Masarykova univerzita Filozofická fakulta
Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky
Bakalářská diplomová práce
Pavla Němečková Pavla
2016 Pavla Němečková
20
16 16 Hřbet
Masaryk University Faculty of Arts
Department of English and American Studies
English Language and Literature
Pavla Němečková
Queer Rap: Music Genre as an Expression of Identity
Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A.
2016
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
…………………………………………….. Pavla Němečková
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank to my supervisor Mr. Vanderziel for his guidance and kind help. I would also like to thank him for the work he has done as the Head of our Department and for the fact that I had the opportunity to gain knowledge in the field of Queer Studies and African- American history. I would like to thank to Ms. Rebecca Brückmann for being the wonderful teacher she is and sharing her extensive knowledge of the African-American civil rights struggle with me. I would like to thank to Mr. Talel Ben Jemia for challenging my intellectual capacities. I would like to thank to my dear friends, Bajza for the initial idea, and Anna Wim for being an everlasting inspiration and showing me that you should always do what you truly believe in. And finally, I would like to thank to my family for their trust and unconditional support.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 6
Chapter 2: Hypermasculinity and Homophobia in Hip-Hop ...... 8 Hip-Hop as the Black Panther Progeny ...... 9 Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice: “We Shall Have Our Manhood” ...... 15 The Black Panther Magazine: Aesthetics of Masculinity ...... 24
Chapter 3: Identity and Performance ...... 32
Chapter 4: Queer Rap as an Expression of Identity ...... 40 Disidentifications ...... 42 Analysis of Queer Hip-Hop: Le1f and Mykki Blanco ...... 43
Chapter 5: Conclusion ...... 51
Bibliography ...... 54
Resumé ...... 58
Summary ...... 60
Chapter 1: Introduction
The music scene of 2012 saw the release of three records crucial for the formation of queer rap as an independent genre of hip-hop music. It was Mykki
Blanco’s album Cosmic Angel: The Illuminati Prince/ss (2012, UNO), Le1f’s album
Dark York (2012, Greedhead Entertainment, Camp & Street) and Zebra Katz’ single
Ima Read (2012, Mad Decent, Jeffree's). These three outstanding records had several important things in common. They were all debut albums introducing a new kind of hip- hop artist on the mainstream scene; a young black male1 bringing in an innovative music production, presenting fearless and strong lyrics, and, most notably to the general public, being openly queer. The music critics were left with an uneasy task. The work of these artists is attractive, provoking, and progressive. However, addressing the artistic value of their music is inseparable from discussing their queer identities which obviously reflect in their musical output and aesthetics. The critics have to fully embrace the intersectional nature of the social position of these artists and view their work in a wider socio-political context.
The aim of this thesis is to place the phenomenon of queer rap within the wider context of the African-American social, political and cultural history to fully understand the impact of the 2010s coming generation of African-American queer hip-hop artists on the African-American and general public.
Chapter 2 focuses on the origins of homophobia and hypermasculinity in hip- hop culture. By creating a link to the preceding African-American civil rights groups in terms of both, the framework and the ideology, this section describes the Black Panther
Party and its Black Nationalist politics as a direct source of inspiration to the early hip-
1 This would be a general perception of the abovementioned artists by the wider music audience. In fact, some of these artists identify as gender fluid. There is also a significant number of female queer hip- hop artists, such as Angel Haze, important for the development of this music genre. However, these artists are not the subject of this paper due to its specific focus on the relation between masculinity and homophobia within the African-American culture. 6 hop artists. Together with the adoption of the Black Panther embodied social politics of performative masculinity, the hip-hop culture also embraces the rhetoric of masculine hegemony and homophobia inherent in this ideological approach. This chapter provides examples of these attitudes through the analysis of Eldridge Cleaver’s writing and the aesthetics of the Black Panther magazine.
Chapter 3 focuses more closely on the homophobia and hypermasculinity as expressed in the hip-hop culture. This chapter introduces the aspect of performance which is particularly significant to the African-American community and connects it to the process of creation and expression of the African-American identity. The aim of this chapter is to explain the issue of fragmentation of the African-American identity which can be seen as a result of the long history of racial oppression affecting the social position of African Americans as well as their understanding of their own identity with the particular focus on the aspect of gender and sexuality.
Finally, Chapter 4 discusses the emergence of the contemporary queer hip-hop artists and their significance to the general discourse concerning the topics of race, sex, gender and the interplay of these factors. This chapter aims to show the strategies used by these artists to overcome the homophobia and misogyny within the hip-hop culture as well as the general public particularly focusing on the aspect of disidentification. The final analysis traces these strategies in the selected works of two African-American queer hip-hop artists – Le1f and Mykki Blanco.
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Chapter 2: Hypermasculinity and Homophobia in Hip-Hop
Queer hip-hop which is conscious of its queerness and the cultural and political issues this topic carries can be seen as forming a continuum with the ideas of the hip- hop pioneers in the late 1970’s. The early hip-hop artists such as KRS-One, Public
Enemy and Grandmaster Flash employed the medium of music as a means of social critique and an expression of their views on the American society. Throughout the subsequent development of the genre of hip-hop, the theme of social criticism remained an inherent part of its rhetoric, however, more often than not it began to lose its acuteness and topicality (Cheney 279). Especially since the 1980’s when hip-hop started to be commercially successful and the subgenre of gangsta rap widely popular, the original idea of social criticism within hip-hop became more of an autotelic tool of hip- hop lyric writers. The contemporary generation of queer hip-hop artists who use the medium of music as a platform for social commentary in a way revive the 1970’s tradition of socially and politically conscious hip-hop (SPC hip-hop) which can be in turn seen as an extension of the African-American Civil Rights Movement (Alridge
226).
The 1960s and 1970s African-American civil rights ideologies and organizations, particularly the Black Power movement and the Black Panther Party, served as a direct source of political attitudes and opinions for the early SPC hip- hoppers. The SPC hip-hop mainly commented on the still persisting racism, deteriorating economic conditions within the African-American community and the grim realities of the urban environment. SPC hip-hop artists were preaching the principles of self-determination and racial pride. The issue of racism and color prejudice still remained the main and the most crucial focal point of their criticism. The present- day queer hip-hop artists extend and partly reverse these efforts of the early hip-hop
8 generation. The thing is that apart from discussing the discriminatory attitude existing outside the African-American society primarily based on more or less institutionalized racism, the contemporary queer hip-hop artists also level their criticism at their own community. By being queer hip-hoppers and articulating their African-American queer experience through their work, these artists address one of the most pressing issues within the hip-hop culture and African-American community in general – homophobia.
Homophobia in hip-hop culture is, along with elements of explicit sexism and misogyny, an often mentioned but rather little discussed problem. One of the reasons for the reluctance to deal with this topic might be the fact that homophobic attitudes within the African-American community have complex and tangled roots intertwining through the ideological, political and social levels of African-American experience affected by the institution of slavery. The following section aims to trace and explain the origins of homophobia within the African-American hip-hop culture and thus emphasize the importance of the new queer hip-hop artists and their methods of overcoming this issue.
Hip-Hop as the Black Panther Progeny
As already mentioned, hip-hop as a specific music genre emerged during the
1970’s in South Bronx. Hip-hop arose from the culturally and ideologically rich milieu of the African-American youth community influenced by the poor conditions of urban life and the everyday experience of racial and class inequity (Alridge and Stewart 190).
An African-American youth grew restless, they felt the need to verbalize their dissatisfaction in a powerful voice. The aggressive and bold energy of the 1970’s and
1980’s youth found its main ideological inspiration in the immediately preceding generation of the Black Power movement. Several of the hip-hop artists of that era were the children of the Black Panther Party members (e.g. Tupac Shakur) (Alridge 243).
Some artists such as Chuck D from Public Enemy even referred to themselves as the
9 progeny carrying the legacy of the Black Panthers (Cheney 278). Others highlighted the fascination with the main leaders of Black Nationalism and the Black Power movement.
As Kevin Powell, hip-hop journalist and activist, noted, “You feel powerless your entire life. And all of a sudden you have this space. You can be Marcus Garvey, and talk stuff to white folks. You can be Malcolm X and talk stuff to white folks” (qtd. in Cheney
284). Just like the organizations of the civil rights movement, hip-hop created a social space and network where the African-American youth could meet, interact, verbally express their views and fight for their place in the American society. The creation of this sort of “hip-hop universe” actually shows some of the main preconditions for the creation of a social movement. As Rucht and Neidhardt propose in their essay, the forming of a social movement is a process taking place on three levels: level of individual experience, level of collective framing and a structural level. The level of individual experience includes the problematization of the situation stemming from a long-term deprivation. When comparing the hip-hop generation to the immediately preceding civil rights organizations of the Black Power movement, it is apparent that the two share a lot of common themes on this level. Both generations come from an urban environment in which African-American communities are troubled by poverty, bad housing conditions, high rates of criminality and persisting racism which forms the major obstacle to the solution of these issues. The individual experience of deprivation shared with other individuals in the same situation is the prerequisite for the strong feeling of community which is the main factor on the second level. The shared experiences lead to a collective interpretation and subsequently mobilization. One of the main parts of this process is the creation of identity frames, the distinction between
“we” and “them” which, in the case of the Black Panther Party as well as the early hip- hop generation, would be primarily rendered through the creation of a visual image
10 including clothing, behavior and rhetoric. The Black Panther Party’s main means of expressing their views was basically the visual and verbal performance of their politics.
