David Bowie Made Me Gay

by Darryl W. Bullock

  Hong Kong musical superstar Leslie Cheung committed suicide in 2003 by jumping from the twenty-forth floor of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in central Hong Kong. The multi-award-winning founding father of Cantopop (Cantonese pop music) came out as bisexual in 2001, although he had been in a relationship with another man, Tong Hok-Tak, for almost 20 years. At the time of his death he was being treated for depression. Homosexual sex was banned in the People’s Republic of China until 1997 and even then it still remained on the official list of mental illnesses until 2001. Today, the state controls the media and Internet access, conversion therapy is still used, same-sex marriage is outlawed and businesses are allowed to discriminate against LGBT people. ‘Young people across China face homophobic harassment every day,’ activist Xiaoyu Wang reveals. ‘We’re drugged and put in “conversion therapy”. We’re told that we’re “sick” because of who we are and who we love.’ Xiaoyu, a student at the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, was horrified when police broke into her apartment after she and her girlfriend had posted pictures of the couple celebrating their engagement on social media.19

  Unsurprisingly then, very few pop singers have dared to come out in China, although that is slowly starting to change. Anthony Wong (Wong Yiu-Ming) told the audience at his 2012 show at the Hong Kong Coliseum that ‘People don’t need to guess whether or not I’m a tongzhi [Chinese slang for homosexual] anymore. I’m saying I’m gay. I’m a homosexual. G-A-Y.’20 Independent singer-songwriter Chet Lam has been open about his sexuality since he began his professional career in 2003, telling The Advocate that ‘There is no Elton John in Hong Kong, only Chet Lam’. Cantopop singer Denise Ho publicly outed herself as lesbian at a Hong Kong Pride Parade in 2012. An outspoken civil rights campaigner, Ho has been viciously attacked by the Chinese state media, which has accused her of ‘tarnishing China’s image,’ and branded her ‘Hong Kong poison’.21

  On 23 February, 2016 Ezekiel Mutua, of the Kenyan Film Classification Board, hosted a press conference from his Nairobi office to denounce the release, eight days previously, of a video by Kenyan rapper Art Attack. The subject of the Board’s ire was a film produced by Art Attack to accompany his version of the song ‘Same Love’, based on the 2012 hit by US hip hop duo Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. In the video, bisexual singer Natalie Florence, professionally known as Noti Flow, is seen (briefly) kissing another woman. A male couple is pictured, partially clothed, laughing in bed. Noti is seen sitting on a park bench kissing another young woman and a young man (the gay gospel singer George Barasa, aka Joji Baro) is viewed walking through a forest. Images of Uganda’s notorious Red Pepper newspaper, which regularly outs LGBT Africans on its front page, are shown, and the film ends with the suicide of a young gay man, unable to cope in a society that sees him as a criminal. It’s hard-hitting stuff, but only a few people had seen Kenya’s first ever gay-themed music video before Mutua alerted the press to its existence. Labelled ‘the most unpopular person in Kenya’ by The Nairobi News, at the press conference he stated that the ‘culprits (will be) identified and arrested, and we are going to work with the police all the way … to ensure that these things are stopped. We assure you that we will take action.’ Mutua issued a ‘cease and desist’ letter to Google, demanding that the video be either removed from YouTube or blocked from being viewed in Kenya. Google refused and within days the video had been promoted around the world – thanks in part to the Kenyan Film Classification Board itself, which rather idiotically sent out a tweet with a link to it. Soon ‘Same Love’ had been viewed by more than a quarter of a million people.

