However, Dean’s book shows that heterosexual rappers clearly have no monopoly on tough upbringings. Dean’s book is a searing description of a tough childhood on the streets of Detroit, ironically also the hometown of Eminem. His mother was a prostitute addicted to drugs who later contracted HIV.
Dean eventually suffered a childhood sexual assault from a male babysitter and ended up serving jail time in Nashville for stealing a car.
If homophobic rappers are looking for a dubious sense of “authenticity,” then they can just as easily find it in Dean’s background as in the most masculine of gangsta rappers. But for Dean his purpose in writing the book was simply to shine a rare light on the most shadowed corner of some of the most popular music in the world.
“Everyone knows. It is not a secret in that sense. It is just that people do not talk about what goes on in private and who is sleeping with who. Now, I hope a mainstream artist will have the courage to soon come out,” he said.
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