The last, structural level is essentially the already mentioned creation of a social space in which the movement can actually function.
The early hip-hop generation’s inclinations towards the program of the Black
Power and the Black Panthers respectively is hardly surprising given the spatial and social similarities between the two generations as outlined above. As Alridge discloses in his essay, the late 1960’s as well as 1970’s were the years of economic stagnation and the resulting deindustrialization had a great negative impact on the African-American urban working-class community. The experience of black urban ghettoes proves to be crucial for both generations. The circumstances of the Black Panther Party’s origins and the turn towards more radical, active and arguably violent approach is vividly described in Bobby Seale’s memoir Seize the Time. Together with his close companion Huey P.
Newton, Seale originally led the Soul Students Advisory Council, an African-American students’ organization of the Merritt College in Oakland. However, Newton and Seale became gradually frustrated by the ineffective cultural nationalist approach to the black liberation struggle. As Seale describes, the SSAC was basically entrenched in the power structure and pawn to the structure (Seale 22). Thus, the two young men decided to create their own organization which would not conform to the general power structure and which would leave the invisible underground sphere and literally hit the streets. In
October 1966, Newton and Seale drafted the ten-point Black Panther program following the What We Want and What We Believe format (see figure 1)2.
2 The figures presented in this work are photocopies of selected issues of the Black Panther magazine which was accessed on microfilm reels in the archive of the John F. Kennedy Institute’s library, Freie Universität Berlin. Due to the DIY character of the newspaper, information about the publisher and the publishing location is missing. 11
Figure 1. Black Panther 1.3 (1970): 19. Microfilm.
12
This program would become the sum and substance of the Black Panther ideology and it would regularly appear in the issues of the Black Panther Party’s DIY magazine. The ten points are a call for self-determination of African-American citizens with the emphasis on the economic independence, a call for a social security and a call for an active self-defense in the face of the racially conditioned police brutality which was a very real and pressing issue at that time. The thematic continuities between the
1960’s Black Power movement and the early hip-hop generation are further mapped in
Derrick P. Alridge’s essay. Among others, it is mainly the topic of self-determination, knowledge of self and racial-pride, the fight against the racist police brutality and the struggle for attaining power within the urban context which often reappears in the lyrics of the socially and politically conscious rappers with songs such as KRS-One’s “Sound of Da Police” or the hymn-like Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power”. As Alridge argues, apart from the lyrics, the SPC rappers also used different music techniques to create the link with the preceding civil rights generations including imaging, sampling and scratching. All of these techniques include deconstructing of the temporal linearity and thus erasing the time gap between the two generations. SPC hip-hop artists would often sample snippets of speeches of the African-American civil rights leaders such as
Malcolm X into their songs or use authentic video clips of the crucial events related to the African-American Civil Rights Movement in their music videos (Alridge 229). All of the abovementioned aspects of the early hip-hop scene prove that this music genre can be rightly viewed as a continuation of the long civil rights struggle within the
African-American community bearing both formal aspects of a social movement and thematic similarities to the preceding generation of the Black Power and the Black
Panther Party. With that in mind, it becomes apparent that the genre of hip-hop should be discussed and critically assessed as something more than just a music phenomenon,
13 especially when it comes to the issues of sexism, misogyny and homophobia. As the following section aims to show, the issues connected to gender and sexual identities and the problem of homophobia in hip-hop, particularly in relation to black queer men, can be actually traced back to the Black Panther Party and arguably even further in the history of the African-American civil rights movement.
The aspect of homophobia was present in the Black Panther ideology like a shadow accompanying its program which later on served as an inspiration for the hip- hop activists. As Cheney explains, the Black Nationalist politics mainly defined the black nation in terms of cultural nation sharing a common African ancestry and culture influenced by the oppressive conditions in the United States. Thus, a cultural expression, including hip-hop later on, has been in essence an important part of the
Black Nationalist politics. Apart from that, Black Nationalism was also an ideology of masculine protest, a fact complexly explained in Cheney’s essay. Cheney generally refers to the SPC hip-hop as “rap nationalism” and creates the already discussed link with Black Nationalism showing the direct parallels between the two movements. The manner of politics practiced by Black Nationalist groups and subsequently adopted by the SPC rappers could be labeled as the “embodied social politics” (Cheney 281). This suggests that the body image, bodily experience and physical expression have had a crucial political significance for the African-American community. According to
Cheney, apart from the obvious issue of race, the crucial topics in the embodied social politics of both, black and rap nationalism, have been gender and sexuality. As she writes, “Many black nationalists have consistently abused that power and defined the boundaries of the imagined black nation in terms of a sexual politics that institutionalized male domination and the subordination of the ‘feminine’” (281). The choice of the word “feminine” is crucial here since it does not denote only the actual
14 female gender but basically anything that would be deemed not masculine enough. The rejection and suppression of the “feminine” aspect logically results in the overemphasizing of the “masculine” and an excessive typification of gender roles. The superiority of the masculine principle and patriarchal structures are not restricted to the
Black Nationalist ideology only. The issue of sexism actually exists throughout the whole African-American history. The reasons for the tendency towards the hegemonic masculinity within the African-American community are based on various complex socio-political issues which could be traced back to the very beginnings of the African-
American presence in the United States and the institution of slavery. However, in the late 1960’s and 1970’s, the heyday of the Black Nationalist ideology, these already existing though covert principles concerning gender and sexuality actually became a visible part of the political agenda. As Martin Summers explains in his essay, the Black
Nationalist ideology generates the politicization of sexuality. This approach results in the institutionalization of heteronormativity, and homophobia therefore becomes an inherent part of the Black Nationalist thought. The following section aims to trace the particular manifestations of the heteronormative embodied social politics in the Black
Panther Party whose thoughts, attitudes and aesthetics influenced and informed the early hip-hop artists. The brief analysis of Eldridge Cleaver’s writings and the visual style of the Party’s magazine aims to clarify some of the main reasons underlying the later expressions of sexism, heteronormativity and homophobia in hip-hop.
Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice: “We Shall Have Our Manhood”
Eldridge Cleaver had been an important presence on the African-American political scene even before his affiliation with the Black Panther Party. As an African-
American male coming from a troubled and poor socio-economical background and being, so to speak, educated by his early jail experience, Eldridge Cleaver can be
15 considered as an epitome of the urban Black Nationalism as represented by the Black
Panthers (O’Reilly 67). In Seize the Time, Bobby Seale relates his and Newton’s acquaintance with Cleaver. They visited him in prison early in 1967 and their ideological proximity was immediately obvious (Seale 79). Cleaver would eventually become the Minister of Information of the Black Panther Party, spokesperson and the editor in chief of the BPP magazine. This position within the Party’s framework is important to note since it suggests the importance of Cleaver as a kind of opinion maker within the Party and a promoter of the Black Panther objectives outside the Party. As
Seale remarks, Cleaver was something like Malcolm X for him and Newton. However exaggerated this comparison may appear, the two men actually share certain common characteristics in relation to the African-American community. Similarly to Malcolm X,
Eldridge Cleaver was perceived as a kind of intellectual from the urban ghetto. In a way, Cleaver would serve as a proof that a man can hold both a pen and a gun and be both a poet and a fighter. The further discussed emphasis on masculinity is already visible in this concept. It is important to be aware of Cleaver’s position within the Party in order to fully appreciate the impact of his writing and opinions.
Among the various articles and texts that Eldridge Cleaver wrote, the most influential and resonating work is the collection of prison writings titled Soul on Ice published in 1968. This book is an interesting merging of a journal-like memoir writing of the first part, more essayistic writing of the second part, an intimate epistolary romance of the third part and an almost scholarly philosophical tone of the last, fourth part. However, despite the stylistic and thematic variations, the whole work is interlaced with a strongly masculine and patriarchal ideological thread. The following section focuses on selected parts which follow the tone of the hegemonic masculinity to show
16 how Eldridge Cleaver contributed to and, to a certain degree, co-created the heteronormative/homophobic discourse within the Black Panther Party.
