I found this music video. It made me so angry I wanted to vomit.
(Eds. note: this song is absolutely terrible.)
Behold, another sad girl who “drinks all day, dances all night.” She’s sad; she misses her daddy; she’s a cutter; her boss is abusive and – gasp! – she does drugs.
This is the story line of Beech’s new music video, “Dance for the Money.”
About four seconds into it, I want to throw my laptop across the room.
First of all, if we’re dancing all night, we are also probably drinking at the same time. During the day, we are SLEEPING. BECAUSE WE ARE TIRED FROM DANCING FOR YOUR JUDGY SELF.
Beyonce’s “Formation” can be described with two words: unapologetically black.
Images of black babies sporting their natural hair, lyrics such as “I got hot sauce in my bag (swag)”, and Beyonce atop a sinking New Orleans police car in what appears to be the wreckage of Katrina are what make that description a snug fit.
The scene that made tears well up in my eyes, however, was at 3:45 – a little black boy in a hoodie, clearly an homage to Trayvon Martin, dances, carefree and passionately, being,well, unapologetically black. But here’s the catch; he does this in front of a line of police officers, all standing at ease. When he finishes and throws his hands up gymnast-style, their hands fly up in surrender. This scene is immediately followed by footage of graffiti that reads:“Stop shooting us.”
Last night, Beyonce went even further. She made history when she brought this imagery to one of the most widely watched television events of the year: the Super Bowl 50 Half Time Show. Her live performance of “Formation” continued the theme of unapologetic blackness. Her costume was a tribute to one of the greatest performers in history, Michael Jackson, and her dancers mirrored the attire of the Black Panther army.
The line in the song that hits home the hardest for me as a black sex worker is “always stay gracious/ the best revenge is your paper.” It’s reminiscent of Missy Elliot’s “Work It,” where she spat, “get that cash/ whether it’s 9 to 5 or shaking your ass.” It acknowledges us black sex workers in a way we usually don’t experience in our community. Beyoncé has alluded to sex work positively before in lines such as “a diva is a female version of a hustler.” She’s come a long way from the rampant whorephobia in her earlier work (side eyeing “Nasty Girl” here).
It’s good to have a well-rounded repertoire of butt music. If you already have enough songs about isolating the gluteus maximus muscles, how about the booty clap? We got you covered. Now applause isn’t just that annoying thing that you can’t pay your rent with.
After platform heels and baby wipes, the most essential item in my work bag is my iPod. You just can’t depend on strip club DJs to have what you want to hear. Some of them are voracious consumers and producers of music with a catholic knowledge, and some of them don’t know “Bad Romance” from “Bad Reputation.” Right now I work with more of the latter than the former, so I always bring my own music.
It’s like a fun game to find new tracks, and while I’m not a very solid hit predictor (why is everyone dancing to the Black Eyed Peas when that awesome Big Boi record came out last year?), some clubs have reputations as just that—little focus groups of dancers and customers. In December, All Things Considered ran a short segment on the Atlanta practice of using strip clubs as a testing ground for tracks. Billboard found the subject worthy of a cover story back in 2006, and anecdotally, I can remember hearing musicians in Memphis and Detroit talking about this practice in the late 90s. It makes a lot of sense for the strip club to be a track’s first stop because it’s a place where you can directly observe the crowd, the ladies, and the sound on club speakers.
I wonder if a hip hop video director ever says, “I like your idea for shooting in the strip club, but don’t you think that’s a little overdone? Perhaps we could make it rain elsewhere?” Nah. That never happens. Here’s Wale’s very NSFW video for “Bait.”
Watch it for the dancing, especially the awesome “stripper surfing on another stripper” pole move.
