Long before Lil Nas X, LGBTQ+ artists made hip-hop music—they just weren't donning hot pink Versace cowboy outfits and rapping about riding down an "Old Town Road'' on primetime television. Dr. Lauron Kehrer, assistant professor of ethnomusicology and musicology, explores the impact queer and transgender emcees and artists have had in their debut book, "Queer Voices in Hip Hop: Cultures, Communities and Contemporary Performance."
Dr. Lauron Kehrer
"We're having this mainstream conversation about queer rappers as if they've appeared out of nowhere and they couldn't exist before," says Kehrer, acknowledging the swift trajectory of LGBTQ+ culture being accepted widely in America.
"Like so much queer history, it's been largely under-discussed, so it's important to shed light on that so we can better understand our present moment and what's happening in the genre."
The culmination of more than 10 years of work, the book delves into the roots of hip-hop, wading through long-held stereotypes of misogyny and homophobia to expose a richer lineage of queer Black and Latinx music-making practices and spaces as well as reclaim the work as essential to hip-hop history. Ballroom culture, in particular, has inspired pop culture from voguing dance trends to Beyoncé's music to "RuPaul's Drag Race."
"They're not newly emerging phenomenons. They have a longer history, and they can be connected to Black queer musical practices in American history," Kehrer says.
While a milestone in its own right, the publishing of "Queer Voices in Hip Hop" represents much more to Kehrer, a first-generation college student.
"To finish a Ph.D. and land a tenure-track job and write a whole book feels like a culmination, in some ways, of a lot of things I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to do. So I'm very excited about it."
Kehrer's book, which was published by University of Michigan Press, was released Nov. 2 and is available for purchase online. A free, open-access online version was also made available thanks to funding from the Society of American Music and American Musicological Society.