While LGBTQ+ Pride Month has come to a close, the controversies it generated continue to loom large in the national conversation.
Target has been plagued by criticism since the waning weeks of May, when it unveiled its 2023 Pride Collection, which featured satanic imagery and products marketed to children, leading to calls from Christians and other conservatives to boycott the superstore.
Around the same time, the Los Angeles Dodgers likewise courted controversy when the team announced that it would honor the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a queer activist group whose members dress as nuns in drag, at its annual Pride Night.
In the weeks that followed, both organizations were denounced on conservative cable news programs, in online videos and podcasts, and in at least two hip-hop songs.
The pair of anti-LGBTQ+ Pride songs even briefly charted on Billboard and iTunes.
The song “Boycott Target” by rapper Forgiato Blow and Christian singer Jimmy Levy reached No. 1 on both charts when it dropped at the end of May, according to Fox News Digital.
The lyrics, which carry an explicit content warning, say in part, “You think that gay ѕh*t gonna get yоu paid? / Yeah, we gon’ see / It’s Mar-a-Lago 2024 / We Trumpin’ baby.” The rap also features a slur directed at trans individuals and a threat directed toward Target that “God is coming for revenge.”
Later in the song, Levy sings, “We need а clean up on every aisle / inside this storе, Satan resides / wash it with the blоod of Christ / it’ѕ needed here, so don’t think twіce.”
The music video for “Boycott Target” has over a million views on YouTube.
On June 16, “Reclaim the Rainbow,” a song by Christian rappers Bryson Gray and Shemeka Michelle, and which also features Levy, was released. Aimed at criticizing the Dodgers, the song briefly claimed No. 1 on Billboard’s rap digital song sales chart and No. 3 on the iTunes sales chart.
“They turned the rainbow to sin / but they don’t know what it mean / it is a promise / it isn’t pride / God said he would no longer flood the earth / Now it’s for abominations when they put their flags outside their churches,” Gray raps.
Later in the song, Michelle raps, “Love is love, nasty / taste the rainbow / no thanks, I’d rather die.”
