User:Frukiiwit/LGBT representations in hip hop music

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Major Edit #2
[ORIGINAL]

Later negative representations
In Byron Hurt's 2006 documentary Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, Hurt explores the nuanced relationships between hip-hop, masculinity, misogyny, and homophobia. Recognizing the presence of these issues in hip-hop, a genre he loves, Hurt felt a sense of hypocrisy and began working on the film. In the documentary Hurt travels around the country and interviews rap and hip hop artists, academics, and fans about their perceptions on these issues in the culture. After conducting dozens of interviews, Hurt sees a continued pattern of homophobia linked to the need to prove one's masculinity.

Through the objectification of women and domination of other men to assert another person's masculinity, a pattern of homophobia occurs in the hip hop and rap community. Rapper Busta Rhymes walks out of his interview when he is asked a question about homophobia in the rap community. Rhymes says, "I can't partake in that conversation," followed by, "With all due respect, I ain't trying to offend nobody. . . What I represent culturally doesn't condone [homosexuality] whatsoever." This reaction from Rhymes exemplifies part of the negative perception of homosexuality in the hip-hop community.

Rapper Boosie Badazz has faced criticism for his remarks directed towards artist Lil Nas X on Twitter. Boosie Badazz has repeatedly made homophobic remarks about Lil Nas X since his rise to superstardom.

[REVISED]

Negative representation of women and homosexuality
Gender and sexual diversity among hip hop artists have existed since the genre's earliest days, yet it has historically and predominantly been perceived as the epitomized expression of Black straight male masculinity and culture, which are usually externalized as the degradation of women and homosexuality within the music and personified as a lifestyle outside the music. In his 2006 documentary Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, Byron Hurt explores the nuanced relationships between hip-hop, masculinity, misogyny, and homophobia. In the documentary Hurt travels around the country and interviews rap and hip hop artists, academics, and fans about their perceptions on these issues in the culture. After conducting dozens of interviews, Hurt sees a continued pattern of homophobia, the objectification of women, and the domination of other men, all linked as the means through which one asserts their masculinity over another.

Lauron J. Kehrer writes extensively on the prevalence and issues of misogyny/misogynoir and homophobia/lesbophobia faced by queer women hip hop artists in Queer Voices in Hip Hop: Cultures, Communities, and Contemporary Performance.  The construction of this specific masculinity in hip-hop has made it difficult for artists who don't fit the stereotypical image of a hyper-masculine straight male to succeed. Some scholars have attempted to categorize different types of female hip-hop artists as a means of increasing their representation within the genre, such as Cheryl L. Keyes' formulation of the "Queen Mother", "Fly Girl", "Sista with Attitude" and "Lesbian" rapper archetypes in Empowering Self, Making Choices, Creating Spaces: Black Female Identity via Rap Music Performance.  Some successful female artists, such as Nicki Minaj, have attempted to make space within the male-dominated genre by aligning themselves with stereotypical Black, hypermasculine hip hop traits in their music and performance. Another female artist, Jean Grae, subverts the Black straight hypermasculine male status quo by utilizing the language and lyrical presentation of male artists in the industry, as Shante Paradigm Smalls discusses in The Rain Comes Down: Jean Grae and Hip Hop Heteronormativity.  In Getting Freak with Missy: Missy Elliot, Queer Hip Hop, and the Musical Aesthetics of Impropriety, Elliott H. Powell discusses in detail the approach some female artists, such as Missy Elliott, take in hypersexualizing themselves and engaging in 'impropriety' to make space in the genre by centering herself and her sexuality over that of the male subject.

