And for Santana, that manifests as being treated like a joke or a trend, being told to switch up the things that make him unique - or stay backstage as hired help. For queer artists, there's another rule at play: keeping gayness at a distance by staying in your lane. The common ground that women and queer rappers share is that both are getting bigger looks than ever due to the power of virality, yet both have virality used against them like they're only good enough for 15 minutes of fame. But where Black women have been allowed to exist only in very specific spaces, in very specific ways, openly gay, openly femme Black men like Santana haven't been to exist in hip-hop at all. This double standard Santana faces rings similar to what Black women in rap also deal with. After picking up rapping on the fly in 2019, and releasing his debut single, "Walk 'Em Like a Dog," the glam City Girls associate was spreading across TikTok by 2021 with songs like "Walk," "Here We Go" and "Material Girl." While hip-hop could see the value in cashing in on Santana's social capital, there was clear hostility to his unabashedly feminine presentation.
Old-school queerphobia still reigns in rap - from Isaiah Rashad being outed via leaked sex tape in 2022 to DaBaby's homophobic rant at Rolling Loud Festival in 2021 - but that hasn't prevented more queer rappers from taking up space and making noise, even despite a lack of infrastructural support. But if breaking through old barriers means going into overdrive, how far can you really go without a roadmap?
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The Florida-hailing makeup-artist-turned-rapper has been a prominent presence in recent years, thanks to a series of breakout viral bops online that smash through conventional rap expectations. Saucy Santana is a big part of that wave. and Lil Nas X have emerged, breaking down the homophobic barriers that used to keep them from taking center stage. But in the wake of acts like iLoveMakonnen facing backlash, stars like Kevin Abstract, Young M.A. There's a long lineage of hip-hop artists being punished within the culture for coming out.
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