Kanye Takes it Outside

I'm doing a lot of cross-blogging these days between my culture blog Fone Culture and here. I guess I'm having trouble distinguishing between the personal and the cultural right now.

I am standing in a flood of thought and inspiration these days. My mind is fixed on the idea of outsideness, of any instance of someone stepping outside of their programming. There is no finer example of this than Kanye West's challenging the black community on its homophobia-as-a-rule. It's not uncommon for a celebrity to be an activist for the causes they believe in, but the stances they take, no matter how progressive, are usually safe positions to have within the like-minded embrace of their peers. I guarantee you no such protection exists for Kanye in the hip hop circles he runs in.

For years people have been pointing out the sad irony of the black community hating on homosexuals after themselves being the victim of so much prejudiced cruelty. It's not a new idea. But it's still exhilarating to see Kanye touch on that in this guest appearance on Big Boy's Neighborhood. If he said this on a show like Fresh Air, he'd be preaching to the choir but on an urban music program like Big Boy's, he's really challenging beliefs.



Kanye visits Big Boy's Neighborhood (Talks about Chris Brown, Rihanna, and Gay rumors) from qdeezy on Vimeo.