Scattered comments and statements endorsing Cleaver’s masculine rhetoric are present throughout the whole text. They often appear in the form of inconspicuous remarks such as, “If I had followed the path laid down for me by the officials, I'd undoubtedly have long since been out of prison-but I'd be less of a man. I'd be weaker and less certain of where I want to go, what I want to do, and how to go about it”
(Cleaver 36). Cleaver basically suggests that even though his actions led him to prison, it is exactly his resistance to authorities, free will and self-determination what makes him a man. If he would yield to the authorities he would be “less of a man” and thus weaker. In one sentence alone, Cleaver already touches upon the basic pro-masculine ideas of the embodied social politics of Black Nationalism as outlined earlier. Cleaver links gender identity and political/social power similarly to Public Enemy’s front man
Chuck D who in 1999 stated that “it takes a man to take a stand” (Cheney 278). Cleaver also suggests than anything not masculine enough is weak, powerless and incompetent.
These views are expressed more explicitly for example in the chapter on Malcolm X written in reaction to his assassination. Towards the end of the chapter, Cleaver relives the words of Ossie Davis, “Malcolm was our manhood, our living, black manhood! This was his meaning to his people. And, in honoring him, we honor the best in ourselves”, and concludes the chapter with “We shall have our manhood. We shall have it or the earth will be leveled by our attempts to gain it” (Cleaver 84). Again, in these statements the concept of manhood and masculinity is directly connected to one’s political and personal power. Moreover, Davis’s remark that to honor Malcolm X means to “honor the best in ourselves” in this context implies that the best in the African-American community is actually the aspect of manhood and masculinity. Cleaver’s exclamation
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“we shall have our manhood” basically uses the word “manhood” as an umbrella term directly related to the main objectives of Black Nationalism which is self-defense and self-determination. This cry for manhood also reveals a certain need for the reclamation of manhood. “We shall have our manhood” in this context implies “we will take back what is ours and what has been taken away from us”. The view of Black Nationalism as a “politics of masculine protest” (Cheney 278) fighting for the reclamation of one’s own sexual identity is an often reoccurring theme in writings on the African-American civil rights struggle of the 1960’s and 1970’s. This point of view reveals a much wider and more complex issue concerning sexuality as such throughout the history of the African-
American community. One of the many strategies used to support the system of slavery was the creation of a pervasive system of caricatures of the African-American population used to justify their position within the American society. These caricatures hugely influenced not only the psyche of the white population but most importantly
African Americans themselves. It is interesting to note that a lot of these portrayals of
African Americans employ a twisted notion of sexuality and gender roles. For example the coupling of Mammy and Uncle Tom show a reversal of typical gender roles in a household. Mammy would be portrayed as man-like, with hoarse voice, strong physique and dominant nature. Uncle Tom would be the thin good-for-nothing with a squeaky voice and a completely submissive character (Ethnic Notions). Later on, in contrast to that, the myth of a virile black man as a dangerous sexual predator emerged, being supported by its portrayal in such fundamental cultural products such as the cult film
Birth of a Nation (1915, dir. D. W. Griffith). The obvious inconsistency in strategies of the propagators of slavery shows the tendentious nature of their efforts and it explains the resulting inevitable confusion in the topic of sexuality among African Americans.
Once emasculated, once over-sexualized, an African-American male would eventually
18 lose the understanding of his own sexual and gender identity. In Soul on Ice Eldridge
Cleaver devotes a whole chapter to the issue of African-American sexual identities and their distortion by the institution of slavery. In the chapter titled “The Primeval Mitosis”
Cleaver offers the reader his theory concerning the origin of sexes and as the introductory quotes reveal, he places his point of view within the context of the religious, scientific and sociological approach. It is not quite clear whether Cleaver created this narrative as his own original theory or whether he drew from other sources.
In fact, the theory does in certain aspects bear a strong resemblance to Aristophanes’ speech on the creation of human race in Plato’s Symposium with the, possibly deliberate, omission of the third androgynous sex. In any case, Cleaver’s narrative of the creation myth is deeply entrenched in the ideological concept of procreative heteronormativity. Cleaver proposes the existence of the original, somewhat mythical,
“unknown ancestor of Man/Woman” which he calls the “Unitary Self/Primeval Sphere”
(206). This “primeval mitosis” results in the creation of two beings, male and female, which thenceforward strive to find their respective halves and achieve unity once again.
However, as Cleaver proposes, this fusion is possible only in a Unitary Society with individuals possessing a Unitary Sexual Image:
Each half of the human equation, the male and female hemispheres of the Primeval Sphere,
must prepare themselves for the fusion by achieving a Unitary Sexual Image, i.e., a heterosexual
identity free from the mutually exclusive, antagonistic, antipodal impediments of homosexuality
(the product of the fissure of society into antagonistic classes and a dying culture and civilization
alienated from its biology). (Cleaver 207)
As Cleaver clearly states, the major obstacles to the achievement of the Unitary
Society and the Unitary Sexual Image are class struggle and the “alienation from biology” which is basically any but heterosexual identity. Apart from the propagation of clearly heteronormative/anti-homosexual views of cultural pro-creation, Cleaver also
19 touches upon the already mentioned issue of the, particularly male, African-American sexual identity crippled by the existing social structure. According to Cleaver, the
American class society, fundamentally influenced by the remnants of the institution of slavery, creates fragmented sexual images, both male and female, which are to correspond to the class functions of the individuals. The ultimate outcome of this process is the “the alienation between the function of man's Mind and the function of his
Body” (208). The society creates two types of male sexual identities which correspond to the race difference and the distribution of power, the image of the Omnipotent
Administrator and the Supermasculine Menial. The Omnipotent Administrator is basically the white male who usurps all the intellectual capacity and thus positions himself at the top of the social class hierarchy. The Supermasculine Menial would be the image of the African-American male who performs the role of the physically strong though feeble-minded manual worker. Obviously, the clear cut separation of the two principles, in order to support the existing social structure, creates a strong tension especially with relation to the matter of sexuality. The Omnipotent Administrator might be the brain of the society but he ultimately loses his physicality and thus also his sexual potency. To compensate for this loss, the Omnipotent Administrator strives to mentally emasculate the Supermasculine Menial by denying him an access to social and political power (thus also the emphasis on being Omnipotent despite his sexual impotency). This thought could be seen as an extension of Cleaver’s statement that one of the strategies of the white patriarchal America to control African Americans has been “a conscious, systematic emasculation of Negro leadership” (112). With regard to Cleaver’s theory, the rising African-American intellectual elite would pose a serious threat to the
Omnipotent Administrator, endangering the only area which secures Omnipotent’s masculinity and power. Similarly to that, female sexualities were also distorted based on
20 racial and class differences. The ultimate image of the white female would be the
Ultrafeminine to balance out the Omnipotent’s effeminacy and her counterpart, the
African-American female, would be the strong, self-reliant, household sovereign
Amazon. As Cleaver states, the ultimate problem created by this fragmentation of sexual images is the eventual incompatibility of the pairs. Thus the Ultrafeminine is sexually attracted to the Supermasculine Menial and the Omnipotent Administrator pines for the Amazon. According to Cleaver, this situation is inherently wrong. As
Cleaver progresses towards the concluding thesis behind his theory, he explains that in order to truly achieve the economic as well as personal freedom and make a social change, African-American population has to escape the racially motivated sexual and gender categories. As he says, in reference to the African-American men and women:
The Supermasculine Menial and the Amazon are the least alienated from the biological chain,
although their minds – especially the Supermasculine Menials' ! – are in a general state of
underdevelopment. Still, they are the wealth of a nation, an abundant supply of unexhausted,
undeessenced [sic] human raw material upon which the future of the society depends and with
which, through the implacable march of history to an ever broader base of democracy and
equality, the society will renew and transform itself. (Cleaver 220)
Cleaver thus suggests that the true revolutionary power lies in the union of African-
American men and women. Their heterosexual relationship is seen as a crucial step leading towards a general progress and improvement of the whole black community.
However, the resulting politicization of heterosexual identity can actually be seen as stemming from an effort to overcome the fragmentation of identity which Cleaver suggests and which is discussed further on in this work.
The last part of Cleaver’s Soul on Ice to be discussed is the chapter titled “Notes on a Native Son” providing a critique of the autobiographical work and eventually also the persona of an African-American writer and social activist James Baldwin, who
21 identified as gay. This chapter is often referred to as a demonstration of Cleaver’s homophobic attitudes. In addressing Baldwin’s sexuality, Eldridge Cleaver expresses radical anti-homosexual views supported by the Black Nationalist understanding of heterosexuality as a progressive political act. Cleaver claims that Baldwin’s homosexuality is a result of “the most grueling, agonizing, total hatred of the blacks, particularly of himself, and the most shameful, fanatical, fawning, sycophantic love of the whites” (124). As Summers explains in his essay, Black Nationalism which focuses on the progressive rejuvenation and procreation of the African-American society basically sees homosexuality as a counterrevolutionary political act. In accordance with this view, Cleaver claims that the motivation behind homosexuality is a kind of “racial death-wish”, hatred of one’s own race and consequently of oneself. According to
Cleaver, Baldwin’s antipathy to his own race is even reinforced by his frustration caused by the inability to beget a child with a white man (128). Interestingly enough,
Cleaver completely dismisses the possibility of an emotional and sexual relationship between two African-American men. Cleaver regards homosexuality as “a sickness, just as are baby-rape or wanting to become the head of General Motors” (136). It is also interesting to note the formal style in which Cleaver addresses the topic. He seems to be rather reluctant to directly address Baldwin’s sexuality and when he finally gets to the point he refers to it as “something in Baldwin” (123) which makes him uncomfortable.
There are several cases in which Cleaver treats Baldwin rather disrespectfully. When he describes Baldwin’s supposed efforts to hide his “gayness” in his literary work, Cleaver says, “Now and then we catch a glimpse of his little jive ass – his big eyes peering back over his shoulder in the mischievous retreat of a child sneak-thief from a cookie jar”
(125). In another case, he calls Baldwin a “Sugar” (131). This tendency towards ridicule and invective somewhat undermines the cogency of Cleaver’s argument.
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As outlined earlier, Cleaver’s role in the Party would primarily be that of an opinion maker and to a certain degree an intellectual mentor to the lower classes.
Thanks to his official function as a Minister of Information, spokesman and the chief editor of the BPP magazine, Cleaver’s views would crucially influence the thinking of the community. It is important to put his work within this context, considering the number of problematic issues which his writing reveals. Soul on Ice in particular can be seen as a genuine expression of some of the crucial principles of the Black Nationalist thought concerning gender and sexuality. Firstly, Cleaver’s text shows the deep-rooted issue of fragmented sexual identity and self-perception in the African-American community damaged by the inherently racist power dynamics in the American society.
His call for manhood can be seen as a direct response to the “systematic emasculation of black men” (Cheney 293) which completely undermined the position of African-
American men not only in the American society but also in their own households.
Secondly, Cleaver’s history of the origin of sexes reflects the politicization of sexuality which results in the promotion of standardized heteronormative gender roles. As
Summers explains, the heteronormative politics were used to create “a racial community through the construction of normative gender and sexual conventions and their policing through rhetoric, prescriptive literature, and certainly verbal, if not physical, violence” (Summers 22), aspects discernible in Cleaver’s writing. These views are based on the belief that the true revolutionary power lies in the rejuvenation of the nation, its reproduction and transmission of cultural and national values (Summers 22).
Thus, the notion of “racial purity” (strikingly resembling similar sexual politics of the emerging extremist movements in Europe) meant an inherent denunciation of homosexuality and miscegenation as retrogression if not sabotage (Summers 28).
Homosexuality was seen as a “white man’s disease”, a view also reflected in Cleaver’s
23 text. Again, the possibility of a same-sex relationship between African-American men, let alone women, is completely disregarded.
The Black Panther Magazine: Aesthetics of Masculinity
Apart from the rhetoric of masculinity and heteronormativity as expressed in the ideological texts of the Black Panther Party, it is also important to notice its visible demonstrations in the field of aesthetics, body image and behavior. For this purpose, the following section provides a brief analysis of selected issues of the Black Panther
Party’s magazine. The magazine started off as the Black Panther Community News
Service later on renamed as the Black Panther. As Bobby Seale recounts in Seize the
Time, the main impulse for the creation of Party’s printed periodical came from Huey P.
Newton who, for this purpose, sought out Eldridge Cleaver to be the chief editor. In
Seale’s words, Huey understood “the need for a media” (Seale 79). Newton undoubtedly also understood the profound impact of media and visual representation on the public opinion. The Black Panther reflects both the ideas of the Party and the grassroots character of the movement both in its content and its form, DIY approach and aesthetics. It is particularly interesting to note the visual symbols and imagery used extensively in the magazine. A bold visual identity is one of the characteristics of the periodical and it corresponds to the general Black Panther Party’s emphasis on their visual image and public perception. In Soul on Fire, Eldridge Cleaver describes the impression during his first encounter with the Black Panthers, “I spun around in my seat and saw the most beautiful sight I had ever seen: four black men wearing black berets, powder blue shirts, black leather jackets, black trousers, shiny black shoes – and each with a gun” (Cleaver 94). As Cleaver suggests, the bold masculinity was meant to provoke the impression of an awesome beauty. The Black Panthers’ image went hand in hand with the symbolism and iconography of a black panther as such – powerful,
24 strong, virile and independent; characteristics which would be thus metaphorically attributed to a black man. The imagery of strong, powerful African-American men was a substantial part of the magazine production. As portrayed in figure 1, the ten point program of the Party, published in every issue, would be often accompanied by a photograph of Huey P. Newton, wearing the above described the Black Panther uniform and holding a gun.
The Black Panther is permeated with images of African-American men armed with guns and often standing in a combat-like position as in figure 2. Figure 3 shows one of the pages of the magazine and the images on this page basically sum up the
Black Panther ideology. There is a picture of a mother carrying a child on her back, holding a gun and a Black Studies book in her hands. This picture demonstrates the
Black Nationalist “valorization of motherhood” (Summers 22) which reflects the institutionalization of heteronormativity as a progressive political act, the adoption of performative masculinity by African-American women and the emphasis put on the knowledge of self and one’s own history pointed out in the Black Panther program.
Next to that, there is a picture promoting Eldridge Cleaver’s book Soul on Ice clearly reaffirming its significance to the community as discussed in the previous section. There is also the poster advertisement depicting one of the most famous portrayals of Huey P.
Newton. In this picture, Newton is seated on an imaginary throne, surrounded by traditional African folk objects which suggest the embracing of one’s cultural history.
According to that, Newton is holding a spear in one hand and a gun in the other hand as a kind of militant regalia marking his power and position. The symbol of a gun alone is also used as a part of the design layout of the magazine (for instance in the form of text separators, see figure 4) or as a visual decoration. The Black Panther creators would also often dedicate its last double page spread to posters which combined powerful
25 illustrations and mottos, motivational texts or short poems. The one portrayed in figure
5 is particularly interesting.
Figure 2. Black Panther 5.17 (1970). Microfilm.
26
Figure 3. Black Panther 11.1 (1968): 23. Microfilm.
27
Figure 4. Black Panther 2.5 (1967): front cover. Microfilm.
Figure 5. Black Panther 1.3 (1970). Microfilm.
28
The featured poem is written by Elaine Brown, one of the most prominent female figures in the BPP. Yet, the poem still evinces strongly masculine rhetoric. It begins with a general statement “You’re a man, you see,” which blatantly ignores the
African-American women reading the paper or even actively participating in the Party.
The other possibility is that Brown actually urges both men and women to “get guns and be men”. This fact marks the shift from gender to political identity typical of the Black
Nationalist’s embodied social politics. She addresses a kind of symbolic manhood and merges it with an attainment of a certain socio-political power. In fact, this tendency towards the merging of political activism and masculinity is still present among the
African-American female activists and performers today. In her 2016 Super Bowl 50 halftime show, Beyoncé performed a song called “Formation”. The song itself has been, since its release, widely discussed as Beyoncé’s definitive turn to black activism, being called “inherently political” and addressing the pressing African-American issues such as the police brutality, social inequities or persisting stereotypes, and promoting racial pride and self-determination (McFadden). However, the Super Bowl performance added another important level to Beyoncé’s statement. Together with a group of female dancers, Beyoncé embraced a strong visual image of warrior-like figures dressed in black leather suits and wearing black leather berets on their proud Afros. This visually powerful performance was a clear reference to the Black Panthers and Beyoncé thus revived the Black Nationalist politics, and, once again, created a link between the
African-American political activism and the performance of masculinity. The illustration accompanying Elaine Brown’s poem has several interesting aspects. There is the portrayal of a white police officer as a pig which was a typical metaphor used by the
Party to show the bestiality of American police forces. The policeman is portrayed as terrified, powerless and significantly smaller than the person, presumably a Black
29
Panther, holding a gun. Actually, the viewer only sees the middle part of the Black
Panther’s body, which reinforces the size disproportion. In this poster, the main object of focus which draws the viewer’s attention is the gun protruding right in the middle of the image. As suggested earlier, a symbol of gun had been perceived as an attribute of manhood. In this case, the connection is even reinforced by the position and rather phallic shape of the gun. Given the size disproportion between the two figures and the prominent symbolic depiction of a gun paralyzing the policeman, the poster actually portrays a reversal of historical roles. The Black Panther is the one in power while the
“pig” is powerless, impotent (in both senses of the word) and thus emasculated.
From the brief analysis of selected issues of the Black Panther, it is apparent that a distinctive visual image and aesthetics played a crucial role in promoting and spreading the Black Panther politics of masculinity and power. In fact, Self describes the early political strategy of the Black Panthers as “a theatrical performance of radical self-determination” (40). This point of view reveals a crucial aspect of the Black
Panther Black Nationalist politics which is the performative character of expressing masculinity. As outlined earlier, the embodied social politics of Black Nationalism led to a politicization of sexuality and merging of sexual/gender and social/political identities. This approach could be labeled as “identity politics” (Wilson 118). The Black
Nationalist fusion of one’s gender/sexual identity and their political stance meant that an overt expression of the “correct” identity was deemed necessary for supporting the progressive African-American politics. That could be seen as the reason for the Black
Panther Party’s and eventually hip-hop’s attachment of substantial importance to the exaggerated performance of masculinity which uses material attributes including clothing, visual symbols and signs as well as a specific masculine rhetoric and verbal expression. The performative character of the Black Panther Party’s masculine politics
30 would be even reinforced in its adaptation by the early hip-hop artists, hip-hop being a performing art in itself.
31
Chapter 3: Identity and Performance
The aspect of performance in relation to the creation and expression of one’s identity is of a particular significance to the African Americans since the very first day of their confrontation with the dominant white society. This confrontation initiated the creation of delimitations between the two races based mainly on the color difference and used to support the oppressing power relations. As mentioned earlier, one of the strategies to do so was the creation and perpetuation of African-American caricatures in the American popular culture, including visual arts, literature, film and music. There was a certain set of attributes assigned to the racial identity of African-Americans and equated with a certain social position. This understanding of racial identities inevitably determined the African Americans’ understanding of themselves. According to bell hooks’ theory, there are two types of black performance which substantially influence each other. The first one is the performance of blackness for the general nonblack public which basically serves as a strategy to survive the racial oppression. The second one is the performance of blackness “as a liberatory practice that emphasizes the creation and articulation of languages of identity” (Stovall 221-222). Thus, as Stovall interprets,
“performance has been both an expression of black consciousness and the product of the interactions between blacks and the dominant white culture” (223). The problematic part of this scheme is the fact that more often than not the performance of blackness as an affirmation of one’s identity has also been affected by the dominant racial prejudice.
As outlined above, in the case of Black Nationalism and the Black Panther Party, the assertion of one’s identity, inherently connected to one’s position in the society, has been distorted by the long history of racist power dynamics mainly rendered through the control over African-American sexuality and gender roles (see the analysis of Cleaver’s
“Primeval Mitosis” and fragmented sexual identities). Apart from that, the Black
32
Panther emphasis on masculinity and the resulting homophobia also reflect the more general construction of masculinity in the United States. As Ward argues, this following of the dominant society’s views on sexuality generally denouncing homosexuals meant, to a certain degree, to fit in the normalized sexual and gender categories. It basically marks the effort to overcome the deep-rooted demonization and distortion of African-
American sexuality (Ward 501). For the African-American’s in the era of Black
Nationalism, sex and gender became additional factors aside from race which would be considered crucial in constituting the African-American identity and enter the performance of blackness. To be an African-American male would thus imply to be manifestly masculine and heterosexual.
The theoretical double performance of blackness as described by bell hooks
(Stovall 221-222) is probably most prominent and tangible in performing arts. An important example would be the American blackface minstrelsy of the 19th century.
These performances were based on the powerful racist African-American stereotypes, using exaggeration of both the African-American body image and the over-stylized personality traits corresponding to the popular black characters of Sambo or Zip-Coon
(Ethnic Notions). Yet, as Tuhkanen explains, despite the inherent racism, minstrel shows were also the only opportunity for black performers to appear on stage. It provided one of the few possibilities for, at least limited, social and economical mobility in the otherwise caste-like society. However, the involvement of African-American actors in blackface performances created a kind of schizophrenia. In order to comply with the popularized images of themselves, they had to follow the traits of the caricature, darken their skin, widen their mouth and talk in an exaggerated manner
(Ethnic Notions). To apply bell hooks theory (Stovall 221-222), their performance was both conforming to the demands of the white audience, and empowering for the actors
33 and the black audience as it showed the possibility for social mobility. As Tuhkanen notes, the “double performance” closely resembles W. E. B. Du Bois’ concept of
African-American “double consciousness” described as “looking at one's self through the eyes of others” (Du Bois). The history of African-American caricatures, minstrelsy and double performance related to the concept of double consciousness all act as important factors affecting the construction of African-American identity. As outlined above, the heritage of double performance is reflected in the Black Panther embodied social politics of performative masculinity and consequently the hip-hop culture.
African-American male identity was morphed into a double performance of blackness.
Looking at the various aspects of the Black Panther politics as explained in the earlier sections, this performative act does follow bell hooks’ theory as described in Stovall’s text. The primary intention was the performance of blackness as the self-affirmative act supporting and promoting the progressive development in the African-American community, self-defense and self-determination. However, the Black Panther politics also became the performance of blackness conforming to the white society’s conventions. Firstly, it reflects the general construct of masculinity in America interconnected with the negative approach towards homosexuality. Secondly, the Black
Panther emphasis on the male physical prowess and strength partially reaffirms the existing stereotypical, and thus caricaturizing, images of black men as the strong, muscular sportsmen, in Cleaver’s words the “Supermasculine Menials”. These facts are even addressed by Cleaver in Soul on Ice where he writes about the phenomenon of the
African-American boxing celebrities as “the ultimate test of masculinity” (111). The situation in hip-hop would go through a similar development. The early SPC hip-hop artists aimed for the performance of blackness as an affirmation of the African-
American identity. They wanted to continue with the basic principles of the preceding
34 civil rights groups, develop them, and express them in a louder voice through the medium of popular music which provided an opportunity to address a much wider audience. However, the entrance of hip-hop into the popular music stream and its increasing success also meant that, in order to maintain the commercially successful position, hip-hop artists had to conform to the demands of the majority audience. Since that would predominantly be white music listeners, their understanding and categorization of the African-American artists was, to a certain degree, influenced by the long history of an institutionalized oppression and a powerful caricaturization.
Especially with the success of gangsta rap, a branch of hip-hop which probably contributed the most to the masculine, heteronormative and sexist rhetoric, hip-hop artists became involved rather in the performance of blackness to conform the industry’s demand than the performance of blackness to confirm and develop one’s identity as shown on the following example of N.W.A.’s music. Some of the hip-hop artists were aware of this duality of thinking. For instance, when asked about the overt sexism portrayed in hip-hop lyrics and music videos, Chuck D said, “Being a heterosexual man, artistically, I never have a problem. Exploitation-wise, I have a problem” (Cheney 294). This statement, which could be by extension regarded as addressing the more general issues of sex and gender in hip-hop, reveals several points.
First of all, Chuck D feels the need to reassert his heteronormative identity and thus to protect his masculine stance. Then he proceeds to say that from an artist’s point of view, he approves of the sexist images. He basically says that this is what the industry wants, what the audience wants and therefore what the artist does. Finally, however, he admits that “exploitation-wise” he considers the topic to be problematic. It seems that in one short statement, Chuck D manages to crumble his identity into three conflicting entities: an African-American male endorsing the heteronormative masculine hegemony, an
35 artist conforming to the predominantly white industry’s demands and lastly a person who views the situation critically and is probably aware of his own self-contradictory attitudes. This fact could be described as a fragmentation of identity and might be seen as a result of the identity politics and embodied social politics as described in the earlier sections of this work. One of the consequences of the performance of blackness in hip- hop influenced by the masculine embodied social politics of the Black Nationalism and the demands of the music industry has been the creation of a vicious circle of hypermasculinity, violence, misogyny and homophobia. These aspects can be very well demonstrated on the production and performance of the hip-hop group N.W.A. (an abbreviation for “Niggaz With Attitude”), the pioneers of gangsta rap (Cheney 286).
One of their most famous singles called “Straight Outta Compton” is basically a celebration of an explicit language, violence, criminality, sexism and homophobia as the principal attributes of manhood, and thus the chief demonstrations of one’s power. In the first verse, Ice Cube raps:
When I'm called off, I got a sawed-off
Squeeze the trigger and bodies are hauled off
You too boy if you fuck with me
The police are gonna have to come and get me
Off your ass, that's how I'm going out
For the punk motherfuckers that's showing out (Emimusic. “N.W.A. – Straight Outta
Compton.”)
Again, in adopting the Black Nationalist politics of an active self-defense a gun becomes a powerful imagery and a symbol of self-determination, power and manhood.
However, as these lyrics reveal, the principles of the Black Nationalist ideology reflected in hip-hop became eventually distorted and exaggerated. The Black Panther gun as a symbol and a tool for self-defense would be transformed into a gun as an actual killing tool used not only against the oppressor but also to assert one’s position within 36 the ghetto community. As Ice Cube’s part shows, gun homicide is treated as a common means of dealing with one’s enemies and an enemy can be both the police as well as the fellow “boy” who is confronting the rapper. This part also suggests the explicit homophobia in gangsta rap when Ice Cube calls his rival a “punk” as a term of abuse.
