On 1 June, BET, the US cable channel primarily aimed at Black viewers, announced nominations for this year’s edition of its long-running awards show. The 23-year-old queer Black rapper Lil Nas X received zero nominations.
Many of the rapper’s fans found the shut-out odd. He is, they pointed out, in the middle of a highly successful campaign (for the genre-spanning album Montero) that includes multiple Grammy nominations, two No 1 singles in the US, and a forthcoming world tour.
In fact, the rapper delivered a conversation-starting performance at last year’s BET awards ceremony that included pyrotechnics, an army of scantily clad men, and a tongue-heavy, same-sex kiss. To add insult to injury, BET handed out a nomination to Jack Harlow, the white rapper who achieved his own version of breakout success after featuring on Lil Nas X’s track Industry Baby.
Lil Nas X was confused, too. “Thank you BET awards. An outstanding zero nominations again. Black excellence!” he posted in a since deleted tweet. He went on to argue that the move highlighted a larger trend of exclusion and erasure of queer Black artists by Black spheres of power, tweeting: “This not over no bet award this is about the bigger problem of homophobia in the black community, y’all can sit and pretend all u want but imma risk it all for us.”
Lil Nas X then emphasized the limitations around self-expression often imposed on queer artists, especially if they want to be taken seriously within hip-hop. He argued that other Black queer rappers, such as Frank Ocean and Tyler, the Creator, were “more respected when they do less feminine things”.
From the start of his career, Lil Nas X has been well acquainted with controversy and pushback. Following the breakout success of his self-released track Old Town Road, he has masterfully harnessed Fox News segments, Twitter spats, and a cease-and-desist order from a multibillion-dollar shoe company as fuel for a Grammy-winning career.
Behind each quarrel, there are frequently questions about identity and representation. Who gets to make country music? Is a queer pop star “inappropriate” for children? Lil Nas X regularly shoots out viral jokes and memes throughout the scuffles, taking control of the narrative with the PR acuity of a Kardashian and the irreverence of a Very Online Gen-Zer. Both Old Town Road and Call Me By Your Name reached No 1 in the US and UK amid, or even because of, all the drama surrounding them.
This week Lil Nas X put himself at the center of another enduring social quandary: when will hip-hop and Black institutions finally celebrate queer Black artists?
The rapper’s tweets deconstruct hierarchies of privilege. He shared how he found it hard to square a white rapper receiving more nominations from a Black entertainment platform than a queer Black rapper with equal, if not more, success: “Funny thing is industry baby was the biggest song me & jack released last year in the eligibility period but only one of us got a nomination,” Lil Nas X wrote.
Queen Latifah voiced her support for Lil Nas X, telling a TMZ reporter, “He should’ve been nominated … I don’t know what’s behind all that, but inclusion is always the key. That’s what we should be striving for. There’s enough room in this world for everybody.”
BET eventually released a statement directly in response to Lil Nas X’s attacks. “Unfortunately, this year, [Lil Nas X] was not nominated by BET’s Voting Academy, which is comprised of an esteemed group of nearly 500 entertainment professionals in the fields of music, television, film, digital marketing, sports journalism, public relations, influencers, and creative arts,” the organization wrote.
“No one from BET serves as a member of the Voting Academy. At BET, we are passionate advocates for the wonderful diversity that exists within our community. We are committed to using all of our platforms to provide visibility and inclusion for all of the many intersections of the Black community.”
“Bullshit,” Ernest Owens, journalist and author of The Case for Cancel Culture, said in response to BET’s statement. “The industry plays favorites. And oftentimes favorites mean people who are not queer. The music [Lil Nas X] did before [Montero] played into the comforts of cis, heterosexual listerners.” To Owens, many listeners appear to be thinking: “He can be an artist that’s gay, but his content doesn’t have to be.”
This is not the first time the BET network has faced accusations of glossing over queer Black voices. The channel rarely featured programs starring queer characters before it signed up the multi-hyphenate Lena Waithe to work on Twenties, among other projects, with the channel. And apart from Lil Nas X’s own, explicitly queer performances have been absent from the network’s awards show, even amid an era of Janelle Monáes and Frank Oceans. Which is partially why Lil Nas X’s performance at the ceremony last year felt powerful and rebellious.
On Tuesday, Lil Nas X teased a diss track. “Fuck BET,” he blares on the intro, a hypnotic synth playing underneath. He flashes a middle finger at the camera as he dances along to the song, mouthing the lyrics. By Friday evening, the video had 2m views on Twitter. A hit already.
