Gay hip-hop comes out; with a brand-new record deal, Brooklyn rapper Caushun is gay hip-hop's first mainstream hope--but he doesn't speak for the movement, thanks. (The Music Issue).

Is hip-hop ready for a gay rap superstar? That's a big question, and here's a bigger one: Are we? For a generation of gays and lesbians raised on disco, hip-hop is foreign territory distinguished mostly by the homophobic trash talk of its superstars. But as the genre thumps toward middle age (it's been around since the mid '70s), young proud, loud, and openly gay hip-hop artists raised on the rhymes and beats of the Beastie Boys, Tupac Shakur, Notorious B.I.G., and Sean "P. Diddy" Combs are eagerly stepping out into rap's unapologetic and politically incorrect limelight.

"I feel hip-hop because it's in me--it's in my blood," says Brooklyn, N.Y.-based rap artist and political activist Shante Smalls, 27. "And as a queer person, I make it mine."

Up to now, that hove has been unrequited. Queer artists--black, white, and Latino--have been relegated to the underground, with major labels staying away in droves. But all that's about to change--maybe. Thanks to Caushun, a 25-year-old ex-hairdresser from Brooklyn who just landed a major record deal on Kimora Lee Simmons's Baby Phat Records, gays are finally getting a shot at hip-hop's macho mainstream.

Caushun--who styles himself "the gay rapper"--makes no secret of his ultimate goal. He wants success. And he figures hip-hop is the way to get it. "The gay community loves hip-hop," he says. "A lot of these rappers that are doing their thing now, they're not getting to platinum and quadruple platinum without gay dollars being plopped down to buy their CDs. I believe that once gay hip-hop is successful, gay people will get behind it in in large numbers. It will be like, yes, this is an area where we can have a victory."

Underground rappers take issue with the idea of defining victory in terms of commercial success. "I'm an activist first and entertainer second," says Judge Muscat, a.k.a Dutchboy, founder of the gay hip-hop act Rainbow Flava. In addition to performing, Muscat, who's considered an elder statesman in the world of hip-hop at the ripe old age of 32, has since 1996 maintained Da Dis List--an exhaustive online database of homophobic lyrics in hip-hop. The list evolved, he says, out of debate on his Web site about whether homophobic lyrics are really as widespread in rap music as the media claim.

"The bluntness in hip-hop, for somebody that's come from a queer activism background, can be really hard to relate to," explains Muscat, "because as queer people we've invested so much energy on the right words--words that straight people shouldn't be using and words we should be using to reach out to each other. Hip-hop turns all that on its head."

To gay people who aren't familiar with the music, that sounds suspiciously like excusing hate speech. And that brings up the subject of Eminem. Rightly or not, he became the face of hip-hop homophobia in 2000 when the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation mounted a media campaign against the outrageous lyrics of his massive hit The Marshall Mathers LP. The campaign didn't quite stick, though. Even though many gays shared its concerns, GLAAD was ridiculed by young gay rap fans insisting that the lyrics were never meant to be taken literally. Interviewed by The Advocate at the time, Scott Seomin, the agency's entertainment media director, defended GLAAD's position: "This was about perpetuating violent behavior against gays and lesbians. Eight million copies of those lyrics were put out there."

Which pretty well goes to the heart of the matter. While the older folks were complaining, younger listeners, gay and straight and in between, were gobbling it up. Eminem's third CD, The Eminem Show, sold over 8 million copies through March. His movie debut, 8 Mile, raked in $51 million on its opening weekend. Now Eminem's an Oscar-toting superstar. There hardly seems a point in being angry anymore.

Except that in the billion-dollar hip-hop industry--as in other macho strongholds, from pro sports to the military--"don't ask, don't tell" is still the rule. "Hip-hop has always been the most homophobic genre of music there is," says Tom Silverman, founder and CEO of Tommy Boy Records. "Ironically, it's also the most closeted community around."

Nobody knows that better than Angelo Ellerbee. The openly gay founder of New York-based image, publicity, and management firm Double Xxposure, Ellerbee is a powerful industry player best known at the moment for managing superhot rapper-cum-movie star DMZ. Aside from advising the major record labels on how to market to the gay community, Ellerbee has served over the years as a top consultant to labels seeking image control for their artists who are gay--yet who are marketed to the music-buying public as straight.

"I've been pimped for the last 45 years of my life by record companies and artists," Ellerbee humorously muses. "And I'm 45. I've consulted many labels whose artists are not openly gay. And to tell you the truth, it's a very easy thing for me to do. It's no more than a conversation with each and every artist. My whole motto is, Be honest. And if you're not ready, in time you will be."

