If that's your boyfriend (he wasn't last nignt).

"Homophobic lyrics in black music are more powerful than the religious Right is in middle America" (Roulette 42), according to director Isaac Julien, whose films Looking for Langston and Young Soul Rebels have provocatively explored aspects of black homosexuality. This British artist of color tackles homophobia in the black music industry and its contribution to the growth of anti-gay violence in The Darker Side of Black, a documentary feature scheduled for limited U.S. release in 1995. I can't wait to see it. Given my own daily doses of Court TV, Oprah, and The Bold and the Beautiful, I have contemplated murder myself. Could I enter a plea of not guilty if I blew Buju Banton's brains out with a pearl-handled revolver? Could I, like the Menendez Brothers last year, try to convince a judge and jury that I was acting in self-defense? After all, hasn't Banton threatened me and ordered my death? I mean, I'm an African-American faggot of modest visibility, your honor. It was either me or him.

The controversy surrounding Banton and the homicidal content of his lyrics left the gay community outraged and disgusted: Why were we again being singled out as targets of hate and violence by a member of another oppressed minority? Gay rights activists and music critics have often dissected the homophobia rampant in the lyrics and attitudes of some successful hip-hop artists, while feminists remind us that misogyny has remained an element of the music. From the crass objectification of women in the video imagery of performers like Shabba Ranks to . . .

Uh, pardon me if I'm mistaken, but I vaguely remember a dispute in the not-too-distant past concerning one W. Axl Rose and his "disturbing" lyrics. Come to think of it, I don't recall white rock 'n' roll as ever having been exactly homophile. The androgyny of its youthful high priests has always warned: "Look, but don't touch . . . or I'll smash your face, you fuckin' fag!" Rock 'n' roll, here to stay, was once the domain of straight white boys - strutting, stroking their long lean guitars, and Gary-U.S.Bonding. No girls allowed, except to scream and swoon, and certainly no sissies. Rock's flirtation with queers glittered and faded in the seventies, when glam stars like Bowie and Lou Reed teased us with their alleged bisexuality, only to renounce eyeshadow and cocksucking in the eighties. And as for "rock 'n' roll niggers," anyone who takes r 'n' r seriously must be aware that it is the bastard, middle-aged child of rhythm 'n' blues and rockabilly. Of course, that's a polite way of describing it. Some would maintain that it's simply a bastardization of rhythm 'n' blues, a lowdown, hit-and-run hijacking of "black" music by the "white" entertainment industry in search of a teenage craze.

If the African-American antecedent of the music is the pure, essential form of the commercialized product, it stands to reason that the cock in rock is going to be that much cockier in hip-hop, New Jack Swing, or ragamuffin. Male "black" music has always shot straight from the dick: It's always been decidedly sexual and, at its best, completely sensual, which is also why it's constantly created the hottest dance music. Furthermore, "jazz," "funk," and even good ol' "rock 'n' roll" are all idiomatic expressions for the sexual act or physical manifestations connected to it. This sexual energy, as expressed by the heterosexual African-American man (and his sisters), underscores every wave of "non-threatening" (i.e., commercial and mainstream) rhythm 'n' blues, from doo-wop to soul (Philly, Motown, what have you) to disco to one of the ancestors of hip-hop, the "romantic" rap, as performed by Isaac Hayes and Barry White in the seventies.

Sexual ambiguity has long been the province of the heterosexual vocalist, most notably R&B stylists. A falsetto loverman (like Motown's Eddie Kendricks and Smokey Robinson) is allowed to cry and wail about his feelings, and a throaty belter (like Mavis Staples, Gladys Knight, or Tina Turner) can be bossy or aggressive; in both cases, the singer teases his or her audience by adopting the "voice" of the opposite sex. Prince was among the first non-white acts to combine a sexually ambiguous sound with sexually ambivalent performance, but he has always insisted that he is 100% heterosexual.

The cover of the December 1994 issue of Request caught my eye with this headline: "Why Gay Musicians Are Afraid to Come Out of the Closet." In this cursory analysis by editor Keith Moerer, I've discovered the names of twenty-three openly gay or "bisexual" performers/groups; of these, only two are African-American: RuPaul (of course - but let's face it: as subversive a presence as she may be, Miss Thing is hiding her dick where it won't scare nobody) and Me'Shell Ndege'Ocello (whose powerful debut album features lyrics as stridently heterosexual as they are Afrocentric). Black and gay seem to be incompatible characteristics in the music industry (but you knew that). Moerer cites the homophobia in hip-hop and dancehall reggae (yawn) and suggests that "a male R&B singer['s] . . . romantic entreaties might lose their credibility among straight women" were he to come out of the closet (77).

But what of his credibility among other gay men? Everyone knows how much faggots love music and spending money on it. Unfortunately, gay consumers have played an unexpected part in keeping musicians' closet doors shut. While a straight woman has been conditioned to desire a "real" man, a gay African-American is supposed to be a "real" man, which, by implication, means denying any womanliness, which is considered weak, passive, and powerless. And being a "real black man" has always meant taking it even further to survive in a real white world. The rage to assert one's manhood has saturated a great deal of our music in the eighties and nineties. Not only is the white oppressor repudiated and maligned, but women may be reduced to demonized objects (the perennial "ho's" and "bitches"), and the queer is the worst kind of freak: He is not a real man, he's more of a bitch than any ho' could ever be. For African-American males, whose history is filled with centuries of debasing emasculation, it would be uncomfortable to see - let alone accept - a brother who chooses to spread his cheeks for another (possibly white) man. Paradoxically, this is as true for gays as it is for straights: The homosexual African-American male, torn between the history of his race and his sexual identity, tends to be the saddest kind of homophobe.

