Recently, after watching the Republican National Convention, conservative culture critic DeAnna Lorraine went after a Grammy winning rapper, who has publicly supported former Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and denounced sitting president Donald Trump.
“America needs far more women like Melania Trump and far less like Cardi B,” Lorraine tweeted.
Lorraine was obviously referring to the explicit nature of the most controversial song in the world right now, “Wet Ass Pussy,” or W.A.P., featuring Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion.
Cardi B clapped back at Lorraine, tweeting a semi nude photo of Melania Trump during her modeling days and stating that it was definitely giving off some WAP vibes.
In a Streetwise Radio exclusive commentary, Rickey Vincent, Bay Area/based author, historian and radio show host, weighs in on the trending topic.
So, there was a lot of discussion when WAP came out, I'll chime in along these lines: my first take is that is for women to debate, how, where (and when) body empowerment is to take place for women in general.
DeAnna Lorraine took issue with Cardi B on morality grounds, and Cardi clapped back with that nude photo of Melania. Gotta love it.
Now, I noticed that congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio Cortez spun it differently, framing it as Woman Against Patriarchy, which in fact, WAP is. It may be about some other things, but it is not about me saying where women's voices "belong." https://ew.com/music/congresswoman-alexandra-ocasio-cortez-wap-video/
Having said that, when I first heard WAP, I thought about Bessie Smith's risque "I Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl," which could be said has a form of empowerment and agency in the sexual politics of black life. However, that song from the 1920s had its own self-censorship and was treated as "grown folks music" and was not easily available to children, or non-blacks unless they were looking for it.
But these are different times, and "respectability politics" do not work as a fixed measure of someone's views. From the world Cardi B is from (who says she is a Catholic), she is not deviating from her calling card of raw raps and female empowerment in a sexually violent male-dominated world. This to me cannot be separated from her forthright entree into political conversations, interviewing Joe Biden and meeting with and endorsing Bernie Sanders. Cardi B also urged Cortez to run for President in 2024. So from the vantage point of "telling it like it is," Cardi B is an unstoppable, boundary breaking public figure.
Is she college educated? No. Does she represent "the community" in the same way as Lena Horne, or Aretha, or Whitney Houston or Beyonce? Not really. Will Cardi B ever be "recognized" as an asset to "the community?" in that sense? Time will tell. Cardi B belongs to a generation 100 years removed from Bessie Smith; and in fact it took generations for Bessie to earn "mainstream" recognition herself, because of the stigmas [primarily within the bourgeois black community] associated with her music, her race, her gender, her sexuality and her lifestyle.
So Cardi B is operating in a completely different space, with different views about "censorship" and respectability politics. She is making it raw, and real in entertainment and in politics, on her terms. That deserves some respect.
I've heard comments that WAP is ill-timed, is not helping the cause, or is just too graphic. In 2020, graphic is what it is. If black people do it and it's freaky, it will get attention. [As long as it's not directly political, then other rules apply]. As for being ill-timed, that is again not my place to judge the WAP, but in terms of helping the cause, Cardi B is now one of the most prominent women of color in the USA, take it or leave it. The WAP in a sense sparked a conversation about empowerment that she has been having for years, and she is doing it on her terms, along the way she is bringing her millions of social media followers into the political arena.
I did notice that one of the first characterizations of Kamala Harris from the right-wing was that she's a "ho,” a term never been used before on a Presidential candidate. It is not hard to see where that type of negative nomenclature comes from. Yes, that is in the streets every day, but for "upstanding" public figures to use that term says more about them than it does about our California senator. But the quick & easy take is to say that Cardi B's WAP is just putting the "ho" out there for consumption in the political arena. Sadly, this is because outsiders and enemies conflate the female empowerment in the graphic language of the WAP with the female subjugation inherent in the male violence of the term 'ho."
The media doesn't help this because it is constantly troping and groping for the "peaceful protestor," the MLK style civil rights "leader" that is doing things "the right way" and "nonviolently" and certainly not in a nasty way. The ”media" today is stuck in that time warp, and is slow to recognize the values of the "protestors" outside of dated 60s tropes.
Why don't we see stories about the white protestors murdered by the gun toting Trump supporter in Kenosha, Wisconsin? What are their values? Why were they motivated to take on the power structure after the shooting of Jacob Blake there? (and how did they have the courage to take on the gun nut with the rifle when the police did not?). The corporate run media is not in a position to explore the motives of people that are in fact anti-capitalists as well as anti-racists. (remember Cardi B endorsed Bernie). Despite all of the surprising turns of events in 2020, a steady dosage of "manufacturing consent" is going on, in an attempt to steer people away from a discussion of corporate power & control and how the police are integral to that control, especially when upheavals are taking place.
So, if someone survives some of the most hazardous elements of black & brown poverty & violence emerges on the national scene, and yet operates with an unfamiliar set of symbols and values, there is a lot of confusion. And if this person is political, and is anti-capitalist in principle (endorsing Bernie), while still using the hustle as a modus operandi, it is not on us to judge, it is on us to try to understand.
Of course, in the abstract I would enjoy the return of positive messages of unity and empowerment coming from black entertainers, but sometimes, The Funk is just too real and in your face... and you have to deal with it.
Rickey Vincent is the author of ”FUNK: The Music, the People and the Rhythm of the the One” and ”Party Music: The Inside Story of the Black Panthers Band and How Black Power Transformed Soul Music.”
