Saucy Santana Speaks On His “Strategic Game Plan” For Navigating Homophobia In Hip-Hop

Saucy Santana recently joined the dating app Grindr‘s Who’s The A**hole? podcast where he opened up about his upbringing in Florida and rap career as a successful and openly gay man.

During his sit-down with host, Katya, the “Material Gworl” star talked about homophobia in Hip-Hop and if it still exists in 2024.

“It’s definitely real,” he began. “Coming into rap, I was strategic. I said I was going to rap from a girl’s standpoint and I remember when my song came out, it went viral. I remember 2019, 2020, I couldn’t be in certain rooms. Dudes was like ‘nah’ — not necessarily rude to me, but you could just feel the energy. But one thing about me, once you be around me, people love me.”

“I’ve been around street dudes and hood hyper-masculine boys, and my game plan was: I was always mean. I was stiff,” he continued. “A lot of times men have a stigma that gays are gonna come around and, ‘Oh I wanna suck your d*ck’ and we’re gonna start twerking and all that, and I would be in the room like, ‘You could never touch me bi**h.’”

Speaking to gaining the respect in Hip-Hop that he felt he rightfully deserved, he added, “Once my accolades started speaking for me, I had so many different men in rap like, ‘Bro keep going.’ Drake done FaceTimed me with Caresha, Jack Harlow… I get so much respect from different dudes outside now.”

However, despite the long road it took to become a charting artist with features from icons like Madonna, Santana admitted, “I still got a long way to go,” due to the “older generation of rappers still not having it.”

Elsewhere in the convo, the 30-year-old spoke on growing up in Florida and not always being accepted, but leaning on the love he had for himself.

“I grew up middle class,” he said. “I always say ‘I’m a hood bi**h’ or ‘I’m ghetto’ but I didn’t grow up like that. Once I turned maybe like 15, 16, I’m like, ‘Okay, I wanna go to the projects.’ I started smoking Black & Mild’s… I wanted to see the streets and the hood, and what was the difference. I remember I used to walk up and down the road to the projects with my f**king c**chie cutters on, my crop tops, my face beat — I used to cause an up f**king roar. I was me, I was free. I didn’t give a f**k.”

“I went through so many different things with dudes in the hood and people feeling like, ‘You ain’t supposed– can’t be in this space. They wasn’t having it,” he expressed. “I was standing my ground like, ‘No, yes I am. I’m finna be right out here.‘ And I gained my credentials and I started gaining my respect, slowly, but surely, in the streets.”

Check out Saucy Santana’s full interview with Grindr below.