That's why a stranger walking into Keller's in New York (or Wolfendale's in New Orleans) could at first believe that he has landed in a bar full of straight men . . . until the children start singing along with Salt 'n' Pepa - "Girls, what's my weakness? Men!!" Getting in touch with that inner girl-child demands the Divas. At the closing ceremonies of this summer's Gay Games at hetero-legendary Yankee Stadium, Patti LaBelle acknowledged a quarter-century of devotion from her fans in the post-Stonewall gay community. As well she should have. Who do you think helped keep the careers of Diana, Donna, and Dionne (not to mention Barbra and Bette) afloat all these years? For a gay man of color, it has always been permissible to identify secretly with a Superwoman, whose big personality or big voice expresses his yearnings for romance. But if a gay brother gets too caught up in the image of black femininity - "Oo, I wanna be like her" - he may behave like the snap queens made notorious (and popular) by In Living Color's Antoine and Blaine. Neither transvestite nor transsexual, these "girls" allow their "men" to believe in their own machismo.

Enter the drag queen, who has suddenly made the sissy-boy America's darling. At one point last year one in five videoclips on MTV featured she-men as extras. RuPaul's success, while encouraging, instructs us that "out" remains synonymous with "outrageous." And if Wesley Snipes can don a dress and squeeze into a pair of pumps for a big-budget Hollywood feature, it seems clear that drag queens per se no longer threaten either straight people or real black men. Still, can you name two openly gay men of color with a thriving career in the entertainment industry?

The New Yorker, a traditionally white publication, reports:

Opposition to gay rights unfortunately seems to run higher in the black community than in the nation as a whole, with many reserving special scorn for the claim that the struggle of homosexuals mirrors the struggle of African-Americans. This cultural conservatism has deeply religious roots. . . . it represents the voice of a community crying out desperately for a stable set of values to pass on to the next generation, which is seriously at risk; among black Christians, as among evangelists generally, there are few moral relativists. (Carter 67)

I am reminded of the acceptance speeches that black actors and singers make at those annual awards ceremonies. The Christian deity, in two of His three persons, receives more expressions of gratitude than there are roaches in Manhattan. As long as performers believe that this public piety helps sell records (cynical me - I see no other reason for it), I don't anticipate any closet doors flying open.

Would it really wreck the career(s) of one (or two) of soul's premiere crooners if (t)he(y) admitted what fans have been whispering for decades? Possibly. But I doubt it. Obviously, there are queers and dykes of color working in all aspects of show business - they're just invisible. Some of them are so deep in the closet that they've convinced themselves of their heterosexuality. Sadly, this is understandable, though unacceptable, in an essentially conservative industry serving a fundamentally frightened society. Only when successful gays conquer their fear will fearless gay newcomers be able to achieve success.

Jonathan Schwartz defines the rationale for popular music as "the transmission of sexual passion, the articulation of its absence, the voracious longings of the heart" (128). Is the record-buying, concert-going, credibility-conferring public (black or white) ready to support artists whose sexual passion is clearly intended for members of their own gender? My white friends are going to keep asking me why African-American music is so homophobic until the public accepts an openly queer African-American performer. A recording with the phrase "I'm in love with him," when sung by one man about another, could conceivably be subject to a parental advisory sticker because of its "explicit" lyrics. No gay artist in the pop life, black or white, can truly be considered "out" (sorry, Ru, but your new album hasn't been released as I write this) until the content of his or her work - lyrics, videos, performing style - reflects those voracious longings.

In a medium where the stereotype must first be explored before it is transcended, where it takes a Grace Slick to pave the way for a Patti Smith, a Buddy Holly to precede an Elvis Costello, a Debbie Harry to foreshadow a Madonna, we need to see an in-your-face, tell-it-like-it-is, ass-kickin' band of cocksuckin' brothers who really rock da house and demand respect from the African-American community. (I personally would be down with a Sly and the Family Stone type of coalition, all genders and colors mixed, bent, and celebrated - the kind of band many of us had hoped Prince and the Revolution would be.)

In 1987 Prince released a single from his acclaimed Sign o' the Times album entitled "If I Was Your Girlfriend," in which the singer seeks a different kind of intimacy with his lady love, that of a best friend. Going beyond the use of a falsetto register, his studio-enhanced voice could be considered female (or Loony Tunes); by the end of the song the heterosexual male protagonist has transformed himself, however briefly, into a lesbian - without becoming a fag on the way. Last year, Me'Shell Ndege'Ocello's debut single "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" went Prince one better (or worse, depending on your point of view): It's about an impertinent sister who - well, the title is pretty self-explanatory. Our awareness that this "clean-up woman's" alter ego prefers girlfriends to boyfriends distinguishes this delightful jam from any number of malicious swaggers. Me'Shell makes it clear to the gents listening in that she's so bad she can have any one of you, and just imagine what would happen if she turned her attentions to your woman . . .

Of course, I'm waiting for a man to cover the song. Now that would be revolutionary.

Works Cited

Carter, Stephen L. "Let Us Pray." New Yorker 5 Dec. 1994: 60-74.

Moerer, Keith. "Money Changes Everything: Glad to Be Gay . . . But Afraid to Admit It." Request Dec. 1994: 75-77.

Roulette, Tod. "Isaac Julien's Darker Side." Out Feb. 1995: 42.

Schwartz, Jonathan. "Soldier of the Heart." GQ Dec. 1994: 128-31.

Paul Outlaw is a native of Manhattan's Lower East Side. He received his academic education at Grace Church School, Phillips Exeter Academy, and Harvard College, after which he studied acting through NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. After re-locating to Berlin in 1983, Outlaw enjoyed an affiliation with various independent German- and English-language theater groups. On the screen, he played the title role in Schwarzfahrer (Black Rider), winner of the Academy Award as Best Live-Action Short Film of 1993. Outlaw currently resides in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen.