TAKING THE RAP
LONG CRITICISED FOR ITS MISOGYNY AND HOMOPHOBIA, MATT NEWBURY WONDERS IF HIP HOP IS FINALLY COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET
Is hip hop coming out of the closet?
The song Same Love by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis was a huge international hit last year, all the more refreshing because it is a hip hop song that deals with gay rights.
While Miley Cyrus was attempting to push back women’s liberation by a decade, twerking her ass into Robin Thicke’s crotch at the Video Music Awards, it was Macklemore & Ryan Lewis who were the real heroes of the night. Unlike Thicke’s Blurred Lines, which questions a woman’s right to consensual sex, their song featuring lyrics by Mary Lambert has a wonderfully positive message about gay marriage. It was no surprise then that 33 couples got married on stage at last month’s Grammys to the tune of the duo’s hit.
For those people unfamiliar with the song Same Love (although it reached No.6 here in the UK Singles Chart and rather unusually No.1 here in both the R&B and Indie Charts), it was recorded during the campaign for Washington’s Referendum 74, which upon approval legalised same-sex weddings in that state. Co-written by Lambert, the chorus draws on her experience growing up in a family of fundamental Christians. The repeating line “Not crying on Sundays” is a moving reminder of how she felt every Sunday after leaving the service at an evangelical church.
Growing up, Ben Haggerty (aka Macklemore) had two gay uncles (both featured on the single’s cover artwork) and spent a lot of time with members of the gay community. The fact that his uncles couldn’t get married was a driving force behind the song and the accompanying video
which has had a staggering 105 million views. The moving video, which won the MTV Video Music Award for “Best Video with a Message” (which sounds suspiciously like it was invented just for the video), tells the story of a gay man from birth, through high school, to falling in love and marrying his partner before a final parting in old age. The song and video were also nominated for seven Grammy Awards. In the song he says, “If I was gay I would think hip hop hates me/... A culture founded from oppression/ Yet we don’t have acceptance for them.”
“Misogyny and homophobia are the two acceptable means of oppression in hip hop culture,” Macklemore said at the song’s release, “and there needs to be some accountability. I think that as a society we’re evolving and I think that hip hop has always been a representation of what’s going on in the world right now.”
Homophobia and misogyny in hip hop can be traced back to its macho roots in gang and ghetto culture and even further back to Jamaican dancehall and ragga influences. As well as the potential for instigating and reflecting political and social change, hip hop often also seems rooted in insecurity - a twisted version of the American Dream, where anyone can become president, but true success is measured in expensive branded drinks, pimped-up cars and the number of scantily clad “bitches” dancing around your kidney-shaped swimming pool.
Slurs like “gay”, “faggot” and “no homo” are rampant in songs by everyone from Snoop Dogg to Eminem, as are somewhat counterproductive insults like “suck on this” and “I’ll f**k yo in the ass.” However the release of Same Love seems to have coincided with a turn in the tide. Huge stars like Jay-Z and 50 Cent have now said it’s okay to be gay and for the latter, that’s a huge U-Turn. In a 2004 Playboy interview he said: “I ain’t into faggots. I don’t like gay people around me, because I’m not comfortable with what their thoughts are. I’m not prejudiced. I just don’t go with gay people and kick it — we don’t have that much in common. I’d rather hang out with a straight dude. But women who like women, that’s cool. I could actually get into that, having a woman who likes women too. We might have more in common.” And that from a man whose mother was gay!
Remarkably, 50 Cent has recently been seen mentoring a transgender teen on the US TV show Dream School, a show aimed at helping students struggling in various ways. Meanwhile we have even had the first high profile “coming out” when singer-songwriter Frank Ocean said his first love was a man. He used his blog to thank the man and said: “I don’t know what happens now, and that’s alrite. I don’t have any secrets I need kept anymore... I feel like a free man.”
Russell Simmons, a business magnate in the hip hop industry, wrote a congratulatory article in Global Grind saying: “Today is a big day for hip hop. It is a day that will define who we really are. How compassionate will we be? How loving can we be? How inclusive are we? Your decision to go public about your sexual orientation gives hope and light to so many young people still living in fear.”
Macklemore hasn’t been alone in challenging the macho bullsh*t that is still only too prevalent in hip hop music. The video for Animal Style by California rapper Murs shows him playing a gay teenager who tragically kills the boy he is secretly in love with, buckling under the huge pressure of coming out.
“I just felt it was crucial for some of us in the hip hop community to speak up on the issues of teen suicide, bullying, and the overall antihomosexual sentiment that exist within hip hop culture,” Murs told the Huffington Post.
Of course, if hip hop is holding a mirror up to society it has to reflect changing attitudes or face a backlash, as happened to James Arthur. The X Factor winner caused outrage after making homophobic slurs in a “diss track”
against Micky Worthless. He branded the unknown rapper “f**king queer” in just one of a serious of PR disasters that has had a detrimental impact on his recording career.
Thank goodness we have some more intelligent youngsters on this side of the pond as well. Jordon Stephens from Brighton-based hip hop duo Rizzle Kicks recently revealed how he has finally lost patience with rappers like Kanye West and the misogynistic and homophobic music they produce. He told the BBC: “I can’t listen to hip hop at the moment… I really struggle. The stuff I’m hearing in the mainstream... it’s overly misogynistic and it’s still homophobic. It does my head in. But when it’s vicious, I don’t understand why you’d bother. Think of something more inventive to say. It’s a cultural thing that needs to piss off, basically.”
He has a very good point. Rapper’s Delight by the Sugarhill Gang, the first rap song to ever chart on both sides of the Atlantic way back in 1979, contained a homophobic put down of Superman: “He’s a fairy I do suppose/ Flying through the air in pantyhose”. Thirty-five years later, Eminem is still winning awards and five star reviews for the song Rap God despite lyrics like: “You fags think it’s all a game.” So much for jumping into bed with Elton.
“Misogyny and homophobia are the two acceptable means of oppression in hip hop culture and there needs to be some accountability”
Still change is in the air. And there are some amazing openly gay hip hop artists like MC RoxXxan, Angel Haze, Mykki Blanco, Zebra Katz and stripper-turned-spitter Brooke Candy joining the likes of Murs and Macklemore in making sure that homophobia in the genre is constantly challenged. After all, words can hurt or heal and you never know who is listening.
As Macklemore says in his song, I Said Hey: “I’m just gonna freestyle and spit what’s in my gut, and if you want to you can go and label me ‘conscious’, but just remember there’s a kid at the bus stop beat boxing, whose life will be affected by what he hears in his Walkman.”