"Little Freak" Official Video

My colleague and good buddy Elliott Powell sent me the official video for "Little Freak" earlier today.  After watching the video  I think Elliott summed it up perfectly, he said, "what's interesting (or perhaps not) about the video is how absent/forgettable usher is. there are so many shots of women dancing with women (homosocial coreography) and nicki spittin' game, that I actually forgot this was usher's song."

How Do We Make Sense of "Little Freak"?

If you've had your radio tuned to a hip hop station recently I'm sure you've heard Usher's new single "Little Freak" featuring Nicki Minaj.  Minaj, who is openly bisexual, rhymes on the track about "keep[ing] a couple of hos" and seducing a women and bringing her back to  "meet" Usher.

Excuse me lil mama
But you could say I'm on duty
I'm lookin for a cutie
A real big ol' ghetto booty
I really like your kitty cat
and if you let me touch her
I know you're not a bluffer
I'll take you to go see usher
I keep a couple hos
like santa I keep a vixon
Got that dasher, dancer, prancer,
dixon, comet, cupid, donner, blitzen.
I'm hotter than 100 degrees
A lot of bread no sesame seeds
If i'm in yo city
I'm signin them Tig-O-bitties
I'm plotting on how I can take Cassie away from Diddy
The girls want a Minaj yeah they wetter than the rainin
Usher buzz me in
Everybody loves Raymond 

Full disclosure: I really like this song.  Yet, I find myself as a queer women of color and hip hop head trying to make sense of this song and the gender and sexuality performances at play in the song.  

Usher's lyrics tell ladies that if they're "really fucking" with him they better be "little freaks" down to be with other women and have threesomes.  Nothing new there, pretty much par for the course in contemporary hip hop and r&b.  Nicki Minaj's lyrics, however, both play into and complicate the common trope of women engaging in sexual activities with each other for the benefit of a male partner or spectator.  When placed into conversation with Ushers lyrics it would seem like her actions are for his pleasure, but based on Nicki Minaj's lyrics and her rendering of the scenario on its own it's clear that everything she's talking about is for her benefit and enjoyment [and maybe her partner's].  If its more complicated than the easy dismissal of queer female intimacy for male pleasure, the question then becomes, how do we make sense of a female artist enjoying her sexuality and talking about having the "hos" on lock?

Some critics, and feminists cut of a certain cloth, will say that Minaj is trying to gain power and privilege in a male dominated space  (hip hop, and the music industry in general) by acting like a "female chauvinist pig." It's seductive theory, but I've always found that argument to be too facile, slightly racist, and very heterosexist.  That being said, is it useful to think of Minaj as part of a long line of queer women playing with and eroticizing power relations?  I want to say yes but I also want to  acknowledge there there are some problematic things going on as well.   

I'm also interested in how Nicki Minaj's high-femme aesthetics allow her to perform queer female sexuality within hip hop.  While Minaj has definitely provoked a number of homophobic inquiries and comments, for the most part she remains commercially viable and successful.  My hunch is that if Minaj was an AG dyke from the Bronx "Little Freak" might be far more controversial (that is if it even made it to the recording booth in the first place).  How is Minaj putting the prescribed narrow confines of female sexuality within hip hop to work for her?

All that is to say that clearly I have no idea how to make sense of "Little Freak," nor am I sure that we should even be trying to make it "make sense."  But I'd love to know what other folks have to say about the song, Nicki Minaj, and female sexuality and gender performances in hip hop.

Sincerely.the lost bois

Queer Hip-pop tribute to being confident, to being silly, and to crushing hard.

"That's Gay"... No Homo

Thanks to Roberto "Tito" Soto-Carrion and Shirley Arceo for this gem. Damn, it seems like "no homo" is blowing up the media. It's interesting considering "no homo" has been around for like 5 or 6 years now. Craziness.

LA Queer Studies Conference 2009: The Queer Vicissitudes of Hip Hop Expressive Culture

Matt Lipps ©

As promised here are the panel and paper abstracts for a panel I'm participating in with Michael Ralph and Laurence Ralph on Queer Hip Hop at the UCLA Queer Studies Conference (October 9-10). If you're in the LA area the conference is free and open to the public and is a great chance to see some rising young queer scholars.

Anyway, without further ado...

