Wale, the D.C. rapper currently topping the charts, recently told Larry King that the rap community is ready to embrace a gay rapper into the mainstream.
“I think 2015 is another world, as compared to 1995,” he said. “It used to be taboo to be a part of the gay community, now it’s taboo to speak bad on the gay community.”
However, while Wale believes that the music community has changed, there is some evidence to show that, especially in rap and hip hop circles, mainstream just isn’t ready.
Rapper T-Pain, for example, argued last year that after Frank Ocean announced that he had been in a romantic relationship with another man, rappers were refusing to work with him.
And Snoop said back in 2013 that the world of rap was too focused on “masculine” culture to fully accept homosexuality in its ranks.
“It’s like a football team,” he said at the time. “You can’t be in a locker room full of motherf*****g tough a** dudes, then all of a sudden say, ‘Hey, man, I like you.’ You know, that’s going to be tough.”
Still, Wale is holding out hope that the world has progressed enough to move gay rappers out of the shadows and into the mainstream.
Check out the full interview here.