Weblog: Book Talk: Steven G. Fullwood - On Working Toward A Revolution

You there? I am. This article originally appeared in Vibe.com Magazine, 2004.

Read the VIBE.com conversation with the author about gays and hip-hop and his new book.

How does Black LGBT/SGL culture relate to hip-hop?

Well, consider the literature.

Black LGBT/SGL literature is underground hip-hop. We are telling our truths and we have an audience. We are not anomalies. We have been writing for over a century and the mainstream is beginning to notice. We are more than E. Lynn Harris. We are women and men who are on a mission to see our lives, triumphs and defeats, reflected in art and ourselves. We are not afraid. We will ultimately succeed.

Why is homophobia so rampant in hip-hop culture?

Hip-hop is no different from the cultures it mixes and distills. Frankly the rabid fraternity amongst black men reeks of homoeroticism. It’s something to consider when black men prefer the company of their “boys,” to women. Very homo-social, at the least.

Hip-hop wants to act as if there are no gays and lesbian heads. Wrong. A substantial part of the hip hop generation is non-heterosexual. Over the years there has been a rise in the number of gay hip hop artists and gay hip-hop festivals in the last five years. These artists, writers essentially, have chosen to express themselves in music, and the concurrent literary movement inspires many of these sisters and brothers. I have chosen to express myself as a writer solely. Hip-hop, in its most provocative form, has been about resistance. Been about being cutting edge. Frankly you can’t get more cutting edge that being black and non-heterosexual. Hip-hop’s misogyny and hyper-masculinity has defined it since its inception. Simply by being out challenges those paradigms, and invites a reexamination of what is male and female to the whole community.

Hip-hop has always laid claim to the notion that it was keeping things real. Well you can’t get any realer than what I’m about, which is redefining community by interjecting some much needed commentary about the sexual life of the black community as we know it. Many black heterosexual folk would rather be seen as the model for life as opposed to being in the continuum. Well, they ain’t and they will never be.

Where can one find out more about the culture of black gays and lesbians?

I created the Black Gay and Lesbian Archive for two main reasons. First, to aid in the preservation of cultural materials produced by and about people of African descent who experience same sex desire: lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, same-gender-loving, queer, questioning and in-the-life people. Second, to help reshape history by making these materials available to the public. We folk are going to place our stories up against everything that’s been said about us. We are going to be heard. We are going to create our histories.

Where is this Archive?

The BGLA will be housed at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, and will be open to the public December 2004.

How does your new book Funny relate to hip hop culture?

I’m a hip-hop writer in the sense that I am mixing styles, different types of humor, and ideas about being black and homo, and pulling inspiration from my literary forbearers like James Baldwin, Audre Lorde and Essex Hemphill, incredible trailblazers who everyone should read. Funny represents for brothers and sisters who normally only get talked about as problems in the mainstream and black media, particularly in light of the “down-low” shit. As a writer, I have been freelancing for years and recently published Funny, a book of humorous essays on being black, male and a “manhandler.” Unlike a lot of books by blacks about sex, Funny is not fiction, it’s real: it’s about my life.

How does HIV risk relate to the work you do, and its effects on the hip-hop generation?

I was one of the co-editors (along with Colin Robinson of the New York State Black Gay Network) of Think Again, a collection of narratives by black men who write about HIV risk. The realness of Think Again is that its contributors are fiercely unapologetic about being black, male and intimately and sexually involved with other men. They are not in the closet or on the down low. Hip hop, like the rest of the world, is fascinated with this “down-low” idea, and really, all it points to is being anti-black, and how black male bodies somehow connotes “criminal.” There is no “down-low,” and too many parasites, I mean, writers, have made $$$ off this malformed idea about black men infecting black women. If readers want to get true stories from real people, Think Again is the real deal. The contributors to the book are amazing, every day people, activists, artists, activists, thinkers, and writers who care about black people and are not out trying to make money off people’s fears.