She knows she didn’t invent the idea of “gay pop,” but pop singer and Internet personality JoJo Siwa would like to see the subset become an “official genre” of music.
During an interview on SiriusXM’s Hits 1 Miami With Mack & Jen, Siwa clarified the comments she made in a viral video interview with Billboard, saying she simply wants to see more queer art get recognized. “So, here’s the thing — ‘gay pop’ is a thing that people have done, but it is not an official genre of music,” she explained. “It is a style, but it is how there’s rap, there’s rock, there’s R&B, there’s pop — if you look on the iTunes charts … this should be a literal genre of music.”
The former Dance Moms star continued, saying that she doesn’t feel the current categorizations for LGBTQ+ artists are sufficient. “There’s so many gay pop artists … but I think that those gay pop artists do deserve a bigger home than what they have right now,” she said.
Siwa originally spoke about the concept of “gay pop” during an interview with Billboard‘s Tetris Kelly about her new song “Karma,” when she claimed that she told her label (Columbia Records) that she “wanted to start a new genre … called ‘gay pop.’” Commenters quickly called out the singer for claiming to have created a “genre” that has existed for years — even LGBTQ+ pioneers Tegan and Sara shared a video on TikTok where they silently stared into a camera following the 20-year-old’s comments.
In a later interview with TMZ, Siwa clarified that she didn’t intend to say that she “invented” the concept of “gay pop” music. “I am not the inventor of gay pop, for sure not. But I do want to be a piece of making it bigger than it already is,” she said. “I’m not the president [of gay pop], but I might be the CEO, or the CMO. I can be the CMO, the chief marketing officer, and use my marketing tactics whether people like it or not.”
Elsewhere in her interview on SiriusXM, Siwa bemoaned the ongoing backlash to her comments. “I could say I want world peace, and everyone would be like, ‘How dare you want peace for the world!’” she said. “People ask me all the time, they’re like, ‘Do you feel like you have to be very careful about what you say?’ And I’m like, ‘No, because no matter what I say, it’s going down anyways.’”
Watch a clip from Siwa’s interview below:
