Yeah, it's gotten a bit better I think. The new cats are definitely comfortable gender-bending, see Thugga, Uzi wearing women's clothes etc.Y'all feel like homophobia across the board in rap is getting a bit better tho?
I mean you've got Thugger posing on his cover with a dress, rappers being open about talking about fashion choices, etc.
We've still got a long way to go, but I feel like a lot of these new guys would've been stomped out back in the day.
Though, obviously there's still a long way to go.
[...]
Artists like Future, Savage, Kodak Black and Migos do face criticism for their perceived lack of clarity, but the brush back isn't on the same level as what's levied against Yachty, Thug and other artists, because those previous artists largely dress and carry themselves in step with what's popularly perceived as "masculine." Lil Wayne and Future have been blurring genre lines since at least 2007 with songs like "Prostitute" and "Turn On The Lights" respectively, but Joe Budden has never said either is "bad for hip-hop" like he deemed Yachty on Complex's Everyday Struggle.
If these young trap rappers didn't dye their hair, dance around, or wear anything besides Nike apparel, would "mumble rap" be framed as the scourge of hip-hop that it is now? Or is the vitriol only so cacophonous because Yachty's presence can be conveniently rolled into a perceived "feminization of the Black male" agenda, just like fashion-forward, skinny-jeaned artists such as Kanye West, Kid Cudi and Wiz Khalifa before them? Hypermasculinity is an important part of the schism, and that isn't a generational concept, it's damn near existential. Black men — including me for a period of my life — have felt a need to conform to a populist ideal of masculinity or risk having their manhood questioned. From the tone of your voice to the way you wear your jeans or hair, any anomaly has been picked at and ridiculously used as evidence of potential homosexuality. You can't even big up Trey Songz' catalog of hits without a "pause" being thrown at you these days.
And it's deeper than rap. Even when we were fighting for our own salvation in the '60s Civil Rights movement, brilliant men like Bayard Rustin were encouraged to play the back because of the stigma of being gay. It makes sense that we've adopted such a cold exterior at the hands of figurative and literal castration for hundreds of years, but it's gone overboard.
This is not to say it's impossible to legitimately dislike Thug's music, or that there can be no sensible, well-thought-out critiques of what's deemed "mumble rap." Yet, among the chorus of Young Thug haters there is a substantial faction who enjoy Future's "Mask/Off," but would probably like it a lot less if it were a Thug song, because they're too worried about how he was dressed when he recorded it. That's arguably a big part of why, despite his stature as a critically-lauded artist with placements on mainstream hits, Thug's album sales have been relatively low while Future and the Migos top the charts. Let's not forget Migos' own struggle with their commentary on Makonnen coming out as gay.
There is a large cross-section of men within the culture who agree with Cassidy and Lord Jamar, who called Yachty's cover "abnormal" and said it might as well have also featured "a mouse with an ear on its back." Their attempts to inflexibly define what hip-hop is directly parallel to the way they alienate non-conformists who look like Yachty and Uzi in their own communities by questioning their manhood. As the number of LGBT suicides indicates, society's rife intolerance of people who operate beyond a certain visual aesthetic and form of conduct is an issue of a life and death. This goes beyond music, it's about marginalizing entire subgroups of people.
We can use hip-hop as a venue to change that circumstance. The spirit of the genre has always been rooted in rebellion against oppression and embracing new perspectives. To quote Djay from Hustle And Flow, "every man has the right, the g*ddamn right, to contribute a verse." And woman. And trans person. And gender non-conforming person, and everyone else — no matter what they look like. Compartmentalizing and devaluing an artist's message because of nothing more than fear and unsubstantiated paranoia is sorely misguided.
40-year-old hip-hop fans may want 18-year olds to "grow up" and refine their tastes, but they may all need maturing when it comes to confronting their own insecurities and misgivings about what's considered masculine and what isn't. How can the blind lead the blind? It's fine to dislike whoever you want, but if it's because of how they dress — and what you think that implies about their manhood — you're weak and need to reevaluate your inner constitution. Yachty, Uzi, and dozens more imitators are going to be in the game whether we like it or not. We might as well accept them with understanding, rather than a ridicule that's based in fragility.
Eh, would consider those adblibs as part of the vocals.I know, but his voice (vocal chops?) are part of the beat. Other than that it's pretty hard to guess it's a Neptunes production, yeah. I'm curious to hear their other beats on the project.
