― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 22:29 (eighteen years ago) link
That being said, the 80s was a time with more tolerance at least towards gay symbols. I mean, half of the big UK pop acts were gay or bisexuals anyway.
― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 22:34 (eighteen years ago) link
I'm not sure whether gay people would spread all over the genres in the same numbers though. I would guess the number of gay males who are into house, dance or disco is probably more than 10 per cent, whereas the percentage who are into hip-hop or metal (another homophobic genre) is considerably less.
― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 22:52 (eighteen years ago) link
"We find a deeper clue to the terror associated with homosexual impulses by noting the class structure of the society. Broadly speaking, homosexuality is considered most abhorrent in those societies which decry social stratification; it is particularly an issue when an insurgent lower-status group is aggressively pressing claims against an older and more priviledged social order. In an established social group that is not under serious challenge, homosexual feelings are not usually strongly decried; they are often institutionalized and even, under some circumstances, regarded as noble."
You'll even notice in this thread that the places in America with a thriving homosexual hip-hop scene are coincidentally places of affluence. San Fran prides itself on being the "Gayest city in America" and coincidentally had (still has?) the highest income per capita in the entire country. I distinctly remember New York City being the ten richest city according to the last census. Just how many poor and undereducated homosexuals have you met in your life?
I would suspect that the emergence of homosexual rappers will directly correlate with hip-hop culture not being necessarily related to the lives of poor black Americans.
― Cunga (Cunga), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 22:53 (eighteen years ago) link
!!
― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 22:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 23:09 (eighteen years ago) link
Good thing there aren't any poor, black, gay Americans.
― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 23:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 23:20 (eighteen years ago) link
Whether 10% or 100% of all people, rappers or lower-class blacks are "latently homosexual" isn't very helpful in understanding why it is harder to come out of the closet and flaunt it in front of everybody in a that community. That's what I think is the question being asked.
― Cunga (Cunga), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 23:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― Cunga (Cunga), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 23:30 (eighteen years ago) link
this has gotta be in the running for "most ignorant question ever asked," don't it? let's review the reasoning here
1. San Francisco has a high per-capita2. San Francisco has a lot of gay ppltherefore3. gays are affluent
rofflICIOUS I tell you. Where are these affluent gays getting their money, Cunga? from the straight culture that so famously employs them in so many well-paying capacities?
― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 23:31 (eighteen years ago) link
I said there was a correlation between homosexuality and affluent areas, not a causation neccesarily, so don't strawman me please. Homosexuality has long been a staple in artistic and intellectual circles--which you might be interested to know that San Fran and NYC has(!)-- so I don't know why you are now acting like this is shocking news or act as if that accusation is now a bad thing. So what if gays are concentrated there and what if they do have a lot of cash? Why do you act so defensive about this idea?
Where are these affluent gays getting their money, Cunga?
I don't claim to have all the answers on this issue and maybe there is no causation at work but wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that the fact homosexuals don't "typically" (I say this to avoid those glib all-or-nothing responses) start families leave them with more disposable income than the average person?
from the straight culture that so famously employs them in so many well-paying capacities?
If 10% of the population is latently gay (along with 10% of rappers, as someone suggested), wouldn't it make sense that there is a problem detecting who they are and wouldn't that explain away why straight people have no problem paying them equally?
― Cunga (Cunga), Thursday, 25 May 2006 00:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― -rainbow bum- (-rainbow bum-), Thursday, 25 May 2006 00:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― and what (ooo), Thursday, 25 May 2006 00:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― and what (ooo), Thursday, 25 May 2006 00:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Thursday, 25 May 2006 00:49 (eighteen years ago) link
wtf does this mean? what about sweden?
― Sym Sym (sym), Thursday, 25 May 2006 04:26 (eighteen years ago) link
An interesting theory except he seems to completely ignore the education factor.
― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 25 May 2006 11:04 (eighteen years ago) link
Yeah, the Twisted G thread was a big miss. Still "processing."
― Pete Scholtes (Pete Scholtes), Thursday, 25 May 2006 15:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― Pete Scholtes (Pete Scholtes), Thursday, 25 May 2006 15:30 (eighteen years ago) link
Oh, and there's plenty and I do mean plenty of non-rich gay men of other races, too. I've never filed a tax form other than a 1040EZ, FYI.
