“It’s hard to be out in genres where being gay, or expressing your sexuality, is frowned upon,” added platinum rapper and singer iLoveMakonnen, born Makonnen Sheran, who rose to fame as a protégé of Drake and came out as gay in 2017. “Lil Nas X re-imagined an image of the Wrangler-wearing, horseback-riding man’s man into a young black representative of youth culture, got the attention of two traditionally macho cultures and then came out on the last day of Pride,” said Roy Kinsey, a Chicago-based librarian and rapper at the forefront of Chicago’s queer rap scene.
