Gutter tatted largely on my arm and it was my first tat. Remember who you played with, what kind of crowd it was? What started you It like, the first time you took the stage as Wordz the Poet Emcee, and do you The Key: So, hi! I wanted to get into your early career. It was our pleasure to sit with him and discuss his origins, the state of hip-hop, and finding space for queer people of color to feel empowered in a world that seeks to destroy them. To say that WORDZ is an artist built for our present time is an understatement. Songs like “Philly Jawn” highlight a Missy-ian knack for sing-songy wordplay and future beats, while on albums like UNAPOLOGETIC, he flexes considerable skill over drum-heavy, hypnotic thump, particularly on songs like “Do That” where he rhymes about the state of rap, and thusly the Black and queer communities and how they’re appropriated and exploited: “They want our hips, lips and asses / they takin’ classes to over the masses / they want our walk and our talk and our habits / they look and gawk and they hawk all the classics”. His music is steeped in an ever-evolving boom-bap tradition with a few experimental flourishes. From his work as an activist within the trans and queer communities, to his social media presence that seeks to highlight and illuminate those often missed, WORDZ is a rapper that puts his actions where his lyrics are - front and center: loud, joyous, and celebratory. In 2020, I’ve started so many articles about music and the arts by lamenting the state of things, with COVID, rising police brutality, and government administrations nationally and locally that don’t seem to care about the people, and that the arts community, while it’s suffering, needs voices that speak to this current moment in assured yet malleable ways WORDZ, aka Christian Lovehall, embodies that. One of Philly hip-hop’s recurring figures is trans rapper WORDZ the Poet Emcee. Kevin Abstract of the collective BROCKHAMPTON and Tyler the Creator canĮxperience a more normalized presence in rap. Because of these brave inroads, rappers like To Philly’s own Sgt Sass or New York’s Mykki Blanco and Lief and theirĮxplosion during the 00’s party rap ressurgence, to the current swath of queer Mic that highlighted global community of queer people creating rap and hip-hop, And sure, LGBT influence has alwaysīeen there– but it took efforts from documentaries like 2001’s Pick up the
Marginally, and now, with the efforts of sister movements like vogue, bounce,Īnd club scenes that rap shared auditory space with, has now fortified itselfĪs a staple, immovable part of the scene. Not to delve too into itīlindly - discussing rap’s misogyny and homophobia requires nuance, depth andĪn understanding of how marginalization works that most of the genre’s criticsĪre either unaware of or ignore. Overshadowed by an approach to gender and sexuality that is perfectly suitedįor the male gaze and decidedly less progresssive. Of innovation and stylistic newness, the long history of the genre has been Transforming the accepted vocabulary and lyricism of the music from toasting atĪ party to political and social missives, then to the current obsession withĬyber-gnosis and retro-regressive 808s, lean trap beats in the post-internetīut for a movement predicated on being constantly at the forefront Neighborhoods, to artists like Public Enemy, NWA and Native Tongues Members pulling together speaker systems for soundclashes in Bronx Pushed boundaries from the second generation Jamaican-born DJ’s and Black gang Rap and hip-hop have been revolutionary from the onset.
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