More blather. Coincidentally, Raquel Z. Rivera is also thinking along the same lines. About the lyrical content and if perhaps anything is lacking in reggaeton or if there is a need for artists to step up their game and allow their lyrics to mature as they do. Assuming they do.
I have to go to a friends house, rumor has it theres a new reggaeton track created in my honor. Utoh. I wanna hear this before it gets out into the wild.
And another note. The friend asked me if I wanted to be on the track, I said “Im not going on record saying “ay papi damelo duro”.
“SAY THAT AGAIN”
“Nope”
If I were to sing a song, it would be the same shit men sing. About some hot guy I see dancing that I wanna do. But then I was thinking- its not the same,man. It aint. Im always torn. I was mad at Ivy Queen again today. Girl, I love the message but does it always have to be about some man? Why must they be the focus of everything we do?
Ok, not that we arent the focus of what the men sing about. But still.
SO I was like, instead of nattering on about the man who left us and how now that he doesn’t have us he’ll be sorry (because as much as I like that theme, its old now) lets have some fun. Lets talk about that boy over there with the cute braids and the pretty eyebrows who’s got the moves like WOW. Lets talk about the man over there with the nice suit and how elegant he is and how fun he would be. IF we have to talk about boys and sex.
But that’s when it gets me. ARGH. I DON’T WANT TO. Im guilty of what rappers are guilty of. I don’t want to sing about men and a fine one and a good dancer and how much I want him. Because I don’t want, as a female, everything to be about how damn great MEN are. I don’t want the world to revolve around them. While my head says “Turn the tables, equality. Just as they sing about us, sing about them.” My heart says “Fucking men think they are EVERYTHING to us. They deserve no more of our attention”
But if I sing about my girls, my sisters- then am I guilty of again objectifiying women and making them nothing but creatures that look hot and dance well? If I sing about how great I am and how hot I am and how all the men want me, then Im being a conceited hypocrite because I hate when men do that.How can I celebrate them and their youth and their beauty? My youth and beauty and how I simply love to dance, to feel free, to be one with the music. How I love the unabashedly sexual displays? How I find it liberating, carnal and exciting in a primal way? How for me dancing is ecstacy?How do I celebrate that without making myself into a mere object of desire?
If I simply brag about how hot I am, then Im pimping myself out. If I sing about how hot I am and how hot the men are but they don’t mean a thing to me, then Im asserting my independence but at the expense of the men. I have no need to bash a man, to tell him that he’s beautiful and hot but I can take him or leave him. Because I don’t want to hear a man say that to me.
That’s the bitch about sexism etc. The attitude that women are inferior and men are the end all and be all, puts women in a bind. We’re caught sometimes between wanting to show our appreciation for men, because we want the same sexual and emotional freedom they have and not wanting, in our appreciation, to reinforce the notion that men are everything. We don’t want to put them on a pedestal, not after working so hard to try to knock them off (or at least climb up there with them)
And I don’t really wanna sing about kittens or puppies or heatwaves, gas prices and global warming.
I wanna sing that I wanna dance, I wanna have fun. I want to live my life free and unfettered.And I want to not lose respect of my peers. I wanna be paid what they get paid. I want to be appreciated for having a brain and a personality AND a body. I want to look pretty without people thinking any woman who focuses on her appearance cant possibly focus on more “important” things.
What about unity, what about racism? What about the fact that Ivy Queen has to have fake tits but the guys get to be fat? That her appearance is almost always mentioned by men, then her music. No one says “Tego, that ugly MOFO” when someone says he’s putting on a show. (Though yes, there are plenty of squeals over Wisin y Yandel and DY and how hot Don Omar is) The appearance of men is secondary to their music. It aint fair.
Can I sing about my flowers? Ok, the beach? Parties? I dunno.
Girls, what do u want to hear? What do u want to say?
Its all moot because I cant sing. But u know, if I could….
Musica Latina 