However, Kehrer points out that all of the above examples "challenge but [do] not necessarily disrupt the status quo" of the Black, hypermasculine straight male within hip hop, unlike Black queer masculine female artists. The specific brand of female masculinity which these female artists embody is neither temporarily clad for performance nor is it undermined by heterosexuality or a traditional femininity. The categorization of female artists along the lines of Keyes' conceptualization, and the fact that Black queer masculine female artists disrupt the status quo in hip hop in the way Kehrer describes, both contribute to the hypervisibility/invisibility paradox that such artists face in the genre. In his book Female Masculinity, Jack Halberstam writes that "widespread indifference to female masculinity...has clearly ideological motivations and has sustained the complex social structures that wed masculinity to maleness and to power and domination." Young M.A. is a prominent queer masculine rapper who exemplifies this dichotomy. As someone who embodies a natural female masculinity within the genre, her masculinity fits directly with the style of hip hop such that she doesn't need to fit herself onto it like feminine or heterosexual female artists must. Because this female masculinity threatens the predominant Black straight male hypermasculinity prevalent in hip hop, M.A. is often the target of harassment and abuse by male artists who attempt to undermine her legitimacy as a hip hop artist by sexualizing and objectifying her in the traditional ways feminine and heterosexual women often are. To combat this dismissal of her sexuality (i.e., an attempt to make her queer identity invisible), as well as the paradoxical but simultaneous hypervisibility she receives as a queer masculine woman rapper that elicits this abuse in the first place, she distances herself from the labels "lesbian rapper" and "woman rapper." She thereby carves out a space within the industry for her to exist and succeed as a queer masculine woman rapper without succumbing to expectations that she performs within the restrictive category of homo hop, nor is she compelled to perform in the same way her feminine and heterosexual counterparts are expected to in order to be taken seriously as authentic hip hop artists. As Kehrer writes: "The very delicate balance she achieves allows her queer identity to be seen while making it difficult for anyone to demand that she performs queerness on anyone else's terms but her own."

Syd, another queer masculine hip hop artist, has received significant backlash from the LGBT community for her refusal to identify with the term "lesbian". In an interview for the Guardian, she explains, "I don't feel like a part of the gay community. Like, I don't consider myself a lesbian." She has also been criticized for her music video, "Cocaine," which is a cautionary commentary on the dangers of drug use, but which has been accused of depicting an abusive same-sex relationship between two women. Some scholars argue that the criticisms Syd has experienced is the unique tension between the cultural significance of the genre in Black culture and the homophobia which pervades the genre. This tension is exemplified by an example in Hurt's documentary, in which rapper Busta Rhymes walks out of his interview when he is asked a question about homophobia in the rap community, saying, "What I represent culturally doesn't condone [homosexuality] whatsoever."

REFERENCES
 * 1) A daring look at hip-hop - baltimoresun.com (archive.org)
 * 2) Queer Voices in Hip Hop: Cultures, Communities, and Contemporary Performance (fulcrum.org)
 * 3) Empowering Self, Making Choices, Creating Spaces: Black Female Identity via Rap Music Performance on JSTOR
 * 4) “The Rain Comes Down”: Jean Grae and Hip Hop Heteronormativity - Shanté Paradigm Smalls, 2011 (sagepub.com)
 * 5) Getting Freaky with Missy | Journal of Popular Music Studies | University of California Press (ucpress.edu)
 * 6) Female Masculinity by Jack Halberstam
 * 7) Kodak Black’s Trolling Forces Young M.A to Respond | Complex
 * 8) The Internet’s Syd: ‘I’m the only person like me that I know’ | R&B | The Guardian
 * 9) Syd: 'The backlash from the gay community hurt my feelings' | Music | The Guardian
 * 10) Odd Future’s Syd the Kyd Talks Music, Identity and The Internet | Mass Appeal (archive.org)

Major Edit #1
[ORIGINAL]

