JoJo Siwa clarifies comments about wanting to make ‘gay pop’ an ‘official genre’
"If you search for it on iTunes, it doesn't come up" says the star
From hidden gems to huge hits, the ‘gay pop’ pantheon is stacked with songs, with George Michael’s ‘Freeek!’ and Lil Nas X’s ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’ immediately springing to mind.
Can you blame JoJo Siwa, then, for wanting to formalise it… albeit with a song most would rather forget?!
That’s the the TikToker’s plan, at least: after catching heat for comments to Billboard last week about starting “a new genre … called ‘gay pop'” with lesbian-centric single ‘Karma’, the star now claims she’s not the “inventor” of the genre, bur rather, wants to be “CEO”.
Isn’t that Kylie’s job?
“I could say I want world peace, and everyone would be like, ‘How dare you want peace for the world!'” – JoJo Siwa
“Here’s the thing,” the 20-year-old has since explained to SiriusXM. “‘Gay pop’ is a thing that people have done, but it is not an official genre of music.
“It is a style, but it is how there’s rap, there’s rock, there’s R&B, there’s pop — if you look on the iTunes charts … this should be a literal genre of music.”
The 20-year-old went on: “There’s so many gay pop artists … but I think that those gay pop artists do deserve a bigger home than what they have right now.”
Responding to backlash to her original comments, JoJo continued: “I could say I want world peace, and everyone would be like, ‘How dare you want peace for the world!’
“People ask me all the time, they’re like, ‘Do you feel like you have to be very careful about what you say?’ And I’m like, ‘No, because no matter what I say, it’s going down anyways.’”
In another recent interview, this time with TMZ, she added: “I am not the inventor of gay pop, for sure not. But I do want to be a piece of making it bigger than it already is.
“I’m not the president [of gay pop], but I might be the CEO, or the CMO. I can be the CMO, the chief marketing officer, and use my marketing tactics whether people like it or not.”
She could write the company manifesto with all these quotes alone!