The Queer Vicissitudes of Hip Hop Expressive Culture
This panel delves into hip hop lyricism, fashion, and imagery to explore the queer vicissitudes that structure this mode of expressive culture. A vicissitude is a variation, an alternation, a change in fortune, a mutation: a reversal, perhaps. At the very least, it captures the gap between what one is and what one has imagined oneself to be. The aporia signaled here is not the space between the perspectives of two different rappers— i.e. a gay rapper versus a straight one—but the tension between two different views of one’s self. We explore this phenomenon of doubling by discussing the musical and visual production of several hip hop artists that dominate the contemporary landscape, these include: R. Kelly, Kanye West, Lil’ Wayne, T Pain, T.I., Andrew 3000, and Common.


“No Homo": Racialized Sexual Surveillance in Hip Hop
Hip hop culture is increasingly constructed by scholars and detractors alike as a hypermasculine space of unabashed violence, materialism, misogyny, and homophobia. This concern with sexuality and bodily comportment in hip hop performance tends toward a reified a mode of analysis which places too much emphasis on dubious standards for respectable discourse. In this paper I focus on performances of queer masculinity in hip hop as spaces that contradict dominant depictions of hip hop sexuality as increasingly narrow and formulaic. Hip hop masculinity often straddles the contractions of sexuality, desire, and gender performance, revealing the artifice of its constructions. Performances of queer masculinity in hip hop simultaneously disrupt and reify existing structures of oppression in the process of articulating a complex sexual and gendered personhood that is vibrant, diverse, and complex. By charting the ambivalence of the fad phrase, “no homo,” I explore how hip hop artists speak homophobia as a way of enacting nonnormative intimacies that interrupt racial and sexual surveillance. In this paper, I examine two performances of queer masculinity and intimacy: the first is the phallocentrism of Jim Jones’ “Pop Champagne” music video. The second mode of performance surfaces in a series of advertisements that Lil Wayne did for Strapped Condoms. I demonstrate that these queer performances eschew “respectability,” in favor of a masculine persona that embraces conflicting conceptions of intimacy and desire. These performances do not merely expose the fissures of hip hop masculinity, they exploit them, reveling in their pretenses. By grappling with the complexity of these ambivalent performances, I believe we can establish a scholarly discourse on hip-hop sexuality and gender performance that is, if not quite feminist, undoubtedly queer.

Marisol Lebron
Department of Social & Cultural Analysis
New York University


“I’m a Flirt”
In centering their attention on the “down low” phenomenon, analysts of male same sex intimacy feed social paranoias that frame homosexuality as the principal source of death and disease in African American lived spaces. They also tend to conflate homoeroticism with homosexuality in a way that is both crude and imprecise. Given that male rappers are increasingly marketed as sex symbols for both men and women, and since some of the social contexts rappers draw from (like jails and prisons) are widely known as arenas where male same sex intimacy flourishes, there is sufficient evidence to consider how male homoerotics structure interpersonal relationships in music that draws upon prison culture, like hip hop/r & b. In the song, “I’m a Flirt,” for instance, one man’s claim that he is capable of stealing another man’s girlfriend is precisely what generates a male homoerotic episode—a narrative in which those activities that a man finds titillating become central to a dialogue with other men that evinces more intimacy between them
than with any of their purported female objects of desire.

Laurence Ralph
Department of Anthropology
University of Chicago


“Where I come from, gay people were like aliens …”
Photos that flooded the Internet while Kanye West and friends were visiting Paris Fashion Week in February 2009, ignited a firestorm of controversy. The sartorial decisions that had everyone buzzing concerned Mr. West and the motley crue of fashionistas that looked, by all concerned, “gay.” Kanye dismissed the rumors, explaining that “the way a man dresses doesn’t have anything with what he likes to do at night.” Still, he was more empathetic than angry. In fact, Kanye indicated that he considered it his duty to “educate” his brethren and attributed the prevailing homophobia to the hypermasculinist ethos that pervades street cultures like the one in which he was reared, “Where I come from,” he said, invoking his native land, the south side of Chicago, “gay people were like aliens.” It was an apt image, and not simply because Kanye has routinely cast himself as a space explorer. For his 2008, “Glow in the Dark” tour, ‘Ye cast himself as a protagonist who crash landed on an unidentified planet. This, after he had already featured the track “Spaceship” on his debut album The College Dropout. This paper explores how rappers who artists who are frequently branded as queer—Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Common, and André 3000—have cast themselves as aliens to explain the way they fit into the broader cultural phenomenon that we call “hip hop.” André is an ATLien, Lil Wayne is a Martian, and Common has deployed futuristic, space age sounds, and accoutrements to craft his own gender-bending persona. These are but a few of the examples this paper will explore toward a theory of queer vicissitudes in hip hop lyricism and performance.

