Queer rapper Chris Conde explodes thanks to conservative outrage

If you have a If being a great rapper was all about posturing, Chris Conde would be the perfect fit: he’s got a confident demeanor and is usually clad in nothing but leather harness. But the Brooklyn MC’s flow is also mesmerizing and his bars are scandalously entertaining – check out recent tracks “Notorious FAG” and “COMB” (the latter acronym stands for “cum on my beard,” which has to be one of the sexiest imperatives in hip-hop). With the word “queer” tattooed in giant capital letters across his stomach, Conde makes no secret of who he is and what makes him tick. Which is why he’s so nuts right now.

“The first time I took off my clothes on stage, I was performing in a sports bar,” says Conde Rolling Stone. Opening for a “scary drag” show, he had to compete against a televised football game. No one was paying attention to his performance, so he took off his clothes. “And people paid attention to him,” he says. Conde continued to strip completely naked at his performances when he “got how people reacted to it.” The excited crowds were another sign that the rapper should continue to follow his instincts. He grew up listening to “hardcore and metal” and playing in such bands, he says; just “for fun,” he and a friend started uploading rap tracks to MySpace in the late 2000s, when the platform was a hotbed for aspiring musicians. The feedback was surprisingly positive, though, and Conde decided to develop that side of his musical personality further.

“I rap about gay and queer sex, but I also rap about overcoming drug addiction and mental health,” says Conde, 37, who got sober in 2014 after bouts of drug abuse and homelessness and then started rapping again. “The whole show takes you through all of those moments and the queer experience – queer joy, queer sex, queer pain.” Being part of the leather community and wearing the clothes on stage, he says, “has allowed me to love my body and accept it in a way that I couldn’t before.”

Conde is also, of course, aware of his provocative role and relishes the role of subverting heteronormative culture (not to mention rap’s hyper-masculine stereotypes). This has put him on the radar of conservatives, who have helped him achieve viral fame in their unintentional outrage.

“OH. MY. GOD!!! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!” tweeted Juanita Broaddrick, a staunch Trump supporter and conservative influencer, to more than a million followers on Saturday. She had shared a video of Conde appearing in his armor at a Pride festival in the small Austrian town of Bad Ischl in mid-June. The clip has since been viewed 21 million times on her page. Other conservatives seemed eager to ridicule Conde with similar comments, drawing homophobic, body-shaming responses. Trump-supporting former NFL player Antonio Brown trolled by claiming the video showed recently retired Philadelphia Eagles player Jason Kelce “performing in Philly yesterday.”

But the hate was drowned out by new fans who admired Conde’s obvious talent and commanding presence. In response to Brown’s tweet, Kelce wrote, “Shit, I wish I could spit out that many bars!” Yvie Oddly, winner of the 11th season of RuPaul’s Drag Racequoted Broaddrick’s post expressing interest in a “musical collaboration” with Conde. Countless people asked for Conde’s name or the title of the song he was performing. One who found out his identity commented on his Instagram page: “See, this is why I can never delete my Twitter account. I always find new icons to follow when conservatives get upset.”

Conde had just returned from touring Europe with rapper Myles Bullen, a labelmate on indie label Fake Four, when he was bombarded on social media with messages about the Austria gig, which was pulling in crazy numbers. In fact, he was still suffering from jet lag and had woken up from a nap to hear from friends that rapper Azealia Banks had posted a screenshot of him on her Instagram stories to praise his work and ask who he was. “I was like, ‘This is bizarre, I just listened to Azealia Banks this morning,'” Conde says. To his surprise, they were soon direct messaging each other. He was no less astonished to learn that he was trending on “far-right Twitter,” where the snippet of the Austria set had been played millions of times, compared to the roughly 150,000 views he had enjoyed for the video on his own TikTok account.

Conde found the conservatives’ attacks predictable and weak. “It was more of the same rhetoric that liberals want to destroy American values, that shit,” he says. The outpouring of love and support, he adds, made it easy for him to laugh at the vitriol, even as some of those around him reached out to check if he was OK. “They’re just angry, but they don’t know why, right? It’s hilarious,” he says. “It kills me that these people are so upset about my existence. I’ve been subverting heteronormative ideologies since I came out, especially with my music.”

In the meantime, it’s been an exciting thrill to see his audience grow massively overnight. “To have a platform now and show so many people what I can do is absolutely insane,” says Conde, who is excited to release the song that launched him, “Good Boys Say Yes Sir,” a collaboration with queer disco band Hard Ton. There’s more of his solo music coming out this year, and he’s in talks with Yvie Oddly about that proposed collaboration. He’ll also play a free show on July 4 at Austin bar The Little Darlin’ and is already booked to open for a major artist at a Labor Day weekend show at the Ice Palace on Fire Island.

The best part of the sudden recognition, though, is that Conde hadn’t actually planned to perform at the Austrian festival—it was a completely spontaneous show. Despite fears of overexerting themselves on a day off before their Vienna concert, he and Bullen decided to accept the last-minute invitation. “We thought, screw it. Let’s play at this random Pride in this random village in the middle of nowhere in Austria,” Conde recalls. A light rain didn’t keep concertgoers away, and Austrian singer and drag queen Concita Wurst, a Eurovision winner, performed at the festival. Finally, Conde took the stage. “And I rock the shit out,” he says. “The sound was incredible. It was really cool. And they loved it!”

“At that moment, I just understood – we need to be here,” says Conde. “There are queer people everywhere.” Now, it seems, that spirit of connection and generosity has paid off in another way. Despite a handful of prudish people doing their best to spoil the fun.