A few weeks ago, the Baltimore Sun profiled local gay MCs in the wake of Obama's shift on same-sex marriage. They asked me how long would it be before a gay MCs record became a hit. I told them that we were about five years out from a gay MC hitting the charts with a record. But I emphasized that there were already MCs who were gay making music, they just weren't out. I thought we were much closer an MC we were already familiar with coming out of the closet.
Now I had Queen Latifah in mind here, but it looks like Frank Ocean beat her to the punch. Note the response from other MCs–JayZ's comments acknowledging sexual fluidity are extremely important.
I'm supposed to be taping a bit for NPR today on Obama and "the black vote". A couple of my colleagues have juxtaposed Obama's support for "the gay community" against his support for "the black community" as if there weren't people who are both black and gay. There are approximately 1000 material real world benefits that heterosexuals can get through marriage that homosexuals cannot. We can talk about whether marriage should be the vehicle for these rights (it shouldn't) but we can't deny the fact that Obama's single statement has made it possible for literally tens of thousands of African Americans to live full lives.
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