Michael Ralph
Department of Social & Cultural Analysis
New York University

Great article on No Homo....Pause

I am at this very moment actually working on a conference paper for the LA Queer Studies Conference about the rise of the "no homo" phenomenon and how the phrase actually worked to subvert and parody racialized sexual surveillance during the panic over the "downlow." This recent Slate piece by Jonah Weiner addresses many of the points I will touch on in my conference paper, particularly the way that "no homo" functions as a pun that actually draws attention to possible queer readings and nonnormative male intimacies. I'll post the panel and paper abstracts in a day or two, but in the mean time enjoy the Slate piece.

Does This Purple Mink Make Me Look Gay?

The rise of no homo and the changing face of hip-hop homophobia.

By Jonah Weiner
Posted Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009, at 9:55 AM ET

In August, 2005, three weeks before his nationally televised declaration that "George Bush doesn't care about black people," Kanye West made a statement he'd later describe as braver and more difficult than his attack on the White House. Hip-hop, he told MTV, was supposed to be about "speaking your mind and about breaking down barriers, but everyone in hip-hop discriminates against gay people … I wanna just come on TV and just tell my rappers, tell my friends, 'Yo, stop it.' " Taking on Bush was a perfectly hip-hop move, but taking on homophobia, West feared, could be career suicide. Undeterred, he revisited the subject in a November 2005 interview, discussing his love for his openly gay cousin, not to mention his conflicted but evolving attitude toward his interior decorator. West's call for tolerance remains the highest-profile rebuke of gay-bashing that hip-hop has seen.

But old habits die hard, and last week, West amended his position somewhat on "Run This Town," a new Jay-Z single on which the Chicago rapper is a featured guest. "It's crazy how you can go from being Joe Blow," West begins his rap, "to everybody on your dick—no homo." No homo, to those unfamiliar with the term, is a phrase added to statements in order to rid them of possible homosexual double-entendre. ("You've got beautiful balls," you tell your friend at the bocce game—"no homo.") No homo began life as East Harlem slang in the early '90s, and in the early aughts it entered the hip-hop lexicon via the Harlem rapper Cam'ron and his Diplomats crew. Lil Wayne brought the term into the mainstream, sprinkling "no homo" caveats acrosscameos, mix tapes, and his Tha Carter III LP, which was 2008's best-selling album. (Jay-Z has used the word pause in a similar way.)

The term's appearance in hip-hop coincided with the rise of the so-called "down-low brother," a closeted black figure often demonized as a disease-spreading boogeyman, invisible by definition and thus potentially, frightfully, everywhere. Saying "no homo" might have started as a way for rappers to acknowledge and distance themselves from the down-low phenomenon. As the phrase has spread, many have decried no homo as depressingly retrograde, a pigheaded "That's what she said" for homophobes. But the term functions in a more complicated way than a simple slur. As society becomes increasingly gay-tolerant, hip-hop is reassessing its relationship to homosexuality and, albeit in a hedged and roundabout way, it's possible that no homo is helping to make hip-hop a gayer place.

I once asked Method Man whether he thought we'd ever see an openly gay gangsta rapper. He grew visibly agitated. "You can't be fuckin' people in the ass and say you're gangsta," he responded. As Kanye West has observed, gay and hip-hop have traditionally functioned as mutually exclusive terms, Venn diagrams that don't touch (and get really testy at the suggestion that they might, you know, want to). In 1989, Big Daddy Kane summed up the reigning attitude: "The Big Daddy law is anti-faggot." When DMX insulted rivals 10 years later by rapping, "Y'all niggas remind me of a strip club/ 'Cause every time you come around it's like I just gotta get my dick sucked," hip-hop was still so aggressively understood as hetero-centric that it was inconceivable to DMX that there might be anything the least bit gay about his fantasy of a roomful of men fellating him.

