Gay Hip Hop

"I remember people dogging Will Smith, bitching about him, because he did the film Six Degrees Of Separation, where he plays a gay guy. And now look at him. But at least half the people in the rap world would turn down a role like that because they're not mature enough. They could often make a lot more money," he laments, "but only once they realise that apart from what we do in our bedrooms, we're just the same as them."

IT'S a simple truth, and it seems inevitable the rap scene will have to take it on board. But how long will it take? At least one person is already convinced: Mike, a straight b-boy who found himself in the middle of a fight at a gay hip hop night in the Bronx. As he watched two rival gangs scrapping it out, Mike realised that gay men don't lose their ghetto roots as soon as they come out of the closet. These 'queens' don't slap or pull hair any more than they listen to Dannii Minogue.

"People was getting their jaws broken, getting hit with chairs and glasses. These niggas was wild," he recalls. "Because of the way I was dressed, the leader of one of the groups thought I was part of the other group. So I was hiding behind a pillar when he walked up to me with about five of his boys behind him, looked me dead in the eye, real cold-blooded, pointed at me and said 'Get her!' I had to run for my life."

Homophobic Hip Hop

The course of rap history is littered with lyrical evidence of the wider hip hop community's intolerence to the gay population. Here's just a few...

While there's no doubting Chuck D's influence on hip hop and beyond, even he's been known to spout anti-gay rhetoric "Man to man I don't know if they can, from what I know, the parts don't fit (ahh shit...)"
Public Enemy 'Meet The G That Killed Me' (Def Jam, 1990)

MC/actor/film producer/ former NWA member Cube questions his former group mates' sexuality after their acrimonious split "You're gettin' fucked real quick, and Eazy's dick, is smellin' like MC Ren's shit... You little maggot; Eazy E turned faggot."
Ice Cube 'No Vaseline' (Priority, 1991)

Gay Hip Hop continue