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As all of you WNBA heads out there know (all 5 of you), former league MVP Sheryl Swoopes announced she was gay a month ago. For a few days, every media outlet was trying to turn this into a big thing. For the most part, though, it seemed like noone outside of people on the news actually cared. Perhaps because the WNBA has such a small fanbase, or because a lot of people just assume most players in the WNBA are lesbian. Or maybe people just don't really care about the lifestyle choices of a female athlete.
I have a feeling this would be different if the MVP of the NBA announced he was in a relationship with his coach. Can you imagine the reaction if Shaq announced he was having an affair with Stan Van Gundy, his Miami coach? I don't think anyone is ready for that, for a variety of reasons. Certainly, the reaction of his teammates (at least if Danny Fortson was on his team) would be a little harsher than what Swoopes received.
Right, so what does this have to do with the music stuff I usually post up here? Well, I thought it provided an interesting parallel with what happens in the rap world when the issue of a rapper being gay is brought up. There are certainly plenty of rumors about certain rappers out there. You can be sure that any such announcement by a mainstream rapper would hurt their sales. As Eminem has demonstrated, the concept of "gay" is often the polar opposite of what defines hip hop, at least to many of its fans.
Which brings us to today's mp3. Back in 1998, Queen Latifah was known more as a rapper than an actress. She had been in Set It Off and had some t.v. appearances, but the movie career was still developing. There had been some talk of her romantic preferences, talk that escalated with her playing the role of a lesbian gangster in Set It Off, but she denied it. Then she dropped a freestyle on one of Clue's mixtapes, where she lyrically came out of the closet:
You see me in the clubs
Getting Female rub
How I be with many chicks
Show them more than friendly love
She then flips the script on the legendary words of Ice Cube with this line:
Get off my tits and tell your bitch to come here
The reaction from hip hop fans? Almost nothing. Similar to the Swoopes situation, the argument could be made that it was already presumed that Queen La was gay, or that she was not popular enough for this to be a big issue. Until a major rapper comes out, I don't think that we'll see how hip hop really feels about the situation. I don't think it would be possible for hip hop fans to accept a gay gangsta rapper, though as fans of the Wire know, it is possible to be a hardcore gay gangsta (props to freedarko for the idea on this image):
Here is the download: Queen Latifah Freestyle (mp3)
11/17/2005 6:48:46 PM posted by Fresh