Y-Love, black Jewish rapper, comes out as gay

Yitz Jordan’s identity as a black Orthodox Jewish rapper was already a bit complicated. Jordan, known as Y-Love has struggled with his public image for years—and today in an interview published by Out magazine Y-Love revealed that he is gay.

An excerpt:

“I’ve never been conflicted about my sexuality,” Jordan told Out in an exclusive interview this week. “Any conflicts that have come up in my life have come up because of other people’s homophobia. I’ve always known when to be in the closet and when not to.”

So why come out now? According to Jordan, he’s wanted to tell the world that he’s gay for some time, but he was concerned that his “public reputation” would be tarnished and the music career he has fought so hard to carve out in a seemingly intolerant community would be ruined.

“I feel like I’ve wasted years of my life worrying that it would alienate the community I dedicated my life to as an artist and as a man. But my hope is that it will open their eyes—and hearts.”

Read the rest here.

I met Jordan, 34, at Jewlicious in 2009, when I was there to discuss my own complicated Jew-ish identity. His story has been passing around my Jewish friends on Facebook today, and I’ve seen nothing but support (like this from William Daroff).