Todrick Hall graces Billboard for Pride month, and gurl...

It's Pride month, the Black Lives Matter protests are still happening and we're in the midst of a pandemic where entertainers are having to get creative with how they create and put out content. Todrick Hall is queer, Black and put out an EP titled Quarantine Queen whilst in quarantine. Check, check, check. So Billboard did a feature with him.

Now, Todrick is constantly hopscotching in and out of hot water, whether it's because of doing the most concerning his friendship with Taylor Swift, being a lil' messy online or something scandalous surfacing, like how he don't be paying his dancers. But he also receives a fair amount of criticism from the Black community for catering to white audiences and not being Black enough. Now, I hate when I hear people say that somebody isn't Black enough, because the quantifiers of Blackness differ from person to person who says this shit. I was told I wasn't Black enough at school because I was well spoken and had neat handwriting, which is abso-fucking-lutley ridiculous and high-key microaggressive racism. Some of us Black folk joke about shared experiences and traits of being Black or growing up Black, but using it as a measure is a type of mess. Setting goals posts for Blackness within the community in a world that already doesn't accept the totality of who we are, it just doesn't sit with me.

But the narrative of 'not being Black enough' is something that many Black people face if we dye our hair, we straighten it, if we wear contact lenses, if we don't listen to Black music all of the time. But within entertainment, this 'they aren't Black enough' rhetoric runs whenever an artist finds themselves with a mass white audience and they catch mainstream success in part because of it. Lizzo is going through this. Her shit took off different when the white mass fanbase ran with her shit, and then Black people were like 'She and her shit ain't Black enough'. Beyoncé went through it before her. And it seemed like the world only realised she was Black when "Formation" came out. Blackness has a criteria other than just being Black in order for people to see you as such.

It's all a type of mess, but it gets messier.

What if somebody is Black, pandering exclusively to white audiences by being critical of their own Blackness and dressing it in caricatures to further their career, and plays into the white agenda whilst downplaying the Black one?

Well, this is the intersection at which Todrick Hall sits and why his feature for Billboard has people feeling a type of way when there are receipts of all the above.

Old videos depicting him playing up Black stereotypes and caricatures for online fame. Reports of him being the 'Whites only, just a preference' type of gay. Making jokes about wishing he could un-tan 'cos he's too dark. Switching the positions of dancers around so that the darker skinned ones are at the back. And then there is the peddling off the back of Taylor Swift, being the token Black gay and appearing in a way that makes him more palatable to white audiences. The latter? Whatever. It's not the most offensive thing in the list. Play the game boo. But it's a problem when it's something that a publication co-signs and Todrick himself will not fully acknowledge.

Despite my first few paragraphs seeming like a setup to drag Todrick, this isn't the point of this post. This is less about Todrick and more about why Billboard chose him and what it means for the headline 'Black and

Todrick Hall is Black, Queer, doing his thing and from a publication standpoint, he is probably one of the more popular Black queer celebrities who sits at the intersection of pop culture and the white gaze. So I completely understand why Billboard chose him. But him being the first go to and his profiling was telling of the ways in which publications and the media see Black queerness in entertainment. It's funnelled. It's not fully inclusive. Todrick may be a poster child definition of being Black and queer in America, but he is not THE poster child. And there's something to be said about Todrick being the definition of being Black and queer in America through a very white lens.

There are many Black queer artists that Billboard could have taken the time to do a piece on. But they chose the one who is most widely considered problematic online and white adjacent - which is how you know it was less about celebrating Blackness and queerness at this particular moment in time, and more about clicks. And this is kinda Todrick all over. His brand seems far more geared toward the act of just being popular than it is about any form of true representation and agenda, and that's fine. Secure the bags and get the money. But Billboard choosing to place Todrick on their branded pedestal didn't just seem ill advised and a little tone deaf. It also fuels that Todick's bad habits and ways about securing his success were the right way to go about it, even in the wake of there being numerous people who have aired his dirty laundry concerning colourism and just bad work ethics. And it perpetuates the idea that he is the golden standard of a Black queer artist in 2020 and that just isn't the case.

Todrick says "It's almost like we like complaining about the fact that there isn’t enough representation, but then when the representation is there and it doesn't come in the exact package or the exact size that we wished it had been in, we bash that as well." And he is absolutely right.

Being Black and queer is not a monolith. And it's tough when you're both and have people who want you to be a great representation of both, even though society and sometimes people in your life don't like the intersection for the two. But you can't bury your head in the sand. And as much as you can't let detractors steer you off course, you do have to take a moment to check in with yourself and ask why you're being dragged; and if it's just haters being haters or if there is any accountability you can take for any of it. And Todrick and Billboard both shied away from this.

The Billboard piece could have actually been amazing if it really dove into if Todrick has regrets about things he did to acquire his success, things he could have done differently, what he hopes to see in the future and what being Black and queer meant to him 10 years ago versus now. What would have been a far better solution would have been to done features on a range of Black and queer artists in music. Because being Black and Queer in America is not one definable experience. The experience of being a Black gay cis-gendered male is not going to be the same for a Black trans-gendered female. The experience of being a Black 'straight-passing' cis-gendered gay man with a medium complexion is not going to be the same for a Black femme cis-gendered male who is a size 18 with a darker skin tone.

Billboard and Todrick both had opportunities to really delve into so much and pick apart what it truly means to be Black and queer in America. But all they did was brush the surface and provide a vanity article which did nothing to push any conversation forward in the ways I wish it had. Todrick could have really said suttin' and made points, but he didn't.

But being Black and queer is not a monolith, so maybe I was asking too much. But showing the spectrum of Blackness and queerness is non-negotiable.

Just a few other queer Black artists who Billboard could and should have done pieces with:
🔊 Alex Newell | Big Freedia | Frank Ocean | Kaytranda | MNEK | Syd