If you’re asking yourself, “who’s Cardi B?” be thankful for living such a sheltered life: Joe Biden, President Of Cardi B(abylon). Biden gave Cardi B (whose real name is Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar) an interview (of sorts) that was published by Elle magazine on the first day of the Democratic National Convention Last month:
The host asked them about the mega-hit “WAP” by Cardi B. and Megan Thee Stallion. I wrote about it here last week. Here are some of the lyrics that I posted:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, you fu*kin’ with some wet-a*s pu*sy
Bring a bucket and a mop for this wet-a*s pu*sy
Give me everything you got for this wet-a*s pu*syThose are among the cleanest lyrics in the entire song. Here is a link to lyrics for the whole thing.
If you don’t want to read them — and I don’t blame you — you should at least know that the two women who sing it talk about how they want to be forced to perform oral sex until they are gagging and choking. They portray themselves as whores (their word) who have sex for money. And
I’m a freak bitch, handcuffs, leashes … You can’t hurt my feelings, but I like pain.
There’s even dirtier stuff, but you get the picture.
This song debuted at No. 1. It was streamed a record 93 million times in the US in its first week of release, and the video was seen over 60 million times within 48 hours of its release. Cardi B., who once worked as a stripper, and has spoken of how back then, she would invite men to hotel rooms to drug and rob them, instagrammed about being so grateful that “I want to hug the LORD.”
OK, so that’s “WAP”. It is the cultural mainstream. If you haven’t heard of it, then that just shows how far out of the mainstream you are in 2020. How mainstream is Cardi B.? Elle magazine, which put her on the cover, had Cardi B. do a live Zoom interview with the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.
Joe Biden told her that:
“One of the things that I admire about you is that you keep talking about what I call equity—decency, fairness, and treating people with respect.”
Right. Nothing says “respect” like rapping about how you want a man to put his genitals in your mouth until you choke.
What a sick joke this culture is. I’ve said before that I believe Donald Trump is a morally repulsive man. But I don’t want to hear anyone talk about how Joe Biden is such a moral exemplar when he is willing to embrace someone who stands for the things that Cardi B. does. This is something I do not understand about the progressive elites. On NPR this morning, the guests on 1A (here, just past the 13:00 mark) were talking about “WAP” and the reaction to it. A writer for Billboard lauds “the sexual freedom of this song,” and laments the double standard that lets male rappers get away with sexually explicit songs without criticism. He adds that — “Cardi and Megan have huge young fan bases,” the writer said. He believes that the fact that women rappers have triumphed with such a sexually explicit song is therefore “really remarkable as a cultural shift.”
What he means in context — listen to it yourself to understand — is that Cardi B. and Megan Thee Stallion are teaching young girls that they can be just as raunchy as boys, with no apology.
I linked yesterday to Niall Ferguson’s “‘Weimar America?’ The Trump Show Is No Cabaret. Detractors have been equating the U.S. with 1920s Germany for 85 years, and they are still wrong.” As far as the notion that the US is about to be partying like it’s 1939, I agree. Or as Tom Wolfe famously wrote, “The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe.” But in terms of pop culture, and its intersection with politics, it’s been Weimar America for quite some time. Joe buddying up to the singer of “W.A.P.” is no different than his former boss meeting with rapper Kendrick Lamar before delivering his last State of the Union address:
Obama announced that Lamar’s hit “How Much a Dollar Cost” was his favorite song of 2015. Obama announced that Lamar’s hit “How Much a Dollar Cost” was his favorite song of 2015. The song comes from the album To Pimp a Butterfly; the album cover shows a crowd of young African-American men massed in front of the White House. In celebratory fashion, all are gripping champagne bottles and hundred-dollar bills; in front of them lies the corpse of a white judge, with two Xs drawn over his closed eyes. So why wouldn’t the president’s advisors at least have advised him that such a gratuitous White House sanction might be incongruous with a visual message of racial hatred? Was Obama seeking cultural authenticity, of the sort he seeks by wearing a T-shirt, with his baseball cap on backwards and thumb up?
To play the old “what if” game that is necessary in the bewildering age of Obama: what if President George W. Bush had invited to the White House a controversial country Western singer, known for using the f- and n- words liberally in his music and celebrating attacks on Bureau of Land Management officers?
Meanwhile, back in 2020, the Biden campaign continues to take a wrecking ball to feminism’s recent obsession with #metoo: Kamala Harris Told Jacob Blake She Was ‘Proud’ of Him, Lawyer Says. However, “For every Jacob Blake, there are millions of Jacob Blake’s victims,” Tiana Lowe opines in the Washington Examiner: “This story is a tragedy, and it’s being ignored. That is the story of a woman subjected to repeated domestic abuse and sexual assault at the hands of an intimate partner. But unlike the overwhelming majority of the millions of people who suffer some sort of domestic violence or sexual assault per year, Blake’s victim nearly got justice. Consider, it was already exceptional that Blake’s victim reported the crime to the police — just one in four victims does. Of the cases that do get reported, just one in five will lead to an arrest. Even then, the odds were overwhelming that Blake would never spend a day in jail. Of the 5% of alleged rapists who do get arrested, just one in ten will wind up incarcerated. The conviction rate is about as awful for general domestic abuse cases, though the number of victims each year are likely orders of magnitude greater than those of rape.”