LGBTQ representation in hip-hop music has existed since the birth of the genre even while enduring blatant discrimination. Due to its adjacency to disco, the earliest days of hip-hop had a close relation to LGBTQ subcultures, and multiple LGBTQ DJs have played a role in popularizing hip-hop. Since the early 2000s there has been a flourishing community of LGBTQ hip-hop artists, activists, and performers breaking barriers in the mainstream music industry. Despite this early involvement, hip-hop has long been portrayed as one of the least LGBTQ-friendly genres of music, with a significant body of the genre containing homophobic views and anti-gay lyrics, with mainstream artists such as Eminem (who supports LGBT rights) and Tyler, the Creator (whose own sexuality has been repeatedly questioned throughout his career) having used casual homophobia in their lyrics, including usages of the word faggot. Attitudes towards homosexuality in hip-hop culture have historically been negative, with slang that uses homosexuality as a punchline such as "sus", "no homo", and "pause" being heard in hip-hop lyrics from some of the industry's biggest artists.
Labels such as homo hop or queer hip-hop group all artists identifying as members of the LGBTQ community into a subgenre of hip-hop based solely on their sexuality. These subgenre labels are not marked by any specific production style, as artists within it may simultaneously be associated with virtually any other subgenre of hip-hop, or may also make music that falls outside the subgenre entirely. Rather, the terms are defined by a direct engagement with LGBTQ culture in elements such as the lyrical themes or the artist's visual identity and presentation."Homo Hop". Studio 360, June 26, 2009.
Artists who have been labelled as part of the genre have varied in their acceptance of the terminology. Some have supported the identification of a distinct phenomenon of "LGBTQ hip-hop" as an important tool for promoting LGBTQ visibility in popular music, while others have criticized it for trivializing their music as a "niche" interest that circumscribed their appeal to mainstream music fans.
Many artists have contributed to the increased visibility and social acceptance of the LGBTQ community's presence in hip-hop music, most notably Frank Ocean, who penned an open letter addressing his sexuality in 2012. There has also been an increased presence of LGBTQ supporters in the mainstream hip-hop community, including Eminem, Jay-Z, Murs, Kanye West, XXXTentacion, Jack Harlow, Kendrick Lamar, Macklemore, and Ryan Lewis.
History Origins (1970s) Hip-hop was developed in the late 1970s following the popularity of disco. Disco music, which contains origins within Black American culture, had an impact on hip-hop from samples to early hip-hop fashion. The disco scene which was derived from disco music was known for its vibrant nightlife that was considered a haven for those in the LGBTQ community, particularly LGBTQ youth of color.
Despite these origins, early hip-hop artists expressed anti-LGBTQ sentiments and epithets common of the time in their music. Sugarhill Gang's 1979 song "Rapper's Delight", the first hip-hop record to become a top 40 hit, referred to fictional character Superman as a "fairy" for wearing a skin-tight garment.
Soon after the rise of hip-hop in New York, the LA-based openly gay rap group Age of Consent performed their song "Fight Back", an anthem against gay-bashing, at a live rap event in 1981, referring to themselves as "faggot rap" and encouraging other members of the queer community to "fight back" when faced with queer bashing.
1980s–1990s In 1986, the hip-hop trio Beastie Boys originally wanted to name their debut album Don't Be A Faggot. Their record label Columbia Records refused to release it under that title, so it changed the title to Licensed to Ill. Years later, the Beastie Boys formally apologized to the LGBTQ community for the "shitty and ignorant" things they said on their first record.
During what was considered third-wave feminism, there was an infusion of Black feminist thought into hip-hop by way of Black women in the genre who emphasized issues of race, gender, and sexuality. This included black LGBTQ musicians like Meshell Ndegeocello whose 1993 album Plantation Lullabies is considered an example of the evolving attitudes and politics of the hip-hop generation, specifically from younger black feminists. According to Andreana Clay, "Ndegeocello's lyrics are a product of early Black feminism, radical lesbian feminism, and hip-hop feminism."
In her music, Ndegocello has addressed sexuality and blackness as a black bisexual woman, garnering a following from LGBTQ feminists of color. Her musical content and appearance also drew criticism from certain listeners and radio stations who refused to play her music. The ideas of black queer and lesbian feminism influenced hip-hop during a moment when politics surrounding sexuality, gender, and race were shifting.
Although more radical queer politics were influencing more mainstream areas of music and society, discrimination remained and LGBTQ artists continued to face marginalization and barriers in airtime and commercial success.
2000s–present In August 2005, Kanye West denounced homophobia in hip-hop in an interview with Sway Calloway for MTV News. He discussed how his environment led him to be homophobic, and how finding out his cousin was gay changed his perspective. This statement was radical at the time; it was the first major statement against homophobia in hip-hop by a popular artist.
Further advancements in acceptance of LGBTQ in hip-hop took place through the mid-2010s and the 2020s.
In 2012, the Filipino rapper Gloc-9 released the song "Sirena", whose lyrics are a first-person story of a gay man ("bakla") who was initially abused and ostracised by his father for his effeminacy, but reconciled with each other when his father suffered from cancer. In a 2024 interview, Gloc-9 dedicated the song to his son, who came out as gay in 2022.
In 2014, rap duo Macklemore and Ryan Lewis joined the United Nations Free & Equal campaign, which aims to advantage equal rights for LGBTQ people around the world.
In 2017, rapper XXXTentacion spoke out during his concert tour against discrimination towards gay people by hate groups, and was praised as a supporter of transgender rights by multiple transgender artists.
In 2018, rapper Eminem made headlines when he apologized for the first time in his career for previously using homophobic slurs, saying that he now realized "[he] was hurting a lot of other people by saying it." Specifically, Eminem said he regretted calling rapper Tyler, the Creator a "faggot" in his diss track, "Fall".
In 2022, rapper Kendrick Lamar received mixed reactions after he released his song "Auntie Diaries", with some praising the track for being pro-LGBTQ. Others criticized Lamar's delivery within the song, as he at some points deadnames his relatives' pronouns and uses the word "faggot". Lamar recalls at the end of the song a previous performance in which he brought out a white female fan to perform his song with him but disapproved of her usage of the word "nigga" because she was not black, to critique himself as a hypocrite for using the word "faggot" when he is not gay. He says, "Faggot, faggot, faggot, we can say it together / But only if you let a white girl say nigga".
Homo hop In the 1990s, the homo hop movement emerged as an underground movement spearheaded by the hip-hop group Rainbow Flava, particularly in California, in part as a reaction to the widespread acceptance of homophobia in the lyrics of mainstream hip-hop performers such as Eminem. Lyrics in songs such as "Criminal" on The Marshall Mathers LP demonstrate this homophobia. Initially coined by Tim'm T. West of Deep Dickollective, the term "homo hop" was not meant to signify a distinct genre of music, but simply to serve as a community building tool and promotional hook for LGBTQ artists. According to West:
West's bandmate Juba Kalamka offered a similar assessment:
In a 2001 interview with SFGate.com, West elaborated on the movement's goals:
The genre received a mainstream publicity boost in 2002 and 2003 when Caushun was widely reported as the first openly LGBTQ rapper to be signed to a major label,"Move over, gangstas: Here comes homo-hop" . The Globe and Mail, May 31, 2003. although Caushun was later revealed to have been a publicity stunt engineered by heterosexual musician Ivan Matias.
Notable events in the 2000s included the PeaceOUT World Homo Hop Festival, which was founded in 2001 and mounted annually until 2008, and the 2006 documentary film Pick Up the Mic. However, some music critics in this era dismissed the genre as too often sacrificing musical quality in favour of a "didactic" political agenda.
The most commercially successful LGBTQ rapper in the 2000s was Cazwell, who emerged as a popular artist in gay dance clubs, and has scored at least six top 40 hits on Billboards Hot Dance Club Songs chart, with a hybrid pop-rap style which he has described as "if Biggie Smalls ate Donna Summer for breakfast". Cazwell described his philosophy of music as "create your own space, your own music and have people come to you," and has noted in interviews that he achieved much greater success by "breaking" the rules of the hip-hop industry than he ever did in his earlier attempts to pursue mainstream success with the 1990s hip-hop duo Morplay."Rapper Cazwell Opens Up About Being Gay in Hip Hop" . NBC Miami, July 6, 2011.
One of the first mainstream artists to speak out publicly against anti-gay discrimination in hip-hop was Kanye West in a 2005 interview with Sway Calloway on MTV News. In the interview Kanye says, "Hip-hop does discriminate against gay people. I want to just come on TV and tell my rappers, my friends, just stop it, fam. Seriously, that's really discrimination". Kanye criticized the hip-hop community, saying, "Hip-hop seemed like it was about fighting for your rights in the beginning, about speaking your mind, and breaking down barriers or whatever, but everybody in hip-hop discriminates against gay people. To me, that's one of the standards in hip-hop is to be like, 'You fag, you gay'".
Criticism Some artists have criticized the queer hip-hop genre as an arbitrary label that can potentially limit an artist's audience and may not actually correspond to their artistic goals or career aspirations. In 2013, Brooke Candy told The Guardian:
One unspecified artist declined to be interviewed for the Guardian feature at all, stating that he preferred to be known as a rapper rather than as a "gay rapper". Eric Shorey, author of "Queer Rap is Not Queer Rap", contests "queer rap" labeling, arguing that "comparisons between gay and straight rap (as if they were two distinct genres) simply doesn't make sense without implied bigotry". Shorey insists that listeners ignore these sexuality-based hip-hop classifications and listen more closely to the quality of music being produced. He also suggests that queer artists should be booked alongside straight artists, showing that they are equally talented, and deserve the same amount of recognition.
Other artists don't mind these classifications. British rapper RoxXxan told the Guardian that "I want to be perceived as 'RoxXxan,' but if people label me as 'gay rapper RoxXxan' I'm not offended." Nicky Da B told Austinist that "Basically, I perform for an LGBTQ crowd but also for everyone. A lot of the bounce rappers that are rapping and touring at the moment are all gay. The LGBTQ community just capitalizes on that I guess, from us being gay, and they support us on it, so that's how it goes I guess.""Drop It Hot Potato Style: An Interview with Nicky Da B" . Austinist, November 1, 2012.
Commercialization