BY: JONATHAN MOSS
What happens when a group of die-hard hip-hop fans are tricked into being in a gay rapper’s music video?
Comedian Ben Bizuneh and F-Comedy recently created a social experiment to test the fallacy that black men are more homophobic than other people by creating a fake rapper persona named Boss Quoss and hiring unaware extras to participate in the music video for his debut single “Stroking.”
Throughout the video the scenario gets progressively more homoerotic as the director asks each extra to take off his shirt and perform a dance move that strangely resembles the act of male masturbation.
When Boss Quoss finally reveals he is gay by sporadically making out with one of the extras, who is secretly in on the prank, the reactions are wild. Many react with a hint of disgust, either storming off set or feeling the need to defend their heterosexuality. One of the extras even attempts to justify their desertion of the film set by saying, “We’re heterosexual men who love women. It’s as simple as that.”
Only two men choose to stay on set and offer supportive words to the queer rapper– their openness and humility should be applauded. They recognize that anyone can be gay, even a badass rapper.
Though no sweeping conclusions can be made from this social experiment, and it is not intended to scapegoat black males in the conversation about queer hip hop, it raises some interesting questions like: How do we view masculinity? And is the hip-hop industry truly ready for a gay rapper?
