Nail Polish - Rap's Sexual Politics
Homophobia in hip hop and the role fans play in watching men concern themselves with the sexuality of other men.
Nail Polish - Rap's Sexual Politics
THUGGER. Young Thug. It's right there in the name. This rapper is a self-proclaimed, self-named thug. Rap is a genre in which a person who figures himself a thug is welcomed and celebrated, an art form in part created as a necessary outlet, an avenue to release the daily tension of those in social circumstances in which turning to thug activity may seem as the only option.
What is a thug to most people, to the millions who listen to Young Thug? Is a thug a man? Does he wear nail polish?
In considering the facets of hip hop homophobia, of the fear of conventional feminine traits in a man, its best to first examine it where it thrives, in places where conventional ideas of masculinity - toughness measured in brute strength, stoicism/emotional repression, doling out harm as consequences to even perceived slights, hair - like pro sports and hip hop. Whats a professional athlete to most people? Say a hypothetical hockey player. Some characteristics are necessary functions of being an athlete - though it seems every sport has it's exceptions - like physical fitness, physical strength, a steel will and resolve. Some are not so necessary yet seem inevitable, like swimming in beautiful women. Like, the hockey guy is probably fighting off beautiful women just to get to the mail boxes in his building.
Leaving aside the really fun game of asking people who comes to their minds eye, like abstract word association, when hearing the word 'thug' or 'rapper,' and sticking to connecting the venn diagram between the testosterone soaked activities of professional sports, rapping and thuggery with something that is at a premium in dog-eat-dog capitalist America; competition to stay relevant.
Creating art or playing sports for money is insecurity inducing. Initially being apart of the one percentile of people who achieve success and notoriety is hard enough and, for many, cause to do most of anything to achieve it. Machiavellian motivation, to the capitalist, to the thirsty, is not an ethical quandary of means and ends but a question of enthusiasm, of conviction. The question isn't if the action to achievement are justifiable but if the goal is wanted enough. Do you want it? When 'it' is achieved by any means, maintaining it by any means is no problem.
This is an insecure, sea sick existence, constantly swerving round, checking behind and in front for that someone, anyone who might steal some shine, spurned by the paranoia of the backstabber. In music, an industry who's revenue streams have turned on their head, if a few more people want to come to a show or listen through the entire new album because they enjoy the propensity to call out rappers who's sexuality is deemed 'questionable,' the notion may seem a simple moral hurdle in the face of profit and fame. It may seem, or very well may be, necessary to stay relevant, or as relevant as the artist desires.
If calling someone gay in the locker room puts their manhood in question to the team, perhaps making everyone else seem manlier in contrast, why not attack? For myriad reasons - injury, age, abilities no longer in use to a style of play - a player may perceive it necessary to start entertaining other means by which to establish himself on a team or in a sport. Basketball seems to have gotten over the idea of a gay player, but football, that remains to be seen. The larger point is that if a culture - be it a locker room, organization, musical genre or entire nation - is gong to reward respect toward certain people and disrespect to others, why not reap it?
The idea of masculinity is changing in the country, the nation is growing weary of those that discriminate sexuality or are fixated on 1950's era notions of femininity and masculinity. Acting like a 'man' or being 'ladylike' are terms that are losing their meaning, but there are undoubtedly pockets and strongholds that don't want to change the definitions since 70 years ago. Imagining American culture then evokes images of racial strife for black and non-white people. Many people who play America's two most popular sports, football and basketball, and are known and paid for rapping are black, which enters us into the black psyche of pride in the face of indignity.
The black family must be proud, the black man must be, like what Mayo Angelou said, a quote made into a website by Jason Whitlock, "the undefeated," in a white man's world. That level of toughness is still in the black ethos. So when black fathers, like the men in Key & Peel's sketch in which a gay male family member announces his wedding plans to his family and a few of the male characters can't make or wont maintain eye contact, black teammates, black colleagues and peers, balk at the idea of homosexuality, misconstruing it with femininity and femininity with weakness. In the context of a family or workplace, perhaps, and this appears to be getting better everyday, the reception is warmer, but a whiff of it in the higher ranks of rap in America is going to sniff it out and kill it in front as many people as possible as anti-masculine, anti-strong, anti-proud, anti-black.
The key in all of this is that, rappers like The Game and Young Thug, aren't going to post threatening, hyper masculine images to one another unless they know viewers would eat it up. The entire beef on display for rap fans goes as follows; Young Thug really admires Lil Wayne. Lil Wayne thinks that admiration is creepy if not facetious. Young Thug pokes fun at his idle, naming his album Carter 6, a shot at how long Lil Wayne's Carter 6 has taken to drop. Lil Wayne sues. Young Thug renames the time Barter 6 (boy, is this petty). Lil Wayne threatens Young Thug's life (there it is). Young Thug threatens Lil Wayne. The Game, a friend of Lil Wayne, threatens Young Thug. Young Thug threatens The Game. The Game threatens Young Thug.
In the changing landscape of masculinity in 2015, rap beef has devolved into a performative pissing contest of more intimidating threats. Beefs don't even seem to have much to do with rap or musical artistry any more, just who is scarier. Trading on the cultural currency of manliness through aggression is a revenue stream up to the culture to close off.
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