Rapper Baby Tate's pansexual Sexploration

Boys, girls, gays, and theys all get love from 27-year-old rapper Baby Tate. On her latest project, the five-song concept EP Sexploration: The Musical, Baby Tate, daughter of ‘90s singer Dionne Farris, proudly explores her sexuality, having moved from Atlanta to Los Angeles and come out as pansexual.

“Peter, Mary, Joseph, Paul/Oh my god, I want ‘em all,” Tate raps in the song “Luv Everybody,” which sets the mood for the EP. From there, she takes us on a journey that explores sapphic love, queer heartbreak, sex, gender, and taking pride in one’s identity.

Sexploration, which features production from Justin Tranter, known for working with pop stars like Selena Gomez and Hailee Steinfeld, also comes with visuals for each song, presented as a musical in five acts. Each act explores a different aspect of sexuality or gender.

Baby Tate recently spoke with The Advocate about the new EP, how she acquired her wicked sense of humor, and who her hip hop girl crushes are.

Sexploration really has something for the whole LGBTQ+ community — why did you want to show so much love for the community in this project?
I think representation is so important, and especially feeling that love and representation from a Black queer woman. I think a lot of times in the Black community we don’t necessarily see that representation as much as we should. And so for me, I just feel like I’m the type of person where I like to walk the walk, not just talk it. And so I wanted to really show my love — show my support for real — for my community.

You do such a great job of balancing being sexy and funny in your songs and videos. Can you tell me about that?
I think I’m just a really quirky person. So even in my real life, outside of being a performer and doing music, I am sexy but I’m always sexy in a funny, cute way. And so just putting that into my music, making things not too serious; it doesn’t have to be super hot and heavy every single time. Some things can just be light and playful and that’s just kind of how I approach life. I’m always joking. I’m so silly, and I always like to put that into my music. I think we need more laughter in this world — so if I can put it in somewhere in my music, make somebody chuckle or a little giggle here and there, I’m always down.

Who are your hip hop girl crushes?
Hip hop girl crushes: Megan Thee Stallion, Rubi Rose. Who else? Teyana Taylor and Rihanna. I think Rihanna, that’s just an evergreen crush forever.

What are you looking forward to in 2024?
2024 is going to be exciting. I’m really, really excited to put this album together and get it out to the world. It is going to be very fun, very fresh, very sexy, very cunty. And I can’t wait for people to hear it and see all of the visuals. With this EP we did a musical because I’m a musical theater kid and I’ve always wanted to do a visual EP, and so I’m looking to do more things like that for this album. It won’t be a musical, but something very similar.

Baby Tate: Jerseywww.youtube.com