― Thomas Inskeep (submeat), Thursday, 25 May 2006 20:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― pds7k2 (pds37), Thursday, 25 May 2006 21:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jung Jeezy (pds37), Thursday, 25 May 2006 21:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 25 May 2006 21:32 (eighteen years ago) link
http://gawker.com/389588/the-gay-hip-hop-book-revealed-actors-rappers-and-a-megastar
Dean's friend "Corey" is a singer-songwriter who was featured on the MTV series The Cut, opened shows for Jay-Z, appeared in a Broadway musical, and then signed with "Eli, a popular multiplatinum rapper, who had just started a label at the time (in the 90s)."
"Eli was a force to be reckoned with. He flew out the gate with his debut album and would become a mainstay in the ever-changing Hip Hop industry, where many rappers are one-hit wonders. He has been hailed as one of the greatest rappers to bless the mic."
It turns out that Corey has been giving oral sex to Eli (whom Dean describes as "fine as hell") in Eli's home studio. "Up until that moment I had never heard anything remotely close about the rapper being gay. Eli was a burgeoning superstar who parlayed his marketability into television and movie credits. He even had a promising clothing line. But every man's got needs and Eli's needed tending to."
― jaymc, Thursday, 22 May 2008 19:41 (sixteen years ago) link
For Immediate ReleaseJanuary 28, 2010
WHERE THEY AT: A MULTI-MEDIA ARCHIVE OF NEW ORLEANS BOUNCE
Documenting the Latest Indigenous Musical Genre To Arise From the Streets of New Orleans, Focusing on Gay & Transgendered Performers
February 11 – March 27, 2010 at Abrons Art CenterThe Abrons Arts Center is proud to announce Where They At, an exhibition that portrays the founders, architects, and players in New Orleans hip-hop and the uniquely regional rap known as bounce music, a phenomenon that evolved from the communities based in the city’s housing projects. Photographs, oral histories, and video footage compiled by photographer Aubrey Edwards and journalist Alison Fensterstock document the passing of seminal beats from New Orleans music traditions to a new generation in the late 1980's, and the creation of this new voice in Southern roots music. This exhibition at the Abrons Arts Center features portraits culled from the larger archive of New Orleans hip-hop and bounce artists to focus on women and gay and transgendered men in early New Orleans hip-hop and bounce. The prominence of queer members of the bounce community, such as Big Freedia, Sissy Nobby, and Vockah Redu, defies the myth of insurmountable homophobia within Hip-Hop, and speaks to a curious tradition in African-American entertainment in New Orleans, which has accepted and celebrated queer and cross-dressing entertainers for over half a century. Katey Red, a Sissy, was signed to the prominent bounce record label Take Fo’.
Audio-visual stations offer footage of live performances as well as oral history recordings by members and tradition bearers of the Bounce community. Collected ephemera, such as LPs, tapes and posters highlight the material culture and its adaptations over time. A full online cultural archive will be launched in conjunction with the exhibition, serving as the only resource of its kind in hip-hop research.
This multi-media archive draws a line to the present-day diaspora, as Hurricane Katrina has scattered a once tight-knit bounce and hip-hop community whose music only existed at home — a home that has been redefined physically and culturally. Where They At will also be exhibited during SXSW in Austin, Texas and will launch during Jazz Fest in New Orleansat the Odgen Museum of Southern Art, where numerous events spanning several months have been planned.
New Orleans has midwifed every existing form of indigenous American music, including funk and the street music exemplified by 2nd Line bands and Mardi Gras Indians. Hip-hop is the newest manifestation of that Southern tradition. Mardi Gras Indian chants, brass band beats and call-and-response routines equally inform bounce music, which almost invariably samples the Showboys’ “Drag Rap” (a.k.a. “Triggerman”) and Derek B’s “Rock the Beat” or Cameron Paul’s “Brown Beats.” Featuring lyrical patterns that focus mainly on sex, parties and dancing, it invites – even demands – audience participation by calling out dance steps or prompting replies.