No homo tweaks this dynamic because it allows, implicitly, that rap is a place where gayness can in fact be expressed by the guy on the mic, not just scorned in others. In the very act of trying to "purify" an utterance of any gayness, after all, the no homo tag must contaminate it first—it's both a denial and a flashing neon arrow. This isn't to suggest that saying no homo is a radical act, but there's an appealing sense in which the phrase refuses to function as tidily as some of its boosters might like. This is especially striking in those cases when rappers add no homo to statements of sexual pleasure we'd otherwise have no reason to think of as gay. "No homo, I go hard," Chamillionaire rapped on a recent mix tape, implying that an erection is inherently homosexual. Even more absurdly, when Cam'ron named a song "Silky (No Homo)," it was hard to decide what he was disavowing. The emotions of sadness and longing expressed in the lyrics? Or the tactile sensation of silkiness itself?

Often, no homo appears not just as a disclaimer but as a punch line, a See what I did there? that flaunts one's cleverness. "Just shot a video with R. Kelly, but no homo though," Lil Wayne rapped in 2007. In this line—a sly nod to both a music video co-starring Wayne and Kelly and to the R&B singer's alleged sex tape—no homo isn't an afterthought; it's the keystone that holds the whole joke together. A funny side effect here is that the no homo vogue doubtless encourages rappers not only to scrutinize everything they say for trace gayness, but to actively think up gay double-entendres just so that they can cap them off with no homo kickers.

Beyond this, there's a sense in which no homo, rather than limiting self-expression in hip-hop, actually helps to expand it. We see this play out in the rhymes and personas of the term's most famous practitioners. Cam'ron and the Diplomats are, ironically, among the most homoerotic MCs in rap. They wear pink and purple furs and brag regularly about how good they look. In the video for "Pop Champagne," Jim Jones and Juelz Santana giddily douse each other with frothy white geysers of bubbly. On Cam'ron's "Hey Ma," he describes having sex with a female paramour with seven vague words—"She was up in the Range, man"—but when the girl leaves, he immediately calls Santana to narrate the act in detail and, in a sense, to enjoy and consummate it fully. Similarly, Lil Wayne has been photographed kissing his mentor, the rapper Baby, on the lips and cultivates a shirtless, slithering, rock-star-worthy air of libertine sexuality. Kanye West attends runway shows, keeps an entourage of designer-clad dandies, and blogs regularly about design. When these rappers say "no homo," it can seem a bit like a gentleman's agreement, nodding to the status quo while smuggling in a fuller, less hamstrung notion of masculinity. This is still a concession to homophobia, but one that enables a less rigid definition of the hip-hop self than we've seen before. It's far from a coup, but, in a way, it's progress.

Jonah Weiner is a pop critic for Slate.

Article URL:http://www.slate.com/id/2224348/

Skinny Jeans: The Movement

The New Boyz address Jerkin' Fashion specifically in the following video clips. I think their commentary about how the 80's influenced them is really interesting. Throw back with swag...







Revenge of the Nerds... I love it!

Blue Scholars: Hi-808

I love Blue Scholars! They stay holding it down for social activist hip-hop. I love how effortlessly they throw in references to A/PA figures and history next to lines about "smoke signals from those Maui trees." If you don't have any of their albums I strongly recommend them all. Genius.

Interview with Liza Rios (Big Pun's Wife) on MS Drama TV

MS Drama TV reports "Big Pun's Wife talks about Living in Shelter, Abuse, Fat Joe, & Trying to Survive"

This video is heartbreaking. Shattering the myth of the incredible wealth that hip hop generates for rapper and their families, Liza Rios reveals the fact that her and her children are currently living in a city shelter. After Pun's death his family was left with little financially and those in a position to help them have vanished. Fat Joe who has a financial obligation to the Rios family (especially since he continues to eat off of his association with Pun to this day) refuses to share any of the money that Pun continues to generate, withholding the royalties due to Pun's family.

Liza appeared on E! True Hollywood Stories: Rapper Wives and spoke about her and her children's experiences of abuse at Pun's hands. She also spoke candidly about this in the documentary released a couple of years ago about Pun, Still Not a Player. She has been shunned and even threatened by rappers close to Pun, including Fat Joe.

Apparently no snitching extends to speaking out against domestic violence as well.

Elizabeth M. Berry details the silence around abuse in the hip hop community in her piece for VIBE Magazine "Love Hurts: Rap's Black Eye". In this excerpt from "Love Hurts" about Liza Rios, Berry writes:

Before going to sleep, many little girls pray for a new Barbie, an Xbox game, or a trip to Disney World. At age 7, Vanessa Rios asked only that "Papi would stop hitting Mami." It was May 1999, and Vanessa was staying with her aunt, Penelope Rios Santiago, in Miami. After Santiago overheard her niece's bedtime prayer, she confronted her brother, Christopher Rios. His reaction? It wasn't true, he said.

