San Diego Pride Red Carpet Party with Trina, Miki Vale

Hi. I just had to comment to try to help you understand what you find so odd. In 2011… no one cares. Maybe some do but no one cares what they think either. It’s not about gay or straight, it’s about GREEN. Gay events pay, period. Trina always makes appearances at Pride events as do a slew of other celebrities, both male and female, because they get PAID and paid very well. Gay people like music just like everyone else and music has no gender. And the promoters don’t try to pay you in weed at the end of the show. You might also be surprised to know that not only gay people go to gay clubs, just like not only straight people go to straight clubs. So you being there wont be that awkward to anyone but you. Plus you’ll probably see some familiar faces that you’d be surprised to see. I’m glad your eyes are opened and I hope I’ve helped enlighten you a bit.

Hey Miki, yeah I mean to tell you the truth, my experience with LGBT community is pretty limited. I have like 2.5 lesbian friends, a few gay acquaintances, and there are a couple people from high school who turned out to be gay later. Never been to a gay bar so yeah, didn’t know there were a good number of straight people there.

And yeah, that’s partly my bad for putting it in an ambiguous, possibly negative light. I didn’t mean the event itself is weird. It’s cool that gay clubs pay and stuff (as opposed to making artists pay-to-play). And I have no doubt about the legitimacy of LGBT events, though it never really crossed my mind before. But I guess after thinking about it, what trips me out is the whole gender politics of it and how Trina performing for a lesbian audience just adds this whole new dimension to it all (pardon my tendency to over-think small stuff). I mean, she’s already really complex in a heterosexual context. Is she degrading herself as a woman by letting herself be objectified by men? Or is her exploitation of a misogynist world for personal gain some sort of pragmatic feminist thing? Or is she on some Xtina Aguilera shit where she’s just a woman with a healthy sexual appetite who likes expressing herself as a bad ass, 5-star chick? The homosexual element complicates it way more now. Do lesbian women feel weird objectifying Trina’s sexuality as a woman who may have also experienced the same objectification at some point? Or maybe the expression of sexuality is a cherished freedom in itself for lesbians, who are not always free to express their sexuality? Is Trina just exploiting yet another audience who will buy into her sexuality? Or is she expressing herself as someone who is sexually open to women? And there are tons more questions/possibilities this raises that I haven’t even thought of yet.

Also, yeah, this is totally not the best place to talk about an artist not from SD but whatever, I’ll take discussion wherever I can find it.

I don’t know, those are questions you’d need to ask Trina or a conversation to take up with your 2.5 friends. I have no idea about her sexual appetite, so I wouldn’t even begin to speculate. Nor do I care. As far as exploiting another audience, I would say negative on that one. She has male fans. She has female fans. Some of those fans happen to be straight or gay or lesbian or transsexual or other or whatever. Apparently she’s okay with that. They want to see Trina live. That’s the extent of my knowledge and interest in it. I think the part that you, and possibly many others, are missing is that she doesn’t have to be sexually open to women to perform for an audience of primarily women. If an artist performs at an elementary school that doesn’t meant that they are sexually open to children. I could be wrong but I think you are concentrating on the sexual aspect of it, which honestly I don’t think is a factor. When we book an artist we don’t think about if they are sexually open to their audience. We think is the audience open to the artist and will they pay to see them… that’s it. Whatever the reason may be. If you do a little research you will see that, as I said previously, LOTS of artists and celebrities perform at and make appearances at gay events. Salt & Pepa will be performing at the Pride parade Saturday and I don’t think they are gay. They very well could be but… who cares. People want to hear the Salt & Pepa songs they love. The end.

That’s true but not all celebrities/artists use their sexuality as like the thing they’re known for. I think Trina plays up her sexuality in her lyrics a lot and so it’s a different story with her than like if MC Lyte was headlining the night or something. But yeah, you’re right, that’s probably unfair and maybe mildly homophobic of me to bring sexuality into the equation just because it’s a gay/lesbian bar.

[...] know I missed like three of the four events I’d planned on attending last week (to my credit, the Trina show was sold out on pre-sale [and hella expensive!] and, um, I was too drunk to drive to the chikle x [...]

A lot of artist have LGBTQ following and so the reach to those fans. Its sad that a lof of artists are not secure enough in who they are that they refuse to do these type of shows because they are scared to be called gay…the hip hop community and the african american community are two of the most homophobic and discriminating communities it seems on this planet. But yeah I agree that the (Sis)tem and Trina on the same bill as odd…or interesting to say the least. Two different genres