Tag Archives: Young M.A

Get Hooked on Niña Dioz, Mexico’s First Out Rapper

From MicahTron to Dio Ganhdih, the queer hip-hop scene has recently exploded.

The newest arrival is the spitfire Niña Dioz, a rapper who hails from Monterey, Mexico. She just moved to the US and released a hit music video for her song Dale.

However, although she now lives in LA, her heart belongs to Mexico. She holds the notable, and perhaps dangerous, honor of being Mexico’s first openly lesbian rapper.

When she was a child, her inspiration came from many different sources. She sat in front of MTV for hours at a time, watching everything from Beasty Boys to Missy Elliot to the Fugees to TLC.

She said in a recent interview, “It really blew my mind!” One of the most awe-inspiring experiences was when her friend brought a Dr. Dre album back from the US in 2001. When she wasn’t marveling at the marijuana leave on the cover, which she called “artwork,” she was listening to Metallica, Madonna, Cypress Hill and Nirvana.

When she entered the rap scene on her own terms, she didn’t face much blowback or bullying for being a woman, but her sexuality made men uneasy. Men felt territorial about a queer person encroaching on their heterosexual machismo culture. That’s why Dioz is Mexico’s first rapper, male or female, to be openly gay.

Since coming out, Dioz feels more open about herself and more determined to create safe spaces for people like her. “Where I’m from,” she says, “women are getting killed just because they’re women. It’s necessary to keep fighting for equality, and I can use my music as a tool.”

She has some advice for young women hoping to follow in her footsteps. This could apply to any queer woman trying to break into the arts:

  • Do the music (or art) that is real to you.
  • Be unafraid of being different.
  • Don’t worry about what other people say.
  • Dream big and remember that everything is possible.
  • If you love it enough, it will become a necessity.

While she’s in the US, Dioz will be touring, so catch her at a concert hall near you. Get connected with her music here.

Queer Rapper Resse P Makes Emotional Club Songs

Queer female rappers are finally getting their due.

From Young M.A to MicahTron, lesbian rappers are taking center-stage and bringing down the house with their heavy club bangers about dancing, drinking and enjoying their youth. Each rapper looks a little different. Silvana wears her hair long and straight, while Young M.A twists thick black braids and MicahTron favors a bouncy fro. One thing is undeniable, though – they all have swagger.

Resse P is no different. Her waist-length dreads and permanent pout give her an air of aggressive confidence that no other rapper can touch. She wears enormous, nerdy glasses as well as a thick gold chain. You could say that she is a hipster poet who conquers club beats.

Resse P hails from Chicago, home of powerhouses like Kanye West and Chance the Rapper, and proudly represents her city. One of her premiere singles is even called “Chicago.”

She’s released a few loosies via Bandcamp, but her first major single, #MOOD, comes from her upcoming EP, OneVerse. #MOOD epitomizes what Resse P does best: mixing vulnerability and toughness. Right next to rhyming about how difficult life can be but how she’s the greatest, she opens about about love and heartbreak.

#MOOD is a jazzy hip-hop beat that alternates between hard rhymes bragging about how girls send her scandalous selfies and laid-back reflections about her emotions. “I’m in my hashtag mood,” she croons.

Curve says,

With her compelling energy and ability to draw listeners in with her words and her unique delivery, she sets the tone for every song. The effect is lyrical, yet upbeat.”

How does Resse P describe herself? She says she lives a “humbly luxurious life.” She prides herself on “blending a variety of sounds” but is also excited to be an “80s baby all day!” Music, traveling, reading, meditation, and everything healing and organic are important to her.

Check out her official page.

Does Queer Rap Actually Exist?

Queer rap is amazing. From Young M.A to MicahTron to HYM to Dio Ganhdih, the genre is bursting with incredible young lesbian rappers. In the past five years, the queer rap genre has exploded.

So what’s the problem?

“Queer rap” doesn’t exist.

Queer rap isn’t a genre. “Rap” is a genre, “hip-hop” is a genre, “R&B” is a genre, but according to Pitchfork, “queer rap” is a label that homogenizes, stigmatizes and marginalizes rappers who happen to be LGBT.

Popular music website Pitchfork wrote about NYC’s queer rap scene a few years ago. They popularized the term “queer rap.” However, they recently retracted their own article.

The label “queer rap” turns musicians into spectacles.

Queer rappers like Dio Ganhdih and Mykki Blanco aren’t evaluated based on the quality of their work; with songs that are lyrically nuanced and sonically stimulating, their work is obviously stellar. But when people write about queer rap, they don’t write about the structure of the lyrics, the narrative thread of the album or the power of a particular instrumental riff. They write about how crazy it is that someone would rap about two girls kissing. They write about how fascinating it is that Young M.A dresses like a man or that Mykki Blanco defies gender. They turn talented musicians into queer freakshows.

“Queer rap” lumps all gay hip-hop artists into one category.

Labeling someone’s art as “queer rap” invites people to lump together two artists creating completely different types of work just because both artists happen to by LGBT. “Queer rappers” Le1f and Mykki Blanco complain that this happens to them quite frequently. I mean, would you assume that Virginia Woolf and James Baldwin were similar just because they both happened to be queer?

“Queer rap” says that sexuality is the most important thing about a musician.

Labeling someone’s work as “queer rap” also broadcast’s the rapper’s sexuality to world, turning off potential listeners before they even play the song. If someone is straight, he or she will probably not give queer rap a chance. This destroys chances for thousands of artists.

Case in point, the biggest queer rapper of our time is Frank Ocean. But he achieved fame because he stayed in the closet until after his first album became a hit. If his music had been labeled “queer rap” from the beginning, few people would have given him a chance.

