Rap music is so gay! Terence Dean might thinks he's outed the industry with his memoir of his life as closeted hip-hop producer, but anyone with functioning eyes and ears can see and hear that hip-hop is the gayest musical form in history. It has queered up mainstream culture forever.
Consider the preening and bejewelled, six-pack sporting muscle-divas who've dominated rap music, and how each one constantly and enthusiastically exhorts other men to "suck my dick".
With his immaculately lacquered curls, sensuous drawl, mincing gait and penchant for dressing like a gangster's moll, Snoop Dogg should be the biggest gay icon ever. Gazing over the spectrum of rap music - from pouting 50 Cent's proud displays of his permanently-oiled physique through to the lavish wardrobe and back-stage diva tantrums of Kanye West - I've come to the conclusion that rappers are mere puppets in vast gay musical conspiracy, presided over by a cat-stroking Elton John from a secret mountain-top complex. The genius of the scheme lies in the twisted logic that rappers have peddled to mankind: that to prove his alpha-male heterosexuality a man must look and act as gay as possible.
The hyper-masculine persona of a rap star is a pantomime. With their snarling aggression and filthy language, they are the inversion of painted dames, performing a hysterical routine that undermines our traditional reserved model of maleness. Like Cher, Madonna and Gerri Halliwell, they are gaudy absurdities tapping the camp taste of gay men. For all its outspoken homophobia, the aesthetic of rap music is undeniably homosexual. It's no surprise that the blinged-up look of the contemporary rap star - bright colours, glittering earrings, expensive sneakers and off-the-hip underwear - revealing designer jeans - has been appropriated wholesale as a uniform by Old Compton Street fashion-addicts.
David Beckham was the bridge across which the gayness of rap music colonised the mainstream. Dispensing with the machismo, he had his hair braided, filled his earlobes with diamonds, wore his jeans slung low and sports more tattoos than any gang-member on death row. In doing so, he brought the pantomime to the high street. He is a gay icon whose appeal is built on his complete assimilation of hip-hop style, most noticeably in his adverts for Adidas in which he looks like he just missed out on becoming a member of Goldie Lookin Chain.
The gay standard set by hip-hop has become the benchmark for pop culture. Indie music is dominated by fey and emaciated, pouting and bedraggled pretty boys who've adopted what can only be described as rent-boy chic. The Strokes, the Kooks and Razorlight are all fronted by fey prima donnas who look like a sugar-daddy's dream. And the sweaty intimate on-stage rapport of the Libertines Carl Barat and Pete Doherty left more than a fruity taste in the mouth. At times it seemed as if those boys really should get a room. And further emulating the characteristics of rappers, Doherty and Razorlight's Johnny Borrell have developed their own bitchy rivalry.
Now that rap is officially gay and has achieved its mission of homosexualising modern masculinity it will hopefully drop its destructive camouflaging baggage - the misogyny, violence and, er, homophobia. Maybe young urban males will no longer wage war against each other in our inner cities but be encouraged to take loving bubble baths together and share their pain. Rather than being brainwashed into mindless violence, they should recognise instead that rappers are a gay man's best friend.
