Last week I was round at a friend’s house. We were talking about new music,
“Have you seen the new A$AP Rocky video?” she asked.
The video for Wassup is directed by Vice. Apparently A$AP is their hottest property. We can’t tell if they’re being ironic or whether they truly believe this shit is cool. The video features some well-mined hip-hop tropes. ‘Bitches’ lezzing it up in the shower, a young man sitting in a pentangle made of a white powder, Hennessey in the bathtub, counting Benjamins, smoking purple and it’s all set against the backdrop of hipsta’s paradise Williamsburgh.
The themes piss me off – sexist, consumerist, puerile – but I can’t fight the melody and I’m hooked on A$AP’s undeniable lyrical prowess. Why does most hip-hop sound so good musically but lyrically and visually leave such a bad taste in my mouth? I want a rapper who I can identify with. Someone who sounds good and addresses themes I’m interested in. A rapper who thinks that women exist for more than just shaking their booties.
The young female MCs Azealia Banks, Nicky Minaj and Kreayshawn pique my interest for a moment until I realize that it’s all verbosity. It lacks substance. They’re just rapping about what ‘top class bitches’ they are and how much better they are than all the other ‘bitches’. They may be woman rapping as well as men but they don’t transcend the guidelines laid out by men.
Then on Sunday night something happens. I stumble on MIA’s new video Bad Girls. I watch it six times in a row. Prior to Sunday night I only had a vague awareness of MIA but after watching the video I am completely enthralled by her.
The video features Saudi women wearing lipstick and driving cars in the desert. In Saudi Arabia women are banned from driving and they face corporal punishment if they are caught doing so.
Lyrically Bad Girls is not treading anywhere new, Live fast, die young, bad girls do it well goes the refrain but paired with the imagery you have one of the most powerful music videos I have seen in a long time. MIA has not chosen western ideas of transgression to portray her bad girls. She has chosen driving, an act which is no big deal to us western girls, to highlight the ridiculous way in which women can be classed as bad girls simply by doing what the men do.
When women speak out they get vilified. Emin gets vilified, Greer gets vilified. How long until MIA gets vilified?
Later that night MIA appears on the Superbowl. I don’t watch it but in the morning I hear that she’s given the finger to camera. Of course, she gets internationally vilified. Pitchfork writes a huffy news story. Tim Winter, head of The Parents Television Council says, “MIA used a finger shamelessly to bring attention to herself, effectively telling an audience filled with children, ‘f*** you.’”
Maybe she was shamelessly bringing attention to the fact that we still live in a society where there is one rule for the girls and one rule for the boys. Luckily there are still people dumb enough to rise to the bait.