  Noti Flow (l) in a still from the ‘Same Love’ video

  Interviewed by the Nigerian podcast NoStrings, Art Attack revealed he:

  felt the need to do a song about LGBT rights after some of my friends who are gays and lesbians started telling me about the bad things that were experiencing in Kenyan society. I live in Kenya, and I know how and what life is like for them, so I decided to record a song that will speak positively to the situation. We knew that this would not be appreciated by the larger Kenyan population who kick against homosexuality, but we needed to do what we have to do. It was such a huge risk; there has been a lot of controversy … but we are only encouraging a positive message of love and respect, and discouraging violence against gay people. We are not telling people to be gay, but we are saying, “Let them be”.’22

  It was a brave move on the part of the avowedly straight rapper (Joji Baro had previously stated that all of the artists involved in making the video were LGBT, although most of the musicians did not want to be named for fear of reprisals), especially in a country where homosexual acts are punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

  It was later reported, by US magazine The Advocate that some of the musicians involved in the song were ‘living in fear’, one of the actors in the video had gone in to hiding and others were facing arrest following the controversy stirred up by the song. In an email to the magazine, Art Attack revealed:

  Dayon, who has been living in Kenya for the last five years, started receiving threats and hostility from his Kenyan neighbours after they saw the video and he had to flee to his mother country. As for the rest of us, a warrant of arrest has already been issued against us and we are living in fear. Our video has been banned and we have been alerted that we are to be arrested and charged anytime.23

  ‘We hadn’t seen a song that championed the rights of minority groups in Africa as this song has,’ Art Attack told the BBC:

  We did it with a purpose, and a reason and an intention, to stir up the debate. We knew this song would never get airplay on Kenyan radio or Kenyan television – it was made for YouTube and YouTube alone. We have some amazing, progressive, liberal Kenyans watching the video saying “this is amazing! This is beautiful and we support it totally”. I would say 60 percent are saying this is disgusting, this is abhorrent and we don’t want this in Africa. We expected that.24

  Noti Flow took to Facebook to express her outrage:

  WTF??? The Kenyan Government has banned our song “Same Love”, a collaborative effort between me and rapper Art Attack. The Government has also ordered the Kenyan Media NOT to distribute the song anywhere and asked Kenyans to avoid sharing or distributing the song on social media. Wow! What the hell? This is a simple song that celebrates same-sex rights and that acknowledges the rights of gays and lesbians. The Kenyan Government neglect Kenyan citizens on important issues like job opportunities but couldn’t hesitate banning a simple song about people’s sex orientations! Well, we will not be moved. We stand by our song and its message. Arrest us if you wish! We are unbowed.

  Noti went on to star in Kenyan TV series Nairobi Diaries.

  Other musicians took Art Attack’s message to heart. In the months that followed, Nigerian singer-songwriter Chisom released the LGBT-themed song ‘Why Love Is A Crime’, which talks about the despair faced by many gay Africans, but homosexuality is still outlawed in 34 African countries, and in four – Mauritania, Sudan, Somalia and northern Nigeria – it is punishable by death.

  Most Middle-Eastern countries still outlaw same-sex relationships, and the death sentence continues to be carried out in countries including Syria, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Libya and Yemen. Called ‘the Arab world’s most influential independent band’ by the Financial Times25 Mashrou’ Leila is a Lebanese alternative rock band, formed in Beirut in 2008. They have released three albums and an EP to date, and each confronts taboo subjects including gay relationships and political corruption – an abrasive stance that saw the band briefly banned in Jordan. Their leader, Hamed Sinno, is an American-born but Beirut-raised Muslim who identifies as queer. In 2014, the band became the first Middle-Eastern act to be featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.

  With no management, no label and no financial backing, the band have organised their own tours (they’ve played widely in America and Europe as well as the Middle East) and have paid for promotional work and recording ses
sions via crowdfunding schemes. Only singing in Arabic, the band has become a voice for LGBT people in the Middle East. In June 2016, at a concert in Washington DC, just days after the horrific shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub that left 49 people dead and 53 injured, an angry Sinno told his audience: ‘Suddenly, just because you’re brown and queer you can’t mourn and it’s really not fucking fair. There are a bunch of us who are queer who feel assaulted by that attack who can’t mourn because we’re also from Muslim families and we exist. This is what it looks like to be called both a terrorist and a faggot.’ The band followed this up with a performance of a song about an attack on a Beirut nightclub, Ghost.26 On 3 July, he proudly carried a banner for Orlando at the head of the Toronto Pride march – Sinno’s first ever Pride event.

