As a man, why are you free?
On Black masculinity & defining manhood for yourself
Tyler, The Creator on HOT 97
Tyler, The Creator stared with his lips slightly open. His bottom teeth are showing, as well as a glimpse of his grill up top peeking through. Tyler’s eyes are fixed on HOT 97 DJ Funkmaster Flex, who is beside himself. “What made you go with that verse?” Flex stammered in bewilderment.
For those familiar with this video, you know Tyler had just freestyle rapped about him and Flex, who is often perceived as representing the New York alpha-male archetype, searching for muscular men to have sex with.
Hardly phased by Flex’s reaction, Tyler continues rapping. “It’s a masterful performance of staring into the heteronormative abyss and not flinching,” said New York Times writer Jon Caramanica about the exchange.
As a fan of Tyler’s music, I’ve witnessed how different eras of his career have represented the fragility of Black masculinity often expressed in hip-hop. He has also exhibited the fluidity of masculine identity. Tyler displayed both even just within the HOT 97 interview, playfully flirting with Flex throughout the conversation and repeating homophobic phrases like “pause” and “no homo.”
Tyler’s use of anti-gay slurs in his earlier music has become more complicated in recent years as he has referenced same-sex attraction and concealing his sexuality in songs like “Garden Shed” (“Garden shed for the garçons / Them feelings that I was guardin’”) and “SORRY NOT SORRY” (“Sorry to the guys I had to hide”).
Interestingly enough, in promoting his 2017 album Flower Boy, Tyler published a video of him talking about the project with comedian Jerrod Carmichael, who publicly came out as gay during his 2022 HBO standup special Rothaniel.
The term “flower boy” is a label coined in South Korea to describe men who appear more feminine. It is viewed as the opposite of hyper-masculinity, which Bryant Keith Alexander described as “strong, assertive, hyperaggressive, hyperheterosexual.”
To be a flower boy, otherwise known as being “sassy” or “zesty," is to embody characteristics related to women or queerness—which is to say, anything that evokes weakness. As a straight man, I've seen up close how the conditions of what is considered feminine are constantly expanded within patriarchal culture.
To use two videos I’ve seen online recently, both creators list things they’ve been told are “gay” or aren’t allowed to do as a man. These things include but are not limited to getting a thigh tattoo, eating bananas or popsicles, sitting in their car as the gas pump runs, and having an Instagram or TikTok account.
While many of these restrictions are invoked jokingly, I’ve been a perpetrator and victim of how closely people monitor the performance of masculinity. There can be real-life consequences for men whose expressions of maleness don’t pass the observer’s test. Sometimes, this can result in physical violence or even death, especially for gay men.
In Passing, Cultural Performance, and Individual Agency: Performative Reflections on Black Masculine Identity, Bryant Keith Alexander wrote, “Because of the security, power, and attention that come from embodying phallocentric Black masculinity, there is strong resistance by those who have adopted this form to alternative models.”
Brian Broome described his experience as a Black gay man in Punch Me Up to the Gods, stating, “Any Black boy who did not signify how manly he was at all times deserved to be punched back up to God to be remade, reshaped.”
For those committed to perpetuating and sustaining patriarchal culture, femininity is seen as a crime worth punishing or at least questioning.
Jak Knight (source: Netflix)
In one of my favorite standup segments, Jak Knight, the Bust Down comedian who died by suicide last year at the age of 28, joked about older Black men’s disdain for young Black men they consider “weird.” He told a story about a man in his life who badgered him with questions for wearing pink socks, “Why are all y’all gay?”
Knight went on to blame the U.S. government, citing the weaponization of tactics such as mass incarceration and the Reagans’ War on Drugs in creating what he calls a “generation of sassy ass n—as.” From his own experience, Knight believed Black boys being primarily raised by women caused them to adopt more feminine behaviors and interests as they grew older.
These characteristics are typically learned without even realizing it. Therefore, boys with a more feminine demeanor are caught off guard when discovering they’re “wrong” for how they appear or act. In Black communities, it’s not just that they’re “flawed,” but their membership within these communities is put at risk.
“Growing up, it didn’t take me long to learn that my gayness detracted from my Blackness,” wrote Broome. Cornel West expanded on this idea regarding Black gay men: “In their effort to be themselves, they are told they are not really ‘black men,’ not machismo-identified.”
In other words, these men don’t pass the test of patriarchal standards upheld by Black communities. They break the first rule because they are not heterosexual. However, these hyper-masculine standards are immensely restrictive for both gay and straight Black men. They require us all to reject all that we could be.
As bell hooks wrote in The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love, “No male successfully measures up to patriarchal standards without engaging in an ongoing practice of self-betrayal.”
We don’t just deserve more; we are more. We hurt. We love. We cry. We dance. We are more wide-ranging than the restrictions we’ve been handed.
I have homies who get their nails painted, wear bell bottoms, and regularly buy flowers for themselves. I watch basketball when I get off work, but I'm equally excited to catch up on Real Housewives. Growing up around my mom and grandma, I picked up mannerisms and speech patterns that don’t make me less of a man; they expand upon what manhood can be.
As society heaps violence on Black gay men, sassy ass n—as, brothers with “sugar in the tank,” and dudes who are “ran through,” all of us across the spectrum of gender and sexuality owe it to each other to abolish patriarchal culture in its entirety and build a world in which we’re all loved, protected, and cared for.
In fighting patriarchy, we’re invited to ask ourselves the question, as Broome did, “Who would I be if I unlearned all the things I’ve learned without my permission?” By the end of my journey, I hope to respond with Alexander’s words: “I have come to a place where I define what a man is for myself.”
Tyler, The Creator as Igor (source: NME)
Tyler, The Creator followed up Flower Boy—an album where he’s arguably the most himself he’s ever been—by returning to form and adopting an alter ego. While Tyler kept his look mostly intact with other album characters, he introduced his follow-up record, IGOR, with a makeover. He wore a blonde bob wig, sunglasses, and different pastel-colored suits.
Although this costume concealed his appearance for the most part, Tyler seemed to use the Igor character to more fully excavate his pain and desires. The look itself plays with both femininity and masculinity. At a time when fans sought clarity about Tyler’s sexuality following his references to same-sex attraction on Flower Boy, Tyler chose fluidity for IGOR.
Tyler refused to be confined to a box of what maleness or sexuality must look like. This keeps him from passing the test of hyper-masculinity and even queerness. It also invites us to consider whether we need the tests at all.
Tyler, The Creator in his “SORRY NOT SORRY” music video
“The landscape of my body, like that of my mind, is not dictated by my race or my sexual identity,” wrote Alexander, “nor does a social script that may delimit my expressive possibilities (as a Black man) also dictate the specific landscape of my body.” In other words, we are more than the scripts we’re taught.
It’s impossible to check every box on the criteria of patriarchal standards. As Broome reminds us, “The masculine requirements of the body are as endless as they are restrictive.”
In our fight for liberation, may we reject the patriarchal script when and where we can in hopes that we might live more wholeheartedly. We owe it to ourselves and our people.
This year will bring its own harms. But I choose to fix my sassy ass ahead and not flinch. To stare into the heteronormative abyss and find freedom. Because why are you, as a man, looking away? It’s giving baddie.
Plus, I’m not done rapping. There’s way more to see here.
