Things you notice
I have almost my entire music collection on my iPod and when at the gym, unless I make a playlist I put the thing on shuffle. Sometimes instead of skipping to tracks I want to listen to, I just listen to whatever comes on.
One song was Jermaine Dupri’s “Coming Home With Me” which I remember being huge when I was in high school. I’ve listened to this song hundreds of times but some of the lyrics only struck me at that moment.
The general plotline of the song (rap songs have plotlines?) is that JD, being the popular dude that he is, is at a club and he meets a woman there. They return to his place and he proceeds to tell her a few things first before they have sex, which he admittedly videotapes. Then, because he’s JD, he says right when he’s done he’s going back to the club to get another woman in the sack. Another rapper has some lines but it’s just stupid shit (not that JD’s isn’t) so I won’t go into it.
Now first let’s look at the chorus:
Now if I buy you a drink and you drink it up
Then, uh, you goin’ home with me (and all my niggas say)
And if you talkin’ at a party and we talk too much
Then, uh, we goin’ home with me
Now if you came with a friend that don’t wanna do my man
Then you need to give her your keys
Tell her to call you tomorrow or give you a beep
Cause tonight, you going home with me, ya heard?
There are several offensive things about this. Of course there’s the whole idea that if he’s going to lay down some dollars for a drink, that woman better lay down with him. And then there’s this whole thing of “we’re hitting it off and let’s get down to business. But wait, you can’t do shit unless your friend nails my pal over here and if she doesn’t, tell her to hit the bricks.” Now I can say this is pretty common in a lot of rap songs. Jadakiss talks about it in “Ride or Die Bitch” (which was another popular song in high-school) but there he talks about how a woman is so great because she “don’t have no problem hittin’ us all.”
But anyways, back to JD.
Now, is it because my name’s Jermaine? no
It’s all about how I kick my game, you know?
I just flow with it, spend a little dough with it
Entertain, before you know, I’m in your brain doing my thang
Tellin’ you how good you smell
Send you up for a drop top cruise through the A-T-L
Now when they tipsy, it’s risky, you don’t know what you facin’
Fuck around and end up like Anthony Mason
So I let’em know a few things before we leave
Like, “it’s true, I tapes damn near everything”
So don’t even think about lyin’, baby
Or try baby, to set me up for rape cause it’s all on tape
Where you said put the cake
How you fed me the grapes
What I did with the ice that made you shake, shake
Now when the night’s over and the girl is gone
I’m back up in the club singin’ the same damn song
My bolds there. Of course what he’s saying here is, “listen, now that i’ve got you all drunk, we’re going to have sex and i’m going to videotape it too because you women lie when you’re drunk and have sex. You cry rape because i’m famous and you think you can scam me.” So yes, seriously, this is actually spoken in a song.
All this, in a what was then a popular club song. This is, I believe, some of what people are talking about when they say “rape culture.” Agents of rape culture, songs like this, on varying levels tell folks that women lie about being raped, that women who say they’ve been raped are just after money and are drunk idiots who don’t remember the night before.
I don’t think this hurt JD’s image very much as he’s still making music. But then again, you can video tape yourself having sex with an underage girl (and then claim it was your lookalike brother) and still sell albums so I guess it’s not much of a comment.
The next song up was Kanye West’s “Stronger.” Now I love a lot of his music. I think his production did to music what Timbaland did with Aaliyah (and what he’s doing now with JT) but Mr. West also does some very dumb shit as who else would rhyme “Klondike” with “blonde dyke”?
i don’t know if you got a man or not,
if you made plans or not
god put me in the plans or not
i’m trippin’ this drink got me sayin’ a lot
but i know that god put you in front of me
so how the hell could you front on me
there’s a thousand you’s there’s only one of me
i’m trippin’ i’m caught up in the moment right?
this is louis vuitton dime night
so we gon’ do everything that kan like
heard they’d do anything for a klondike
well i’d do anything for a blonde-dike
and she’ll do anything for the limelight
and we’ll do anything when the time’s right
ugh, baby you’re makin’ it (harder, better, faster, stronger)
So the same old rap shit about how he’s such a stud and yada yada but then he manages to get in there that since he’s famous and this woman/women will do anything to get a piece of that spotlight, they’re going to have sex.
Oh wait, wait, that’s not even to mention how he thinks God himself is (at least in this story) drawing the cards so he meets this particular woman. And when he says “so how the hell can you front on me?” he’s really saying, “It was God’s plan for me to meet you so you better put out.”
Sometimes I wish he’d just zip it and not say anything like some of the other producers. Or, at the very least, just say what everyone else says and keep it to how much of a prize catch you are and how you really want this one (sometimes multiple) woman like Pharrell.