  In many ways, the Internet has made it easier for LGBT voices to be heard, especially in countries where war, violence and oppression are commonplace. In the twenty-first century you no longer need the might of a record company behind you to promote your work: with access to a decent Internet connection you can have your latest song or video online seconds after it has been completed. The same technology that is killing off the gay and lesbian bar scene in the developed world (who needs to go to a bar when you can meet your next boyfriend/girlfriend/casual shag via a free smartphone app?) is helping LGBT artists from some of the world’s most oppressed regimes to find a worldwide audience. But even here in the west it’s not always an easy ride. Singled out as ‘one of Scotland’s all-time great vocalists’ (review in The Scotsman, 22 July, 2006), Sheena McDonald – known professionally as ‘Horse’ – scored eight British chart hits between 1989 and 1997. Touring with Tina Turner, and with her songs covered by artists including the out-gay singer Will Young, she married her partner in Lanark in January 2013, returning to the town she was born in but fled as a teenager after years of homophobic bullying. She told The Daily Record:

  I had a terrible time growing up. People attacked and bullied me because I was gay in a small town I used to get chased by gangs. I had physical encounters. I was attacked by people with broken bottles but the verbal abuse was the worst. People would call me names and I was afraid when I was growing up. I didn’t tell anyone at the time, not even my dad because I felt I was bringing shame on the family. It got so bad that one day I was walking and a police patrol car was sitting across the street. The policeman shouted, “There’s that lezzie”. I thought, “I’m in trouble now. If something happens, who is going to help me?” I left the town shortly after that.27

  She has since become a vocal supporter of anti-bullying initiatives. ‘One of my escape routes from bullying was being creative. The songwriting rescued me from very dark times. Children need to be taught that we are all different – either for wearing glasses, being a different colour or having red hair – and that we have to support each other.’

  George Michael on stage during the Faith World Tour, 1988

  CHAPTER 18

  Scandal

  ‘I give them plenty of things to gossip about. I like rumours circulating about me, but whether or not they’re true – well, that’s another matter’

  Marc Almond1

  Nothing sells newspapers like a good scandal, and whereas the public seemed not to care which side of the bed you slept on, British tabloids and US sleaze sheets were still obsessed with outing gay and lesbian performers. Reporters and the paparazzi would continue to sniff around Freddie Mercury, Elton John and the Georges like a pack of rabid dogs, camping out on the doorsteps of their London apartments and following their every move, desperate to catch the moment they fell – which, naturally, each one of them would do.

  Besides the press, there was another, bigger, barrier to break. Acts relied on radio play for all-important exposure, and no US radio station – outside the college circuit, perhaps – was going to play your record if it were deemed to be too gay. It was a taboo that even openly gay performers were loath to smash. There would be no obviously gay-themed songs from John until he began working with singer and songwriter Tom Robinson, and even then he would struggle with directly referring to his sexuality in song, as Robinson reveals:

  The only ‘closety’ thing Elton did, which he apologised to me for at the time, was when he sang the lyrics on “Never Gonna Fall In Love Again”. There was the line “I wish he wouldn’t make me rabid/I wish he wouldn’t turn me on” he just sort of squidged it so it sounded more like “I wish she wouldn’t make me rabid”. He was a bit shame faced about that but had the good grace to apologise and I didn’t mind; I realised that his position in Middle America was such that he, ahem, didn’t want to ram anything down anybody’s throat! Fair play to him, when he made the video for “Elton’s Song”, which was about a schoolboy crush at a public school, it had a younger boy being desperately in love with an older prefect, and it didn’t pull any punches. I think the video itself got banned in America, but I don’t think Elton was at all closeted’.

