Discussion

How does hip-hop help create the general hatred and mistreatment of homosexuals?

Busta Rhymes

In 2006, there was an incident involving rapper Busta Rhymes and his homophobic state of mind when he was giving a concert in an area near a gay bar. While he was exiting the building, a young man came up to him and asked for his autograph. Believing that the man approaching him was homosexual, Busta Rhymes yelled at the man and stormed away, later saying to his bodyguards, “I hate f**king f*ggots, man,” (“Hip Hop’s Homophobia and America’s Silence about It”).                                                     

According to Jasmyne Cannick’s article, “Hip Hop's Homophobia and Black America's Silence about It,” this incident touches on the fact that people do not speak out against disparaging comments about homosexuals in social life and in entertainment. If a performer said insulting things about women or if a Caucasian performer said anything derogatory toward a different race, the media and the general public would have something to say about the matter. In fact, another incident involving Busta Rhymes’ song ‘Touch It’, Busta Rhymes inserted the lyric “F**k you f*ggot, I shot at you!,” (New Busta Remix Uses Homophobic Language). According to the blog on Cannick’s website, “Currently, Busta’s single ‘Touch It,’ which is out on the Aftermath/Interscope label, is number 5 on the Billboard Hot Rap Tracks Chart…. The irony of this latest attack on gays from the hip hop community is that there will be many gays and lesbians dancing their asses off to this song and will probably never even catch what Busta said,” (New Busta Remix Uses Homophobic Language). In November of 2011, an American hip-hop group by the name of Odd Future was barred from a music festival in Auckland, New Zealand because of the homophobic lyrics in their songs. A local resident named Calum Bennachie complained to the festival promoters and said, “By allowing Odd Future to play at Big Day Out, you are pro ving that you have little concern for the lives and welfare of LGBT people, that you are willing to endanger their lives, and seek to encourage stigmatization against them,” (Hip-Hop Group Barred from New Zealand Festival for ‘Homophobic’ Lyrics). If the festival had allowed the group to perform, it would have given the message that allowing a group to perform with hateful lyrics towards a certain group of people will open a window for others to do the same, and to other types of people in society.

Odd Future

          With the problems of gang violence, misogyny, drug selling, and homophobia, hip-hop music has gotten a pretty bad rap. In the article “I Don’t Discuss Myself in Halves”, written by Greg Herren (a New Orleans based writer/journalist), misogyny, violence, and homophobia has been in hip-hop from the very beginning, according to Mr. James Earl Hardy in an interview with Herren (Herren). James Earl Hardy, an author of Afrocentric, gay, hip-hop, love novels (Hardy), brings up that the lyrics only started getting a bad image when Caucasian’s started getting into rap, especially when a Caucasian male was crowned the “Elvis of Rap” and started spewing “anti-gay hatred,” (Herren). When Hardy mentioned this, I immediately thought of the Caucasian rapper Eminem and his many cases of demeaning homosexuals in his songs. Hardy argues that the new rap sold today to society is “white-washed”, molded into the embarrassing heap of vulgar noise we know as hip-hop today by Caucasian music label CEO’s who tells hip-hop artists what is popular and what is not, leading to some of the horrible and violent lyrics and images seen today (Herren). Homophobia today in hip-hop, is expressed through derogatory terms and aggressive actions towards homosexuals. Words like f*ggot, queer, and homo are seen as extremely vulgar and offensive names to call homosexuals, just as how the “C” and the “B” word are offensive to women and the “N” word is offensive to African Americans. But the belittling and hatred of homosexuals by big name hip-hop artists such as Eminem, 50 Cent, and Busta Rhymes continues to be a problem not commonly addressed by the media. Homophobic hip-hop has spawned negative mental images and mind sets of gay and lesbian people. For instance, the thought that homosexuals aren’t people and are free to mock and bully; the thought that homosexuals are immoral; and the thought that a person (normally a guy) is “gay” if they do something effeminate or show signs of being “soft” or not “hardcore”, are common side-effects to today’s homophobic rap music.

Eminem

Homophobic lyrics in hip-hop encourage and influence the bullying and violence of the general public towards lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transsexuals, especially by fans and admirers of their music. Bullies harass children based on race, gender, ethnicity, disability, or sexual orientation, but are most commonly seen bullying kids based on appearance or social standing. Gay and lesbian teens are 2 to 3 times more likely to commit suicide than other youths (Gay Bullying Statistics). “About 30 percent of all completed suicides have been related to sexual identity crisis. Students who also fall into the gay, bisexual, lesbian or transgendered identity groups report being five times as more likely to miss school because they feel unsafe after being bullied due to their sexual orientation. About 28 percent out of those groups feel forced to drop out of school altogether,” (Gay Bullying Statistics). Nine out of ten LGBT students reported being verbally harassed at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation, with nearly half of those students (around 44%) reported being physically harassed, and about a quarter (around 22%) being physically assaulted. Out of those students who were bullied, two-thirds never reported the incident to a faculty member, and the ones who did (just about 31%) never received help from the school staff (Facts and Statistics). Children at this stage of their lives are extremely delicate and self-conscious as they try and figure out who they really are while on their journey into adulthood, especially if they are just discovering their sexual orientation. This vulnerable state of mind must be supported by positive re-enforcement and optimism by parents, siblings, friends, and neighbors. LGBT youths who are bullied at school because of their sexual orientation have their self-esteem especially bruised and may not recover, leading to more youth suicides.

            Over the years hip-hop has slowly begun to change its image from hardcore, tough, and masculine to more business orientated and classy. With rap’s change of style currently going on, there has also been a change in attitude toward many hip-hop taboos. In the article “Just How Homophobic is Rap in 2010?” Brandon Soderberg, a journalist and author for the online newspaper Village Voice, he discusses many homosexual hip-hop scandals such as Lil Wayne’s photographed kiss with Cash Money president Baby and Kanye West speaking out against homophobia in rap lyrics. Soderberg also mentions that “Hip-hop is growing more mature at about the same rate as the rest of the country--which is to say, it's getting there, if not nearly fast enough,” (Just How Homophobic Is Rap in 2010?). As the hard shell of homophobia and misogyny in hip-hop crumbles, new talent arises from those once widely known rules in rap.

            The emergence of the Homo-Thug is one such talent that has risen from the ashes of those old rules. In the article “No Way of Seeing: Mainstreaming and Selling the Gaze of Homo-Thug Hip-Hop”, professors Robin R. Means Coleman and Jasmine Cobb Ph.D. examine a young Black gay rapper, called Caushun, and his many efforts to be marketed to a mainstream audience. They realize this young man has great potential to be great and they encourage him to reach his goal, but they also give extremely good points on why his efforts might not work out. For instance, the professors comment that, “He offers himself up as a ‘homo-thug’ in a homophobic genre, even as the thug identity in hip-hop is marked by its hyper-masculine, violent, and homophobic rhetoric,” (No Way of Seeing: Mainstreaming and Selling the Gaze of Homo-Thug Hip-Hop).

Sources

Cannick, Jasmyne. "Hip Hop's Homophobia and Black America's Silence about It." Lesbian News 31.11 (2006): 31. Academic Search Complete. Web. 8 Feb. 2012.

Cannick, Jasmyne. "Jasmynecannick.com.": New Busta Remix Uses Homophobic Language. Web. 10 Apr. 2012.

"Hip-Hop Group Barred from New Zealand Festival for ‘Homophobic’ Lyrics PinkNews.co.uk." PinkNews.co.uk. Ed. Jessica Geen. Benjamin Cohen, 07 Nov. 2011. Web. 08 Feb. 2012.

"James Earl Hardy, Author." aalbc.com. African American Literature. Web. 10 Apr. 2012.

Means Coleman, Robin R., and Jasmine Cobb. "No Way of Seeing: Mainstreaming and Selling the Gaze of Homo-Thug Hip-Hop." Popular Communication 5.2 (2007): 89-108. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Feb. 2012.

"Gay Bullying Statistics." - Bullying Statistics. bullyingstatistics.org. Web. 10 Apr. 2012.

"Welcome to MBNBD." Welcome to MBNBD. makebeatsnotbeatdowns.com. Web. 10 Apr. 2012.

Soderberg, Brandon. "Just How Homophobic Is Rap in 2010?" The Village Voice Blogs. July-Aug. 2010. Web. 07 Feb. 2012.