I got an irate email from my good buddy Q-Boy recently demanding to know why I hadn't linked his site to mine, and why I hadn't blogged about him yet. So blog and blogettes here's a fairly old (printed in the Guardian in April 2004) piece on the first known openly gay UK rapper (yes, he was around before Fierce Girl) Q-Boy. Check out his site and especially his lyrics - not even the nastiest hetro-rapper has got shit on this guy.
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OutKast's Andre 3000 summed up the mood of most rappers when he said: "One of the worst rumours I heard about myself was that I was homosexual. Especially in the hip-hop world, that ain't a cool rumour to hear."
Known for its braggadocio boasting and heterosexual posturing, hip-hop has little time for expressions of homosexuality. Asked what she thought of the three-way tonsil tennis between Madonna, Britney and Christina, Missy Elliott responded: "Oh, hip-hop would never do that. Never, never, never in a million years."
Unsubstantiated gossip has long circulated as to who "the gay rapper" might be - the idea that there could be only one is telling. Erick Sermon, Queen Latifah and "Gay"-Z have all denied tittle-tattle. And there are few signs of change. Kimora Lee Simmons, the wife of Def Jam founder Russell Simmons, recently signed black, gay rapper Caushun to her Baby Phat record label. A typical response to this news came from Cypress Hill's DJ Muggs. "Yeah, I heard Russell Simmons's wife signed a fag. I ain't got no problem with that shit. So long as you're not overtly gay and trying to push it on me."
Marcos Brito, then, can't be expecting his career to run smoothly. A 25-year-old from Basildon, Essex, he is also the UK's first openly homosexual hip-hopper. And, as QBoy, he has no plans to let homophobia stand in his way. "For so long I limited myself by telling myself I couldn't be a rapper because I'm white, English and gay," he says. "Now I've become a rapper, it's made me realise you only limit yourself - no one else limits you."
But when rap's littered with lyrics like "Pants or dress - hate fags? The answer's yes," (thanks, Eminem), does QBoy really believe he can fit in? "Well, there's homophobia and homo-ignorance," he insists. "Do you think Eminem would ever have gotten on that stage with Elton John if he was really that homophobic?" Anyway, I like rap, that's just the way I am. I can't not like it because certain people within that field are homophobic."
Perhaps part of him wanted to challenge the blatant bigotry? "Yeah, a little bit," he says. "But my initial reason was simply because of my love for the music and the culture. Maybe as it went along, I became more conscious of that and it's evident in some of my lyrics, like: 'I'm the crest of this gay hip-hop wave media hype/ You can say "fuck fags!" and you can screw me too/ I think it's wonderful to be me, the Supa Boy-Q.' It did feel a bit like wanting to prove a point of 'Well I can do this, too - bollocks to you.'"
Bullied at school because of his sexuality, QBoy had a difficult adolescence. He remembers many lunchtimes sat alone outside Marks & Spencer. As a teenager, QBoy found comfort in the salacious musings of females rappers like Foxy Brown and Li'l Kim. "One of the things I love about those women is their sexuality and I do find sex, and talk of sex, funny - I can't help it."
Less amusing to Brito was when Kim and co name-dropped famous fashionistas like D&G and Versace, before flippantly using the word faggot. Didn't they recognise that they had a huge gay following and that many of the designers they glorify are gay? "I don't see how you can work like that," he sighs.
QBoy gained the confidence to perform after leaving school and making friends at a local theatre group. Following a degree in contemporary dance at De Montfort University, he went on to edit gayhiphop.com and helped to organise the UK's only gay hip-hop night, Pacman. Not long after, QBoy picked up the mic and founded QFam (Queer Family) with fierce femmes fatales Fontaine and Dark Angel. While he mostly works on his solo material nowadays, it was with QFam that he first began touring.
The first few gigs the trio did were tricky, as gay audiences struggled to comprehend what QFam were trying to do - rap music was not a sound they were used to hearing at Heaven. They were always polite, he insists, but did seem rather dazed. "It was like, 'Why are you shouting at me?' However, gay clubs are slowly shedding their reliance on disco and hi-nrg. It's not all white vests and popping pills any more. Now everyone's wearing baggy jeans and screaming when Beyoncé's on the screens in G.A.Y."
Can QBoy make the big time without toning down his act? "I do talk about sex a lot," he admits. "But there seems to be this illusion that if you talk about sex in your music you're a slut or you're not a real, true artist - you have no credibility. But there's no right or wrong in rap. You can do what you want."
So what does he want? To take the stage with Eminem à la Elton John? "I'd like to think of myself as the Run-DMC of hip-hop," he decides. "I never wanted to be the best - just the first."
· QBoy's EP, Even the Women Like Him, is available from www.qboy.co.uk and selected Clone Zones.
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