The Music Business & Being LGBTQI

Peach Kereemang

The entertainment industry on its own is known to be the most ruthless industry that one could undertake as a career, now imagine how ruthless it could possibly be for an individual who identifies as part of the LGBTQI community. The entertainment industry and LGBTQI have a rather vicious love-hate relationship. Over the years, this has evolved from an extremely hostile relationship to a much more complex and confusing one.

Between the 70s and the early millennium era, the international music industry took a more revolutionary turn as more artists started producing and showcasing on material that introduced the culture and diversity that the LGBTIQ community is known for today. This specific change of production became somewhat prominent with international musicians and singers. Some, like Madonna and Diana Ross, became allies to the movement, through their content, and this birthed a shift that not only sparked a lot of movements outside of the music industry but a change in the face of music as we have come to appreciate it.

The music industry has predominately, like most industries, been a heteronormative narrative-driven industry, and it still is. This has made it difficult for any other content outside that to penetrate the market, and/or to be communicated across. From mere observation, a lot of content on LGBTQI matters, from the heteronormative standpoint has always been from a stereotypical and ill-informed view. Penetrating the music industry is a difficult task on its own with several aspects of the business to consider.

Setting up an administrative team and having a creative team being the first point of departure. Coming up with a specific target audience and maintaining a steady and consistent production of content takes time. Now imagine being part of the LGBTQI community, openly so, and having to produce content that will be scrutinized. The question then becomes, does one conform to the heteronormative point of view, or do you push what is your truth? Does an artist take a human rights advocacy route or do they get to create music based on their “day-to-day” lives? And chances are if an LGBTQI artist creates based on their story, they may face victimization because of their identity? Will people even give them an attention to start with?

In Botswana, nothing is yet set and the industry still has a long way to go before we can have a clear-cut way to stand on content that is LGBTQI-specific. We are not saying that the industry should serve the community on a silver platter, however, diversity and inclusion serve a major part of the economy at the current moment. If international platforms are able to identify the need to be inclusive, so can our local community.

Previously, living legends like Shanti-Lo set the tone for the freedom of being LGBTQI.  She became the first openly queer person to be well known, even globally for her jazz music. She opened up the platform for other upcoming artists to live their truth. She gave way to now main artists like Motswafere & Freddy Pro who are celebrated across the country, but still not afforded the same platform as any other artist who does not identify as queer. Even then, the narrative is still one-sided as we only see the feminine presenting gay men being at the forefront of representation in the industry. That is an indication that there is still more that needs to be taken into consideration and done for a much stronger queer representation in the industry.

The interesting side of this coin though is the “Gen-Z” that is coming out strongly to claim their humanity. Is this an indication that the landscape may be changing? Even more masculine presenting cisgender males are coming out strong in support of the community, in general! Artists like Lil Nas X dominate the charts internationally, and their content is not hidden. Again, is this some indication of a pivot? Have we reached a plateau? We are yet to find out.

Being an LGBTQI artist is not easy, your content creation may be limited as creating LGBTQI content may limit your audience and expose you to threats. Society having very limited information on the different sexual orientations and gender identities also means that we do not get to understand different LGBTQI artists. All in all, Botswana and Africa have a long way to go in creating space for LGBQI artists.