For Muscat, hip-hop's politically incorrect lyrics are helping to speed that process. "It's like, let's go ahead; let's throw the words around," he says. "Tell me where you stand, but don't be afraid to actually use the words. In hip-hop that's how you find out who your enemies are--and who your friends are."

Young queers get the message. In major cities across the nation, gay dance palaces feature a weekly hip-hop night. And just as the early strains of disco blared forth from the gay underground clubs of New York to herald the birth of gay liberation, hip-hop is now testing

the prevailing attitudes toward freedom of expression within today's politically entrenched yet culturally diverse gay community.

Smalls has struggled to make peace with the idiom, for her own reasons. "There was a period of about two or three years where I did not listen to any hip-hop," she says. "The ironic thing was, the artist that got me back listening to hip-hop was Notorious B.I.G. Even as violent as his album Ready to Die is and even though it can certainly qualify as sexist, it spoke to me so deeply and so powerfully. Listening to a song like 'Me & My Bitch'--I love that song. But what is that? Is it pathology? Is it self-hatred? Truthfully, I think it's something about the rawness. We're living in a culture where a man can beat and kill his wife or girlfriend and get away with it. I find that much more problematic than someone saying 'bitch' or 'fag' on a record."

According to 26-year-old performer Cazwell, being openly gay in hip-hop has been much less challenging than just being white." Once Eminem came out, I think the black community was a bit upset cause it was like, "Here's a white guy who doesn't suck.' They can't say that he sucks. And that really inspired me."

A native of Worcester, Mass., Cazwell came from a punk rock background before 'moving to New York and forming the hip-hop duo Morplay with out lesbian Crasta Yo. Now working solo, Cazwell is deep into the electroclash movement and impatient, to say the least, with the identity concept of gay hip-hop. "I give interviews all the time where people are like, 'Oh, do you do gay hip-hop?' Like, what the fuck is gay hip-hop? Is that like where I ask the audience to take off their Burberry scarves and wave them from side to side? As far as being an openly gay rapper, I know what a good song is, so judge me on that. Judge me on whatever the fuck you want--I don't give a fuck. And that's just our fuckin' attitude."

"To be honest, I'm really having a hard time at getting embraced by the gay community," says 29-year-old rapper Deadlee. A counselor at a Los Angeles area social services agency for gay youth, Deadlee comes from a perspective that's both West Coast and Latino: His album, 7 Deadlee Sins, features a rock-edged gangsta brand of hip-hop with a little gothic tossed in under his rhymes. He's learned through experience that his lyrics are too raw for many queer ears.

"Gays have never been into rap," he says. "I don't think they're ready for it. They'd rather listen to the Madonnas and the Britney Spears and dance music." Invited to perform at a gay pride fest a few years back, Deadlee remembers being uninvited by the selection committee. "Maybe I use 'faggot' too much in my lyrics for those folks."

To be sure, for every rapper who just happens to be gay, there are others for whom gay issues and politics are the heart and soul of their music. "I think when I tested positive it forced me to deal with some of my same shame issues and internalized homophobia," says Tim'm T. West, a member of the Oakland, Calif.-based gay hip-hop act Deepdickollective. "Even though I had been out for so long and considered myself an activist, there was still a lot that I was holding on to."

Other rappers are out there working on theft own dreams for and about gays and lesbians. "I'm so about visibility," says Alicia Smith, a.k.a. God-Dess, a 26-year old lesbian rapper out of Madison, Wis. "When I started, I just wanted gays to have a symbol, an idol--someone to say, 'I know how you feel.'" There are many more: Tori Fixx, a producer based in Minneapolis, has already set up his own Midwest dynasty, rapping, DJ'ing, and producing projects for straight and gay artists. Miss Money is emceeing in Houston; Mz. Platinum in Atlanta. A visit to one of the Web sites that keeps underground artists in touch turns up links to gay tappers in the United Kingdom and Sweden.

It's almost funny, in the face of so much underground effort and political passion, that Caushun took up the gay label as an impulsive response one day when he heard a couple of radio DJs making gay jokes. "I called up and introduced myself as a gay rapper and [said] I wanted to battle the rapper who was on the show that day," he recalls. The incident led him to make his first tape, and before long Caushun was being featured on the influential Star & Buc Wild morning show on New York City's Hot 97 FM. "I was actually battling other rappers on the show, and I was beating them all by, like, 800 to 900 votes," he says.

