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Homo Hop
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to this Commentary!
Latifah Muhammad
The days of underground hip hop are long gone. Hip hop is mainstream these days,
and bringing lots of money into the music industry. It's the second most popular
musical genre, surpassing country music sales for the first time last year.
Most people listening are young - between 13 and 30 years old. With cash to
spare, this demographic is driving hip hop sales and bringing it into the forefront
of the music industry. But there are still some underground hip hop trends that
haven't burst into the mainstream. Youth Radio's Latifah Muhammad reports.
Script:
LATIFAH: When you hear hip hop, you probably picture a tough urban guy with
baggy jeans, platinum chains, and a pretty girl on each arm.
LATIFAH: You probably don't picture a guy with a guy on each arm. Meet Tim'm
West. He and a legion of other gay rappers are bringing a new brand of music
to the hip hop community.
TIM'M: Homo hop is hip hop. But in the beginning stages when you are trying
to forge in a political way what music can become, you sort of define it in
a way that gives it its own flair. Homo hop is a really broad category of people
who are doing hip hop who are out of the closet. Men, women, beat boys, beat
girls, graffiti artists, the whole gamit.
TIM'M: Most people who hear it go "Oh, it's good." What did you think?
It wouldn't be good because we're gay?
LATIFAH: The hip hop community in general hasn't embraced gay artists. West
didn't come out until college, and even then, it wasn't by choice. A classmate
spotted him going to a gay student meeting and confronted him in front of his
hip hop crew. His friends were pretty cool about it. But it wasn't until 1999
that West started his own group of like-minded gay hip-hop artists. He called
it DDC, or Deep Dickolective.
TIM'M: We're all pretty well read. We're lyricists, and poets, so if you listen
to our material, it's not mundane. We hit the political, hard core issues.
LATIFAH: But West isn't just into politics. He likes incorporating sexual word
play into his music. But growing up as a preacher's son, it wasn't so easy for
him to express himself-let alone have fun doing it.
TIM'M: A lot of straight people want to live in the delusion that hip hop is
straight place, where gay people aren't allowed. We have already been there
- doing a show, behind the mike, behind the turntables…which is why it's
important for gay hip hop artists to be "out". Now it's being talked
about like hip hop is being invaded by homosexuals. But what did you think before?
We weren't there? We were just "vogue"ing and didn't do any hip-hop?
LATIFAH: For many in the black community, hip-hop has become the music genre
of choice. But artists like Tim'm West are trying to change perceptions of what
hip-hop can look and sound like. Some things are changing, with mainstream music
outlets like MTV featuring Caushun, also known as The Gay Rapper. The homo-hop
artist is in negotiations with several major record labels. But it'll probably
be a long time before you can go to your favorite record store and find a homo-hop
section, between hip-hop and R&B.
In Oakland, I'm Latifah Muhammad for Marketplace.
Host Back Announce: That report was produced by Youth Radio.
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