Frank Fleming of Harlem, left, and his friend Brian,
of Jersey City, flock to hip hop parties at Stonewall in the West Village and
other gay clubs around the city.
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By MIKE LAVERS
Friday, December 10, 2004
On any given Monday at Stonewall in the West Village, clubgoers move to the latest
r&b and hip-hop beats. These range from Long Island-born songstress Ashanti’s
latest ballad to gangsta rhymes from hip-hop emcees 50 Cent and Biz Markie.
The attire of choice is not standard Chelsea-Village muscle tees, tight blue
jeans and designer duds. Here the dress code runs to baggy and saggy jeans (worn
down on the hip, thank you), do-rags and Timberlands.
This party, dubbed Da Flow, is one of several hip-hop parties that have become
popular in more and more gay clubs in New York City. Local gay hip-hop aficionados,
such as Anna Rodriguez of Flatbush, look at these parties as simply an extension
of their ‘hoods.
On a recent Monday night, Rodriguez, 19, along with a small group of friends
and acquaintances, listened to the latest hip-hop tracks while sitting in the
corner of Stonewall’s first floor lounge. Rodriguez, a lesbian, felt right
at home in this landmark gay bar. “I live in Flatbush and hip-hop is always
on,” she said. “I’ve always liked it and they are playing
the same thing you hear on your block. It’s real good.”
Nash, a bartender at Stonewall who has also worked at Langston’s Bar
and Lounge in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, agreed. He contends hip-hop parties at
Stonewall and other local clubs are popular because people want to listen to
music that is familiar to them. For many of these club goers, hip-hop is the
only music they know.
“Most people in here grew up with it,” Nash said. “It’s
the music they dance to. And it is what they want to hear in the club.”
For some regulars of the gay hip-hop party circuit, the music is only part
of the appeal. At the Warehouse in the South Bronx, many patrons are known as
“homo thugz.” A homo thug is a clubgoer who wears a harder, more
gangsta-identified version of standard urban streetwear — at least according
to a February 2000 article in the Village Voice.
The Warehouse, whose Saturday night hip hop party has developed into one of
the city’s largest, has historically proven a popular watering hole for
many of the scene’s “homo thugz.” The Warehouse management
would not allow a reporter inside during a recent Saturday night party. The
promoters were apparently media-shy after a recent report on WWOR-TV about black
men on the down low.
Yet Xavier Ford, youth coordinator for Gay Men of African Descent, maintained
that “homo thugz” help constitute the matrix of the gay hip-hop
party circuit. He described this phenomenon as nothing more than a “masquerade
ball. It definitely describes how you look as opposed to what you are,”
Ford said. “If you look the part, you are classified as a homo thug.”
James Earl Hardy, a cultural critic and author of the “B-Boy Series,”
a series of books that explores the relationship between a Brooklyn journalist
and a man from Harlem, said the presence of so-called homo thugs at the Warehouse
is not a new phenomenon. Unlike Ford, who said most of these men only dress
the part of thug, Hardy contends that a majority of these men actually live
the part.
“It’s the ‘drag’ they dress up in on a Friday or Saturday
night — the perfect disguise to give off the illusion of heterosexuality,”
Hardy added. “So they are ‘unclockable,’” meaning unable
to be targeted by gay bashers.
This issue of gay men of color trying to pass as heterosexual, along with the
potentially explosive issue of gay men of color on the “down low,”
was the subject of that WWOR news feature last month. Producers with the UPN
affiliate went undercover to the Warehouse and several other local gay bars
and clubs with hidden cameras.
According to Ford, the story has already become notorious in black gay circles.
Furthermore, the fallout has impacted on self-described “homo thugz”
and other gay men of color who would have sought refuge at clubs such as the
Warehouse. They have stopped going because they are afraid of being publicly
outed, Ford said.
“Because of the UPN-9 story, someone who would go to the Warehouse and
dress up as a homo thug doesn’t go there,” he argued. “Those
looking for an escape from the everyday started saying that they were not going
to go there.”
Gay men of color on the D.L. is not the only hot-button concern on the gay
hip-hop party circuit. Some, such as James Saunders, president of U-Men Entertainment
Network and a long-time gay club promoter, said that overtly homophobic rap
lyrics have had a negative impact among those who frequent the party scene.
Saunders contends that far too many people in this scene are all too willing
to turn a blind eye to these lyrics.
A number of popular rappers — DMX, 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg and Eminem —
have routinely used “faggot” and other homophobic idioms in their
raps, although some (such as Eminem) contend that the word is used ironically
or to put down homophobes.
Rodriguez, while acknowledging that these words could have a negative impact,
contends that rappers use words such as “faggot” to denote a weak
person. Rodriguez also downplayed any notion that these rappers are homophobic.
Homophobic rap lyrics aside, Stonewall is one of a number of gay clubs in New
York that has seen its weekly hip-hop parties increase in popularity.
Clubs such as Octagon on West 33rd Street, Crash on West 22nd Street in Chelsea
and La Escuelita on West 39th Street in Hells’ Kitchen have thrown hip-hop
parties for several years. Uptown clubs such as Umbrella in Washington Heights
have also begun to throw hip-hop parties.
On the third Tuesday of the month, Umbrella throws Esándolo, “scandalous”
in Spanish, that combines merengue with salsa and hip-hop. Alberto Fermin, the
party’s promoter, said partygoers specifically request hip-hop, however.
Fermin admits he didn’t expect that. Now, he realizes that it is the
main attraction.
Daniel Nardicio, the well-known promoter of several parties on the Lower East
Side, agreed. “It’s made a huge influx in the last couple of years,”
he says. “More DJs have played it and it has become more mainstream.”
According to long-time club promoter Fred Pierce, the majority of people who
frequent these parties are under the age of 30. Pierce said younger people are
more attracted to and in touch with hip-hop. “It’s the new kids
coming out,” he said. “Hip-hop has been a part of their lives. And
it is what they came up with.”
Local DJ Girlina is a regular at a number of clubs in the Village and in Chelsea
such as the Darklight, which hosts a hip-hop party every Sunday night. She said
more people request hip-hop songs at the clubs as they become an increasingly
visible part of mainstream music.
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