Terrence Dean’s memoir, “Hiding In Hip Hop: On the Down Low in the Entertainment Industry – from Music to Hollywood,” hit bookstores across America this week.
Dean’s book reveals hip-hop’s secret gay sub-culture; documenting his encounters with some of the hip-hop’s biggest names as well has his own tumultuous upbringing.
Terrance hopes that telling his story will stop the degradation of homosexuals in hip-hop and continue the dialogue about sex and sexuality in the community, which is so close to his heart.
“I have over 10 plus years in the entertainment industry especially in film and television,” he said “I eventually ended up working my way up to MTV where I was a coordinator and working on live event shows such as movie awards, video music awards [and] hip-hop honors.”
Through his job at MTV Terrance was able to rub elbows with a lot of celebrities.
“I’ve worked and socialized and fraternized a lot with a lot of the entertainers socially and intimately,” he revealed. “I’ve been invited to their homes. I’ve been invited to their parties.”
“I describe in my book, Hiding in Hip-Hop, that there were instances where I was invited to down low parties and I talk about getting the invitation to these exclusive invite only parties where men and woman are with the same sex,” he continued.
In his memoir, Terrance details the activities of these lavish parties where drugs and alcohol flow and, as he says, “anything goes.” Though he doesn’t name names, Terrance provides thorough descriptions of each entertainment industry professional. He believes that readers will be able to identify the down-low celebrities.
“There may be some of the usual suspects that we have thought about their sexuality and questioned but I think a lot of people will be surprised to see the number of people who are in the book that we never even thought about who may be living a double life,” he revealed.
“Hiding in Hip Hop” is in U.S. stores now.
