"No Homo" Making Hip-Hop Gayer?

From Jonah Weiner, of Slate:

Often, no homo appears not just as a disclaimer but as a punch line, a 'See what I did there?' that flaunts one's cleverness. 'Just shot a video with R. Kelly, but no homo though,' Lil Wayne rapped in 2007. In this line—a sly nod to both a music video co-starring Wayne and Kelly and to the R&B singer's alleged sex tape—no homo isn't an afterthought; it's the keystone that holds the whole joke together. A funny side effect here is that the no homo vogue doubtless encourages rappers not only to scrutinize everything they say for trace gayness, but to actively think up gay double-entendres just so that they can cap them off with no homo kickers.

Nicely played. Elsewhere, Weiner indicates how Method Man started whiling at just the idea of a gay rapper. On the one hand, it's a depressing sign of the times. Method is forced to deal with people of all shades and lifestyles simply by way of his success, but the dude is harder than granite in a snowstorm, no homo. However, the success of Kanye West and his spotty (under reported) protests might be a shred of hope. We'll see...