Cardi B - WAP
Whooee! Cardi B’s latest banger - "WAP" - just topped 155 million views on YouTube, along with beaucoup commentary by music critics, trolls, pundits, and even elected officials. Much of the commentary is negative.
Cardi B
According to Kish Lal over at Junkee, the negativity stems from: “But ultimately, it’s a sad representation of how uncomfortable we still are with women’s sexuality.”
Women’s sexuality really doesn’t pose much of a problem, especially since it’s been around like forever – Cleopatra conquered Julius Caesar with her WAP, while Delilah used hers to confound poor old Samson in the Bible. WAP is nothing new, just like the power of The Box has bamboozled men for millennia.
What makes WAP so bad isn’t the hypersexuality or the soggy beef butt implants or the bolt-on boobs, it’s the music, which utilizes the same old, mediocre beat topped by the slow, low, and banging beat. And then there’s Cardi’s flow – unfailingly constant. It never changes.
The visuals in the music video are a trip – breasts spouting streams of water, golden buttocks mounted on the wall, and guest stars galore, including Kylie Jenner, whose appearance spawned irate outcries, as well as a petition to have her removed – as in deleted – from the video. LOL!
Cleopatra conquered Julius Caesar with her WAP, while Delilah used hers to confound poor old Samson in the Bible.
The reason? CNN’s Lisa Respers France summed it up, writing, “Writer Danielle Young perhaps better summarized the frustration some Black women felt seeing Jenner, a White woman, in a video that seems to celebrate Black women owning their sexuality.”
France went on to add, “There has been long-simmering anger among some African Americans who have complained that women in the Kardashian/Jenner family have often appropriated Black culture to benefit their various brands.”
Essentially, all the women in the video are exploiting their fame for Mammon. In fact, there’s nothing wrong with that. I’d do the same thing if I could.
Nope, the reason I dislike the song is that there’s no melody, no chorus, no harmonics of any type. It’s just try to shock ‘em with our risqué lyrics, our stylized eroticism, and our synthetic mammary glands. Basically, Cardi decided to take advantage of her fame, and the fame of the other women in the video, which revolves around ‘famous for being famous.’
I do like the snakes in the video. Cool! And as indicated above, the video is over-the-top – great production, massive amounts of bling, and tantalizing poses – like something from Girls Gone Wild presented by Lifestyles of The Rich and Famous.
Still, "WAP" is simply a vehicle utilized to splash the images on a small screen – contrived and boorish and mundane.
