Katastrophe: Hip Hop Against the Grain

If you haven’t heard Katastrophe's name yet, you will. With an LP in the works and a European tour under his belt, this 25-year-old FTM (Female to Male) emo-hop (that’s hip hop with emotion) artist is on the verge of making it big. Or, that’s the word on the streets.

Katastrophe, also knows as Rocco Kayiatos, sat down to talk to WireTap after a recent performance at Genderblast, an event sponsored by San Francisco's Youth Gender Project. Here, the artist discusses his music, his role in the queer community and the future of transgender youth in the public sphere.

WT: What got you into Hip Hop?

Katastrophe: I started doing spoken word and slam poetry and it sort of evolved into hip hop. I felt like it was a natural progression; I was already writing rhyme-y spoken word stuff, so then I just learned how to make beats, and started making hip hop. Plus, I'm 25. Hip hop is older than I am, so it's been part of my life, always.

WT: What is the hip hop scene like from the perspective of someone who is gender queer, given how hip hop is generally seen as a very heterosexist music genre with very rigid gender definitions?

K: If you don't listen to hip hop, you don't understand. It's like rock n' roll or anything. Everything is homophobic. This is a world that really doesn't want [queers] to be part of the mainstream, in any powerful positions, or to have any effect on the media – so of course it's homophobic.

And then being an out, trans person who has a hard time keeping it to himself, performing for a straight hip hop audience, I’ve found that [most of that audience] doesn't want to really have anything to do with queers, especially a young trans guy.

I did a battle once, and once was enough. It was nothing but, "fag" this, "you're a little bitch," that, and "look at you, you're like a girl." This is what a guy is saying to me, and I'm thinking it's not that effective, because I'm aware of all these things. It maybe would work for some other straight dude who is homophobic and scared, but I don't care if you say I'm a girl, I'm just going to come back and tell you that I used to be one, but then I'm going to hope no one beats my ass in the parking lot.

WT: Why hip hop? (over spoken word or traditional nonfiction writing, for example).

K: I think that it widens my audience because with spoken word, you can only go so far. The people who listen to spoken word or poetry are a smaller audience than the people who listen to music. When you have a beat behind you, you get to sneak in all these messages – heavy-handed political messages, but you're singing them and dancing, so people are listening and absorbing.

WT: Do you think that using hip hop as a means to express yourself and your experience makes it easier to connect better to youth who identify with other young FTMs? What about those outside the FTM community?

K: No, I think acoustic music or rock would be easier to connect with the queer community. There's a "huge queer hip hop scene" in the Bay Area, and that means there are like six of us who really like to support each other. But overall, like whenever I get off a stage, at least one person's like, "I hate hip hop, but I loved that," or I'll perform for a 65-year-old trans woman, and she's like, "I could never listen to rap, but I love what you're doing."

I'm just going to do what I do. I have a few songs specifically about the FTM experience, and people can connect to that.

WT: Do you see yourself as an activist for queer rights movements or more as a commentator and an observer?

K: I don't like to claim that I'm an activist because if I'm doing anything for the greater good of this community, it's indirectly. I'm expressing myself and if people can connect with that, then that's great. What I hope is that I connect with people and maybe build community. I feel like you can be an artist and indirectly affect change. I think it's pompous when people are like, "I'm an activist through my art." It's not that easy; you have to be volunteering your time, going to rallies, organizing, actually doing something beyond having a self-serving career that may impact the lives around you. Take Le Tigre – Kathleen Hanna’s absolutely a feminist, her music is feminist, but is it activist? That's really arguable. When was the last time that Kathleen Hanna or any of those guys volunteered for any organization? But I [ask myself those questions] too. I'm not letting myself off the hook.