Though he had much in common with other abusers, Christopher Rios was also different: He was Big Pun, a famous rap star. He first hit his wife, Liza, when she was 16, and over the course of their 10-year relationship, she claims he sent her to the hospital three times and prevented her from seeking needed medical attention on many other occasions. "One time he told me to change the batteries in his beeper," says Liza Rios, now 31. "I totally forgot about it, and he took this lead pipe and started swinging on me. I had my daughter in my arms, and I told Cuban [Link, who was there] to take the baby. After he finished beating me, my elbow was twisted out of place. I was limping for two months."

Each time Rios got up the courage to leave, Pun tracked her down and convinced her to come back to him. "After we got married and he had that paper, it was like he had bought me," she says. Still, though she was financially reliant on him, Rios began to loathe his extravagant displays. "I didn't even enjoy the jewelry, because it was, like, I got the extra bracelet because you punched me extra hard," she says.

Rios did leave Pun twice, but returned both times, and she was with him when he died of a heart attack in 2000. Backed by footage of Pun pistol-whipping her, she and other witnesses described his beatings in the 2002 documentary Big Pun: Still Not a Player, which she co-produced. Many criticized her for going public, among them Fat Joe, who argued that if there was abuse, Pun must've been justified. Others wondered why Rios waited until he died to tell her story.

For some women, speaking out while their abuser is alive is not an option. Murder at the hands of a romantic partner is a leading cause of death among African-American women between the ages of 15 and 24, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that intimate partner violence in the United States leads to two million injuries annually and nearly 1,300 murders. "I tried to use my life as a testimony. I hope that somebody can learn from this story," Rios says during a phone interview. Another factor motivated Rios: Chris's assaults have had a huge and lasting impact on their children. "My son was smacking my girls up for any little thing," says Rios. "Even though they love Chris, my kids have a lot of anger, too. They still have nightmares, but my son has calmed down a lot. He hasn't hit his sisters in a long time."

Liza has been courageously speaking out against domestic abuse and the lack of financial security that the families of famous rappers often experience for years and has unfortunately often been met with open hostility and contempt. As Liza continues to speak out I just wish that the hip hop community would listen.

Re-appropriation and "Arab Money"

So I'm not trying to beat a dead horse, but the tangled web of "Arab Money" keeps getting crazier and more complicated.

First up, I was having dinner at a friends house and he was telling me that while teaching his undergrad class they started talking about "Arab Money" and whether it was offensive and if so how. The responses were mixed but one story stuck in my head. One of the young women told the class that she went out to a hip hop club and that while she was on line a Hummer pulled up blasting "Arab Money" and a "bunch of young Arabs" rolled out "really feeling themselves. That was their song."

There is something interesting about that story in terms of the way that certain forms of self/re-appropriation are playing out as a desire for visibility and recognition in mainstream hip hop culture. That brings us to our second serving of food for thought...

Bless' comedy remix/redo "Hebrew Money." Bless plays on a number of tropes about Jews, money, and spend thrift.

I haven't worked it out yet but there is an interesting triangulation between Arabs, Blacks, and Jews around issues of race, class, and relationships with money and hip hop culture that "Arab Money" and all its various permutations brings to the fore. Its especially interesting to have a song explicitly talking about glamorous images of "Arab life" at a time when Palestinians are experiencing such danger and terror.

I Love Asher Roth

This is Asher Roth performing his song "I Love College" on the Carson Daily Show (I didn't even know Carson Daily had a show but thats cool). Any hip-hop-ish song about beer bonging and beer ponging gets a stamp of approval in my book. I'm also really feeling that the song samples Weezer's "Say it Ain't So" which in my opinion is the ultimate small liberal arts school anthem, at least it was at Oberlin where I went to undergrad.

The remix with Jim Jones is tight...he compares Harlem to College...

Asher Roth feat. Jim Jones - I Love College (Harlem Mix)

Soulja Boy on NaS & Hip Hop is Dead

Happy New Year Mi Gente!

I'm back with some food for thought from my favorite case study Soulja Boy. As long as Soulja Boy is making video's and running his mouth hip hop academics will be in business.

