In a watershed year for same-sex marriage and celebrities casually coming out as gay — see, most recently, CNN icon Anderson Cooper — up-and-coming R&B singer Frank Ocean's public stepping out of the closet is still big news. Ocean, who sings with the hip-hop collective Odd Future and is featured on the Jay-Z and Kanye West album Watch the Throne, came out indirectly by posting the story of his first love, a man, on his Tumblr page. Yes, Anderson Cooper is a household name, says Nekesa Mumbi Mood of The Associated Press, but because Ocean is a black denizen of the lyrically homophobic rap/hip-hop world, his coming-out "could end up being the more significant announcement." Well, is it?
Yes, Ocean trumps Anderson: Never mind about Cooper, "this is a bigger deal," says Sharon Pian Chan at The Seattle Times. The black community has an "uncomfortable relationship... with open homosexuality," politically and culturally, and that's even more true in rap, where gay epithets mingle comfortably with "odes to the African American musician as a hyper-sexualized womanizer." Now, with a respected black singer coming out, it will be "just a little easier for a younger generation African Americans to live openly gay."
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