Ridiculous.
He's never yet said publicly he's gay, just that he once had a relationship with a man.
Most of the songs on Channel Orange are clearly about women.
This really is the most ridiculous tokenistic twaddle.
Part of a tradition I call "The Whitey Album", where a record by a black artist gets fetishised and hyped by white journalists and is played at middle-class dinner parties by people desperate to show how street they are - and now this comes with added "gay"!
See also Public Enemy, De La Soul, Arrested Development, Wu Tang Tribe, Lauryn Hill etc etc...
Update: Rosie Swash on Guardian Music asks if 2012 was the year hip hop's attitudes to homosexuality changed - though she points out Ocean didn't say he was gay, and isn't really hip-hop...
Update 2: And once again Gay Star News show why they are the shittest and thickest gay media outlet in the world.
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You have a point, but aren't most of the songs on his album ambiguous?
ReplyDeleteI haven't heard it but I'm sure someone made that point in one of your other Frank Ocean posts.
Also, his public statements on this aren't so ambiguous that his "coming out" can be interpreted as being about a one-off fling.
Even though he's never actually said the words "gay" or "bisexual" he's definitely suggested that his feelings or orientation was either gay or bi from a young age before he had that relationship.
I agree with your point though, even though I like some of the artists you mention - it isn't quite as black and white as you say, I think...