props to sizzle. that post about cam and the dips has just made me laugh a lot and is so completely spot-on, too. i've said repeatedly that camron is the gayest rapper ever, especially after being told that there's a scene in one of his movies (state property, i think) where he takes a piss on some dude and says "no homo" when he's done - just in case you though that scene was a bit watersporty or that he was enjoying it.
the whole "no homo" thing is a compelete get-out clause which enables them to be completely faggy in their behavior, dress etc, which is actually worth looking into.
i'm not convinced that he is actually a practising homo (it's possible, though), but this blurring of machismo and camp is happening a lot in hip-hop and in dancehall, too. pink is a hugely popular colour with kingston gangstas, dudes are wearing their chicks' spandex pants and halter tops to dances etc.
t's so big that bounty killer actually calling for men to stop wearing pink at sting and ce'cile has made records about guys wearing girls' clothing. i
these are emphatically not gay men and that's the interesting thing about it. it's like a mocking/defeminising/defagging of these gender/sexual signifiers - as if to say "we are so fucking hard that we can do this and no one will dare say a word".
i think caroline cooper has written something about all this, but i haven't read it yet. i'll have to ask my friend erin about it, because she knows about this sort of stuff.
(side note, as i'm totally hooked on the wire at the moment, what do people reckon about the effect omar's character might have had on the way the hip-hop community's views homosexuality? he's the best character in the whole thing, totally gangsta, tough as fuck and completely gay. hip-hop is more or less obsessed with this show, so i could see him having quite a positive effect, too).
