Mykki Blanco, “Kingpinning”
Lord knows we love Frank Ocean, but while he’s busy fighting with Chris Brown over parking spaces, Blanco is putting out blistering tracks like “Kingpinning.” The title may sound like some weird sex act that Dan Savage named—and lets face it, all the gimp masks in the video don’t do much to discourage that—but the song itself is all Blanco. He takes this whole creepy queen, spooky witch-hop thing that seems to be happening at the moment (see artists like Zebra Katz) and laces it with a playfully cunty attitude and pansexual perspective.
Le1f, “Coins”
This snarling single comes courtesy of the openly gay rapper’s new mixtape, Fly Zone. The track is straight up gangster, with none of queer hip-hop’s usual colorful camp trappings. Don’t get us wrong; we love the kind of flamboyant party rap tracks that artists like Cazwell specialize in, but it’s nice to see an out artist stepping out of the gay-club ghetto. It’s just one more indication that this sub-genre has really come into its own in the past year.
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