As the performance artist Sarah Jones explains in Byron Hurt’s 2006 documentary film
Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, when a man wants to truly degrade another man in African-American culture, he calls him a “sissy” or a “punk” which are names known as the offensive colloquial terms for a homosexual. This fact implies that the primary means of insulting an African-American man is to attack his masculinity. It is also interesting to look at the music video created for “Straight Outta Compton”. The video clearly expresses the emphasis put on the sharp distinction between “we” and “them” as discussed in relation to Rucht and Neidhardt’s theory of the creation of social movement. As mentioned in Chapter 2, in the case of the Black Panther Party this distinction was primarily rendered through the creation of a characteristic visual image including clothes, symbols and imagery. Hip-hop artists adopted a similar strategy. In the “Straight Outta Compton” music video, N.W.A. members express their identity through clothes which to a certain degree resemble the Black Panther uniform. They are wearing sweat pants and jackets in predominantly dark colors completed with black snapbacks and sneakers. The hip-hoppers thus express their group membership and distance themselves from the antagonistic group which is in the case of this video represented by a white policeman. The distinction is also rendered through the video editing, cutting between the picture of the group and the policeman’s face. However, a viewer may notice that the representation of both, the white policeman as well as the
N.W.A. members, is rather flat and stereotypical. The policeman is portrayed in the typical uniform with face obscured by large aviator sunglasses and a moustache –
37 attributes which might be seen as typical of the 1980’s image of white masculinity but also as a source of ridicule. This stereotypical portrayal of the policeman could have been intended as a response to the long history of African-American caricatures as discussed earlier. Nevertheless, because of the issue of double performance of blackness, N.W.A. members in this video also create a stereotypical image of themselves. By the use of an explicit language, sexist and homophobic insults, a gun as a symbol of manhood, and violence as an assertion of one’s power, these men actually reveal the inherent insecurity of their position within the American society as well as their own community. This fact can be demonstrated on a paradox which the video probably unintentionally generates. The “we” and “them” categories in the video are obviously in disproportion. N.W.A., a large group of strong and young men, stands against a single white police officer. The original intention could have been to enhance
N.W.A.’s power through their multitude. However, the disproportion rather reveals the existing inequality of power distribution in the American society and the inherent frailty of an African-American male’s position which, despite hip-hop’s strong homophobic attitudes, actually finds its support in male bonding. An example of the importance of male relationship could be the N.W.A.’s song “Boyz-N-The Hood”. The lyrics often use phrases such as “my homeboys” and in the last verse, Eazy-E raps about the strong sense of solidarity among the group members referred to as “fellaz” and “my men”:
I went to get them out but there was no bail
The fellaz start to riot in the county jail
Two days later in municiple court
Kilo G on trial cold cut a fart
Disruption of a court, said the judge
On a six-year sentence my man didn't budge (Eazy-E / N.W.A. “Boyz-N-The-Hood.”)
38
As Joshua R. Brown explains in his essay, one of the strategies to overcome this paradox of the more or less homosocial quality in hip-hop has been the creation and perpetuation of the phrase “no homo” which also often appears in the lyrics of contemporary hip-hop artists such as Jay-Z or Lil Wayne (300).
The fragmentation of one’s identity explains the impossibility of accepting individuals who embrace seemingly incompatible “fragments” such as being an
African-American male and homosexual (as demonstrated in the writings of Eldridge
Cleaver), an African-American female and homosexual, and many others. The fragmented identity politics basically does not allow for the complex and comprehensive understanding of the experience of these individuals. This understanding is achieved by creating a multi-axis framework which does not result in sex, class, or gender privileging – a concept introduced by Kimberle Crenshaw called intersectionality. The following section returns to the emergence of queer hip-hop and aims to show its contribution in overcoming the fragmentation of African-American identity and creating a theoretical, cultural and social base for the overcoming of homophobia in the African-American community.
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Chapter 4: Queer Rap as an Expression of Identity
The beginnings of queer rap forming itself into a distinctive music genre can be traced back into the second half of the 1990s when the term “homo hop” slowly entered the vocabulary of music journalism (West 162). However, it was not until the 2010s that the contemporary LGBTQ hip-hop artists started to receive an increasing attention from the major music magazines, channels and news networks such as The Fader, The
Noisey or The Pitchfork3. This moment can be seen as the point in which the queer
African-American community truly entered the discourse of American and eventually global popular culture and became a topic of discussion within the renowned culture media networks, including internet social platforms (Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook).
One of the main issues of the new genre term and its correct usage is the fact that the sexual identity of an artist alone should not be the principal parameter for assessing their work. It is not surprising that after the media boom many of the aforementioned artists shunned the label arguing that it shifts the focus from their own personal narratives to a highly generalized conception of a sexual identity (Shorey). It is also true that not all of the music production of the African-American hip-hop artists identifying as queer bears a contributory significance to the African-American LGBTQ discourse.
Nevertheless, the artists and their work analyzed further on possess characteristics which form a specific cultural phenomenon. However vague the label might appear, when taking into consideration the factors interplaying in its genesis and the various implications of its usage, the term queer rap helps to demarcate a specific socio-cultural sphere. In that sense, queer rap can be seen as an important strategy building upon the history of the African-American civil rights struggle but reversing its inherent masculine hegemony and homophobia.
3 For example the comprehensive article by Carrie Battan. See Bibliography for further information. 40
Similar to the early hip-hop artists, queer rappers use the medium of music and performance as a possibility to communicate their experience, express their views and create the almost non-existent visibility of African-American queer individuals. As
Muñoz states, the queer performing arts “offer the minoritarian subject a space to situate itself in history and thus seize social agency” (Muñoz 1). Again, the queer hip-hop artists use the possibilities of a literal artistic performance for the more abstract performance of identity. The black queer performance aims to “take space in the social that has been colonized by the logics of white normativity and heteronormativity”
(Muñoz XII). In the case of hip-hop, the existence of African-American queer artists is particularly important in that they use a medium which has been historically determined by the hypermasculine, homophobic ideas. The presence of these artists is in itself a statement which refuses the masculine embodied social politics based on fragmented identity. An African-American queer hip-hopper is a proof that an African-American male does not have to be masculine to be a revolutionary, heterosexual to support the social progress of one’s own race, sexist to reclaim one’s own sexual identity and ultimately an African-American male does not really have to be male if they do not feel comfortable with the simplified gender and sexual binaries dominating in the contemporary society. As D. Mark Wilson states in his essay focusing on one of the first queer rap groups called Deep Dick Collective (also referred to as D/DC), one of the main intentions of queer hip-hoppers is to smash and reconstitute the dominant normative identities which, among other things, inherently claim that a hip-hop identity stands in opposition to a queer identity (Wilson 120). As Tim’m T. West, one of the founding members of D/DC, notes, “homo hop” would become one of the few safe spaces for African-American queer performers in a similar manner that gospel, early
41 black music genres and eventually hip-hop offered a safe space and an opportunity for self-expression during the years of a systematic oppression.
Disidentifications
One of the main strategies to express the African-American queer identity and thus to overcome the hip-hop’s homophobia and masculine identity politics has been what José Muñoz calls “disidentification”. Muñoz dedicates a whole book to the discussion of the aspect of disidentification and its relation to the African-American queer performing arts in an effort to explain how these artists recreate the social space and reconstitute the deep-rooted heteronormative politics through their performance. As
Muñoz explains, the understanding of identity as solely essentialist or solely constructivist is deficient. The possible solution could be to combine the two theories and recognize the construction of identity as a negotiation between the fixed dispositions (the essentialist view) and the socially constructed definitions (the constructivist view). The constructed definitions, according to Muñoz, basically mean the heteronormative logics of white supremacy and misogyny which arguably
“undergird state power” (5-6). Disidentification would then be a strategy employed to carry out this negotiation. Muñoz defines it as: “the third mode of dealing with dominant ideology, one that neither opts to assimilate within such a structure nor strictly opposes it; rather, disidentification is a strategy that works on and against dominant ideology” (11). Disidentification is therefore a creative process and its expression through performance creates an effective means of communicating the African-
American queer experience and discloses the African-American queer identity. By the use of performing arts, African-American queer artists also fight the dismissal of black queerness and the severe lack of black queer representation in general public media and culture. Therefore, as Wilson states, the “reclamation” of hip-hop by “queer kids” has
42 actually a considerable impact on the move towards a more open and complex political, cultural and global discourse concerning the topics of gender, race, class and sexuality
(131).
As Muñoz discusses throughout his book, disidentification may take on various forms. The following section aims to look at the selected contemporary queer hip-hop artists and their work and analyze them from the point of view of a reconstitution and expression of the African-American queer identity.
Analysis of Queer Hip-Hop: Le1f and Mykki Blanco
The New York based rapper Khalif Diouf, also known as Le1f, is a member of the wave of black queer rap artists that appeared in 2012. After its release, his album
Dark York (2012, Greedhead Entertainment, Camp & Street) immediately drew the attention of numerous music journalists and received both positive and negative feedback concerning both the music itself and the fact that on this album Le1f openly expresses his queer identity (Juzwlak). One of his first singles made into a music video is the song titled “Wut”. The lyrics as well as the visual accompaniment include a large number of pop-culture references which receive a little “queer” twist. This kind of disidentification is similar to that discussed by Muñoz in his chapter on Basquiat.
