Gay rap, the unthinkable becomes reality

For decades, hip-hop kept gay voices quiet. Now, at last, they are breaking through
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Ten years ago, I interviewed Missy Elliott just after the Madonna, Christina and Britney faux lezfest at the 2003 MTV VMA Awards. I asked her why she hadn't joined in with the snogging. She looked at me aghast and nearly choked on an M&M. "No, no, no," she gasped, "Hip-hop would never do that. Never, never, never in a million years."

A decade later and, sometimes, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Missy was right and nothing had changed. Despite trotting out the old "I don't have a problem with gay people. I even have some gay homies" line, Snoop Lion né Dogg recently echoed Elliott's thoughts when he said that hip-hop would struggle to accept a gay rapper. "Rap is so masculine… You can't be in a locker room full of motherfucking tough-ass dudes, then all of a sudden say, 'Hey, man, I like you,'" he mused.

BROOKE CANDY Brooke Candy. Photograph: Alis Pelleschi

"Hip-hop is so homophobic," sighs Californian rapper Brooke Candy. A lesbian who is open and (often explicitly) frank about her sexuality, she is a living riposte to Elliott's suggestion that gay rap would never be allowed to flourish. "I don't understand why that mentality exists and I don't understand why Snoop would say that, especially because I've met him and he's such a cool guy. To say that though is so regressive."

New York-based rapper Angel Haze, who describes herself as "pansexual", agrees. "I think it's a cop-out. It's like a dad who has spent his whole life telling his son not to be gay, only for the son to turn out to be gay. Also, people can be gay without being excessively flamboyant or constantly throwing themselves at other men. That's crazy. I think there's room in hip-hop for tons of gay rappers. I'm sure there's already loads of them who are too scared to come out."

Angel Haze Angel Haze. Photograph: David Levene

The fact is that things have changed. Despite the culture articulated by Snoop, despite the breezy, bigoted catchphrases like "no homo", gay rappers are coming out and taking centre stage. There have always been exceptions to the rule, of course, a smattering of openly gay rhymers such as Yo! Majesty or QBoy, but they never gained much attention and their music became defined by their sexual identity. This year, things are different. Two male rappers, Mykki Blanco and Zebra Katz, are beginning to enjoy some success, touring the world and, in the case of Blanco, gaining critical kudos from publications as varied as Pitchfork and Spain's El País. Blanco is a female character played by Michael Quattlebaum, whose lyrics are highly sexualised and backed up by barnstorming live performances. "I think that that's the one thing that I pride myself on, that I don't give myself any limits," he told The Quietus. "And that took a long time; that wasn't an easy thing. If I can congratulate myself on anything, it's that I was able to break down my fears of myself, or what people didn't like, or what maybe at one time my parents or even those close to me didn't like, and really just did what I wanted to.

"Honestly, for me what it really feels like is that I now actively… explore life now in my natural gay, homosexual, masculine way, and in this very different feminine way. The themes that I think about, the motifs that I think about. I feel like my place has been as a character, and I liken it to people like Wu-Tang and Nas and other rappers who built a mythology within their own arena."

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Creating their own space and identity is the next challenge for the generation of performers ready to admit to their sexuality in a notoriously resistant culture. Indeed, one artist declined to take part in this feature for that very reason, preferring to be known first as a rapper rather than a "gay rapper".

Brooke Candy is sympathetic: "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. I understand people being sick of being labelled as 'gay rappers', but stand strong."

Brooke and Haze aren't the only openly gay/bisexual/pansexual females in rap: Odd Future's Syd Tha Kid is loud and proud, Azealia Banks has talked about being in relationships with both men and women, while Birmingham MC RoxXxan has been going out with Stooshe's Karis Anderson for over a year. "I want to be perceived as 'RoxXxan' but if people label me as 'gay rapper RoxXxan' I'm not offended," she says. "Being gay today isn't what it was 10 years ago; people are so much more relaxed. That said, I'm glad that I'm a girl rapper who's gay than a boy rapper who's gay. It would be so much harder. Especially where I'm from. All you ever hear in the hood is, 'Shut up, you're gay'. You're brought up to believe that it's wrong. It took me ages to come out and tell everybody, but life is a lot easier for me now."

roxxxan RoxXxan

If there's a reluctance on the boys' side to step out, the girls seem less reticent. "I think evolution comes to people who want to change things," notes Haze. "If people want to be confined, then we will for ever be confined. If they're too afraid to break out of the boxes that society places them in, then we'll for ever be stagnant."

Not only are these rappers "out and proud" but, according to RoxXxan, they're ahead of the cultural curve. "Now that it's 'cool' to be gay, there's a lot of people pretending," she points out. "Rihanna might have kissed a girl, but that's probably about it. Nicki Minaj claimed she was bisexual for about four months but went quiet about it when she became famous. You have Rita Ora and her 'wifey' Cara Delevingne, but I think it's all just to appeal to a bigger fanbase and appear edgy. You can't just 'stop' being gay when you become famous. It's not an illness you can shake off."

Zebra Katz Zebra Katz. Photograph: Miikka Pirinen

"The more that high-profile hip-hop artists like Jay-Z and 50 Cent acknowledge that it's OK to be gay, the more changes we will see within hip-hop," says 1Xtra presenter Adele Roberts, who recently produced a radio show on her own experiences of coming out. "Eventually, someone will break through and change things and other people will follow. Take Frank Ocean coming out – yes, he's an R&B singer – but he's part of a massive hip-hop collective, so that does make a difference. It's given momentum for other people going forward and I think someone else will follow soon because of that."

Thanks to her fashion friendships with Jeremy Scott and Terry Richardson, YouTube hits in the millions, and interest from major labels, it looks as if former stripper-turned-spitter Brooke Candy could just be the one to fly the (rainbow) flag in the charts. "I'm a woman, I'm white, I'm fucking gay in hip-hop; it's fucking hard," she admits. "I completely polarise myself in an industry that is homophobic and against women. But it's going to happen. Whether it's me or someone else, someone gay is going to break into the mainstream hip-hop world."

Brooke Candy plays T In The Park, Sun; Angel Haze's No Bueno is out now

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