He also had the kind of music industry connections at his fingertips that could easily tongue-tie any straight aspiring rapper. Before he traded in his curling iron for the microphone, his clients included Jennifer Lopez, LeAnn Rimes, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and former model Kimora Lee Simmons, wife of hip-hop titan and Def Jam Recordings founder Russell Simmons. It was through Lee Simmons last year that Caushun got his demo directly into the hands of Simmons in hopes of signing a deal with Def Jam. But the label responded with, "Thanks, but no thanks." According to Simmons, it didn't have much to do with the fact that Caushun was gay.

"My A&R people passed on him because they thought his record was too much of a novelty," Simmons told The Advocate at the time. "It's really a sexual record, and it's about aggressive flamey ideals. Maybe straights will buy it because it's funny and different. Frankly, I see it as a door opener. Like, the first generation of gay rappers will be more of a novelty thing, and the second wave will be about lifestyle and attitudes."

Caushun and his manager, R&B-hip-hop producer Ivan Matias, didn't see it that way, continuing to shop Caushun's demo to other major labels. Some were very interested, says Matias--that is, if Caushun changed his slant from hiphop to dance music.

"When dance music gets hot again, watch how many openly gay rappers will pop out of the woodwork," Simmons observes. "Dance is the music that's been accepted and embraced by gay culture for over the past 20 or 30 years. A rapper wants culture and lifestyle to be the basis of his or her rap, so a gay rapper in dance culture is obvious. But a gay rapper in hardcore hiphop culture is a strange thing."

Then there were those A&R execs who privately championed Caushun's talent but were afraid to get involved.

"I had an executive at a major label who's been responsible for a lot of successful hip-hop artists tell me that he thought Caushun was one of the most talented emcees he'd ever heard," says Matias, who has produced hits for Toni Braxton, Pink, Angie Stone, and Outkast. "He told me that he would love to sign him. [But if Caushun flopped], this exec said his career would be over. His reputation as a hip-hop hit maker would be put into question as well as his sexuality."

In the end, it was Kimora Lee Simmons--an entrepreneur whose worries don't include proving herself as a man--who inked the deal. Caushun's first gig was emceeing Lee Simmons's Baby Phat runway show on February 13 during New York's Fashion Week. "Caushun is the dose of reality hip-hop needs," asserts Lee Simmons. "His talent and personality make him a guilty pleasure to many. Baby Phat and I look forward to making him a worldwide success and lifestyle phenomenon."

Can Caushun win over the hip-hop industry on the one hand and the audience on the other? Tommy Boy's Silverman isn't holding his breath. "I think it's going to be a long time before you see the hip-hop community accept gay rap," he says. "Unless the person really got big and somebody like Ja Rule came out of the closet tomorrow. And then when he canoe out, two others come out. And all of them come out saying, 'Fuck what you heard. This is what's happening.' They would have to be in the closet until they got to the top."

And the odds of success for an artist who's out from the start? Silverman puts it this way: "The idea of a hit record coming from an openly gay rapper is much less likely than us having an openly gay president."

Even in the face of such predictions, Caushun, who's preparing himself for a 22-city tour this summer following the release of his album, remains unfazed. "I've found out that in spending time with straight rappers, they're not as narrow-minded as their images may imply," he says. "Thing is, homophobia, in a weird way, sells. It's so funny--you have these gangsta rappers who have these gay stylists, gay hairdressers, gay video directors. I don't think the hip-hop community is as homophobic as it is portrayed. I do think the community is scared to let an open homosexual in because that might threaten [its] moneymaking masculine images. Even so, I think hip-hop is ready for the gay thing. It just has to be the right one."

Predictably, the activist faction of gay hip-hop wonders who exactly anointed Caushun to speak for them. "I've heard Caushun," says Smalls, "and to be honest, I thought there were kids on the street who could beat him. If people push you to say 'I'm a rapper and I'm gay,' then you have to bring really fresh things to the table. Because there have been people who've been out for a long time, touring the country and being open about their sexuality and not using it as a marketing tool."

Cazwell is less tactful. "I would never want to coin myself as 'the gay tapper,'" he explodes. "How fuckin' shallow is that? If you coin yourself 'the gay rapper,' then that's all you fuckin' are."

Caushun couldn't care less, or so he says: "Number one, if I don't represent you, who is? Nobody wants to represent you. And number two, I'm not going to be forced back into the closet by another queen. What I'm saying to the community is, get over it. As somebody that has been influenced by hiphop, I have a right to express myself however I am."

Mathis writes on music for publications including LA Weekly.