Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines homophobia as the irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals. While society has made great strides towards becoming more accepting of the LGBTQ community, there is still a portion of the population that has not changed. And in hip hop culture today, it can be seen by many that homophobia is still prevalent. Joel Penney is quite aware of this as his article entitled, “We Don’t Wear Tight Clothes”: Gay Panic and Queer Style in Contemporary Hip Hop, is centered on the aforementioned idea. In the article, Penney discusses how the ongoing feud, between masculine gangsta rappers and anti gay artists versus queer inspired rappers and musicians, has affected the landscape
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Instead of rapping about the ‘hood’ and getting involved in gang violence, these new artists are talking more about fashion and their relationships with other people. Instead of dressing in loose and baggy shirts with sagging jeans, artists are dressing in tighter and more fitting clothing. The rules and conduct of hip hop has progressed to a point where it is acceptable to wear types of queer inflected styles. Penney finishes his argument by point out that there need to be further revisions to hip hop’s conception of masculinity within African …show more content…
The fact of the matter is that hip hop and rap, as genres of music, are about expression and being able to express oneself in a poetic manner. The idea that rap has to be limited to a certain group of people is biased and unfair to those truly enjoy hip hop. Even though when hip hop was first created it was listened to mostly by heterosexual African Americans, our society has developed beyond that demographic. We live in a more accepting and tolerant world and rappers today should become more aware of that. Artists such as Beanie Sigel and Thug Slaughter Force, who still have homophobic beliefs, are no longer the representatives of mainstream hip hop. In 2012, Frank Ocean, member of the hip hop collective Odd Future, wrote an open letter to his fans in which he came out and announced that he is gay. At the end of his letter, he wrote, “I feel like a free man. If I listen closely, I can hear the sky falling too” (Ocean 2012). ‘The sky is falling’ is an expression that means the world is ending. Ocean is alluding to the fact that the world as we know it, the social stigma behind being openly gay, is changing. This is not simply as a result of his open letter, but also as people in our society become more open minded. The ‘listen closely’ is basically Ocean saying that there are currently small signs change and it
Instead of rapping about the ‘hood’ and getting involved in gang violence, these new artists are talking more about fashion and their relationships with other people. Instead of dressing in loose and baggy shirts with sagging jeans, artists are dressing in tighter and more fitting clothing. The rules and conduct of hip hop has progressed to a point where it is acceptable to wear types of queer inflected styles. Penney finishes his argument by point out that there need to be further revisions to hip hop’s conception of masculinity within African …show more content…
The fact of the matter is that hip hop and rap, as genres of music, are about expression and being able to express oneself in a poetic manner. The idea that rap has to be limited to a certain group of people is biased and unfair to those truly enjoy hip hop. Even though when hip hop was first created it was listened to mostly by heterosexual African Americans, our society has developed beyond that demographic. We live in a more accepting and tolerant world and rappers today should become more aware of that. Artists such as Beanie Sigel and Thug Slaughter Force, who still have homophobic beliefs, are no longer the representatives of mainstream hip hop. In 2012, Frank Ocean, member of the hip hop collective Odd Future, wrote an open letter to his fans in which he came out and announced that he is gay. At the end of his letter, he wrote, “I feel like a free man. If I listen closely, I can hear the sky falling too” (Ocean 2012). ‘The sky is falling’ is an expression that means the world is ending. Ocean is alluding to the fact that the world as we know it, the social stigma behind being openly gay, is changing. This is not simply as a result of his open letter, but also as people in our society become more open minded. The ‘listen closely’ is basically Ocean saying that there are currently small signs change and it