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What is Man's Worst Fear (Just Some Queer)?
A six-track rap album originally titled "iPhigenia," the name of my flirty, dark-witted alter ego, out to combat rap's culture of homophobia and misogyny.
This album eventually got merged with a later album "Grown Adult Failure" and became the 14-track "Boy Mode?" Play/download the full album (NSFW) from the playlist below...
...or click any track's title to view that track (and it's lyrics) on SoundCloud.
What do you need to know about Man's Worst Fear (Just Some Queer)?
In taking a break from the turbulent Noakes Channel, I returned to Empyrean, having learned a great deal about how to present oneself on YouTube. But I had long moved past the fiasco that Empyrean was based on. I wanted to leave behind my chaotic, pain-wracked songs and start fresh with rap that was more "internet" than "theatre."
Enter iPhigenia, queer, sex-positive, openly trans, all the things I was/am proud to be and wished/STILL WISH people wouldn't criticize me for being.
The name "iPhigenia" came from the Greek story of Agamemnon. Iphigenia was the daughter of the titular king of Argos, sacrificed to the Gods by her father for the sake of his men making safe voyage across the sea to besiege the city of Troy, prompting Clytemnestra, the mother of Iphigenia, to murder Agamemnon.
I'm no fan of pretentious creative decisions, but using the name Iphigenia is as pretentious as it gets! However, I saw Iphigenia as the one of the western world's oldest examples of a prominent young woman with a future shortchanged by a god-fearing patriarchal society which, to me, is still the society we very much live in.
None would care about Iphigenia today though, I theorised, unless her story was factored into the mass-broadcast marketing campaign for some slick new tech product. Only if outrageous profit could be made would figures like Iphigenia be kept relevant.
So the name "iPhigenia" refers to A: the plight of those disenfranchised by one of humanity's most deep-rooted problems, the patriarchal oppression of women, and B: the corporate, capitalist system whose BS philosophies we're all stuck subscribing to.
Thus, iPhigenia was the perfect name for society as I saw it from my profoundly cynical, darkly sarcastic point of view, which I would let spill out into music.
iPhigenia gave me a place that wasn't open to me anywhere else: where I could explore and express my femininity openly and unapologetically. I stopped being closeted in my pansexuality and took a militant stance against homophobic, woman-hating rappers and the painfully-masculine heteronormative culture they represented. The Eminems of the world had made more than enough songs about raping bitches. It was time to fight back.
I finished three songs, "Mass Debate," "This Is Gonna Fuck Us Up" and "Ride All You Want" and scrapped fourth song "Dumb It Down" before the album "iPhigenia" was sidelined for four years. By the time I returned to music in 2019, I was calling myself Lena Ray and wanted to rap by that name. I had grown too distant from "iPhigenia." Thus, my first album would be named "Man's Worst Fear (Just Some Queer)."
My first finished song "Mass Debate" was a barbed caricature of rap's sexist endorsements of female objectification, endorsements that feed a society built seedily around a straight man's right to mass-debate (written that way in a deliberately-limp effort to equate it to free speech).
I aimed to make "Ride All You Want" rap's ultimate non-hetero anthem, attacking those who push for hypermasculinity and mocking them for denying the clear homoeroticism that such a push stirs up.
"This Is Gonna Fuck Us Up" was my legitimate attempt to A: outdo the most popular song in the world at the time, Gangnam Style by PSY, and B: go beyond that and create a true classic rap track, something to rival Nuttin' But A G-Thang, Juicy and All Of The Lights. The song explores a Saul Williams observation that rap is the true music of affirmation; you hear words and beats, you nod your head to the beat, so you nod your head to the words as if your body is agreeing with each word in advance. Even if certain rap lyrics/ideas are problematic, you nod to the beat and agree with them anyway.
Yes, that is me wearing basically nothing in the Mass Debate video! I wanted the video to feel like private footage broadcast without my consent. Mass Debate is a middle finger to pervert culture, and nothing screams of pervert culture in today's world like the internet's obsession with leaked nude selfies, which Mass Debate's video taps into. I also wanted to make a bold statement about iPhigenia's image and attitude from the very first video: if you came looking for masculine and straight, you're in the wrong place! As shamelessly er... cocky... as this video may be, so too is hetero-centric ego-driven rap culture. I wanted to subvert that 'cockiness' and mock said ego!
I discontinued iPhigenia after GamerGate happened and I, as a result, committed myself full-time to making games, but in 2019, I returned to music and added to the album with two new tracks, The Sexy Boys Are Queer and GenderFail. These songs very much speak for themselves!
If you need more music out of me than just these tracks, please go to patreon.com/lenaray - That's...
...and donate to support it's production!
Any questions, confusion or compliments about Man's Worst Fear (Just Some Queer)? Leave a comment below!
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