Possibly because of Lil Nas X’s propensity for courting scandal in the style of Madonna, he’s been capable of generating more trailblazing credit for being the “first” openly gay Black rapper (see also: Frank Ocean). But, lest everyone forget, it has been Blood Orange for quite some time who has been unapologetic about his “queerness” (a term put in quotes because, as he’s stated, “I’m openly not defining myself”). And yet, just because he—or Frank Ocean, for that matter— never showed himself getting railed in a locker room, suddenly his contributions don’t seem to “mean as much” or “pale in comparison.” But, to reintroduce Blood Orange’s importance to the conversation of Black male queerness, let us look back on 2018’s controversially-titled Negro Swan in respect to what Lil Nas X’s debut album, Montero, is.
Commencing with the eponymous single that sent conservatives into almost as much of a fury as they were when “WAP” came out, Lil Nas X establishes the homo-ified Garden of Eden tone (and all the evocative motifs therein). In contrast to the salacious tincture of “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” Blood Orange opened Negro Swan with “Orlando,” a relaxed (sonically speaking) number that takes it all back to the first moment when a queer male (especially a queer Black male) feels othered: grade school. He describes in a Phil Spector sort of way, “The first kiss was the floor,” referring to the many times he was brutally beat up on by other kids who could sense something “different” (read: effeminate) about him. Incidentally, Blood Orange—just Devonté Hynes back then—mentioned that it was the Black kids doing most of the bullying, not comfortable with his seemingly “fey” nature, complete with painting his nails and having long hair (characteristics that can often be attributed to queerbaiting in the present climate). This is rather apropos in terms of foreshadowing how rap, hip hop and R&B have never been welcoming places for any Black male other than a decidedly “butch” one. Willing to brag about his sexual prowess with women when not discussing his guns and his bank accounts (therefore Lil Nas X specifically singing on “Scoop,” “Ain’t talkin’ guns when I ask where your dick at”).
While Blood Orange might not, like Lil Nas X, be all-out embracing of the full-stop gay label (at one point even declaring himself as straight), his fluidity has landed him on the likes of Out Magazine, causing an expectedly outraged backlash for not rigidly fitting into one category. While Lil Nas X’s Montero is praised for not only his (now) unrepentant gayness, it’s also been lauded for capturing the overall difficulty and melancholia of the Black experience. Something that AnOther pointed out as being a distinct quality of Negro Swan back in 2018, remarking that the record “deal[s] with the ‘unspoken sadness’ of Black depression” (ergo the tonal shift of Nas X’s own album toward the second half of it). And, of course, talking about one’s childhood in England as a Black male with not entirely “straight thoughts” naturally serves to accentuate that point.
Lil Nas X can’t seem to “dig as deep” into his childhood (not just because that was basically five years ago) because, for him, he didn’t appear to be “born anew” as a gay man until after “Old Town Road” (and then, at last, admitting he was a hardcore member of the Barbz—a choice he might regret after Nicki’s “my cousin’s friend’s balls” in Trinidad comment). It was only upon publicly declaring his sexuality afterward that Lil Nas X could seem to then talk about his “gay life.” And, more importantly, visually showcase it in his work. But, in terms of addressing any of the repression and gayness he felt prior to his later high school years, it seems, based on the lyrical content of Montero, that everything before this has been deemed irrelevant as a subject matter because he wasn’t yet starting to feel himself being an “active member” of “the community” until more recently. Sure, there is one primary instance (“Sun Goes Down”) on Montero when he talks about his self-subduing with regard to homosexuality in high school, but, other than that, a past that more fully addresses his sexual orientation the way Negro Swan does is pretty much muted in favor of braggadocio-laden lyrics like, “I don’t fuck bitches/I’m queer” (a line itself that could warrant an entirely separate conversation about the undercutting misogyny toward women that gay men, too [and perhaps especially], are guilty of—despite so frequently stealing their act).