  MTV may have been happy to give circumspect LGBT acts airtime, but in the early years it seemed that they would only do so if you were white, and the battle to win acceptance for black musicians would need to be fought first. During an interview, David Bowie asked presenter (or Video Jockey as they were styled) Mark Goodman outright about the station’s policy towards minorities: ‘I’m just floored by the fact that there are so few black artists featured. Why is that?’ The VJ told him that the station was worried about reaction from ‘some town in the Midwest who would be scared to death by Prince or a string of other black faces’.2 It wasn’t until Walter Yentikoff, then head of CBS, threatened to pull his entire roster from the station that they finally relented and programmed Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’.

  In 1984, Boy George told Rolling Stone magazine that he was bisexual, that his last relationship was with a woman and that he was looking forward to becoming a parent one day. He may have been aping his hero’s stance in the hope for acceptance, but it was still a brave move. His record company (Virgin in the UK, Epic in the US) wanted to keep milking their genderbending cash cow: they were not going to let him sabotage his career quite yet. However, after US televangelist Jerry Falwell took against him, accusing him of being a bad role model and stating that he would ‘disappear as one more fad … like Tiny Tim and a host of other relics,’ George – famous for his waspish tongue – struck back. ‘This illusion that I am promoting homosexuality is obviously rubbish,’ he said. ‘Sex is something that anybody will find out for themselves, and you cannot force somebody to be homosexual’.3 ‘Boy George is the Peter Pan of the androgynous set,’ wrote The Washington Post’s Pamela Sommers. ‘Outfitted in layers of baggy blouses and tunics, his long hair a mass of ribbons, shells and braids, his face made up geisha girl style, he’s the innocent imp, the fey rag doll. Boy George does not threaten, does not challenge, does not – despite his unconventional get-up – exude any sort of sexual allure’.4 It wouldn’t take long for the wheels to come off the wagon.

  By the middle of 1986, his life was in such a mess that The Sun claimed, ‘Junkie George has Eight Weeks to Live’. The report, based on stories from his family and friends, claimed that he had developed a serious heroin habit. His publicist, Susan Blond, revealed that she knew the end was coming when trying to get him ready for a live TV show in New York: ‘Because of the drugs he was taking the make-up wouldn’t stick to his face … the anxiety was just too much’.5 In August 1986 Michael Rudetsky, a close friend, was found dead of a heroin overdose in George’s home. The following December, he was arrested for possession.

  With help, George cleaned up. The Pet Shop Boys returned him to the American charts in 1993 after a five-year gap with ‘The Crying Game’, his lush, synth-led re-reading of Dave Berry’s 1964 hit, recorded for the movie of the same name, but then he discovered cocaine. In 2006 he was forced to spend five days’ community service cleaning the streets of New York after another arrest for possession and for wasting police time by dishonestly reporting a burglary. In 2009, h
e was jailed for 15 months for falsely imprisoning a male escort in his Shoreditch flat; he served four months behind bars. The singer had denied the charge, claiming that the victim, 29-year-old Norwegian Audun Carlsen, had stolen photos from his laptop. George admitted handcuffing Carlsen to a wall in April 2007 but said he did so in order to trace the missing property. Carlsen later revealed that the pair had been snorting cocaine.6

  Looking back, George feels that prison was ‘a gift’: ‘I went into prison sober. I knew I had a lot of work to do. I’ve worked very hard at getting myself back in shape, getting my career back, getting my self-respect back. I knew it would take time, and it has. But I’m starting to feel the rewards of that work.’7 The pop music chameleon used the experience to re-examine his life and in recent years has reinvented himself almost as many times as David Bowie, with a successful stage musical (Taboo), appearances on hit TV shows (The Voice and The Celebrity Apprentice among them), two volumes of autobiography, and a side career as a respected club DJ. Oh, and he also founded his own dance label, More Protein (with friend and former member of Haysi Fantayzee, Jeremy Healy), which has had hits with Jesus Loves You, E-Zee Possee, Eve Gallagher and George himself. ‘My appetite for self-destruction and misery is greatly diminished,’ he says. ‘I’m not interested in being unhappy.’8

  ‘My early influences were Charley Pride, Dolly Parton, Garth Brooks, Merle Haggard and all of the old country stuff that my mom and dad listened to,’ country singer Drake Jensen admits: