It is a very different experience, and I think a lot of white LGBTQ people don’t understand that.
I just feel like there is not enough conversation. White gay males, they have more engagement about it. They’re more communal, and their community is an “us” thing. And the black gay thing is a very -- it’s me versus all y’all. And that’s how it is for every black gay. It’s like no black gays are on a team together, it’s everybody versus everybody. It’s like, we can’t speak about nothing, we end up fighting. Why can’t we be bigger for the culture and show that we can all support each other?
What about all the people on the [Atlanta] south side? What about everybody that was dealing with what I was dealing with? They can’t go run to Hollywood, hang out with the white gays in West Hollywood, and live some new type of life. We just have so many people in leadership positions that could be making a big change for the world, and for this generation. But it’s like everybody is afraid to stand up, because they’re afraid of the backlash they might receive from some fans.
Last year, you had some Peep fans questioning the decision to take Peep’s vocals and XXXTentacion’s vocals and create “Falling Down” after they both had died. They cited the domestic violence charges against X and the story of him beating up a guy in jail that he thought was gay, and they said Peep would have never worked with him. How did you feel about that reaction?
As far as X in jail and fighting the guy he thought was gay or whatnot -- a lot people haven’t been to jail, and don’t know what goes on in there. Now, I’m not defending X, and I don’t know exactly the circumstances of his situation where he fought the guy. But as someone who’s been in jail, I do know a lot of times in jail or prison there is male on male rape. It’s real. So you have to defend yourself. You do need to fight back.
And then, the thing that happened with beating on a girl, I don’t really know for sure. I can only connect with him as an artist. People and what they’ve done in their past, they’re gonna have to deal with that themselves. If you’re growing and trying to be a better person, more power to you. And from what I saw with X’s last months, he seemed to be trying to better himself, and be a better person.
I’d even seen him on stage, at shows, saying, “It doesn’t matter if you’re gay, straight, black, white, whatever, I support you and love you and want to accept you as you.” And that’s what a lot of people were blind to about him, people didn’t want to see those things. They just wanted to see the negative shit that he was involved in and that’s all they highlighted.
As for the fans that expressed outrage and backlash, I don’t know man. That’s fans. People are always wanting to have an opinion. It’s like, y’all don’t know what they would have done! You don’t know what type of path they were on as humans, that they were trying to grow and learn. I feel like they were both growing up and trying to put their differences aside to be more for the youth. That’s what I found them both doing -- it was for the youth.