Kanye On All Things "Gay"
Never one to back away from a sound bite, Kanye West continues his flirtation with all things gay by declaring that calling something "gay" should be considered the ultimate compliment.
To which I say, um…thank you? I mean, Kanye is the arbiter of cool, at least according to him. And his new interview with Details magazine illustrates in almost awkward detail how comfortable West is embracing his inner diva: at one point he gets a wild hair that he must have flowers delivered pronto, and they must adhere to his rigid design aesthetic; we also learn of his near-obsession with getting an internship at a top design house.
But it's his musings on how "gay" can be used as an adjective that really stand out. Here's his riff on it: "Titles are very important. I like to embody titles, y'know, or words that have negative connotations, and explain why that's good. Take the word gay—like, in hip-hop, that's a negative thing, right? But in the past two, three years, all the gay people I've encountered have been, like, really, really, extremely dope. Y'know, I haven't, like, gone to a gay bar, nor do I ever plan to. But where I would talk to a gay person—the conversation would be mostly around, like, art or design—it'd be really dope. From a design standpoint, kids'll say, 'Dude, those pants are gay.' But if it's, like, good, good, good fashion-level, design-level stuff, where it's on a higher level than the average commercial design stuff, it's, like, gay people that do that. I think that should be said as a compliment. Like, 'Dude, that's so good it's almost . . . gay.'"
Ok…so much to digest here. First, why the resistance in going to a gay bar? He's made a point of saying how the rap community needs to cure itself of homophobia – cure thyself then, brotha. And he's never talked to a gay person about anything other than design or art. Really? Are we that one-dimensional?
But I get what he's getting at, and it's actually an interesting point. What if the use of the word "gay" as a Class-B epithet could be inverted to be a compliment? Who would own the word? Could only gays use it amongst themselves, or could it ever be successfully "mainstreamed"?
West goes on to provide additional examples: "'Dude, that's so good it's almost gay!' 'Dude, you pay real attention to detail—that's almost, like, gay!' 'You had a whole conversation with that girl without bringing up sex? That was, like, gay!'"
Even as the examples devolve into jokes, one thing is clear about West: he doesn't say anything he doesn't mean, and while I think we can all agree that we are light years away from hearing "you're so gay" as a compliment (thanks for nothing, Katy Perry), you gotta love the guy for taking on topics and expressing points-of-view that are still largely considered taboo in rap circles. Kanye keeps things interesting for sure, and if he thinks that "that's so gay" should be a catchphrase for all that is cool and sophisticated, far be it from me to stop him.
(Image courtesy of Getty)
