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Whitlock: Black men allowed the music industry to create Lil Nas X and other morally bankrupt 'Industry Babies.'
Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for iHeartMedia

Whitlock: Black men allowed the music industry to create Lil Nas X and other morally bankrupt 'Industry Babies.'

For those of us outraged by rapper Lil Nas X's latest soft-porn music video, we have no one to blame other than ourselves.

We created Little Nasty X-rated when we danced to Too Short's "Freaky Tales," shouted "Me So Horny" at the request of the 2 Live Crew, co-signed Snoop's "Doggystyle," and rapped along to Lil Kim and 50 Cent's "Magic Stick."

We've spent 30 years defining black culture as an extension of hip-hop's pornographic lyrics and celebration of prison life.

Lil Nas X is simply holding a mirror. His sexually explicit, gay-in-prison video for the song "Industry Baby" is perfectly named. The industry birthed, nurtured, and is now hosting his coming-out party. He is the industry's baby. The industry has reared millions of Lil Nas Xs. They're not confined to our prisons and jails. Prison culture has been exported to mainstream society through music. The tatts, the cornrows, the sagging pants, the crude language, the gladiator violence, and the sexual fluidity have all been normalized.

Go listen to what we've been partying to for the past three decades. You thought "No Vaseline" was a diss track? Wrong D word. Try again.

Lil Nas X heard the message loud and queer.

"Y'all be silent as hell when n*****s dedicate their entire music catalogue to rapping about sleeping with multiple women," Nas X tweeted Sunday at Dr. Boyce Watkins, a black public intellectual who criticized X's music. "But when I do anything remotely sexual I'm 'being sexually irresponsible' and 'causin more men to die from AIDS.' Y'all hate gay people and don't hide it."

Nas X needs a better understanding of the adverb "remotely." His latest video is more than remotely sexual. The video starts innocently. A black prosecutor accuses Lil Nas X of the crime of homosexuality. A black judge sentences the rapper to five years in Montero State Prison for being gay. Nas plays the role of judge, prosecutor, defendant, and jury member. From there, things turn quite sexual. Nas makes it rain and simulates doggystyle sex with his cellmate. There's a shower scene with Nas and a half dozen naked inmates who appear to be auditioning for a remake of Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation" video.

By normal standards, "Industry Baby" is more than "remotely" sexual. By today's rap music standards, the video is relatively tame. It's not quite Cardi B's "Wet A$ P***y," the BET Awards' 2020 video and song of the year, the American Music Awards' song of the year, and the People's Choice Award for best collaboration.

The American entertainment industry is PornHub. Lil Nas is the best new actor at the Adult Video News Awards. He's Dana Plato, who rose to fame starring as Mr. Drummond's daughter, Kimberly, on the family-oriented TV show "Different Strokes," and ended her career doing porn.

Lil Nas became famous and attracted a cult following of kids with the innocent, 2018 country rap song "Old Town Road." Three years later, his handlers unveiled him as a satanic icon with the song "Montero," an ode to Nas descending into hell to give Satan a lap dance. For anyone who missed the wicked symbolism, "Industry Baby" is the exclamation point.

Lil Nas X, like all commercial rappers before him, is here to promote immorality and degeneracy among young people. It's worth noting that Kanye West co-produced "Industry Baby."

As is fashionable today, Lil Nas cloaks his message in social justice reform. Along with the Friday video release, the clever rapper announced he's joining forces with the Bail Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending cash bail. Social justice reformers argue that cash bail drives structural racism in our criminal justice system.

"It's personal," Nas X said in a statement. "I know the pain that incarceration brings to a family. And I know the disproportionate impact that cash bail has on black Americans and the LGBTQ community. Let's bring people home and let's fight for freedom and equality."

Once again, the LGBTQ agenda is framed as a black issue. It's by design. It's been in the making for 60 years. It's our fault. We have been weak, malleable, materialistic, hedonistic, secular, and arrogant since the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

We created Lil Nas X.

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