Through this thread on the I Love Music message board, I just discovered an interesting article on gay rappers written by Toure in the April 20, 2003 New York Times. You can find it here without having to pay NYT for the privilege. Here’s an excerpt:

Hip-hop is now as large a cultural stage as baseball was in the 50’s, yet the mainstream is just as closed to gay rappers as the major leagues were to black men before Robinson. And, as with Robinson, for Caushun to break through could have a profound impact on how gay people are perceived throughout America.

Caushun recently signed with Baby Phat Records, and his debut album, “Shock and Awe,” will come out at the end of June before Gay Pride Day. His self-confidence is so strong that he doesn’t believe his being gay will keep him from selling a million records and having a video played on MTV 20 times a week — in other words, from becoming a star.

Anybody heard that Caushun album? He’s neither in the allmusic.com nor the discogs.com databases, which leads me to believe that the album never came out (even though the rapper did).