''Pick Up the Mic'' is a

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

, released in 2006, which profiles the underground

homo hop LGBT representations in hip hop music have existed since the birth of the genre despite blatant discrimination. Hip hop has long been portrayed as one of the least LGBT-friendly genres of music, with a significant body of the genre containing ...

scene, which is a subgenre of hip hop that includes gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender artists. The film was directed by

Alex Hinton Alexander Laban Hinton is an anthropologist whose work focuses on genocide, mass violence, extremism, transitional justice, and human rights. He has written extensively on the Cambodian genocide and, in 2016, was an expert witness at the Khmer ...

. The documentary had its premiere at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival. Subsequently, the film screened at other film festivals around the world. An edited version aired nationally in the United States on the

Logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wordma ...

cable television channel. Though

homophobia Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitude (psychology), attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, h ...

is a phenomenon commonly laid at the feet of mainstream hip hop, pop culture's relationship to it has also been shaped by white middle class LGBT communities' covert and overt

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

and

internalized homophobia Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred or antipathy ...

. As a result, the attendant conversations in LGBT and straight mainstream media around the subject tend to gravitate toward the speculative (

Queen Pen Lynise Walters (born 1972), known professionally as Queen Pen, is an African American rapper, record producer, and novelist. Born in Brooklyn New York, she was discovered by record producer Teddy Riley at a local iHop restaurant in Virginia B ...

's 1998 single "Your Girlfriend") and the apocryphal (the brief career of self-proclaimed "gay rapper"

Caushun Caushun (born Jason Herndon 1977) is an American rapper, often erroneously referred to as the first openly gay hip-hop artist to be signed to a major record label in the United States. It was reported that he was to be signed to Kimora Lee Simmo ...

, who was the subject of a flurry of mainstream press from 2001 to 2003, yet failed to release an album or single through his reported record deal with

Kimora Lee Simmons Kimora Lee Simmons (née Perkins) is an American model, business woman, fashion designer, venture capitalist, entrepreneur, TV personality, philanthropist and author. Early life Kimora Lee Perkins was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Stephen M. ...

Baby Phat Baby Phat by Kimora Lee Simmons is a privately held American apparel brand established in 1999 by fashion model, creative director, and entrepreneur, Kimora Lee Simmons. Initially launched as a womenswear offshoot of the menswear label, Phat F ...

imprint). Homohop is a growing subgenre of aggressive pro-gay lyrics directly confronting the perceived homophobia of mainstream rap. It is a significant underground gay hip hop movement, spearheaded by many of the artists profiled in ''Pick Up the Mic''. The performance footage in the documentary was shot at the

PeaceOUT World Homo Hop Festival The PeaceOUT (World) Homo Hop Festival was an annual festival of hip hop music and culture created by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) people from 2001 to 2007. The main festival took place in Oakland, California, although sibling f ...

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

between 2002 and 2004, and Peace Out East, a sister festival in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

curated by Judge "Dutchboy" Muscat and Shante "Paradigm" Smalls. All of the artists featured in ''Pick Up the Mic'' have released multiple independent recordings and have toured the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and internationally over the past several years. Katastrophe, Deep Dickollective and Scream Club have been among the most prolific, with the Scream Club making several tours across

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

in recent years, where they have developed a cult-like following.

Artists

Juba Kalamka Juba Kalamka (born July 12, 1970) is an African American bisexual artist and activist recognized for his work and founding member of homohop group Deep Dickollective (D/DC) and his development of the micro-label sugartruck recordings. Kalamka ...

Deep Dickollective Deep Dickollective (D/DC) was an LGBT hip hop group based in Oakland, California that were active in the homo hop scene of openly queer/LGBT artists during the 2000s. They were regular performers at the PeaceOUT World Homo Hop Festival curated ...

* Dutchboy * Tori Fixx *

Deadlee Joseph Thomas Lee, better known by his stage name Deadlee, is an American rapper and songwriter. He is based in Los Angeles, California, is of Mexican American and African American descent, and launched his career in 2000. In 2002, he released hi ...

* Tim'm T. West * JB Rap * JenRO * Katastrophe * Marcus Rene Van * Miss Money * Paradigm * Aggracyst *

QBoy QBoy (born Marcos Jose Brito on 10 October 1978) is a UK-based rapper, producer, DJ, writer and presenter. One of the original few out rappers in hip hop circa 2001 that became pioneers of the new subgenre colloquially known as "homo hop". QBoy ...

Cazwell Luke Caswell, known mononomously as Cazwell, is an American rapper, record producer and songwriter. He has released the three studio albums '' Get Into It'' in 2006, '' Watch My Mouth'' in 2009 and ''Hard 2 B Fresh'' in 2014, along with videos an ...

* Johnny Dangerous *

God-Des God-Des and She are an American hip-hop/pop/soul duo from the Midwest, composed of Alicia Smith (God-des) and Tina Gassen (She). Since they appeared on the Showtime hit series The L Word in 2006, they have sold more than 30,000 albums and toured ...

* Tina G (aka She of

God-Des and She God-Des and She are an American hip-hop/pop/soul duo from the Midwest, composed of Alicia Smith (God-des) and Tina Gassen (She). Since they appeared on the Showtime hit series The L Word in 2006, they have sold more than 30,000 albums and toured ...

) * Scream Club * Soce, the elemental wizard

References

External links

''Pick Up the Mic''
* {{IMDb title, id=0422952, title=Pick Up the Mic 2006 films American documentary films Documentary films about LGBT topics LGBT hip hop Documentary films about hip hop music and musicians 2006 LGBT-related films Rhino Films films African-American LGBT-related films African-American films American LGBT-related films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films

Artists

See also

References

External links