Kanye Disses Homophobia to MTV: "I'm Secure in My Manhood"
Super producer, rapper and fashionista Kanye West continues to speak out on sexuality, masculinity and homophobia. Which is a good thing. In an MTV interview the 808s & Heartbreak star criticizes gay-obsessed rapper 50 Cent and many others who gay-bait him. "I'm so secure with my manhood," Kanye West tells MTV personality Sway Calloway. "That's why I can go to Paris and have conversations with people who are blatantly gay."
Well, it's like when people say, "Give me a natural pose." You can't pose natural. If you're posing, then it's not natural no more. So it's statements that people say. "Dressing gay" you can't dress like ... Your dress don't give away whether or not you like a man. Think about actors that straight dress up like a woman or something like that. People wanna label me and throw that on me all the time, but I'm so secure with my manhood. And that's the reason why I can go to Paris, why I can have conversations with people who are blatantly gay.
'Cause I used to be scared to talk to a gay person. It's designers that's scared of people in hip-hop. And in hip hop, there's people—and let's not even say scared like homophobic — but they're scared of the way people gonna look at them. If you see a person be like, "I don't wanna stand next to Marc Jacobs 'cause I don't want that to bear on me because I'm just so cool." One of the reasons why, the perspective I come from with my raps and my songs, the reason why can't nobody dis me — no gangsta rapper, nobody can really dis me is 'cause it's so authentic.
Kanye West says hip-hop's homophobic gay obsession created the uproar over a photo taken in Paris, France where some of his posse was outfitted in colorful vintage chic. "I didn't check out everybody's outfit that hopped in the picture with me—I can't be completely responsible. You go right into my outfit, my outfit is good. [But] people are so gay-conscious now. That's like the whole thing like with the Internet—every day [is like], 'Oh I can tell he gay now!"
"I can't help but respect [Kanye]," notes Son of Baldwin, an black gay Brooklyn-based blog. "He speaks the truth when it isn't fashionable and lucrative to do so."
Hopefully some of Kanye's security in his masculinity rubbed off in the interviewer. Sway Calloway is the (in)famous New York City DJ who told actor Michael K. Williams that he was "repulsed" by his character Omar's passionate, on-screen same-sex kiss in The Wire. Omar, the black gay stick-up artist, was later revealed to be the favorite television character of President Barack Obama.
Article courtesy of Rod McCullom's Blog, Rod 2.0 Beta, a YOCISCO.com affiliate
