R&B’s newest crooner Frank Ocean coming out with his bi-sexual status (which is still up for debate until Ocean directly says what he prefers) has opened the doors for more talk on the topic of sexual preference. The climate is so tense that rapper Murs’ new video addressing a multi-racial gay couple is raising eyebrows in the hip-hop sphere as Murs not only raps about the situation, but also stars as one of the men in the relationship. While the message is strong and creative, Murs isn’t gay at all, so the shock value by some of his fans (especially at the end of the video) is justified. But hear Murs out, he addresses it all in his description of the video on Youtube:
“Cali emcee Murs presents the Hobostewd-directed music video for “Animal Style”, the Embassy-produced track from his recent BluRoc release Love & Rockets Volume 1: The Transformation. “Animal Style is a song I did for many reasons,” Murs explains. “The first was to be an advocate for people close to me who are out, and those who have yet to come out. It’s also a love song, which is nothing new for me. But with this one I wanted to challenge the listener to ask themselves: Is the love shared by two people of the same gender, really that different than the love I have for my partner of the opposite sex? And finally, I just felt it was crucial for some of us in the hip hop community to speak up on the issues of teen suicide, bullying, and the overall anti-homosexual sentiment that exist within hip hop culture. I felt so strongly about these issues and this song that I had to do a video that would command some attention, even if it makes some viewers uncomfortable. Even if it came at the cost of my own comfort.”