Lil Nas X came out, but has hip-hop? A macho culture faces a crossroads

Lil Nas X, at JMBLYA at Fair Park in Dallas in May, came out as gay June 30. “But I look back at this moment, I’ll see that I’m fine.” Overnight, the 20-year-old Atlanta native — born Montero Lamar Hill — became the biggest gay pop star in the world. “Lil Nas X re-imagined an image of the Wrangler-wearing, horseback-riding man’s man into a young black representative of youth culture, got the attention of two traditionally macho cultures and then came out on the last day of Pride,” said Roy Kinsey, a Chicago-based librarian and rapper at the forefront of Chicago’s queer rap scene. There was Fox’s hip-hop drama “Empire,” which made a powerful statement by making one of its leads a gay black R&B singer “Moonlight,” a coming of age tale about a gay black boy, won best picture at the Academy Awards in 2017 and for the first time queer people of color outnumbered their white counterparts on TV, according to GLAAD’s annual TV diversity report. Series such as “Queen Sugar,” “Dear White People” and “This Is Us” feature storylines abound nuanced black LGBTQ characters; meanwhile, Ryan Murphy’s “Pose,” which has exposed the world to a part of black queer culture that has inspired pop divas for decades, is up for two Emmys, including one for Billy Porter, the first openly gay black man to receive a lead actor nod.