A Meditation on Manhood and Male Rappers Wearing Dresses
If you believe Kid Cudi’s ‘SNL’ attire threatens Black masculinity, it’s time to do some soul-searching
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
It’s spring again, and with the opening of businesses after a year of Covid-19, it’s apparently become necessary to once more consider one’s personal fashion before stepping outside. You’d think that after a year of pandemic couch surfing this would be a low priority, but as it turns out, if you’re a Black man, you still can’t wear just any old thing. Somehow, in light of all of the problems we face in the most racist country in the world, it is still ungenteel to wear dresses.
Last week, Kid Cudi appeared on Saturday Night Live in a dress. The decision was part performance (Cudi is a graduate of the Kanye West school of double take), part business (the dress is featured in a forthcoming fashion line), and part homage. Seattle rocker Kurt Cobain is a touchstone for Cudi, and Cobain used to rock a dress every now and then, because why not?
What’s ironic is that the group of people who normally praise such performative chess moves in Black rap circles decried Cudi’s game: extremely vocal heterosexual Black men. These brothers were not down with the dress, and naturally, everyone has to hear about it. I assume this reaction exists because they care that Black families with impressionable babies who stayed up to watch Saturday Night Live because they stan for British actress/host Carey Mulligan might be ripped asunder from exposure to a rapper/singer in a dress.
Just kidding. We know why they’re mad: Because they’re homophobic.
Masculinity is largely a learned thing, and for most men, they interpret its many manifestations in their lives as a rite of passage. Manhood is a commodity to them, something you invest in with specific chits of behavior and one day have bestowed upon you by the gods of machismo. It’s a backwards way of looking at one’s self-esteem, since a rite of passage is generally less an education in and of itself and more of a final test kind of thing, like an SAT. All of the education actually happens before…
