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In the Fall 2021 issue of XXL Magazine, Lil Nas X opens up about his battle for respect in hip-hop, why he came out as gay to the public and more.

Modern Day Lil Nas X is a revolutionary forcing hip-hop to face the cultures long-term issues with homophobia. Interview: Kris Ex Editors Note: This story originally appeared in the Fall 2021 issue of XXL Magazine, on stands now. This is how we speak. This is how weve spoken in hip-hop since weve been allowed to speakcrass and unfiltered, sexual and horny, direct yet metaphoric. Its obviously not the only way we speak. (Despite a recent feature in The New York Times, which tried to convey tall-eyed surprise at the existence of a London rapper who doesnt traffic in the tropes of many mainstream rappers. While other rappers brag about sex, drugs and expensive cars, Jimothy raps about his ambition to one day earn enough money to shop at upmarket supermarkets and listening to his mothers advice, they wrote, as if discovering a Black unicorn drinking from a lake of gold underneath a project staircase. That line from the story alone blew up on Twitter.) We speak in many different ways. We speak of missing the bus, missing homies, missing opportunities. We rap about the plug, but we also rap about working in an electronics store and attending technical school. We also cuss and talk about sex. A whole fucking lot. To be clear: We means primarily, but not specifically, young Black men. Obviously, other voices have joined the choir since DJ Kool Herc birthed this thing called hip-hop at 1520 Sedgwick Ave. in The Bronx on Aug. 11, 1973. Also, Brown people and womens voices have always been part of hip-hop. We cant erase them, but to deny that hip-hops blueprint is that of the thoughts of young Black men navigating the world around them is to not have an honest conversation. All other voices in hip-hop are defined by their proximity and relationship to those of marginalized Black men living in the United States. These are just facts. 1982s Wild Style, which ostensibly remains as an artifactual document of the romanticized four elements version of hip-hop, featured pioneer and OG best rapper alive Chief Rocker Busy Bee laying money on his bed well before Instagram flexes were a thing. Popping bottles of champagne and removing womens panties before engaging in an illustrated sexual orgy. In the late 1980s, gangsta rap forefathers N.W.Awere the targets of national media, politicians and future Donald Trump supporters for having the temerity to tell law enforcement what it could do with itself. Uncle Luke s 2 Live Crew spent the first half of the 1990s enmeshed in legal battles over their right to invoke women to pop that pussy. Hip-hopperformers and consumers alikehas always waged battles for the right to say what it felt was necessary in the ways that it felt was right to say them. And well before then, in the 1930s, musical artists like Lucille Bogan were one-upping the previous decades dirty blues of Ma Rainey and others which had relied heavily on entendre and other figures of speech dropping bars like, I got nipples on my titties big as the end of my thumb/I got somethin between my legsll make a dead man cum and I fucked all night and all the night before, baby and I feel just like I wanna fuck some more. This is a long way to go to say that talking about sex in hip-hop is not new. But when Lil Nas X hip-hops most prominent openly gay male rapper, and its first out-of-the-closet mainstream starsays something like, I might bottom on the low, but I top shit on his semi-Christmas loosie Holiday, hes not necessarily breaking new ground. But then again, he is. Much like N.W.As Fuck tha Police was not the first anti-authoritarian song ever recordedthe entire genre of punk rock was based on railing against social norms with groups such as Black Flag making songs like 1981s Police Story, which begins, Fucking city is run by pigsLil Nas Xs comments come off as revolutionary because of the context. Eazy-E Dr. Dre Ice Cube MC Ren and DJ Yella werent saying anything new, but theyBlack men from the inner-city killing fields of Los Angeleswere saying it, and that made the powers that be uncomfortable. Nicki Minaj and Cardi B can give lap dances in rap videos with little pushback from the center of hip-hops audience, but when Lil Nas X does it, its a problem. Honestly, I dont feel as respected in hip-hop or many music places in general, Lil Nas X says over Zoom this past August. But these are communities that I am a part of, whether people would like it or not. This is something that I wanted to do because, not that my entire album is rap, but there are rap tracks on my album. I am a rapper. I am a pop star. I am a gay artist. But its like, I belong in these places, you know? To this point, the artwork for Black Flags Police Story features a gun shoved in a police officers mouth, the caption saying, Make me come, faggot! Because for too many people, being gay wasand still isa punch line. Hip-hop was created for artists like Lil Nas X to exist. Despite what a certain strain of purist might say, his presence is not an aberration of g Read more