Similarly to Basquiat, Le1f uses the already existing powerful images of popular culture, those that more often than not reflect the normative and oppressive attitudes of the general public, and transfigures them to give them a new meaning. The song “Wut” can be seen as an anthem of a shameless exception of one’s own sexuality. In the first lines of the first verse, Le1f raps: “Came through in the clutch, stomping like I’m up in
Louboutins. Boys they wanna paint me like I'm canvas to do sumi on”. Referencing to luxurious fashion brands is a common thing for hip-hop lyrics, since a specific fashion style and a possession of expensive fashion items has been one of the crucial attributes
43 of the expression of a certain social position. What Le1f does in this case is that he basically follows the hip-hop’s trend of focusing on material possessions, but he puts it within a queer context by referring to a pair of designer high heels shoes. One of the most distinctive features of Louboutin shoes is their bright red sole. The choice of these shoes may be motivated by their flamboyant extravagance to create a truly hyperbolic imagery, but it can also be seen as a reference to the probably most famous pair of red shoes within the LGBTQ community coming from the cult 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.
The second line referring to “boys wanting to paint him” is an innuendo revealing
Le1f’s own consciousness of his attractiveness. This train of thought is further developed in the lyrics. Le1f says that he is “the kind of john closet dudes wanna go steady on” and that he makes the “neo-nazi kamikaze wanna firebomb”. He is basically aware of the discomfort that his open and honest sexuality causes either to the closeted gays or to the homophobic public. The second verse then reveals that Le1f is also painfully aware of the objectification and fetishization which often happens to nonwhite queer individuals.
Ukrainian cutie – he really wanna cuddle
The fever in his eyes. He wanna suckle on my muscle
He wanna burst my bubble and see what’s up in my jungle
A Christopher Colombo fumble’s how that cookie crumbled
This yuppie’s talking blah blah. He wants to Bink my Jar Jar
He’s twinked out. I’m like nuh uh. I'm laughing at em like haha
I’m an emperor. Wanna see me in my new clothes?
Mother of the house. Care to see me in a new pose? (CAMP & STREET. “Le1f – Wut (Official
Video).”)
In these lines, Le1f raps about a white man objectifying his body and he also points out the still persisting colonizer-colonized power relations by referring to
Christopher Colombo and the choice of the word “jungle” suggests the animal-like and
44 wild primitiveness often attributed to the indigenous people of color. However, this portrayal of the oppressive distorted sexism based on racism within the gay community is again twisted thanks to the visual imagery accompanying this part of the song. It is probably also the most visually powerful part of the video as such. Le1f is rapping these lyrics while seated on a lap of a white, muscular man wearing a mask of Pikachu
Pokémon. This image reverses the described historically supported objectification of a black body into an extreme objectification of a white body which is even reinforced by its comparison to a kind of silly, “kawaii” product of the super-mass culture. Le1f concludes this verse by opposing the degrading fetishization of his own body, finding a support in the cultural and social base of the queer community as he refers to the queer ball culture. As Le1f himself said in Carrie Battan’s article on queer rap, “the experience of being at a ball” is one of the main inspirations for his work (Battan). This is reflected both in the lyrics where he calls himself the “mother of the house” and in the manner of dancing which incorporates aspect of voguing. The reference to the queer ball culture is, however, most prominent in his music video done in collaboration with
Boody called “Soda” which all revolves around competitive dancing including
“dipping” moves and “clicks” as in fierce snapping. Finally, in “Wut” Le1f also proudly expresses his being simultaneously an African-American, a rapper, and queer, “I hit em with a hee and I make em all shush. I’m black and I’m proud and my swag pack loud like”. In that sense, Le1f disrupts the fragmentation of identity as explained earlier and he shifts the focus back at the performance of blackness, a queer blackness in his case, as an affirmation of one’s own complex identity rather than a survival strategy to endure the social oppression.
The second music video to be discussed in relation with Le1f is the “Spa Day” released on the Fly Zone mixtape (2013, Greedhead Entertainment, Camp & Street).
45
The song’s title as well as its setting clearly refers to the tradition of gay baths flourishing after the Stonewall riots in 1969, a phenomenon which is nicely described in
Lovett’s 2005 documentary film Gay Sex in the 70s. Le1f however treats this cultural phenomenon again with a specific twist and shows that the disidentification used by queer performers is not only aimed at the dominant general public but it also addresses the problematic issues within the queer community. In this case, Le1f probably responds to the existing racism and sexism in the LGBTQ community which inherently favors the homosexual white men. The gay bathhouses would be traditionally reserved for white gay men. Le1f transfigures this notion by opening his bathhouse for a wide variety of persons of different race, gender and sexuality. Le1f obviously opposes any kind of exclusive politics based on binary categories. For instance, one of his crew members in the video is a queer black male with bright blue eyes, an image which would definitely spark a lot of controversy in the earlier days when miscegenation was seen as equally sinful as homosexuality.
As seen from these examples, Le1f’s strategy of disidentification in “Wut” and
“Spa Day” used to express his queer identity incorporates the components of mass pop- culture along with the most stereotypical attitudes connected with the gay and lesbian community, transfigures them, and places them within a queer context to create a powerful social critique of these concepts.
Lastly, this section provides a brief analysis of the persona and work of Michael
David Quattlebaum Jr., known as Mykki Blanco. Blanco is a very powerful presence on the contemporary music scene. Apart from the music production, he extensively uses social media (Twitter, Facebook) to comment on current issues particularly concerning oppressive behavior of the general public based on racial and/or gender/sexual prejudices. Blanco’s distinctive characteristic is that he often performs in drag. This
46 kind of black queer performance is also discussed by Muñoz in Disidentifications, and his analysis of Vaginal Davis can be very well applicable to Blanco. Muñoz calls
Vaginal Davis a “political drag” and he states that Davis’s performance “is about creating an uneasiness, an uneasiness in desire, which works to confound and subvert the social fabric” (100). Muñoz also refers to this conscious disruption of conventional ideas through an unsettling performance, which forces the audience to explore themes that make them uncomfortable, as a “terrorist drag” (100). This strategy of disidentification with both the dominant culture and the niche culture which has developed a certain set of conventions of its own is actually used by Mykki Blanco as well. In fact, in an interview for Kevin Ritchie, Blanco said, “I'm preconceived as such an outsider to hip-hop that I almost feel like a terrorist to rap” (Ritchie). Blanco’s “hip- hop drag terrorism” also lies in the disruption of historically constructed conventions concerning not only the hip-hop as a music genre, but the perception of race, sex and gender in general. As Muñoz explains in relation to Vaginal Davis, the aim of her drag performance is not to “pass” by creating a real portrayal of a woman. In fact, this performance goes against the notion of the ideal woman or man. Her performance uses disidentification as it works on and against the common perception of gender norms and roles. Again, the aim of this performance is not to produce a woman but to produce femininity and as Muñoz aptly notes: “femininity is not exclusively the domain of biological women” (108). Blanco’s drag performance works in a very similar manner.
In an interview for the Bullet Magazine, Jason Lamphier asks Blanco whether he thinks that homophobia in black culture could be ever overcome. Blanco replies by explaining that the dynamics are very much different in the black community and in the white community. In relation to the African-American community, he points out the historical importance of public figures and pastors and the traditional emphasis put on masculinity
47 which is endowed with political significance. Blanco basically sums up the main issues of the embodied social politics of Black Nationalism. He says that the crucial thing for the African Americans is to realize “that you can be gay and that doesn’t make you less of a strong black man”. Blanco concludes by stating, “When femininity is seen as a source of power in black culture, homophobia will no longer exist” (Lamphier).
Blanco’s queer drag performance can be therefore seen as a manifestation of femininity within a context which has been historically formed by power relations based on the performative expression of masculinity, masculine hegemony and heteronormativity.
By embracing the non-normative notion of femininity, Blanco directly opposes the
“institutionalized male domination and the subordination of the ‘feminine’” as described by Cheney (281) and contributes towards the construction and expression of a complex, non-fragmented queer African-American identity unburdened by the historically and culturally determined conventions. The song that expresses Blanco’s
“drag feminine terrorism” probably most explicitly is called “Coke White, Starlight” released along with a music video in November, 2015. This is, arguably, the most powerful of Blanco’s audiovisual works so far. Right at the beginning of the song,
Blanco states, “They don't want to see a man in a dress succeed”, proceeding with, “I’m a big broad like Serena, effeminate, offending them”. “Them” may be understood as the general public, but it may also refer to the heteronormative hip-hop community as
Blanco later in the lyrics mentions Cappadonna, one of the members of the hip-hop collective Wu-Tang Clan. In general, “Coke White, Starlight” addresses the heteronormative and homophobic attitudes of the white America as well as the African-
American hip-hoppers. Through disidentification, Blanco positions himself against these views and uses the powerful beat and strong lyrics as a self-defense against oppression. The lyrical aspect is enhanced by its visual accompaniment. “Coke White,
48
Starlight” video is a cold, intimate confession of an individual who does not fit and does not want to fit in the dominant binary gender and social categories. The video has two narrative lines. The first one shows Blanco in his full drag, lying helplessly in a shabby apartment room. One of the scenes suggests the possible abuse of his person as the other people introduce a drug into his system. This scene also uses one of the strategies of the early hip-hop, as mentioned in the first part of this work, of creating a wider context by reusing clips of news broadcast and popular images. In this case, the viewer may catch a glimpse of the scenes of police brutality and oppression which are being projected on the television screen in the apartment. After that, Blanco runs through the city, eventually tearing off his drag attire, portraying an embodiment of confusion, abuse and misunderstanding. The second narrative line takes place in pristine nature. Blanco wanders through the forest to find a spot where he pulls out a bright red dress from his bag, a knife and a mirror and starts to put on his make-up. The natural setting is juxtaposed with the drag aesthetics deemed by the majority of people as unnatural.
Blanco’s intention might have been to show that this is actually his nature. The use of a knife and a mirror as two related symbols is very powerful as it combines two attributes which are generally connected to the notions of masculinity (knife) and femininity
(mirror). Blanco thus not only expresses his gender fluidity, but he also suggests the revolutionary nature of his femininity. In the sense of disidentification, Blanco distinguishes himself from the gender binary by reusing and combining its traditional symbolism.
As these examples show, the contemporary queer hip-hop artists play a significant role in overcoming the hypermasculine heteronormative rhetoric within the
African-American community as established by the tradition of Black Nationalism and more complexly by the long history of social politics based on the politicization of
49 gender and sexuality. However, given the media visibility which these artists received, their work also has a much wider impact on the general understanding of gender, race, class and sexuality and the interplay of these factors.
50
Chapter 5: Conclusion
As the theoretical analysis in the first part of this work shows, hip-hop, including the genre of queer rap, can be seen as a legitimate continuation of the African-American civil rights movement. The emergence of hip-hop actually follows the three-level process as described by Rucht and Neidhardt, it follows the philosophy and politics of the immediately preceding civil rights groups and it also adopts and adapts its masculine rhetoric and aesthetics as represented in the writings of Eldridge Cleaver and the aesthetics of the Black Panther magazine. This “raptivism”, as Cheney calls it, would similarly to Black Nationalism and the Black Panther Party become a kind of politics based on symbols and signs. Just like the Black Panther black beret, gun and a talk of
“police pigs”, hip-hop artists would use their lyrics, clothes and microphone as attributes expressing their views and constituting their identity. Hip-hop artist’s identity would thus be based on the performance of these attributes and it would closely follow the heteronormative masculine stance of Black Nationalism which, in its ignorance of intersectionality, more or less actively disadvantaged and suppressed individuals who did not conform to the normative understanding of race, sex and gender. The aspect of performance is significant for the construction of identity in the African-American community. One of the only original possibilities for African-American performers to appear on stage was to participate in blackface minstrel shows. African-American presence in minstrel shows, together with the long history of African-American caricatures and stereotypes, resulted in the double performance of blackness which reflected Du Bois’ concept of double consciousness and inevitably affected the construction of African-American identity. The legacy of these factors could be seen in both the embodied social politics of Black Nationalism and subsequently hip-hop. The
51 ultimate result of this approach is the fragmentation of identity which is based on the performance of the strongly masculine and heteronormative attitudes.
Bearing in mind all the factors discussed above, it becomes clear that the emergence of queer hip-hop does not only mark a development on the music scene, but it has a significant impact on the understanding of identity particularly focusing on the interplay of race, gender and sexuality. By combining the traditionally incompatible aspects of an African-American, queer, and hip-hop identity, these artists overcome the fragmentation of identity caused by the Black Nationalist politicization of sex and gender and the historically deep-rooted systematic distortion of African-American sexuality. By employing the strategy of disidentification, queer rap artists position themselves outside the dominant ideology while reusing and transfiguring the pop- culture symbols and rhetoric. The queer hip-hop artists discussed in this work, however, also use disidentification to position themselves against the niche communities, be it hip-hop or LGBTQ community, and thus point out the less discussed but important existence of issues related to sex, gender, race and class even within the alternative social milieux. Thus, these artists can be seen as fully embracing the concept of intersectionality. In reaction to the original conception of “queer hip-hop” as a non- functional oxymoron, these artists actually prove that their use of hip-hop as a means to express their opinions and experience is actually a powerful tool to overcome the various forms of still existing oppression. Their work addresses the homophobia and sexism entrenched in hip-hop culture, the male white privilege within the LGBTQ community, the remnants of the hypermasculine and heteronormative embodied social politics within the African-American community, and last but not least the general theory of identity construction based on binary categories. Artists such as Le1f, Mykki
Blanco, and others may not be offering groundbreaking solutions to these complex
52 socio-political, cultural and philosophical problems. However, the fact that they manage to stay visible in the mainstream music business despite their nonconformist attitudes can be seen as a possible move towards a more open and accepting society.
53
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Cílem práce je prokázat revoluční potenciál queer hip-hopových umělců k překonání represivních vzorců chování fungujících v dominantní společnosti stejně tak jako v rámci minoritních sociálních skupin. Tyto přístupy jsou často založeny na normativním chápání rasy, genderu a sexuality jakožto binárních kategorií. První část popisuje spojitost mezi hnutím tzv. černého nacionalismu v 60. letech 20. století a hip-hopem jako takovým (včetně queer rapu). Návaznost v činnosti Afroamerických skupin za lidská práva dokazuje sociální a politický vliv tohoto hudebního žánru. Tato kapitola mapuje aspekty homofobie a maskulinity, které se postupně staly nedílnou součástí hip-hopové kultury. Popis se zaměřuje na Stranu černých panterů, jejichž ideologie přímo ovlivnila rané hip-hopové skupiny. Konkrétní projevy homofobního smýšlení jsou potom ukázány na textech Eldridge Cleavera a periodika Černý Panter. Druhá část práce se zabývá problematikou Afroamerické identity ovlivněné dlouhou historií rasového útlaku. Jednou z mnoha strategií používaných k obraně rasismu v dominantní americké společnosti bylo vytvoření a šíření karikatur a stereotypů spojených s Afroamerickou menšinou. Tato stereotypní zobrazování často využívala účelovou deformaci sexuality. Dalším faktorem, který negativné ovlivnil Afroamerickou komunitu, byl performativní charakter vlastní rasové identity. Tyto aspekty jsou demonstrovány na tvorbě hip-hopové skupiny N.W.A. Třetí část využívá teoretický základ předchozích kapitol k analýze audiovizuální produkce některých ze současných queer hip-hopových umělců (Le1f, Mykki Blanco). Tato kapitola se zabývá strategiemi, kterými se tito umělci staví proti konstrukci identity na základě normativních kategorií. 58 Závěr práce shrnuje předešlé části a umožňuje tak pohlédnout na fenomén queer hip-hopu v širším kulturním, sociálním, politickém a filozofickém kontextu. Je tak umožněno chápat současné Afroamerické queer umělce jako politické a sociální aktivisty, kteří užívají hudebního média k vytvoření velmi aktuální kritiky nejen majoritní společnosti ale také hip-hopové a LGBTQ komunity. 59 Summary This bachelor thesis focuses on the phenomenon of queer hip-hop. The aim of the thesis is to show the progressive and revolutionary potential of queer hip-hop artists for overcoming the oppressive attitudes of the dominant society as well as the minority groups based on the normative understanding of binary categories concerning race, gender, and sexuality. The first part of the thesis draws a link between the 1960’s Black Nationalist groups and hip-hop as such (including queer rap) to show the social and political influence of this music genre. This section maps the aspect of homophobia and masculinity which eventually becomes an inherent part of the hip-hop culture. In tracing the origins of homophobia, the text focuses on the Black Panther Party as the ultimate ideological inspiration of the early hip-hop artists. The specific demonstrations of homophobic attitudes and hypermasculine rhetoric are shown on the examples of Eldridge Cleaver’s literary work and the Black Panther magazine. The second part discusses the problematic concept of the African-American identity damaged by the long history of racial oppression. One of the strategies of the dominant culture to justify the oppressive power relations has been the creation and perpetuation of African-American caricatures and stereotypes. These would often employ a distorted notion of sexuality. Another aspect which influenced the construction of African-American identity has been the performative character of blackness. These notions are demonstrated on the music production of the hip-hop group N.W.A. The third part combines the previous theoretical background to provide an analysis of songs, music videos and performance of the selected contemporary queer hip-hop artists (namely Le1f and Mykki Blanco). This part discusses the particular 60 strategies of these artists to overcome the normative binary categories related to the construction of one’s identity. The conclusion summarizes the previous parts and enables to view the phenomenon of queer hip-hop in its wider cultural, social, political and philosophical context. It shows that the contemporary queer artists can be seen as political and social activists employing the medium of music to provide a topical critique of the dominant society as well as the hip-hop and LGBTQ community. 61