Def-Jam founder and fashion mogul Russell Simmons sounds off to the Dallas Voice‘s Daniel Kusner about rumors that gay rapper Caushun, who last month was exposed as a fraud, is trying to expose Simmons as gay and that there is a Blackberry out there being held for ransom that contains “steamy messages” between Simmons and another man.
Says Simmons: “Which came first? Me losing my Blackberry after being single for a year-and-a-half or Caushun trying to expose me for being gay? Don't drag me into an interview that's lower than my person — a catty-ass he-said, she-said … I believe gay people deserve dignity. Caushun doesn't mean nothing to me. He's not worth it. Essentially he wants to make himself famous. I thought he was a good rapper. Listen, I'm not gay. If I was, I would have the gift of another burden, and I would probably be instantly out. I fight for gay rights all the time. How about that?”
Simmons also talks about homophobia in hip-hop:
“Hip-hop is not music's most homophobic genre. It's music's most honest genre. I know that 50 Cent is perceived as a homophobe. But if you asked him about gay marriage, I'd bet you 10-to-1, he'd approve. And if you asked Ludacris, he'd say the same thing. Rap is an expression of what we see. These artists are simply expressing the homophobia that's in our society. Are rappers as violent as our government? No. Are the gangster rappers as gangster as our government? Hell no.”
Simmons also says that when rappers say “faggot” they're not always referring to a gay person: “I'm not excusing them. But ‘nigger' doesn't always mean an uneducated, low-class, less-than-human person. I hear it in context. Unfortunately, however, there are not enough songs about the struggles of gay people.”
Gay rapping with Russell Simmons [dallas voice]
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