Living Out Loud with Darian

I thought I had convinced myself that I wasn’t going to write about this topic after reading similar stories on this exact issue on other blogs, but I’ve changed my mind.For the record I am a huge hip hop fan, but lately certain artists in the community have for lack of a better word “pissed” me off.

I’m sure we’re all aware of Busta Rhymes’ recent homophobic remarks to a male fan in Miami when he was approached by a young man who simply wanted to congratulate him on his success.

We all know the public persona of rappers are that of hyper-masculine, survivors of multiple gun wounds, a “hoe” for every day of the week, weed smoking, beer drinking ,well oiled machines of masculine heterosexuality. But behind close doors we’ve all heard stories of the rapper and the boy in his entourage who serves up more than the extra boost to the ego of the famous artist who leads the camp.

These images have created a false expectation of how black men are supposed to behave, much like the popular beauty magazines for women who project the skinny, blonde, beauty as the ideal look to be achieved, usually leaving those who look differently to suffer from low self -esteem and attacks for not fitting into the mainstream expectation.

Gays are everywhere and hip-hop is no exception to that rule. Why these rappers feel the need to bash people I don’t know. Is it just another attempt to prove how much of a man they really are, and how less of a man I am for identifying as a SGL person?

DMX is another rapper who raps about violence against gays in the “Touch It” remix by Busta. This is a man who claims he’s going into ministry once he retires from the music business. Well, it looks like he’s getting an early start on his future homophobic sermons. I wonder if he has a direct line to Bishop Alfred Owens?

So far Kanye West has been the only person to denounce homophobia in hip-hop. I’m not the least bit surprised, his music and his courage surpasses anything Busta or DMX could ever produce.

Hopefully one day the hip-hop community will exert more energy on being inclusive, creating music that heals, and focus less on glamorizing negative stereotypes within the black community, and discriminating against their GLBT brothers and sisters.