H-O-T-T-O-G-O is the newest catchy song bite stuck in my head. Sung by music’s hottest and most trendy supernova, Chappell Roan, “HOT TO GO” is one of the many queer anthems of the summer. It joins a soundtrack of other popular songs from young artists like Renee Rapp, Miley Cyrus, Troye Sivan and Clairo. It’ll probably go down in the books with other notable queer/LGBTQIA-associated musicians like Elton John, Cher, Lady Gaga and Freddie Mercury too.
While all of these artists have championed gender fluidity and untethered self-love in the queer community, their popularity remains in tandem with the fact that queer musicians of color are underrepresented and not recognized for their musical talents.
I have nothing against Chappell Roan even though I don’t particularly like her style of music. I admire her radical self-expression as a drag and lesbian artist. For some reason, though, her reputation has become untouchable by fans of her music. People will tell me I’m “just a hater” for disliking her music when in reality, it goes far deeper than that.
While scrolling through TikTok the other day, the prominence of Chappell Roan was inescapable. It reminded me of all the hype during COVID surrounding Girl in Red and the craze over Phoebe Bridgers (who I also got clowned on for disliking). Then, I stumbled upon a video from Chris Klemens interviewing someone on the streets of New York. Klemens asked a pedestrian to finish the lyrics to “HOT TO GO,” but they weren’t familiar with the song or Chappell Roan, leaving Klemens in shock.
“That’s not my sphere of queerness,” the interviewee said. “I’m on the more ‘colored’ side.”
Most of the video’s comments also validated the interviewee’s take on Chappell Roan, expressing their preference queer musicians of color like Kehlani and Bktherula. I had never even heard of Bktherula before reading the comments. Why? Mainstream media whitewashes the queer music scene and overhypes artists like Chappell Roan while ignoring others. When people point out this over-hype, fans become aggressive.
white gays are so funny like none of these white people are icons SORRYYYYYYYYYYY like yall did not know who chappell roan was 4 months ago but no mention of any gay poc is REAL interesting…. https://t.co/P777lu0otY
— kayla 🇵🇸 (@MEGTHEEDAYA) April 8, 2024
These are experiences artists like Chappell Roan can’t sing about in ways that resonate with people of color. I sure feel isolated listening to music about finding love from white women who are seen as the ideal standard of femininity and beauty within the queer community. There were hardly any songs I could listen to about being a Brown girl trying to date girls growing up and that damaged my self-confidence in the queer dating scene.
There are lots of great, queer musicians of color who are unfortunately overshadowed by other mainstream artists. Orion Sun is a Black, queer woman who makes songs in Spanish; Arlo Parks is a Black bisexual woman who’s very vocal about how this identity influences the lyrics she writes. Other musicians like ShyGirl and Tomasa de Real make some killer clubbing music.
As I said before, I have no hate toward Chappell Roan. I just strongly encourage people to proactively look for and support queer artists of color to bolster inclusion in the community and shed light on queer stories that have yet to be heard.
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