For Blood Orange, instead, it’s all about coming to terms with the past and the struggles he was forced to confront daily as a result of being an othered individual. And for those who would decry that Blood Orange isn’t on the same level of “Black male gayness visibility” as Lil Nas X, Hynes is deliberate in incorporating other gender and sexual identities into Negro Swan (as well as his previous albums) via the interweaving of trans activist and author Janet Mock’s various narrations in between songs, addressing the overarching theme of the record, which is, of course, self-acceptance. Hence, such isms as, “I think that through my life I’ve always been hyperconscious and aware of not going into spaces and seeking too much attention. Um, because part of survival is, like, being able to just fit in. To be seen as normal and to, like, quote-unquote belong. But I think that so often in society in order to belong means that we have to, like, shrink parts of ourselves.”
Lil Nas X, formerly Montero Lamar Hill, knows what’s that like, and perhaps still continues to “shrink himself” in certain ways he might not even be conscious of. Take, for example, the need for him to create an alter ego in the first place—initially as @NasMaraj and then as Lil Nas X. Then there’s his album cover. While most would view it as “boundary-breaking” or even “shocking,” there is a decided surfeit of control in the limits the image is willing to push. The photo, indeed, seems pulled straight from David LaChapelle’s pantheon, complete with the oiled-up, pristine nudity—conveniently leaving out any kind of money shot like the one Lorde gave us on Solar Power—of Lil Nas X in his own Garden of Eden (heavily inspired by John Stephens’ “Genesis II” painting… and a SpongeBob SquarePants meme). This is in direct contrast to the authenticity (presented through what can be called a “grittier surrealism”) on Blood Orange’s Negro Swan album cover. But then, some would say that because Hynes isn’t a “real” Black gay, he has less to lose than Lil Nas X in opting to be “less glossy” about the glamorized aesthetics of homosexuality.
Granted, it doesn’t sound so “glamorous” when the fraught relationship that many a gay man has with their mother is acknowledged on “Dead Right Now,” wherein Nas X describes, “My momma told me that she love me, don’t believe her/When she get drunk, she hit me up, man, with a fever, like, woah/You ain’t even all that pretty, you ain’t even all that, nigga/You ain’t helpin’ out with me/God won’t forgive you.” Sounds like a scene of Chiron’s crackhead mother, Paula (Naomie Harris), in Moonlight, screaming out obscenities to him that are silenced to dramatize the hate emanating toward her son when she shuns him for being a “faggot” (one of the words we can very distinctly make out during this sequence).
Frank Ocean, the other aforementioned bastion of gay Black maleness in the hip hop and rap music industry, was, tellingly, assessed as follows in an article from The Guardian in 2012: “Perhaps this is R&B’s Ziggy Stardust moment, where the controversy and publicity surrounding an artist’s sexuality and the brilliance of his latest album combine to give his career unstoppable momentum.” Hynes, too, would tap into David Bowie as a frame of reference for not self-identifying, in addition to Prince, who always seemed like a raw nerve ending of sexual energy rather than having any real sexuality, per se. Of Prince, Ocean would comment, “He made me feel more comfortable with how I identify sexually simply by his display of freedom from and irreverence for obviously archaic ideas like gender conformity. He moved me to be more daring and intuitive with my own work by his demonstration—his denial of the prevailing model.” With Lil Nas X, these two phenomena of being both decisive with the label of one’s sexual orientation and having explosive sexuality overall, have collided.
On the brief interlude that is “The Art of Realization,” Lil Nas X ponders, “I been drivin’ a lot, just drivin’ in life/With no actual direction, not heading towards any specific place/It’s like for who?/Is it for me?/Am I happy?/I like that second one/I’m not sure, I’m not sure/I’m, sure.” The form of schizophrenia or multiple personalities, if you prefer, that come with being repressed for so long, yet knowing deep down who you really are is also at play in this brief discussion of his career and fame—and where it’s “going.” But, more to the point, if he’ll really want it in the long run if a monogamous relationship is what he’s truly after (patently the case on “That’s What I Want”).
