DJ Post-Sexuality and Hip-hop

The Politics of Outing

The term outing arose in the 20th century to describe the uncovering of people who were “in the closet” or non-heterosexual. In ancient Rome outing was also used when people violated societies sexual codes and would result in social stigmas about the persons unmanliness. During the blacklisting era of McCarthyism government workers that were suspected of being gay were fired from their jobs and many others left quietly to avoid being outed weather it was true or not. The government saw them as perverts and a threat to national security.

Lyrical outing is when hip hop artist out other MC’s by calling their sexuality into question. This is not necessarily to prove they are gay but to get an upper hand on them and to put their realness into question. Having a secret life of sexual intercourse on the down low would call their realness into question as would simply feminizing them by calling them gay. Heterosexuality is a form of realness to many hip hop artists and claiming that an MC is gay is questioning their realness.

From the reading, Tim'm says, "hip hop heteros rely heavily on the inappropriate faggot in order to even exist. In a really twisted sort of way, they rely on the verbal bashing of fags in order to substantiate their manhood." Basically, in order to assert their masculinity and heterosexuality, rappers feel the need to bring other rapper’s sexuality into question, through bashing them with their verses and rhymes.

Jay Z and Nas have had a history of attempting to out each other. In Nas’s song “Ether” he calls Jay Z Gay Z and references aspects of Jay Z’s business to slander his sexuality saying that it’s named after a man that died of Aids which was and in some cases still looked at as a gay disease. Jay Z retorted with more gay slurs about Nas’s sexuality shortly after. However the outing of gay rappers by other MC’s is not something of the 21st century.

Activist’s rappers like Easy E and Tupac tried outing Dr. Dre. Calling him gay in multiple songs. Easy E and Dre have a long history of working together in NWA where they produced multiple political critiques and inspirational songs. However when the group split apart there were hard feelings and the once partners now had a lot of animosity towards each other. The video below is shows Easy E publicly insulting Dre and attacking his sexual preference of them were accused at some point for being gay, Tupac for possibly getting raped in prison and his feminine childhood, Easy E for contracting the aids virus, and Dr.Dre for a rumor about him having sexual relations with a young man during his marriage.

One of the more current outings was that of J Rule and DMX. Rather than calling J Rule gay DMX tried to use specific stories to legitimize his claim. As a result J Rule lost nearly all of his fan base and was completely ousted from the hip hop community and for the most part never recovered. In the movie that we watched in class artists said that they insulted each other and spoke poorly of women because all that record companies wanted to hear were these homophobic battles between MC’s. This probably made record companies a lot of money and divided the hip hop community from straight rappers attacking each other to excluding gay rappers from any contribution to the genre.

“Homo Thuggin’ It”

“Unlike lyrical outings or gay rapper witch hunts,” homothugs are queer men who identify with the hyper masculine complex of hip-hop culture. The term “thug” implies violence and drugs, none of which a homothug must participate in to gain the title of a thug. A homothug receives his name just by physically looking like a stereotypical “thug” i.e. wearing “baggy jeans, doo-rags, throwback basketball jerseys, gaudy jewelry, and other such indices of hip hop authenticity.” (Hill, 393) The only thing separating a homothug from a heterosexual hip-hopper is his attraction to the same sex. By giving a queer rapper or hip-hopper a name to identify under, this further isolates queerness from hip-hop. It says that one can’t be part of hip-hop culture and happen to be gay, but if they’re going to be a queer hip-hopper then they must be a homothug. The name in itself is a form of “outing,” as if a person’s sexual preference is the only way they can define themselves. It can be argued that the term “homothug” is just a nicer way to say “faggot,” although “faggot” implies effeminate qualities whereas homothug implies masculine qualities. The term homothug was “coined by antigay former Hot 97 shock jock DJ Star” as an initial joke, because the term homo and thug were so contradictory to one another that it was laughable and something to be mocked. Either way, both terms are rooted from a place of judgment and disapproval, as a way to group together selective members and outcast them as the Other.

Homothug and being on the down-low quickly became synonymous with one another. Being on the DL meant participating in “any secret activity”, but its definition warped from being inclusive to implying only homosexual acts among heterosexual men.

Through the definition of being on the DL, homothugs were further classified into two types of people: the trickster and the psychopath. Firstly, the trickster uses psychological mind games to lure men and women into his bedroom. The trickster seems to have bisexual tendencies, which is viewed as deviant and greedy behavior instead of a personal sexual preference. Tricksters are viewed as insatiable since they have sex with more than one gender. Secondly, the psychopath hides under the guise of a homothug, instead of making a concrete decision about his sexuality. The psychopath is in denial about oneself, which “ultimately places his partners in emotional and physical peril.” In reality, heteronormative society is unable to deal with the concept of sexuality as being fluid and ever changing. Therefore it creates certain names for those who choose to not fit in society’s rigid and small box of possible sexual identities.

          

Although this video doesn’t relate to homothugs or gay bashing, it represents a new era in hip hop. The entire message of the video is pro equality and gay marriage. It’s a far step from rappers trying to out each other in rap battles and emasculating one another.

Othering Your Own Community

Masculinity in hip hop thrives off the mindset that to be masculine, you must make other men less than you, which more often than not means comparing them demeaningly to a woman (bitch, pussy, sissy) or a queer person (faggot, punk). This system sets straight, black men as the official voice of hip hop, while simultaneously degrading, dehumanizing, and quite often perpetuating violence against these more intersectionally oppressed members of the black community.

The interesting thing about the intense othering of women and queer folk in hip-hop culture is that it is entirely counterintuitive to any genuine subculture because it denies the active roles women and queer folk have occupied and continue to occupy in hip-hop. Black queer people  participate, consume, and contribute to all the aspects of hip-hop culture, be it DJing, emceeing, graffiti or b-boying. Since homosexuality has been co-opted and is majorly represented as this white middle-class lifestyle, it is assumed by straight black men that their identity as a queer person is intrinsically tied to that lifestyle, not acknowledging or understanding ways that identities like “queer”, “black”, and “woman” can all intersect in very complex ways.

Hip hop culture, while meant as something to give a voice to the oppressed, still very much works through a hierarchy. Homophobia and sexism are very prominent in hip hop because homophobia and sexism are very prominent in society at large. Hip hop does not exist within a bubble, so while prominent male rappers can have very insightful commentary about race, most won’t speak up on issues of misogyny or heterosexism.