Article Review 3

Tayler Thornton

WGST 202

T/TH 9:30-10:45

Professor Currans

Blog Topic: Masculinity and Hip Hop

Article Review #3

Marc Lamont Hill (2009) Scared Straight: Hip-Hop, Outing, and the Pedagogy of Queerness, Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 31:1, 29-54, DOI: 10.1080/10714410802629235

A common and treasured African American rapper named Big Daddy Kane reported that he was dying of AIDS. In the rap game if you have AIDS that means that you’re gay. Though this rumor was proved to be false, Big Daddy Kane, still felt the need to make sure that the world knew that he was not gay. He stated in one of his raps, “Like with that HIV rumor they tried to toss, But I'm so good with the women that if I ever caught AIDS, A woman doctor'd find a cure just so she could get laid, So never fear my dear, just come on over here, I practice safe sex, with girls I lay next, In other words, the J-hat's on the head, Cause I'm too sexy for AIDS like Right Said Fred”. In the article, “Scared Straight: Hip Hop, Outing, and the Pedagogy of Queerness”, written by Marc Lamont Hill, he “examines the politics of outing with hip-hop’s public sphere”. He also observes how rappers keep their hegemonic conceptions by outing in their lyrics and how outing in lyrics sustains masculinity. To sum it up, the author views rappers lyrics and how they talk about their heterosexuality.

Outing is “the act of exposing people who were “in the closet”, or secretly engaging in gay, lesbian, bisexual, or otherwise non- heterosexual lifestyles”. Hill supports his article by first examining the politics of outing. In ancient Rome and Greece, outing was used to expose people who went against society’s sexual preference. After talking about the foreign times about outing, he then moved to talk about America and outing reached in World War II. They labeled gay and lesbian people as threats and perverts, which lead to firing hundreds of people because they were skeptical. In his article he stated that Rock Hudson died of HIV/AIDS. Although he was married to Phyllis Gates, and was a masculine heterosexual he could have been hiding his true identity. Later in the 20^th century Ted Haggard, an antigay minister, had been outed by a gay prostitute, stating they had a 3-year sexual relationship. The gay man spoke to the public and said he felt like he was doing the right thing and that he had to expose him for preaching one thing and doing another. What is being said in this part of the article is that even political leaders get caught doing things they fight against.

Hill then talks about rappers’ lyrical outing, stating that rappers are also policing sexuality by outing other known rappers. Being in the rap industry it is better to be known straight then gay matter what. Jay-Z and Nas had a rap battle where rapper Nas attacked Jay-Z about his sexuality. Nas talked about his name saying “Gay-Z” and also talked about his brand saying its called, “Cock-a-Fella” instead of Rock-a-Fella”. The rapper later stated, “Put it together, I rock hoes, y’all rock fellas, Rockefeller died of AIDS that was the end of his chapter, And that the dude you chose to name your company after”? Jay-Z then retaliated by stating, “And since you infatuated with sayin’ that gay shit, I guess you was kissin’ my dick when you was kissin’ that bitch”. Although these rappers were stating venomous words back and fourth with one another, neither rapper believed that the other was actually gay. They both also stated that it was just rap war purpose and that it was to humiliate the other and humor people.

Hill also explores another battle between rappers but this one wasn’t just for fun it was also done to raise questions about ones sexuality. Rapper Eazy E made rumors about Dr. Dre, saying that he wore lipstick during 1982 while in a group called the World Class Wrecking Crew. Eazy E stated, “All of a sudden Dr. Dre is a G thang, But on his old album covers, he was a she thang”. In the video he flashed pictures of Dr. Dre wearing makeup and women clothing. But Eazy E wasn’t the only one who dissed Dr. Dre and his sexuality, passed rapper Tupac also did so by stating, California Love part motherfuckin’ 2, Without gay ass Dre”, and “We shook Dre punk ass, Now he out the closet”. But not only were those the others rappers but Ja Rule also stated lyrics talking about Dre’s sexuality. But soon after Dre died of AIDS related illnesses, which raised a lot of questions about the rappers he was around. But there will always be a rapper rapping about someone else’s sexuality and insulting them, whether its for fun or for real you cant stop a rapper from rapping about you, because after all that was said about Dr. Dre, Hill did not put that Dr. Dre ever responded or retaliated. So it goes to show you he wasn’t worried about his sexuality because he knew who he was.

            In Hills’ concluding paragraph , he questions all rappers’ sexuality. It seems that all rappers are homophobic and don’t like anything about being gay but show signs of gayness within their crew. He states that rappers all male rappers hang around a lot of men, that they give each other half hugs and handshakes, and they use the term “niggas over bitches”, meaning that they are obsessed with male relationships. Hill also states that rappers have some from of homoerotic tendencies when they “run trains” on women, which is a group of men having sex with only one woman in the room. Although the focus is on the one woman, men are still together naked.  It was quite entertaining for Hill to bring up that rappers do all this so called manly things, but when you look at it, is it really that manly? He gave his personal view on the issue by stating that, “Though its outing practices, the hip-hop community, is able to continuously ignore its own complex sexual ethic by keeping the focus on individual, anonymous, and, in the case of the homothug, aggregate queer bodies”. Meaning rappers tend to ignore their gay ways by putting someone else in the front of them to hide what they are doing.

Hills article promotes very good information about my topic, which is Masculinity and Hip Hop. He displays how rappers talk about one another’s sexuality when it’s really their sexuality that needs to be in question. It also talks about that some rappers will or will not retaliate when someone try’s to talk about them in a disrespectful manner. But it also shows that rappers are really scared to be gay in the industry. They try so hard to look masculine and act like a man that it is probably exposing them in real life. Hill also talks about politics in this article, which really doesn’t go with my topic, but it is good to know the history of outing and where it came from. It was good to know that men in politics also have these homo problems, no matter who they are. You would think that a man in politic would never be gay or support it but in this article you see that that isn’t true. Hill gives background information, rapper quotes and battles, and talks about deaths from HIV/AIDS that raised questions about many men. I think that this article ties in with our class because we talked about rappers and their masculinity and how they hide really what’s inside.