May 14, 2007 | Celeb Watch

Ain't no 'mo

Barely a blip on the music gaydar these days, Caushun, one of the first openly queer rappers has been exposed as nothing more than a big pink lie. He was made up, pimped out, and celebrated as a HipHop homo, but had less Snoop Dog and more Milli Vanilli as his inspiration.

Ivan Matias was the mastermind behind Caushun and his rhymes. In a telling interview for AllHipHop.com, he says that the Caushun persona started out as a prank when he called into a radio station as a flamboyantly gay rapper. After a series of call-in performances that became increasingly popular, he decided that Caushun needed a face. He contacted Jason Herndon who agreed to play the role of Caushun in public.   

All Jason had to do was show up with the demo. “He never learned the rhymes. …When he went to the station, he said he was Caushun, showed them the CD, and that was that.” Matias envisioned selling enough records to females and the gay community alone for a platinum record without selling to anyone else. “The whole time he was Caushun, over six years, he only did six shows. He did a Vibe show one time and fell off the stage. He couldn’t keep it professional,” says Matias.   

2006 was not a good year for the rapper-to-be. A MySpace site exposed Caushun as a big fake. Jason was charged with forgery, identity theft, and grand larceny. And a record deal with Kimora Lee's label, Baby Phat, was withdrawn. Rumour spread that Jason planned to retaliate with a tell-all book exposing that Kimora Lee was having an alleged lesbian affair with a girl named Kisha.  

Caushun's MySpace site, as well as his official website, thegayrapper.com, have since disappeared. 

• Ivan Matias: hip-hop secrets trapped in the closet [allhiphop.com]
• Meet the JT Leroy of gay hip-hop. [This Is Nervous Acid]