I've been working on a piece recently about the current crisis in hip hop in the aftermath of NaS' statement that "Hip Hip is Dead." In particurlar I'm interested in how regional and generational divides are encapsulated in that discourse. Soulja Boy touches on a lot of those themes in this video. Soulja Boy tends to say some stupid ass stuff like thanking the slave masters for allowing him to "get all this ice," but not for nothing he is definitely holding older hip hop heads accountable for the current state of hip hop.

Shout out to my boy Elliott for forwarding this clip along.

A-RAB Money?

Busta must have lost his goddamn mind with this song. I'm pretty much at a loss for words, but I encourage people to hit me up on the comments section with their thoughts.

*tip of the fitted to the amazing Wayne Marshall over at wayneandwax.com

Old School, New School, No School

What up Mi Gente! I'm back from the Puerto Rican Studies Conference in San Juan with tons of stuff kicking around in my head that I hope to share on this blog in the coming weeks.

Lets kick stuff off and spark a debate. I'm putting up this YouTube clip from Real Talk NY from the VH1 Hip Hop Honors. Real Talk NY asked old schoolers to talk about what was lacking in the new generations music. The answers were varied, but they all basically agreed that the new school doesn't have anything on them.

I'm currently working on some stuff about these crisis moments in hip-hop (Hip Hop is Dead anyone?), and how people then remember and channel "old school" hip hop. I think there is this serious push towards a retro aesthetic in hip-hop and I'm working towards how it connects to the idea that hip hop is dead. If hip hop died in the new school does that mean that only the old school can revive it?

I'd love to hear what people think about this clip and the current nostalgia towards the old school.

Party Like a BaRock Star

Check out Mims new video featuring Jr. Reid "BaRock Star." Hip hop is heavy hitting for Obama, hopeful folks will actually go out and vote.

The Brief and Wonderous Life of No Homo

Dipset's Juelz Santana coined the ubiquitous term "No Homo" in 2003's "Santana's Town" when he proclaimed "no homo but they cocking them/Four-fos and glocks and them." 5 years later and "No Homo" is still going strong and is practically a movement onto itself (especially if you've been around teenage boys at all in the last 5 years). People have been trying to understand the "No Homo" phenomenon and now Hip-Hop blogger Jay Smooth of illdoctine.com is weighing in on the matter. Jay recently released a new clip called "A Beginners Guide to No Homo" where he attempts to breaks down the origin and meaning of the phrase "No Homo," for those who may have been living under a rock. Check out the clip...

As always Jay Smooth is funny as hell and does an excellent job pointing out just how stupid and out of control the "No Homo" phenomenon has gotten in both hip-hop culture.

While I agree with Jay Smooth's points, I definitely think that their is more to the "No Homo" phenomenon than meets the eye. The phrase is often used to demonstrate hip-hop's rampant homophobia, and while I agree that saying "No Homo" every five seconds might qualify as homophobic, I think it is more complex than that and deserves serious scholarly interest and attention. I think it is interesting to consider the time frame when the phrase "No Homo" really gained popularity in hip hop culture. In 2003 and particularly 2004 with the release of J.L. King's On the Down Low, black men and their sexuality became subjects of national inquiry. Perhaps, "No Homo" gained momentum as a form of backlash against this inquiry. That doesn't make "No Homo" any less homophobic, but I think it gives us an appropriate context in which to consider the popularity of the phrase "No Homo" among young Black and Latino men involved in hip hop culture

Oprah and J.L. King basically set up a witch-hunt to smoke out brothers on the DL, offering paranoid girlfriends, wives, and causal observers 10 ways to spot a man on the DL. Check out J.L. King's website, breeding suspicion and fear is his bread and butter.


At the height of a cultural moment when anything could be used to prove that you're on the DL, the development of a defense mechanism like "No Homo" seemed almost inevitable. Throw in all the time, money, and marketing going into creating hypermasculine imagery, and the almost exclusively male atmosphere in hip-hop and there you have it..."No Homo."

There are actually some scholars doing interesting work on homoerotism and homosociality within hip-hop culture. I saw two excellent panel presentations at the Race, Sex, Power: New Movements in Black and Latino/a Sexuality conference at University Illinois-Chicago this past April.

