For those not familiar with this, Seattle-based rapper Macklemore and producer Ryan Lewis have released a single called "Same Love" in which they express their support for the
LGBT rights movement. You can watch the music video
here, and so far it's garnered a lot of attention. It's come to light most recently in the UK as it's been plugged by BBC Radio 1 during their daytime shows.
For my part, I think it's a very impressive and powerful song and quite a bold statement from a genre in which
LGBT issues (and in particularly homosexuality) are rarely discussed and even more rarely discussed positively. However, while trying to find out more about who was involved in the record I've discovered that the reaction from some within the
LGBT community hasn't quite been so positive. In particular, an openly gay rapper going by the name of Le1f has been highly critical of Macklemore on Twitter. From the articles I've found it (
here and
here)sounds like there's an undercurrent of possible plagiarism to do with another single, and perhaps a touch of the green-eyed monster, but there also appears to be some resentment that a straight rapper is championing the cause and almost suggesting he has no right to do so. The tweets appear to have been deleted, but it got me thinking about how well things like this are received. As a straight man listening to the song I thought it had the potential to do a lot of good on this front, but this incident perhaps provides a different perspective on things.
So, question for the floor: leaving aside the "all publicity is good publicity" angle to people like Macklemore getting involved, where do you stand on this? Do artists who aren't themsleves part of the
LGBT community have a right to comment on such issues in their songs (and by definition make money from it)? Or does it detract from
LGBT artists in the same field?
Apologies if this has been discussed before elsewhere, but I thought it was worth asking about as Le1f's comments are fairly recent.