The Fame Monster’s charms are lauded, however, on “Scoop.” Teaming up with Doja Cat (obviously a misogynist herself in choosing to collaborate so freely with Dr. Luke in 2021 on Planet Her) for the most annoying song of the album, it appears that Lil Nas X, on the one hand, relishes fame, while on the other, is already having his “Drowned World/Substitute For Love” moment (even this early into the game, giving Billie Eilish a run for her money on “NDA”). For on “Scoop” he might sing, “I’m just tryna be the daily scoop” (a play on being in the news and the Abdominal Scoop position in pilates), but on a song like, “Don’t Want It,” Lil Nas X grapples with what fame really means, decreeing (despite a video indicating the contrary, “Tell the devil I can’t have him inside.” Since, yes, it’s widely known that fame requires a certain Faustian pact. And definitely not anything like “being yourself.”
Another “slow yet fast” jam on the record, “Lost in the Citadel” details the pain of losing a relationship, one in which, as usual, a certain party is more into it than the other. Although the perspective is flipped in terms of Nas X being the person more interested, something about it reminds the listener of the motifs explored in Miley Cyrus’ “Angels Like You.” This includes Nas X characterizing his erstwhile object of affection as “an angel” because “I only see you in your halo.”
Miley, who collaborates with Nas X on the album’s coda, “Am I Dreaming,” admits, “I know that you’re wrong for me/Gonna wish we never met on the day I leave/I brought you down to your knees/‘Cause they say that misery loves company/It’s not your fault I ruin everything/And it’s not your fault I can’t be what you need/Baby, angels like you can’t fly down here with me.” In some sense, this song is like a precursor response to what Lil Nas X is saying to his own boo in “Lost in the Citadel,” finally realizing, “I need time to get up and get off the floor/I need time to realize that I can’t be yours/I need time to give up just like before/I love it how you know I’d only come right back for more.”
Things take another dramatic turn on “Life After Salem,” a visceral number that finds Lil Nas X bemoaning, “Why don’t you just take what you want from me?/I think you should take what you want and leave.” While the song clearly refers to what Lady Gaga would call a bad romance, it also applies to the many-layered “witch hunts” Nas X has gone through during his still-short relationship with the media, hence the song’s title alluding to surviving such witch hunts. And if he, as a gay Black man in the rap industry can, then so, too, can others like him—or who wish to pursue a similar path (what with fame—now called “virality”—being everyone’s twenty-first century #goals).
Although many can’t help but look to Lil Nas X as some kind of deity for gay Black boys everywhere who never had someone to turn to in pop culture for comfort, like Lorde on “The Path,” Lil Nas X has insisted to fans not to view him as some sort of savior, remarking, “Don’t look at me as this perfect hero who’s not going to make mistakes and should be the voice for everybody. You’re the voice for you.” This sentiment pertains easily to the motifs on a highlight of the album, “Dolla Sign Slime” featuring Megan Thee Stallion, which finds Lil Nas X imitating The Stallion’s signature of frequently mentioning her producer at the beginning and end of a song (specifically, “And if the beat live, you know Lil Ju made it”). In Lil Nas X’s case, that translates to, “D-D-Daytrip took it to ten (hey)” in reference to Take A Daytrip, the producing duo that most frequently appears on the record—responsible for every song’s sound except “That’s What I Want,” “One Of Me,” “Lost in the Citadel,” “Void” and “Life After Salem.”
As Lil Nas X has grown comfortably into his own, let’s say, “Black Swan,” he has made it clear, as many celebrities who believe their revelations are novel, that he’s now only concerned with his opinion of himself, not anyone else’s. Something in this declaration smacks of a similar epiphany Blood Orange had in 2011, when he stated, “I had all these insecurities from when I used to get bullied, and they really attacked me a few years ago, and I just totally went inwards. When I was recording music I’d record all the parts myself and I wouldn’t let other people in; that’s essentially what Blood Orange is the result of; me trying to find the most comfortable I can be with everything.” While Lil Nas X has yet to produce all of his own work like Hynes, it’s obvious that Montero is a similar product of the rapper finding the most comfortable he can be with everything. And fuck it if other people find that uncomfortable. Of course, even though Blood Orange (and Frank Ocean, as previously mentioned) already established the groundwork of what a record like Montero could (and would) be, it’s hard to deny that there’s never enough Black queer men to remind the world of their presence, no matter the art form.