So what’s the solution? Should we hide that a rapper is queer? Of course not.

But should we lump all rappers together under the “queer rap” umbrella? No. Let’s learn to evaluate them based on their musical merits first.

Young M.A. Opens Up About Her Sexuality: ‘I Need to Just Be Myself’

Brooklyn rapper Young M.A burst onto the music scene last summer with her catchy track, “Ooouuu,” a song that scored remixes from everyone from Nicki Minaj to Remy Ma.

However, beyond her music, Young M.A was also making waves in the industry by succeeding as an openly lesbian rapper in the male-dominated world of hip hop.

In an interview with The Fader, Young M.A revealed that growing up in New York helped her come to terms with her sexuality.

Life is too short. I need to just be myself, express myself.

In New York City, it’s popular. I used to think to myself, Man, there’s a lot of gay people out here. And it had me comfortable, it was like, I can be myself! I used to still try to hide it, until it was really overwhelming — there were just too much girls attracted to me!”

She also shared that she hopes that while she’s comfortable being open about her sexuality, she doesn’t want it to pigeonhole her as an artist, preferring instead that people focus on her music and how it makes them feel.

I hear from all different people, not just people like me, or lesbians. It be straight people, it be grown men, it be grown women, people that have been sick or depressed that say, ‘Oh, you made me want to go do what I want to do for myself and chase my dreams.’ That’s my purpose.

… If I change people’s lives, that’s all that matters to me,” she says. “I don’t want to be the first ‘dyke rapper,’ ‘aggressive rapper,’ you know what I mean? I don’t care for that.”

Lesbian Rapper MicahTron Makes Sex-Positive Rap You Can Dance To

Rap is no longer a boy’s game. Queer newcomers like Young M.A and Silvana Imam are flipping traditional heteronormative, misogynistic rap on its head.

MicahTron, a queer woman who makes sex-positive trap music, is joining the ranks.

MicahTron’s raps go hard. You can play her music between Tyga and Sage the Gemini without skipping a beat. In “Your B Chose Me,” she brags about stealing a man’s girlfriend over a steady eighth-note Club Clap that will have you popping. In “Hillary Clinton,” she asserts her sexuality and her power (mixed with a few puns about counting her “bills”).

Although MicahTron has yet to put out an official E.P., her extensive discography is growing by the day.

MicahTron has been making music since she was young. When Missy Elliott interrupted the rap game in the 1990s, MicahTron realized that as a masculine-of-center queer woman she could make it just as big as Missy. Later, she traveled to Berlin to study performance art, and opened for groups such as Grammy-nominated neo-soul collective The Internet.

MicahTron doesn’t shy away from discussing sex, gender and power. Her contemporary Young M.A has been criticized for being misogynistic, and some of MicahTron’s lyrics could be coded the same way. However, MicahTron never claimed to want to revolutionize rap music. Her desire has always been to carve out a space for women within existing hip-hop movements.

Should rappers such as MicahTron be more aware of the way in which their music seems to perpetuate misogyny? Yes.

However, because she is a woman, her music also serves as a reclamation of female sexuality – as a woman, she can enjoy the bodies of other women. As a woman, she can choose to offer her body for consumption by other women. She can simultaneously own women while allowing herself to be owned.

What critics call misogyny seems to be a system of consensual dom/sub encounters, the type that male rappers have endorsed for decades, consensual or not.

Check out more of MicahTron’s music. Watch her hit song “Bumper” below.

Hip-Hop’s Hottest New Artist Is A Lesbian Named Young M.A

“When you’re tired of your man, give me a call,” raps hip hop’s hottest new star, Young M.A, in her breakout hit OOOUUU.

In between shots of Hennessy, she rhymes about oral sex, throws money in the air and gobbles Chinese food.

It’s not hard to see why women, gay and straight, have found Young M.A irresistible. The young stud rapper rocks long, silky braids and spits rhymes harder than many of her male contemporaries. “Yeah, I’m pretty, but I’m loco,” she says with a cocky grin.

From the OOOUUU video alone, you can tell that she’s genuine. The video is rough and low-budget. There are no special effects. The first fifteen seconds chronicle Young M.A’s pregame with an entourage of studs, a rare occurrence in rap videos where women are always the objects, never the subjects. As soon as the video starts, it’s obvious that you’re not at some flashy party that Young M.A staged just to look rich.

No, you’re hanging out with her crew on a regular Friday night – if you’ve ever drunk too much alcohol and bragged about your romantic exploits, you’ll feel right at home in this song.

Young M.A has been rapping for years, but in recent months OOOUUU has skyrocketed off the charts, and received remixes from stars such as Nicki Minaj and 50 Cent. The single has been streamed on Spotify over 37 million times alone.

She’s the first openly lesbian rapper to cross over to mainstream music in recent years.

Angel Haze (pansexual) and Azealia Banks (bisexual) have had mild mainstream success; their respective hit singles, “Battle Cry” and “212” have had 8.6 million and 62 million Spotify streams. However, both women present as feminine. Young M.A is anything but. “Mama wondered why I never liked to wear a skirt,” she raps in “Quiet Storm.”

The OOOUUU video features her wearing a snapback, rocking sweatpants and flashing a grill. She’s not going to conform to gender roles, and she’s proud of that.

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However, in a recent interview with Pigeons and Planes, Young M.A explained that she doesn’t want to be an LGBT icon. She doesn’t see herself as a trailblazer, she just is who she is. And she dislikes labels.

Despite her reluctance to be the face of the LGBT hip-hop movement, it’s hard to deny that she’s paving the way for other queer rappers. We can only hope that Young M.A capitalizes on the success of OOOUUU in order to keep making music about the black lesbian experience.