Toosii has spoken out about comments he has received questioning his sexuality. The 23-year-old rapper recently posted photographs on social media in which he is holding his son in his arms. He is seen posing in a knit sweater vest, cutout blue jeans and a cowboy hat — an outfit his gay stylist picked out for him, Toosii shared.
Upon sharing the photographs, Toosii received dozens of comments about him being called gay. The rapper addressed those comments in an interview for The Baller Alert Show. He said his biggest concern is the example it is setting for his son, who will see sexuality being used as an insult.
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“It don’t really bother me. I think the biggest thing that bother me is when people play with me. I would never let nobody play with me while my son is around,” he said. “My son gotta get on the internet one of these days, and the internet is forever, and he gotta see this.”
He also defended the LGBTQ+ community — highlighting that several people in positions of power in the industry are gay.
“I don’t have no problem with the LGBTQ community,” Toosii said. “I love everybody. I don’t judge nobody — black, blue, purple, white, orange, big, small, tall, little. I don’t care.”
“At the end of the day though, calling someone gay is not an insult. People try to use it as an insult, but it’s people’s sexuality. Whatever someone’s sexuality is, is not an insult,” he added. “So don’t try to throw it on a Black man to down him because you feel like that — that’s not gonna bring me down. What’s gonna bring me down is the fact that you’re trying to use it as an insult while I got my son in my hand, knowing that one of these days he’s gonna go on the internet and see this. I don’t need anything being misled like, ‘Oh, dad, is this wrong?’ ‘Nah, it’s not wrong, son.’ At the end of the day, you got some people who like men, and that’s how it is.”
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Toosii also pointed to fashion being a mode of self-expression that excludes fragile masculinity.
“Fashion is not for fragile masculinity,” he added. “If you are afraid to be a man and be in certain clothes, in fashion — then the fashion industry is just not for you.”
In fact, Black men in sports and in the music industry have always experimented with fashion. NBA player Dennis Rodman is known to have pushed the boundaries when it came to unisex looks in the 1990s.
@needforbreed That picture of him with Kim Jong Un is just insane #dennisrodman #nba #chicagobulls #mensfashion #womensfashion #basketball #lgbtq #fashion #needforbreed #90s ♬ Vogue (Instrumental) – Banni Behr
He inspired several rappers to experiment with their looks, including Kid Cudi, Yung Thug and A$AP Rocky.
Toosii also recently pointed to the importance of men to show their emotions as a way of combating fragile masculinity.
“It opens more doors for the world to be more comfortable and at peace with their feelings and their emotions,” he told Preme Magazine. “As I got older and became a man, I started to have my own thought process, and that’s when I learned that it’s not weak for men to show their emotions. There’s strength in that.”
Toosii recently released his debut album, NAUJOUR, earlier this month. His single “Favorite Song” was included in Billboard’s Hot 100.
