Pride Month has come and gone and it seems like July sparked a return to the normal homophobic status quo for a lot of celebrities, including rapper, Flex Rabanyan.
The wordsmith who famously won the second season of Vuzu's rap reality show, The Hustle took to social media to air his thoughts earlier this week about one of the biggest queer struggles in South Africa (indeed the world): coming out as gay.
For many people who identify as homosexual, bisexual or any other sexual orientation that is not heterosexual, the idea (and the eventual act for some) of revealing their true sexual identities is a scary one. In South Africa, for instance, many people are abused and vilified for their personal decision to love someone of the same sex. So much so that people are "correctively" raped in order to fix their sexual orientation, people are taken to church in order to be "saved" and living as an outwardly gay person is a challenge.
So deciding that you are going to share your identity with the world is a big step and one that many wouldn't blame you if you chose not to take. In short: coming out is no joke. Unless you are a rapper with no conscious understanding of the struggles of queer folk in South Africa. Exhibit A: Flex Rabanyan.
The Born Free rapper took to Twitter to share his thoughts on gay people choosing to "come out" and to the surprise of very little, his opinion on the matter didn't contain a great deal of intellectual or emotional depth.
The rapper began by commenting:
Twitter embed
He was quickly called to order by commenters including 947 radio DJ, Nick Explicit who tried his best to educate him on the challenges that queer people face when coming out.
Twitter embed
The rapper apparently had not done enough to show his ignorance on the topic so he took it one further by suggesting that he too needed some form of respect of congratulations for "coming out".
Twitter embed
This is not the only area in which Flex Rabanyan clearly needs education. The rapper recently admitted to going broke due to mismanaging the funds he won from The Hustle back in 2017. He claims to have spent more than R250,000 in one month and this year he was forced to sell the car he won from the competition.
He blamed his bad financial circumstances on poor decisions informed by a lack of financial education and hoped to get better when he received a second chance. That's all well and good but after he's finally done educating himself on money matters, he should probably take up a short course on human sexuality.
