“I spent a lot of time, in my earlier years of limelight, suppressing myself.” The rapper, who tackles homophobia and rape culture in verse, is making forays into TV and photography, working on a new record — and refusing to be suppressed any longer.
Angel Haze performs at the Elle 5th annual Women in Music concert in April 2014.
Chris Pizzello / AP
On an evening last October, when the first hint of winter's chill was descending upon New York City, the rapper Angel Haze was getting dressed. In a few hours, Haze would be performing at the Keep The Child Alive's 11th Annual Black Ball at the Hammerstein Ballroom with Alicia Keys, Nas, and David Byrne. The evening's honoree, Italian fashion designer and Givenchy creative director Riccardo Tisci, was responsible, fittingly, for Haze's stylings.
Tisci's team pulled out outfit option after option — a few tapered suits, a leotard — and Haze slipped into one haute couture ensemble after another.
A styling session like this one is an exercise in glittering, commercialized femininity. Haze, having just pulled on a high-glamour bodysuit popularized by girl power performers like Madonna and Beyoncé, started worriedly wondering how to convey to the team that this world — this aesthetic of gender presentation, this way of living — had never been a part of the plan.
"You look so beautiful," one of the stylists commented, admiring the leotard. It was a compliment, meant kindly, but the descriptor came loaded with gendered implications: Women are beautiful. Beautiful, pretty, gorgeous, lovely — these were words that Haze had been fielding through countless fittings and photoshoots (standard occupational hazards for any musician who dabbles in modeling) with increasing discomfort and unease.
"To be honest with you," Haze told the team, in a moment of personal reckoning, "I'm not really a girl. I don't feel comfortable in these clothes. If anything, I feel more on the guy end of the spectrum."
Haze — who identifies as agender, and prefers the pronouns "they" and "them"— laughs a little when they relay this story to me over the phone, barely half a year later. "[Tisci] was like, 'It's fine, it's totally fine! Be who you are!' That was only a few months ago. And now I'm like, 'What the fuck? I've just been sitting here accepting it, you know? What have I been doing all these years?'"
Angel Haze attends Keep A Child Alive's 11th annual Black Ball in October 2014.
D Dipasupil / Getty Images
via on BuzzFeed
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