Grime star Karnage Kills takes on homophobia, challenges the genre’s macho culture
The young rapper stands out from the rest of grime music, with its violent, anti-gay messages. Instead, he uses his sexuality as a way to deal with the prejudice he has faced since he first uploaded videos to YouTube
Rapper Karnage Kills stands out in the macho world of British grime music – by taking on homophobia one lyric at a time. A rising star in the growing genre of urban music that mixes garage and rap, Kills wants to use his sexuality to address the prejudices he has faced all his life.
“Grime is very homophobic,” says Kills, 21, with waist-length braids, in his dressing room before a recent London show.
“In grime you don’t see people looking like me, you see a lot of kind of very hyper masculine men. It’s not strange to see homophobia, it’s not strange to see the gay community being shunned. It’s something that happens all the time.”
Grime, a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the early 2000s, received a mainstream push in Britain last year, spearheaded by stars such as Stormzy who had a No 1 album and was nominated for the prestigious Mercury music prize in 2017. But it has been mired in controversy from the very start.
Last November, Stormzy was forced to apologise after homophobic tweets he had written when he was younger emerged. In a statement Stormzy said the comments he made were “unacceptable and disgusting, full stop … these are attitudes I’ve left in the past”.
I want people to focus on my musical talent, and not just the shock factor