Lebanese indie rock band Mashrou’ Leila has a worldwide following, and doesn’t dodge controversy, unafraid to perform songs which confront racism and homophobia.
Lead singer Hamed Sinno is openly gayand the band’s song Tayf (Ghost) is about a shuttered gay club.
Keala Settle’s performance as Lettie Lutz, The Bearded Lady in the film musical “The Greatest Showman” gave the LGBTI* community an award-winning new anthem celebrating diversity.
American electroclash duo Fisherspooner – who hail from New York – have been around since the late 1990s and produced three albums in the first decade of the 21st century. In 2017, news of a new “aggressively homosexual” album, SIR, co-written and co-produced by R.E.M’s Michael Stipe and BOOTS, with a video for the first track release referencing the glory days of Fire Island pushed them back into the rainbow spotlight.
Superfruit duo Mitch Grassi and Scott Hoying are openly-gay YouTube stars and members of the Grammy award-winning acappella group Pentatonix. This is the title track from their 2017 double album of the same name.
Brooklyn based, Canadian born, MC/producer F. Virtue has a long musical track record, and is openly gay, although he’s sometimes been uncomfortable about the label “gay rapper”. This – from 2017 – is just the latest of his songs to deal with LGBTQ themes.
The Hip Hop world—not even homosexuality—it’s just growing to be more open always, always. Everyone remembers when it was weird for a rapper to be white, and that’s such a ridiculous thought now. That’s so prehistoric, that Rap is so black and white now. It just doesn’t matter your skin color, so that the next argument, “Oh, a rapper has to be male.” Well, no, not really. There was the term “femcee” for a minute, but now it’s not as weird to see a girl rapper. It’s not like, “Oh, it’s a girl rapper,” there’s just girls who Rap. The next thing is sexuality. There’s always something. I think Hip Hop is just getting more open, and it’s not just Hip Hop, it’s the world and everything helps it. (HipHopDX 2013)
PWR BTTM are a Brooklyn-based queer punk duo.
PWR BTTM is just one queer rock band among so many. We need to have a much broader conversation to give more people a platform. I love bands of straight white boys, but labels only putting out those records is very much over.
Ben Hopkins of PWR BTTM in conversation with Rufus Wainwright in Billboard.
Canadian singer-songwriter Anna Gutmanis released this in 2008, and it’s become something of an LGBT anthem. The song won Canada’s Pride In The Arts “2009 Pride Song” Award.
That Gay Music Blog 