Gist of the article:
And yet, Public Enemy and NWA were never known for homophobia as much as lambasting everyone: the police, Koreans, women, other black people, other black people's mothers, all figures of authority, Jews, gays, absolutely everyone. The ideal of verbal battle was crucial to early hip-hop - everything that could ever in one's wildest dreams function as an insult was pressed into use.
Ultimately, it was not black rappers but white ones who corrupted this form; being too yellow (white?) to hurl racial slurs, groups such as the Beastie Boys and, latterly, Eminem, concentrated their abuse solely on women and gays, made it more violent and, crucially, more pointed, since it was no longer part of a scattergun attack. The Beastie Boys have recently apologised for their homophobia (the working title for their debut album, they said at the time, was Don't Be a Faggot). Adam Horovitz wrote at the end of last year: "I would like to... formally apologise to the entire gay and lesbian community for the shitty and ignorant things we said on our first record." Note, he does not apologise to any other minority, since there was no racial content, and misogyny (still!) doesn't count.
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