Katastrophe | |
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Background information | |
Born | October 2, 1979 |
Genres | Hip hop |
Occupation(s) | Rapper, record producer |
Years active | 1997–2014 |
Labels | Knox Cherchez La Femme Sugartruck |
Website | roccokayiatos |
Rocco Kayiatos, known professionally as Katastrophe and in some later releases as Rocco Katastrophe, is an American rapper. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, he began competing in poetry slams in 1997. After winning the 1998 Youth Speaks poetry slam, he went on tour with Sister Spit's Rambling Road Show tour. [5] As a teenager, Kayiatos had poems on four compilation CDs.
He is widely credited as the first openly transgender singer in the hip-hop genre and he often incorporates his identity as a trans man into his work.
In 2001, he recorded with Mark Schaffer the title song, Candyass, to the feature film Sugar High Glitter City, directed by Shar Rednour (who broached the project to Katastrophe on a Sister Spit tour) and Jackie Strano; the soundtrack was nominated for an AVN Award but lost to Snoop Dogg. [6] Katastrophe and Schaffer then formed hip-hop group The End of the World along with Ricky Lee; Schaffer subsequently began performing solo as Schaffer the Darklord. [6]
Katastrophe started making beats in 2002. [7] He raps about lives lived outside the mainstreams of education, gender, and culture. He uses his struggle as a trans man and his contested place in contemporary queer and hip hop culture to discuss larger issues of community, space, privilege, sex, and self-worth. [8]
He was named Producer of the Year by Outmusic Awards for his debut album Let's Fuck, Then Talk About My Problems on the Sugartruck Recordings label, released in 2004. [6] [9] In 2005, Kayiatos toured nationally with the Tranny Roadshow, a first of its kind, all transgender, touring variety show. [10] [11] Kayiatos released a second album entitled Fault, Lies and Faultlines on the Cherchez La Femme label in 2005, [12] and a third full-length release, The Worst Amazing, was released in October 2009 on 307 Knox Records. In 2008 he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in a multimedia show, HomeMade SuperHero. He also performs with Jenna Riot as the music act Ice Cream Socialites. [13]
He is featured in the documentary films Poetic License, Pick Up the Mic , Enough Man, and Riot Acts. [14] [15] [16] He was described as one of the most accomplished rappers in the homo hop documentary Pick Up the Mic. [17] His video for the song "The Life" was on MTV networks LOGO top ten Click List for 12 weeks. His music has been featured on Showtime's soundtracks for the contemporary series The L Word , as well as several short films. Kayiatos is the subject of a forthcoming biopic entitled The State of Katastrophe. He has toured in the U.S. and Europe. [18]
In October 2009, he and Amos Mac founded Original Plumbing , the first magazine by and for trans men. [19]
Kayiatos has held leadership positions at BuzzFeed and Grindr, is currently Chief Content Officer at FOLX Health, and co-creator and director of Camp Lost Boys, a sleep away summer camp "exclusively for adult men of trans experience." [20]
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The PeaceOUT (World) Homo Hop Festival was an annual festival of hip hop music and culture created by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) people from 2001 to 2007. The main festival took place in Oakland, California, although sibling festivals were also held in New York City, Atlanta and London.
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Susan O'Neal Stryker is an American professor, historian, author, filmmaker, and theorist whose work focuses on gender and human sexuality. She is a professor of Gender and Women's Studies, former director of the Institute for LGBT Studies, and founder of the Transgender Studies Initiative at the University of Arizona, and is currently on leave while holding an appointment as Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair in Women's Leadership at Mills College. Stryker serves on the Advisory Council of METI and the Advisory Board of the Digital Transgender Archive. Stryker, who is a transgender woman, is the author of several books about LGBT history and culture. She is a leading scholar of transgender history.
Original Plumbing, also known as OP, is a quarterly magazine focused on "the culture and lifestyle of transgender men." The magazine was started in September 2009 in the San Francisco Bay Area, by editors-in-chief Amos Mac and Rocco Kayiatos. The magazine was later published and distributed from both Brooklyn, New York, and later Los Angeles, California. Mac and Kayiatos created Original Plumbing to bring visibility to the trans male community. At the time of the magazine's conception, trans men received little to no representation on TV, in mainstream film, or in other “LGB”-focused magazines. It is the aim of Original Plumbing to represent "true diversity in the female-to-male (FTM) trans community; in size, age, body, surgery, hormone use and non-use." Original Plumbing is the first magazine for trans men made by trans men. Original Plumbing's first issue, with the theme “Bedroom,” sold out before it was even published in 2009 — but Mac and Kayiatos were still unsure how their magazine would fare when they started. According to Kayiatos, "When Amos and I started, we didn’t know how this would go over. In general, OP was a pretty blessed and magical experience. We set all of our intentions for the first year, things both grandiose and achievable. Everything came to fruition. It felt like we were doing what we were supposed to do."
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