It used to be rare to have a singer pronounce themselves as openly gay. Artists like Elton John, George Michael, Little Richard, and Freddie Mercury were all transparent about their sexuality. However, it definitely came with a slightly different perception of them.
So when Frank Ocean revealed he was bisexual in 2012, he worried about the reaction he would get from the public. However, fans were more than supportive. Nowadays, his sexuality is hardly even noteworthy when considering him as an artist.
That doesn’t happen for all artists, and Isaiah Rashad knows that all too well. In an interview with Pigeons & Planes, he candidly spoke with his collaborator, Dominic Fike, about his sexuality.
Isaiah rashad Admits That He doesn’t Get The same ‘Perks’ as Frank Ocean Now That he’s Openly Come Out as Bisexual
There, he admitted that he hadn’t gotten completely over the hump back in 2021 as he acted. “On the last rollout, s**t, I was acting like I was past all my demons, and s**t, I was f***ed up the week before,” Rashad told Fike. “I’m not proud of that s**t.”
Then, the Chattanooga-bred rapper shrugged and quipped that he’s always going to be labeled as ‘the Black bi rapper’ now. “And it doesn’t come with any of the perks I thought it would come with,” he added. “There are no Frank Ocean perks.”
The album-making process made him confront a lot of things about himself in general. “At some point in time, I accepted that they don’t make a manual for being a bisexual Black dude,” Rashad recently told The Breakfast Club. “It made me confront a lot of stuff that I was saying about women. A lot of ways I was expressing myself was really coming just from a place of insecurity. I feel like I’ve gotten to love myself a little better.”
‘It’s Been Awful’, Isaiah Rashad’s third studio album, was released in early May
It was his family and especially his friends who helped drag Isaiah out of the hole he was in. “I talked to my homeboys about everything I was going through. They were the ones that was like, ‘What the f**k are you doing?’” Rashad continued. “My homeboys know everything about me. You have conversations on tour, just in life, especially when we was drinking. When you like that, it’s more so respecting my own privacy to my life. It was just being irresponsible… allowing things to go out.”
All of these things gave Isaiah Rashad more confidence to be more open about his sexuality in his songwriting. In an interview with Billboard, he saw it as an opportunity to get everything off his chest.
“If I act like things are all normal, that’s not gonna read well. I have this rare opportunity to say everything,” Rashad told the publication. “I wish I would’ve said more about whatever I feel or whatever I’ve been through. This is the one time that people are gonna be listening for what I have to say, so I wanted to take advantage of the open ear, at least.”
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