In the 90’s heyday of New Orleans hip-hop, female rappers like Mia X, Ms Tee, Magnolia Shorty and Cheeky Blakk appeared in significant number with songs that were just as bawdy and aggressive as their male counterparts. Often, their tracks served as answer songs that challenged male MC’s sexism in a way that created playfully ribald conversation, such as Silky Slimm’s “Sista Sista” or Mia X’s “Da Payback.”
The full Where They At archive project will open at the Smithsonian-affiliated Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans in April 2010, on the eve of the first Jazz Fest weekend.
Where They At is the title of a song generally recognized as the first bounce release, recorded by DJ Jimi Payton in 1992 for producer Isaac Bolden’s Avenue Records. (The song was recorded earlier the same year as a homemade cassette-only release by rapper T.T. Tucker, with the late DJ Irv.)To all accounts, these recordings marked the point in time at which New Orleans rap found its own voice in the raw, celebratory, infectious block-party sound that would go on to influence artists at the top of the game. The chants Jimi originated on that track, “Do it, baby, stick it” and “Shake that ass like a salt shaker” are still quoted by Bounce artists recording and DJing parties today. DJ Jimi famously used his mother and grandmother as backup dancers.
Alison Fensterstock is a New Orleans-based music journalist. From 2006-2009, she wrote an award-winning music column for the city’s alt-weekly, The Gambit. Her writing on roots music and New Orleans rap has appeared in MOJO, Vibe, Q, Paste, Spin and the Oxford American Music Issue. Recently, she wrote the text for “Unsung Heroes: The Secret History of Louisiana Rock n’ Roll,” an exhibit currently on display at the Louisiana State Museum. She is the programming director for the Ponderosa Stomp Foundation. Her Gambit cover story on gay and transgendered bounce artists in New Orleans, “Sissy Strut,” was selected for an honorable mention in Da Capo Press’s Best Music Writing 2009.
Aubrey Edwards is a Brooklyn- and New Orleans-based music photographer and educator. Edwards was the primary music photographer for the alt-weekly Austin Chronicle from 2004-2008; her present client list includes the United Nations, Magnolia Pictures, Playboy, SPIN and Comedy Central. She teaches photography and videography in Brooklyn schools, as well as with continuing adult education. Her recent work in New Orleans includes guest lecturing with the University of New Orleans photo department and conducting workshops with the New Orleans Kid Camera Project.
UPCOMING “WHERE THEY AT” EVENTS
February 11, 2010, 6-9 pm: Opening at the Abrons Art Center/ Henry Street Settlement
466 Grand Street (on the Lower East Side), New York, NY 212.598.0400Trains: J/M/Z or F to Delancey/Essex; B/D to Grand St.
March 16-21, 2010: South by Southwest events
Day Party/Closing party at the Birdhouse Gallery
1304 E. Cesar Chavez, Austin, TX
April 22, 2010: Full archive opening at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art
900 Camp St., New Orleans LA
April 23, 2010: Partial exhibition opening on the grounds of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in the Grandstand.
Ongoing programming at the Ogden Museum, including performances, live interviews and screenings, will continue through July 2010 – dates TBD.
― Kevin John Bozelka, Thursday, 28 January 2010 19:25 (fourteen years ago) link
haha Katey Red and Vockah Reduh used to diss the shit out of each other. "They call her Vockah Redu because she re-do all the shit that I do."
― zvookster, Thursday, 28 January 2010 19:32 (fourteen years ago) link
http://twankleandglisten.blogspot.com/2008/08/katey-red-part-1.html
― zvookster, Thursday, 28 January 2010 19:37 (fourteen years ago) link
faggotbruce.com
"Love me or hate me, it ain't matter. You still gon' git touched." apparently
― harzan, Thursday, 28 January 2010 22:38 (fourteen years ago) link
was hoping this thread would be revived for kanye's official but i guess we'll carry on waiting
― brrrrrrrrrrrrrt_stanton (a hoy hoy), Thursday, 28 January 2010 22:43 (fourteen years ago) link
Aubrey Edwards & Alison Fensterstock on NY radio taking about Bounce and sissy rap. The host makes much of how hard it was to even find brief clips that were playable on the radio. lol FCC lol fundie U.S.
They're also taking Partners-N-Crime, DJ Jubilee, Katey Red, Big Freedia, Vockah Redu, Magnolia Shorty and Ms Tee to SXSW in March, kickstarter page here.
― zvookster, Saturday, 13 February 2010 16:25 (fourteen years ago) link
I've been thinking about Tupac.
I'm definitely not saying Pac is gay, (I seriously doubt that)
but I do think it's interesting what he got away with while still being considered "hard"I mean, his Thug Life legacy overlooks the fact that he started out a ballet dancer in schooland rented books from his school library such as "The Definitive History of Theater"He also apparently listened to Kate Bush & read Shakespeare. seriously, how did he get away with that stuff?
here's a contrast between early tupac & later:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrD-Yp3a-dY&feature=related
― lukevalentine, Thursday, 18 February 2010 13:27 (fourteen years ago) link
oh, btw I don't believe homosexuality is intrinsically synonymous w/ effeteness or some kind of "masculinity fail"but hard / gay is the dichotomy within mainstream hip hop obviously
― lukevalentine, Thursday, 18 February 2010 13:35 (fourteen years ago) link
http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kxdtlls0Zm1qz93a6o1_400.jpg
that's a very nice leather bustier you've got there, pac
― she got dumps like a rage, rage (The Reverend), Friday, 19 February 2010 01:09 (fourteen years ago) link
<3 early marc loi 2pac <3
― queen frostine (Eric H.), Friday, 19 February 2010 01:17 (fourteen years ago) link
haha otm
― she got dumps like a rage, rage (The Reverend), Friday, 19 February 2010 01:29 (fourteen years ago) link
that Sissy Bounce shit is the bomb. loved writing that event up while listenin to katey red.
i have the last issue of Outpunk somewhere, there's a great, lengthy article on queers in hip-hop. i'll pull it out sometime sooon.
― begonia perineum (the table is the table), Friday, 19 February 2010 01:37 (fourteen years ago) link
50 Cent: Not Homophobic/"Ain't Into Faggots"
Untrue.
― billstevejim, Friday, 19 February 2010 03:09 (fourteen years ago) link
http://images.uulyrics.com/cover/c/camron/album-confessions-of-fire.jpg
― am0n, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 16:27 (fourteen years ago) link
we work hard, we play hard
http://onstuff.net/img/the-anvil.jpg
― surfboard dudes get wiped out, totally, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 18:18 (fourteen years ago) link
Not revived for Emanuel Vinson?
― jaymc, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 18:41 (fourteen years ago) link
holy shit, "Ghost De Megafloor" is fucking fantastic
― Marriage, that's where I'm a Viking! (HI DERE), Wednesday, 28 April 2010 19:51 (fourteen years ago) link
Too many adjectives and backslashes.
― cool and remote like dancing girls (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 28 April 2010 19:52 (fourteen years ago) link
lol okay this guy has only 1 good track
― Marriage, that's where I'm a Viking! (HI DERE), Wednesday, 28 April 2010 20:21 (fourteen years ago) link
where all them gay rappers at?it's like xanadu in this habitat
― Shakey Ja Mocha (M@tt He1ges0n), Wednesday, 28 April 2010 20:23 (fourteen years ago) link
seems like i should have an opinion on this but
― plax (ico), Wednesday, 28 April 2010 20:23 (fourteen years ago) link
recently a guy i know's been at the center of a 'gay rapper' controversy -- basically he's been on the local battle rap circuit for a few years, has a slight lisp and has been dressing more loud/hipsterish lately, decided to respond to gay rumors by spitting some o_O innuendo at a battle to throw an opponent off his game. then when video of the battle got online, it ended up all over worldstarhiphop, thisis50 as 'the gay battle rapper'. he says he's straight so i dunno how he's dealing with all this but it's pretty nuts.
― it ain't hard to tell, I'm a viking, then prevail (some dude), Wednesday, 28 April 2010 20:48 (fourteen years ago) link
well, hey, free publicity can't exactly be all bad for someone trying to break into the music industry
― he's always been a bit of an anti-climb Max (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 28 April 2010 21:24 (fourteen years ago) link
ya it worked for joe budden
― am0n, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 21:25 (fourteen years ago) link