Above are images from a recent piece of mine titled Sitting (Easy-E can eat a big fat dick). The piece consists of a piece of chip board with images of music video stills attached to it. On top of this platform sits a crocheted form that has been harden with resin and glue. A kitchen chair rests above these elements.
The music video stills are from the music video for the song “Fuck with Dre day”, which first debuted in 1992 on Dr. Dre’s album The Chronic. As a nice supplement to the piece, I would like to offer an analysis of the song from the website Rap Genius. While the specific politics between Dr.Dre and Easy-E are not necessary for understanding the piece, per se, the analysis does provide additional context to the piece.
The second verse of this song (which starts at 1:40 in the video) is about a girl named Nicki who is 24 years old, like me.
Here are the lyrics about Nicki:
“Back that ass up like a dump truck
If you havin fun in the club, throw ya pumps up
All my ballas in the building throw ya 1s up
If you ain’t throwin no money then get ya funds up
I asked her whats her name and she said her name Nicki
Got a real big booty and some real big titties
Say she don’t really come out to the city
Cuz she a country girl and she like to get busy
She got a good job and she say she 24
I said “Ok” then shawty hit the flo’
And I was like “whoa”
Then I threw some 1s just to let shawty know
Just to let shawty that Ima..[chorus]“
The song was dissected by the website RapGenius.com. The site’s aim is “not to translate rap into ‘nerdspeak’, but rather to critique rap as poetry.” Here is a screen shot of what the site had to say about Nicki.
September 5th, 2011 marks a significant event in the trajectory of my creative consuming of culture; my Writing’s on the Wall album ceased functioning. I was driving home from a Labor day road trip when the cd finally became too scratched. I spent the rest of the drive reflecting on this album and my relation to it. I bought this album in 1999, when I was 12 years old. On September 28th I would be turning 24. At that moment, driving in my truck, I became aware that threshold between the amount of time in my life spent not listening to Destiny’s Child proportioned to the amount of time spent to actively listening to Destiny’s Child was about to be crossed. Somehow, my birthday seemed especially surreal, as it symbolized the magic, between day, when the balance was equal. This drew my attention more critically to the ages 12 and 24 and what turning 24 could mean or symbolize.
Trajectory of significant videos and events about my life with Destiny’s child:
“Say my Name”, Writing’s on the Wall, 1999/ Nicki 12 yrs
This was my favorite song off the Writing’s on the Wall album and my go-to favorite all-time song for many years to come. There was this channel on t.v. called The Box in which you could call in and request music videos that would charge your cable account. This was one of a handful of songs my brother and I continually requested, unaware of the costs. ”Say my name” was also one of the most preformed songs on the MTV show Say What Karaoke, in which contestants would sing and dance to songs and compete for judges. It was, of course, the song I was going to perform when I went on SWK.
“Independent Women”, Charlie’s Angels soundtrack, 2000/ Nicki: age 13
This song resonated with some of the Girl Power sentiments still alive in my post-Spice Girls fandom state. Destiny’s Child and the Spice Girls were my first experiences with outwardly identified feminism and female empowerment. It secured, in my mind, that the Destiny’s Child ladies were, indeed, independent women. When I was younger, I honestly saw them as owning their sexuality in a way that was really powerful for me as a young person. For every overly sexy or blatantly submissive song like “Check up on it” or “Cater 2 u“, there were songs about young girls being beautiful, taking control of their relationships with men, or just plain being proud of who they were (“Sweet Sixteen“, “Bug a Boo”, and “Run the World”). Most of their songs fall somewhere beyond this specific binary continuum. This being said, I was surprised to go back an watch some of the videos that I perceived to be so empowering when I was younger and see how sexual they actually where.
“Bootylicious”, Survivor, 2001/ Nicki 14 yrs
I spent so many nights dancing to this in people’s basements, at mixers, and homecoming dances. Ultimate dance song all through high school.
“Solider”, Destiny Fulfilled, 2004/ Nicki 16 yrs
Also, one of my favorite songs of all time. Seriously, I get so excited talking about this song because it is the best song ever, I love it so much. Please, let me tell you about the epic, universes-aligned moment that I had. So its high school. One day my friend and I cruise up to Jack in the Box between school and play practice to get us some tacos. We order, and pull up to the window in my fly-ass purple station wagon, “Solider” playing on the radio. Who hands us our tacos, but this skinny white boy swaged out as fuck with a giant bling necklace that says “solider” on it. I swear, it was bliss.
Ok, this is getting out of hand. I could seriously talk about every video and song they have ever made. So many good ones I haven’t gotten to (“Dangerously in Love” , “Cater 2 U”, “Hey Ladies” , “Emotions”, “Dilemma”, to name a few). I will end with two more contemporary releases. Although Destiny’s Child changed members once and then officially spilt in in 2006, Kelly Rowland and Beyonce Knowles went on to continue making and producing very successful albums (This little song, “Single Ladies”, probably never heard of it…) For my purposes here, I have rolled Kelly and Beyonce’s solo work together with their Destiny’s Child careers.
“Motivation”, Here I am, Kelly Rowland, 2011/ Nicki 23 yrs
I don’t know what to say about this song except that I “love it”, a most unacceptable critique response. I will let Kelly speak for me from a recent interview: ”I think that there was a side of all women and all people, period; a sensual side, and it just needed to come out this summer,” Kelly said about the song’s heavy rotation. “And I think ’Motivation’ kinda helped motivate that — a lot,” she laughed.
Nicki Werner/ Nicki Minaj / Nicki doll triple seeing power
For her sixth birthday my cousin Joslynn asked for glasses. She is a very organized girl. She likes to play school, pretend to be a teacher, and wear “serious” business outfits, with neckties, etc. She does not need glasses to see, only to complete her “serious” look. I recently purchased a pair of glasses, after many years of solely contacts. Joslynn was very excited about my new glasses, insisting on documentation. When Joslynn received glasses for her birthday, so did her American Girl doll, Nicki. I should mention that Joslynn also carries my namesake, her full name being Joslynn Nicole. As my relationship with female celebrities starts to play an increasingly more prominent and complicated role in my work, I can’t help but to also think about my relationship to Joslynn as an additional avatar character in this web.
Joslynn’s favorite celebrity right now is Taylor Swift. She doesn’t really watch t.v or know much about Taylor Swift except what she hears at school. Still, Joslynn and her younger sister know the words to many of her songs. I will leave you with the video for the song the three of us love to sing when we get together. Note that Taylor is wearing “serious” glasses.
While on a visit to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin I came across this interesting juxtaposition. Inhabiting this beautiful, mid-century slightly modernist department store building was a furniture and decorating business, The Wood Sampler. The shop was closed, but my company and I peered inside to the space. I was interested in how the aesthetics of varying types of nostalgia were coming through. This store front was a sign of development and modernization to this historic downtown area at one time. Now, probably about 30 or 40 years later, this wood furniture store moves in, selling relics that simulate (or should I say fabricate) an idyllic, pastoral perspective on family life and domestic spaces.
