's interview immediately lit up the blogosphere igniting a healthy worldwide discussion on the subject. Thanks to his star power it was carried far and wide by mass media. Those who support an end to homophobia surged forth from the back of the hip-hop bus and offered up a massive public show of approval for Kanye's position. People are still talking about it today.

Shortly after Kanye West spoke out against homophobia in hip-hop, Jamaican singing/rapping star Sean Paul criticized anti-gay lyrics in hip-hop and reggae. In an interview with The Guardian, Paul said other artists need to reconsider their homophobic lyrics. “Sometimes people need to free up their thinking,” he said, “Right now my question to these dudes is, ‘Why say it so many times?' It's really hurting the music on a monumental level.”

He also warned that the negative, violent stereotype now being associated with Jamaican music was in danger of eclipsing the more positive aspects of the island's music.