Antonia Randolph, Assistant Professor of Black American Studies at University of Delaware, presented a paper entitled “Stuntin’ Like My Daddy”: Managing Homosocial Intimacy Through Speaking Homophobia In Hip-Hop Culture, that explored hip-hop culture's possessive investment in Lil Wayne and Baby's heterosexuality and (hyper)masculinity.


Randolph argued that despite evidence that might point to a homosexual relationship between rappers Lil Wayne and Baby, the hip-hop community and segments of the Black community cannot afford to cast aside these two successful young Black men from New Orleans and are actively attempting to recoup the duos heterosexuality and masculinity. What is important is not whether Baby and Lil Wayne are or are not in a sexual relationship, but the way that the hip-hop community, more so than the two rappers, are invested in protecting Baby and Lil Wayne's heterosexuality in order to deploy them as "positive" and "successful" role models of Black masculinity.

Laurence Ralph, a Ph.D. student in the department of anthropology at the University of Chicago, presented a conference paper entitled Out of the Closet, in the Club with Kells: Homophobia and Homoeroticism in Hip-hop.


Ralph's presentation explored homoerotism in R. Kelly's lyrics particularly in his song "I'm a Flirt," featuring rappers T-Pain and T.I. Ralph argued that what the song demonstates is a climate of oneupmanship and male compitition in which men are the objects of attention and women serve as the conduits for that attention. For instance, he argued that T.I.'s lyrics where he describes how and what he will do to another man's woman serves as a homoerotic moment where T.I. is inviting other men to recognize and admire his sexual prowess. T.I. is demonstrating that prowess not for the benefit of his female sexual partner but for an unknown male spectator. Many times in hip-hop's more sexualized lyrics we see that women are not the targets for those lyrics, but instead they are often directed at other men.

I think that by moving away from a position that solely critiques hip-hop for being homophobic, misogynistic and heterosexist, we can see the ways in which alternative gender norms and sexualities are performed in hip-hop. Randolph and Ralph's work make way for productive conversations and analysis of queer agency within hip-hop while also allowing us to critique the things that need critiquing.

Does anyone else know anybody who is doing interesting work on queerness, homoeroticism, or homosociality in hip-hop?

In the meantime, enjoy this clip from Boondocks, that lampoons the unspoken homoeroticism in hip-hop ...

Raquel Rivera Alert: Two Reggaeton Docs to Watch Out For

One of my favorite scholars, Hip Hop/Reggaeton feminist Raquel Z. Rivera, makes an appearance two new reggaeton documentaries being released this summer.

The first is Straight Outta Puerto Rico: Reggaeton's Rough Road to Glory, a film that traces reggaetons emergence from Puerto Rico’s caserios to becoming one of the most profitable genres in music. Straight Outta Puerto Rico premiered on MUN2 on July 31, 2008 and is now officially on sale at retailers like Amazon.

While the documentary is not with out its flaws, mainly the way it sensationalizes the hyper-masculine and sometimes violent atmosphere that birthed the reggaeton movement, I do appreciate the films attempt to historically contextualize the genre. This documentary is also one of the few public venues where the influence of the drug game on reggaeton is given attention and examined, albeit in a very exploitative way. The tag line for the film was basically drugs, sex, and violence, which is why reggaeton comes under so much fire and criticism in the first place. The film is a good starting point but I’m waiting for a documentary that is going to critically examine the economic and colonial realities that affected the development of the genre in Puerto Rico and elsewhere. Please check out Reggaetonica for Raquel Rivera’s take on Straight Outta Puerto Rico.

Rivera, along with another one of my favorite scholars Juan Flores, also appears in the upcoming reggaeton doc U.S.-Latinos: the Reggaeton Factor. Reggaeton Factor, obviously focuses on the impact on the development of U.S. Latino identity and development so it takes a radically different approach to the genre than Straight Outta Puerto Rico. U.S.-Latinos: the Reggaeton Factor was slated to come out this summer but it appears as though it might have been pushed back. I can’t wait to see it when it comes out, in the meantime enjoy the trailer.

Music Monday: Belated Edition

A little late but here are some of the best new tracks of the past week...

Talia f. Daddy Yankee "Ten Paciencia (remix)"


The Mexican Diva enlisted El Cangri's help on this track to boost her sagging record sales.

Naldo f. Jowell & Randy "Un Poema"/ "No Existen Detalles"


Naldo was pissed about the leaked tracks, but he should be happy because it sounds like he's got a a great album on his hands.


