Minneapolis, MN – The Homorevolution Tour involves a group of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender hip-hop artists who travel the country spreading their message of equality and reality.

The Homorevolution Tour, or Homorev, as the artists involved call it, is still breaking new ground in Minnesota and all around the country. It is the first city-to-city tour of GLBT hip-hop artists. Minneapolis was the tour’s last stop, for now. The organizers, like creator Camilo Arenivar and Midwest tour manager Bigg Nugg said that they are taking this tour in spurts because the artists are essentially funding their own tour.

Homorev started in the Southwestern United States, where a majority of the original 17 performers were based. But the GLBT hip-hop movement started years before that.

Tori Fixx has been rapping for about 20 years now, he said. Living in California about a decade ago, he helped start what has evolved into an entirely new genre, and a movement for awareness, acceptance and equality.

“Hip-hop, more than any other musical genre, is blatantly misogynistic and homophobic,” Tori Fixx said.

The over-the-top posturing and straight-as-a-gun-barrel masculinity expressed through mainstream hip-hop culture alienates a lot of gay youth who otherwise enjoy the genre, the Homorev artists said. They are trying to counteract that image by saying what they are presenting is a more realistic image of hip-hop and homosexuality.

“We want people to know that what you thought was gay isn’t. There are masculine gay men on stage, like Deadlee,” Bigg Nugg explained. “Every lesbian is not the bulldog type; there are everyday women up on stage rapping.”

“The overall message is that, beyond our differences, there is still talent and beauty and a diversity of thoughts,” Tori Fixx said. “Our sexuality is just a part of who we are and where we’re coming from in our music.”

Highlighting the fact that these rappers and producers are homosexual does not change the fact that the Homorev artists are, first and foremost, hip-hop artists, Arenivar said.

“This is hip-hop,” he said. “It’s confronting social problems, fighting oppression through music, challenging mainstream ideas.”

And how much more genuinely hip-hop can you get?

Source:
The Minnesota Daily