Le1f, the openly gay New York-based rapper who made a name for himself by calling out Macklemore, made his network TV debut this week on Letterman. The artist, who’s album "Hey" was named "Album of the Week" by Stereogum, performed his upbeat single "Wut" and was fabulously gay in a way that network television probably hasn’t seen before. Gawker pointed out why Le1f’s performance was such an important point:
And then, while wearing a skort (at least I think it’s a skort — the legs are visible and the skirt part hangs loosely, so if this is a skort it’s openly skort) and in front of two male backup dancers, Le1f preceded to perform the shit out of his single "Wut." If his appearance and voice scanned ambiguously to people who were being exposed to his talent for the first time, the refrain of "Wut" answered any questions they might have about his identity: "I’m gettin’ light in my loafers," he says a few times in the song.
Or maybe people still didn’t pick up on it and just saw an energetic, eccentric rapper. Regardless, Le1f didn’t hide from himself. He was able to present himself as matter-of-factly gay, as opposed to someone whose gayness is the only fact that matters. He was a human, not a fetish object. He was a rapper, not think-piece fodder.