Cockmasta Flex, “Bros B4 Hoes“
SR079, 2008
Location: Kingston, NY
Tracks: 12
Genres: Rap, Gaygnsta rap, spoken word, NSFW
The original recording of this album is from 2008, remastered in 2012. Cockmasta does not use digital media and is pretty off the grid, but is the account shared with Spettro Records by their main promoter, when they released the remastered edition:
Cockmasta Flex and his crew are from Kingston NY. I met them when I lived up there for a while when I used to do graffiti. I noticed the tags first, some dudes were tagging “GAY” everywhere, there’s a photo of one of those pieces in the CD booklet. I got really curious about it and found out there was some guy calling himself Cockmasta Flex trying to get a gay rap community going, but at the same time totally rejecting any gay or gay-friendly hip hop that was out there for being too soft. I knew some people into underground experimental music and started working on setting things up to help them actually make an album. I didn’t really do much other than connect people with each other, then try to help with distribution. But like I said the only distribution was giving out those 100 copies we made and encouraging people to copy and share it. There was also a brief campaign to put copies of the album in places where it would be likely to offend people, like at sports bars and on the shelf at music stores, but by far the most intense was when this crazy friend of his going by Gayru The Damager was traveling through Wyoming and left a copy on a table in the same bar where Matt Shepard was abducted. But anyway, nobody involved in the project had much funding to offer, and due to all the stolen beats it could not be legally sold. It was popular with some folks in Baltimore (namely the Wham City art collective) but not for the reason Flex wanted it to be because they were mostly not gay and not into hip hop.
I would say that CF was by far easier to work with than anyone in his crew. The other 2 MCs on the album were pretty out of control and possibly even close to carrying out the lifestyle they preached in the lyrics. Thrust Bareback was a notorious crackhead and MC Bowel Shuvel was into crack as well as heroin and anything else he could get his hands on, and had tried to kill himself several times, which he finally succeeded at a couple years ago. But Flex, despite his straight-hating lyrics, worked closely with a lot of my straight friends (including me) once he realized we were gonna help him and let him have creative control. He designed a lot of the artwork, but another guy (Cowboy Manfan) put in the serious photoshop work to make the album art what it is (to Flex’s liking). Cowboy Manfan was a straight friend of mine who actually ended up hooking up with Flex after many long photoshop sessions. At the end of the project, CF was actually kind of disappointed with some of the mixing, but said he hoped it might encourage other like-minded people to try similar ideas and do it better. He didn’t want much to do with me afterwards, seems to think he just used me, but gave me full permission to do whatever I liked with the album, leaving it basically in my control. After the album was “released” one of the fans coined the term Gayngsta Rap, which I think is just perfect. CF has done a few shows in basements and stuff but is mostly rejected by the hip hop community. Last I heard he was getting into freestyle battles that sometimes end in fist fights but I haven’t seen one of those, I don’t live in Kingston anymore. To this day I have never heard anything else like it and am just proud to have been involved.
Cockmasta Flex and his crew are from Kingston NY. I met them when I lived up there for a while when I used to do graffiti. I noticed the tags first, some dudes were tagging “GAY” everywhere, there’s a photo of one of those pieces in the CD booklet. I got really curious about it and found out there was some guy calling himself Cockmasta Flex trying to get a gay rap community going, but at the same time totally rejecting any gay or gay-friendly hip hop that was out there for being too soft. I knew some people into underground experimental music and started working on setting things up to help them actually make an album. I didn’t really do much other than connect people with each other, then try to help with distribution. But like I said the only distribution was giving out those 100 copies we made and encouraging people to copy and share it. There was also a brief campaign to put copies of the album in places where it would be likely to offend people, like at sports bars and on the shelf at music stores, but by far the most intense was when this crazy friend of his going by Gayru The Damager was traveling through Wyoming and left a copy on a table in the same bar where Matt Shepard was abducted. But anyway, nobody involved in the project had much funding to offer, and due to all the stolen beats it could not be legally sold. It was popular with some folks in Baltimore (namely the Wham City art collective) but not for the reason Flex wanted it to be because they were mostly not gay and not into hip hop.
I would say that CF was by far easier to work with than anyone in his crew. The other 2 MCs on the album were pretty out of control and possibly even close to carrying out the lifestyle they preached in the lyrics. Thrust Bareback was a notorious crackhead and MC Bowel Shuvel was into crack as well as heroin and anything else he could get his hands on, and had tried to kill himself several times, which he finally succeeded at a couple years ago. But Flex, despite his straight-hating lyrics, worked closely with a lot of my straight friends (including me) once he realized we were gonna help him and let him have creative control. He designed a lot of the artwork, but another guy (Cowboy Manfan) put in the serious photoshop work to make the album art what it is (to Flex’s liking). Cowboy Manfan was a straight friend of mine who actually ended up hooking up with Flex after many long photoshop sessions. At the end of the project, CF was actually kind of disappointed with some of the mixing, but said he hoped it might encourage other like-minded people to try similar ideas and do it better. He didn’t want much to do with me afterwards, seems to think he just used me, but gave me full permission to do whatever I liked with the album, leaving it basically in my control. After the album was “released” one of the fans coined the term Gayngsta Rap, which I think is just perfect. CF has done a few shows in basements and stuff but is mostly rejected by the hip hop community. Last I heard he was getting into freestyle battles that sometimes end in fist fights but I haven’t seen one of those, I don’t live in Kingston anymore. To this day I have never heard anything else like it and am just proud to have been involved.
Originally released March 7, 2008
Credits:
Credits:
Cockmasta Flex,
Thrust Bareback,
MC Bowel Shovel,
Cowboy Manfan,
MC Testical Tuesday,
Tommy Twink,
Ducky T

Originators of Gaygnsta rap from Kingston NY. First appeared around 2005 in the hip hop graffiti scene, notorious for attacking straight rappers and prolific homosexuality.
Other releases by Cockmasta Flex

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