The Evolution, and Death, of “No Homo”

"It's crazy how you can go from being Joe Blow, to everybody on your dick—no homo." Despite publicly talking about the need for hip-hop to stop its long, sorry tradition of gay bashing, that was still the way Kanye West chose to lead off his verse from "Run This Town". While it may at first seem hypocritical for Kanye to tell MTV in an interview "everyone in hip-hop discriminates against gay people … I wanna just come on TV and just tell my rappers, tell my friends, 'Yo, stop it'", when viewed through the longer lens of hip-hop history, the rise of "no homo" may actually be bringing hip-hop closer to accepting gay people.

Hip-hop has long considered itself a supremely masculine, and anti-gay art form. There's no more well tread territory for battle rappers than the "you're a faggot" diss. Interestingly, for years the idea that a rapper might be gay, or even have the slightest of gay tendencies, was considered so unthinkable rappers regularly threatened homosexual sex as a means of affirming their heterosexuality.

"Now, I never had my dick sucked by a man befo'/But you gon be the first you little trick ass ho." - DJ Quik "Dollaz + Sense"
"Y'all niggas remind me of a strip club/ 'Cause every time you come around it's like I just gotta get my dick sucked." - DMX "Up In Here"

While lines like these seem unbelievably ironic now, they're a sign of the complete lack of awareness, and self-awareness, rappers had when running their usual gay bashing rounds (they were so sure of their heterosexuality is never occurred to them their lines could in fact be easily construed as gay themselves.

At some point, approximately the beginning of the 2000s, rappers appear to have at the very least become self-aware of the subtle, or not so subtle, gay entendres in their lines and and begun inserting the now ubiquitous "no homo" after any line that could be construed as homosexually oriented. Of course, the irony that you have to be thinking about gay sex in order to recognize possible gay sex in your rhymes seems to have once again escaped them. In fact, "no homo" more often that not only serves to call attention to the latent homosexuality of a line that would have most likely escaped most listeners (ex. Chamillionaire's "No homo, I go hard.")

It's also interesting to note that the rise of "no homo" corresponded with the rise of mainstream hip-hop's shopping culture, a traditionally effeminate culture that rappers have spun into the ultimate expression of manhood. Spending all day in the mall? Becoming obsessed with wearing haute-couture designer labels like Louis Vitton and Gucci? That's exactly the type of "gay" behavior that would have had gangster rappers in the 80s and 90s unleashing a torrent of homophobic diss lines. Frankly, hip-hop's never been "gayer." Ok, maybe not "never"....

So now it's time to take the next step and drop the "no homo." Not only has it become as tired of a lyrical device as "swag", but if mainstream, conservative America can accept that there's no inherent link between an artist's sexuality and the quality of their music (see every American Idol), certainly hip-hop can at the very least drop homosexuality as a constant topic of musical conversation. We may be a long way off from hip-hop's first openly gay rap star, but make no mistake about it, we're getting close, and hip-hop will only be stronger for it.

(Thanks to Jonah Weiner at Slate for the background info.)