Tone-Deaf: Finding a Home in the Hip-Hop Fandom
*Article from Lexington Line’s Autumn/Winter 2021 Issue, pages 14-15
Check out the full issue here.
Anna (she/her), a 21-year-old NYU student, has been a hip-hop fan all her life. She’s also bisexual, which unfortunately means that being a fan of the genre has not always been easy.
“Rap music is something I’ve always enjoyed, but it still has a long way to go,” Anna says.
The rapper DaBaby made headlines this past summer for spewing homophobic and misogynistic remarks during the Rolling Loud festival in Miami. After videos surfaced, he was dropped from multiple music festivals including Governor’s Ball, Lollapalooza, and Day N Vegas, all of which made statements saying they do not tolerate hate or discrimination.
Despite all of this, rappers such as Tory Lanez, Boosie, and T.I. backed up DaBaby. In an Instagram Live video, T.I. said the backlash against DaBaby amounted to bullying: “We all stood up on behalf of gays and lesbians and people in the gay community because we thought it was some bullsh*t for y’all to have to be bullied [...] But I don’t think any of us did that to feel like you would now have the authority to come and bully us.”
Comments like this show some in the hip-hop community still have a lot to learn when it comes to the queer community. Toughness has always been part of hip-hop culture and has arguably been essential to its history of empowering oppressed communities. But a byproduct of this toughness has been a persistent toxic masculinity where lack of respect for queer people was accepted. While creating a safe space for one marginalized group, they created a toxic space for another.
In playing the victim, T.I. is being tone-deaf. Hip-hop has a long history of aggressiveness towards the queer community, and many genre-defining rappers have been homophobic in their lyrics: Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Nas, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, and Kanye West make up only a fraction of the list.
Despite this, many queer people still love and listen to hip-hop/rap music, and openly queer artists such as Lizzo, Tyler the Creator, Princess Nokia, Lil Nas X, and Frank Ocean have started to pave the way to a more inclusive future in the rap community. An increasing number of straight artists such as Jay-Z and A$AP Rocky consider themselves to be allies of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Anna is a fan of many of these newer artists. For her, music isn’t always about the lyrics, but the overall ambiance of a song.
“I like hip-hop music and artists like Lizzo because I can listen to them throughout the day, and it helps me to get energized without having to overthink the meaning of the songs too much,” she says.
One unique issue that Anna has faced as a bisexual woman in the rap community is fetishization.
“Bisexuality in women is often fetishized in the community because men think it’s not valid,” she says—meaning that abundant men in the rap community think that if women are interested in other women, it’s only for the pleasure of men. Rappers also over-sexualize bisexual or lesbian women in their lyrics and music videos, as recently seen in Kanye West’s “I Don’t Like” and Drake’s “Girls Want Girls,” which seem to encourage men to put themselves at the center of a queer woman’s sexuality.
It’s also sad that some artists feel the need to use homophobic lyrics and slurs in their music, Anna says, because when a fan sings or raps along, a slur becomes normalized.
“There are a lot of homophobic, racist, and sexist slurs, but people are not consciously bringing these issues that we see in hip-hop music to light,” she claims. Even if they don’t sing along, they’re likely to ignore it.
Cole (he/him), a 21-year-old bisexual college student at NYU, also says these artists often just say homophobic things “for the drama it creates”—and some evidence suggests it actually gets them more attention.
According to Time, after the homophobic remarks DaBaby made on stage, his search interest on Google was higher than it had been in two years, and his songs continued playing frequently on rap radio stations like 95.1 The Beat, which has over 345,000 regular listeners. So if and when a controversy blows over, the offending rapper might have become a household name, incentivizing others to say controversial things to gain attention.
“It feels like they do it because it will get them more views or it will help sell more of their concert tickets,” Anna says. I guarantee you that most of these rap artists don’t really think about the weight their words have beneath the surface level.”
Cole uses rap music to wake himself up and prepare for the day. His favorite artists include MF Doom, whose song “Batty Boyz” received criticism for its homophobic lyrics, and Mac Miller, Tyler the Creator, and Lil Darkie, all of whom have generated controversies of their own. But hip-hop music isn’t just for one type of fan, Cole says, because many artists’ lyrics center on personal struggles and experiences that queer fans can relate to.
“No matter what the vibe or situation is, hip-hop music can match it because it’s universal and versatile,” he says.
Both Cole and Anna enjoy attending hip-hop shows and generally feel safe around other fans.
“All of my experiences at rap shows have been good experiences because everyone is just there for the same reasons, to enjoy the music and have a good time,” Cole says.
Homophobic fans are not necessarily confrontational at concerts and tend to hide behind their screens, according to Anna. Whenever Complex posts news about Lil Nas-X and other queer rappers, the Twitter and Instagram comments under their posts are flooded with homophobic comments.
“They say it because it’s anonymous,” Anna claims. “They would never say it to your face.”
In some cases, the platforms may be to blame. World Star Hip Hop, a social media blog that posts hip-hop news, reposted a video on Twitter where the rapper Boosie goes on a transphobic rant about Dwayne Wade’s 14-year-old trans daughter, Zaya. The video received over 13,000 likes and 4,000 retweets. Many users agreed with his disturbing views. By giving people the platform to spread their homophobic and transphobic beliefs, these accounts only make it harder for queer fans to exist in online spaces.
Nevertheless, as the hip-hop community expands, new artists and fans continue to shake up the industry. The rap community has already seen certain queer artists such as Lil Nas X taking charge as change-makers in hip-hop music.
“Artists like Tyler, the Creator, who are openly gay, really allow fans to feel like they’re being heard,” Cole says.
Anna agrees. “It is getting better because of people like Lil Nas X, who aren’t afraid to be themselves in their music and performance.”