Baby Rasta & Gringo "Dejame Conocerte"


Baby Rasta & Gringo are back together on this new banger. Its great to see two reggaetoneros de la vieja escuela still doing the damn thing.

Jowell "Hazte la Loca"


In his first solo video Jowell shows that he's loco for panties. While I was looking for the new video on YouTube I came across this little gem, Jowell's own personal advertisement for Trojan Condoms...



Gym Class Heroes f. Busta Rhymes "Peace Sign Up, Index Down"

Ludacris' "Politics"

Obama has come out against Ludacris’ new song “Politics” calling the song "outrageously offensive". The Obama is trying to distance himself from song which calls Hillary Clinton an irrelevant bitch, says the only chair McCain belongs in is a wheelchair, and calls Bush mentally handicapped.

"Ludacris is a talented individual but he should be ashamed of these lyrics," said Mr Obama's spokesman Bill Burton. Burton added: "As Barack Obama has said many, many times in the past, rap lyrics today too often perpetuate misogyny, materialism, and degrading images that he doesn't want his daughters or any children exposed to."

While I understand Obama is trying to steer clear from attacks on other candidates, I think he’s really coming down hard on the man he told Rolling Stone was one of hip-hop’s "great talents and great businessmen". Before announcing his presidential bid, Obama meet with Ludacris in 2006 to discuss youth issues. While I might not always agree with his lyrics, Ludacris does a lot of community outreach and has been mobilizing people to vote for Obama since he first announced his candidacy.

The hip hop generation promises to be one of the most powerful voting blocs this November so I hope this doesn’t alienate these really important young voters.

Source: BBC News

Nas Takes on Fox News

So the hip hop community, and suprisingly much of the mainstream media, is abuzz with talk of Nas teaming up with Color of Change and Move On to stop Faux News' unfair and unbalanced attacks on people of color. There was a protest in front of the NewsCorp building in midtown on Wednesday where "famed hip hop artist Nas joined ColorofChange.org, MoveOn.org, and lots of young sign-carrying protesters to demand that FOX News stop calling race-baiting attacks fair and balanced news" (racewire).

Nas delievered a pitition of more than 620,000 signatures and addressed Fox's, particularly Bill O' Reilly's , blatant racism on The Colbert Report. He also performed his song "Sly Fox". Check out the clip of Nas on the Colbert Report...



Fox News has a record of bullying liberal media and an aggressive anti-hip-hop agenda (remember the whole Stop Snitchin' fiasco?). Nas was caught in Fox's cross hairs for a his participation in a performance at VA Tech shortly after the shooting. Check out the full "Sly Fox" video which talks about O'Reilly's attack on Nas...

Bill O'Reilly responded to Nas' appearance on the Colbert Report as an attempt to boost record sales and then tries to flip the switch saying that Nas is racist because he wanted to give his new album the controversial title "Nig**r." Check out a clip from the show...



Please believe that Nas, Color of Change, and Move On are on point with their criticism of Faux News. Fox news will stop at nothing to promote their right-wing racist heteropatriarchial agenda. Fox News is so despicable that it will even stoop to doctoring photos to make rivals look "ugly" and and cartoonish in order to discredit them. The did it to New York Times writer Jacques Steinberg and editor Steven Reddicliffe. Check out the summary from Media Matters which broke the story:

During a segment in which Fox & Friends co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade labeled New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg and editor Steven Reddicliffe "attack dogs," Fox News featured photos of Steinberg and Reddicliffe that appeared to have been digitally altered -- the journalists' teeth had been yellowed, their facial features exaggerated, and portions of Reddicliffe's hair moved further back on his head.

Check out the actual clip in question...



Check out MSNBC's Coverage...



Fellow Times writer David Carr was particularly outraged by the doctored photos and stood up to Fox and its dirty tactics. Carr also points out the Antisemitism apparent in the photoshopped photo of Jacques Steinberg, Carr notes:
“In a technique familiar to students of vintage German propaganda, (Steinberg’s) ears were pulled out, his teeth played apart, his forehead lowered and his nose widened and enlarged in a way that made him look more like Fagin than the guy I work with.” (For more Click Here)

Lastly, I want leave you with this ill doctrine clip which proves that no matter how many times O'Reilly tries to discredit Nas by saying his name wrong all he's doing is showing his bigoted immaturity and making himself look and sound like a fool.


Props to Nas, Color of Change and Move On.