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HOME > ENTERTAINMENT > FEATURE
By: KIM KRISBERG COMMENTS
 
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the creative arts that
he had begun in high school. In women’s studies classes, he got to talk
about gayness in a black context and read poems with gender-free figures.
It was women’s studies, he says, that led him to a black gay men’s
culture. In a way, women’s studies reminded him of his own writing experience.
“Writing can be this space where a man can be gay,” West explains.
“Writing allowed me to thrive and be gay and be myself. You’re constantly
trying to find these spaces and that’s why women’s studies appealed
to me.”
After graduating from Duke, West went on to earn a master’s degree in
liberal studies and philosophy from the New School in New York City. Then, in
1999, a year into his doctoral studies at Stanford University, he tested positive
for HIV.
“I was always very connected to the HIV-positive community,” he
says. “But you still make mistakes. You still slip.”
West took a hiatus from graduate school and threw himself full-time into the
arts, although he would later receive a master’s degree in modern thought
and literature from Stanford.
THE SAME YEAR he found out he was living with the virus, West co-founded the
Deep Dickollective, a group that he describes as the “underground conscious
homiesexual mavericks of a movement being affectionately referenced as homohop.”
The collective, which was formed in California’s Bay Area in response
to HIV, still performs together, has recorded acclaimed albums and toured nationally.
Part of the group’s inspiration, West says, was going to hip-hop shows
and hearing artists throw around the word “faggot” and noticing
that West and his friends weren’t the only ones uncomfortable with it.
Sometimes, Deep Dickollective even parodies well-known hip-hop songs, such
as these lyrics to the tune of Outkast’s “Ms. Jackson”: “Sorry
Ms. Jackson, I like your son; never meant to make his father cry, we thought
he told you he was bi.”
West also has a successful solo career, with his 2004 debut album “Songs
from Red Dirt,” a companion to his 2002 book “Red Dirt Revival:
A poetic memoir in 6 Breaths.”
Both West’s music and musings come from his personal experiences and
relay an artist who is deeply committed to speaking the truth. Although he has
been successful in his own right, he said it’s disappointing that black
gay club owners don’t promote artists such as himself and instead opt
to book the more traditional “disco divas.”
“I know that with the talent I have, I could go back into the closet
and have a record deal,” he says. “I’m a little pissed that
black gay boys consider buying 50 Cent before they consider buying my CD. …
There’s a consciousness behind what you buy.”
To help publish more gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender artists struggling
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