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Dr. K.J. Rawson on the cultural impact pop-rap artist, Lil Nas X.

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 13: Lil Nas X attends The 2021 Met Gala Celebrating In America: A Lexicon Of Fashion at Metropolitan Museum of Art on September 13, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by John Shearer/WireImage)

Dr. K.J. Rawson (Associate Professor of English and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies; Coordinator of Digital Integration Teaching Initiative and Director of the Digital Transgender Archive) discusses the importance of Lil Nas X in defining black queer culture in popular music. Through his analysis of the young artist, the professor places him amongst a lineage of queer artists breaking the mold, and at the same time situates Lil Nas X into a class of his own, due to his unrelenting desires to push boundaries, especially as a queer Black man.

“As a Black, gay man making wildly popular music, he’s [Lil Nas X] transforming “the landscape of queer possibilities.”

Dr. K.J. Rawson

To read more about how Dr. Rawson interprets Lil Nas X’s impact, click here.

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