“You see people really explaining all the different reasons they have to, honestly, fear someone like him.”įor those who support Lil Nas X, Kornhaber explained, they cite DaBaby’s comments as proof that music like Baby Industry is absolutely necessary to increase representation and inclusion.īut others, including rappers Boosie and TI, have brought up Lil Nas X in their defense of DaBaby, saying that if he’s allowed to act in a way that provokes them, then rappers like DaBaby should be able to do the same.
“Over the past few weeks you’ve seen all the different ways that someone like Nas disrupts a bunch of old ideas and assumptions and hierarchies,” Kornhaber said. (Chris Pizzello / Invision / The Associated Press) The 22-year-old continually challenged what a hip-hop pop star looked like. Lil Nas X, center, kisses a dancer at the end of his BET Awards performance on June 27 at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. Just two days after Lil Nas X released the music video for her provocative and defiantly opened track Baby Industryrapper DaBaby made homophobic comments onstage at a music festival in Miami, sparking a storm of criticism.Īlthough it has since issued a number of apologies, DaBaby has seen massive fallout – a rare consequence for the genre – and has been abandoned by both business partners and festival lineups.Īnd while neither artist mentioned the other, the two became immediately and inextricably linked, as supporters and detractors of each rapper invoke the other in their arguments.
While these issues are not new, they have come to a head in recent weeks.
“And so it’s not traditionally a super friendly place for queer expression and for queer people.” “Hip hop, like much of western popular culture, is steeped in traditional ideas of gender and sexuality,” said Spencer Kornhaber, pop culture and music writer for The Atlantic. The rapper made a slew of homophobic comments at the festival, triggering a storm of criticism – and questions about the double standard of queer hip-hop artists. years – in the face of severe adversity.ĭaBaby performs onstage at the Rolling Loud Music Festival on July 25 in Miami Gardens, Florida. Females – from Britney Spears to Nicki Minaj – have faced in the past for their videos.Īt the same time, some LGBT musicians argue that focusing solely on Lil Nas X to make hip hop more inclusive is both unfair to him and ignores the work that a litany of other queer artists has done in the genre for. Openly and proudly playing gay music as a male pop star is a rarity in the industry, and Lil Nas X leads him through an account with open-ended displays of queer sex, sparking controversy similar to what pop stars do. Now Lil Nas X is grappling with even more difficult – and insidious – issues. Its success at the start of 2019 Old town road broke down barriers on what constitutes country music, its intersection with rap and the type of voices heard.Īnd as the song rose steadily to the Billboard country charts (before being disqualified for not fitting the genre), it caused a reassessment in the industry. That’s because the 22-year-old rapper’s music perpetually challenges the genres he inhabits. Love him or hate him, the one thing you can’t say about Lil Nas X – or his music – is that he’s boring.