Before Lil Nas X had the Billboard crown and before Saucy Santana was a festival mainstay, there was an entire wave of openly queer hip-hop artists building something from the ground up—without corporate backing, without mainstream co-signs, and without apology. I know, because I was there.

Together, they expose a community fracture: do we defend our own at all costs in a world that never gives us the benefit of the doubt, or do we call out wrongs even when the spotlight burns one of us?