Stop the presses! A hip hop/R&B artist's lyrics is raising some hackles over its treatment of women!
This time, the artist in question is Lloyd, who some of you may remember from the 1,200 times you got Young Money's "BedRock" stuck in your head in late 2009 and who you probably don't remember from N-Toon, Lloyd's late 1990's tween boy band once featured in something called Radio Disney's Peanut Butter N' Jam Summer Concert in the Park. The song is "Dedication to my Ex," and the lyrics tell the story of one man (Lloyd) and how he goes away for a weekend only to return to discover with horror, that his girlfriend's vagina's gone all wonky, and that's how he knows she's been cheating on him.
Baby, something's on my mind I gotta say it
Yeah, Your pussy done changed
It ain't the same girl and that's a shame
(A crying shame baby)
Oooh, aint being funny
I know when other bee's been in that honey
Ooh, baby, that pussy done changed
It's such a shame girl and that's a shame
Lloyd's penis is upset. Its feelings are hurt, and it misses the old pussy. Penis continues,
It's such a shame cause now the pussy's changed
(Pussy changed)
She used to squeeze me
Grip me tight so she could please me
But now-now, that pussy changed
Maybe she just neglected her Kegels?
Not only is the premise of the song ridiculous — as any woman who been with more than one man in a short period of time can attest, men don't have magical sensors on their dicks that can detect whether you've been with someone else, and one weekend of fun can't change the structure of the vagina — but it's reductive and misogynist as well. As the LA Weekly's Ali Trachter points out, in using the word "pussy" to refer to his ladyfriend indicates that to him, the real attraction was her fabulous vagina.
What's frustrating about this is that the song is actually catchy, in the same peppy poppy "I despise you for hurting me, energetically and tunefully" tradition of Cee-Lo Green's "Fuck You." And the radio edit of the song replaces the word "pussy" with "loving," which led some, like the Trachta, to believe that the song was worth buying on iTunes only to discover too late that it's actually pretty over-the-top, sexism-wise. (Presumably, the charming line "I'm about to kill this bitch!" was also omitted from the radio edit.)
But maybe we're coming at this from the wrong angle and should give Lloyd the benefit of the doubt. After all, "pussy" is slang for "housecat" as well, and in the video, Andre 3000 is played by a lip syncing tabby. Maybe Lloyd is upset that his girlfriend gave her Persian cat a lion cut and now it's in a bad mood and not as fun to pet. That pussy done changed.
Dedication to my Sex: Why Lloyd and his String of P-Bombs Pissed Me Off [LAWeekly]