Criticism
Some artists have criticized the [homo hop1] genre as an arbitrary label that can potentially limit the [ an2 ] artist's audience and may not actually correspond to their artistic goals or career aspirations. In 2013, Brooke Candy told The Guardian:"What is so bothersome to me, with these emerging gay rappers, is that they've created a new genre called 'queer hip-hop'. Why the fuck is there a new genre for the same-sounding music? Half of the people rapping up there are gay and people don't even know it."One unspecified artist declined to be interviewed for the Guardian feature at all, stating that he preferred to be known as a rapper rather than as a "gay rapper". Eric Shorey, author of "Queer Rap is Not Queer Rap", contests "queer rap" labeling, arguing that "comparisons between gay and straight rap (as if they were two distinct genres) simply doesn't make sense without implied bigotry". As Shorey writes, this subversive genre is steeped in racism and homophobia in and of itself, and merely serves to further marginalize the identities and narratives it allegedly gives a voice to. 3

Though Western society has a predisposition to impose socially construed labels and binaries, Shorey dismisses the notion of heteronormative categorical identification, insisting [insists] that listeners ignore these sexuality-based hip hop classifications and listen more closely to the quality of music being produced. He also suggests that queer artists should be booked alongside straight artists, showing that they are equally talented, and deserve the same amount of recognition.

Despite criticism, others have been more circumspect about the dichotomy. Other artists, on the other hand, don't mind these classifications. British rapper RoxXxan told the Guardian that "I want to be perceived as 'RoxXxan,' but if people label me as 'gay rapper RoxXxan' I'm not offended." Nicky Da B told Austinist that "Basically, I perform for a LGBTQ+ crowd but also for everyone. A lot of the bounce rappers that are rapping and touring at the moment are all gay. The LGBTQ+ community just capitalizes on that I guess, from us being gay, and they support us on it, so that's how it goes I guess."

Commercialization
Another criticism arises from the perceived commercialization of LGBTQ+ representation by hip hop artists. A good example of this is with Nicki Minaj and her approach to presenting sexuality and sexual orientation. She often presents queerness in her music videos and lyrics. This approach has been analyzed by critics of Nicki as "strategic queerness". Fly Young Red went viral on YouTube for his song "Throw That Boy Pussy" in 2014. Other artists, such as Azealia Banks, Angel Haze, and Young M.A. have openly discussed their sexuality in their lyrics and expression of style.

[REVISED]

Some artists have criticized the queer hip hop genre as an arbitrary label that can potentially limit an artist's audience and may not actually correspond to their artistic goals or career aspirations. In 2013, Brooke Candy told The Guardian:"What is so bothersome to me, with these emerging gay rappers, is that they've created a new genre called 'queer hip-hop'. Why the fuck is there a new genre for the same-sounding music? Half of the people rapping up there are gay and people don't even know it."One unspecified artist declined to be interviewed for the Guardian feature at all, stating that he preferred to be known as a rapper rather than as a "gay rapper". Eric Shorey, author of "Queer Rap is Not Queer Rap", contests "queer rap" labeling, arguing that "comparisons between gay and straight rap (as if they were two distinct genres) simply doesn't make sense without implied bigotry". '''Shorey insists that listeners ignore these sexuality-based hip hop classifications and listen more closely to the quality of music being produced. He also suggests that queer artists should be booked alongside straight artists, showing that they are equally talented, and deserve the same amount of recognition.[Citation Needed]''' Other artists, on the other hand, don't mind these classifications. British rapper RoxXxan told the Guardian that "I want to be perceived as 'RoxXxan,' but if people label me as 'gay rapper RoxXxan' I'm not offended." Nicky Da B told Austinist that "Basically, I perform for a LGBTQ+ crowd but also for everyone. A lot of the bounce rappers that are rapping and touring at the moment are all gay. The LGBTQ+ community just capitalizes on that I guess, from us being gay, and they support us on it, so that's how it goes I guess."

[FURTHER NOTES]


 * Commercialization section needs work; the sub-section heading should be removed if no expansion of content is given to necessitate its own separate heading
 * Current citations are primary sources (direct quotations from queer hip hop artists); this should be addressed
 * Do quotations from primary sources in secondary sources count as primary or secondary sources?