Reîgn On

I did a thought/research exercise for work today, wherein i’m trying to find as many examples of the degradation of women and/or CSE women in pop culture, and I had to share what I found. 

I took the top 10 songs in the US, according to Spotify, and looked at the lyrics for messages that were a) explicitly referential to commercially sexually exploited (CSE) women; b) derogatory towards women; or c) pessimistic and/or dismissive of love and affirming relationships. 

I found a reference point in every. single. one. 

Add to that, all 10 were made by men. 

Where do we go from here? This isn’t a post to defame and/or degrade the artists who made them, but I want us to talk about this. Seeing this so blatantly today really stuck with me. 

For your reference, I pulled out some quotes: 

Hotline Bling

These days, all I do is

Wonder if you bendin' over backwards for someone else

Wonder if you rolling up a Backwoods for someone else

Doing things I taught you gettin' nasty for someone else

You don't need no one else

 The Hills

I only call you when it's half past five

The only time that I'll be by your side

I only love it when you touch me, not feel me

When I'm fucked up, that's the real me

 Jumpman

Jumpman, Jumpman, Jumpman, them boys up to something She was trying join the team I told her wait Chicken wings and fries we don't go on dates

What Do You Mean?

What do you mean?

Ohh ohh ohh

When you nod your head yes

But you wanna say no

 You're overprotective when I'm leaving

Trying to compromise but I can't win

You wanna make a point but you keep preaching

You had me from the start, won't let this end

Can’t Feel My Face

And I know she'll be the death of me, at least we'll both be numb

And she'll always get the best of me, the worst is yet to come

All the misery was necessary when we're deep in love

Yes I know (yes I know), girl, I know

Perfect

Girl, I hope you’re sure

What you're looking for

'Cause I'm not good at making promises

But if you like causing trouble up in hotel rooms

And if you like having secret little rendezvous

If you like to do the things you know that we shouldn’t do

Baby, I'm perfect

 679

Baby girl, you're so damn fine though

I'm tryna know if I could hit it from behind though

I'm sipping on you like some fine wine though

And when it's over, I press rewind though

 Stitches

Just like a moth drawn to a flame

Oh, you lured me in, I couldn't sense the pain

Your bitter heart cold to the touch

Now I'm gonna reap what I sow

Trap Queen

I’m like “hey, what’s up, hello”

Seen yo pretty ass soon as you came in that door

I just wanna chill, got a sack for us to roll

Married to the money, introduced her to my stove

Showed her how to whip it, now she remixin’ for low

She my trap queen, let her hit the bando

We be countin’ up, watch how far them bands go

We just set a goal, talkin’ matchin’ Lambos

Got 56 a gram, prob’ a 100 grams though

Man, I swear I love her how she work the damn pole

Hit the strip club, we be letting bands go

Everybody hating, we just call them fans though

In love with the money, I ain’t never letting go

Again

Baby, can you understand I’m a young nigga living

Coming from the trap, all a nigga know is get it

I ain’t chasing no pussy, girl I’m talking ‘bout the digits

Big bank rolls in my pockets, all fifties

Turned a little check, then, I showed you I could triple it

Yesterday, I turned 24. The sun rose and set as I have come to expect it to, and as “life-changing Facebook-worthy events” go, it wasn’t anything to write home about. That said, it was one of the better days I’ve had in a very long while.

Somewhere among the incessant ping of Facebook, and the wonderfully sweet messages and occasional phone call, I felt this surge of energy. It was as if all the beams of love of those I love were directed at me, juicing me up like a Tekken character on digi-roids. I all of a sudden felt so secure and sure of my place in the patchwork of community that I’ve built for myself.  As someone that has been very privileged and mostly successful in my life thus far, one would think that I would be fairly sure of my place in this world. And yet, predictably, I’m not. I can be so insecure, socially tepid, afraid, and hyper-aware of my personal preoccupations that sometimes it can be very difficult to stick my head out of the covers, let alone the house. People often assume that the predilection that I have for adorning said head in zulu knots and/or giant synthetic flowers means that I’m comfortable sticking my neck out; sadly, that’s not always the case. I just can’t help but live vulnerably, because I believe it to be the truth. We’re all trying to live as best we can according to these truths we tell ourselves, and nowhere is that more apparent than on our birthdays.

Birthdays tend to be a point of fixation for many of us for a number of reasons. Objectively, and in the words of some of my friends, it’s just another day. However, your birthday is also the day. Your day. The one day a year that the world is both nostalgically and/or passive-aggresively nudged to acknowledge the individuality of you within it. Understandably, then, we place so many anxieties and expectations on this day, the one day in which the world (or at least your Facebook feed) directs its attention to you. It becomes a day of introspection, of regret, of anxiety and summation and hopefulness. It becomes a moment to take stock of self and consider what another year of life means to us. Yesterday, that meant love.

I’ve always loved my birthday, and birthdays in general. I’m the friend that made funfetti cupcakes every year, and heartwarming social media dedications and handmade IOUs in place of the gifts that I regrettably couldn’t afford. For so long, they were a point of focus for me. So much rode on birthdays, and at certain point a few years ago I had to decide why that was. It came after I was disappointed by mother, somewhat notorious in my life for being complicated around major holidays and events. She had let me down on my birthday, and I was devastated. A lot of my energy at the time went towards my sadness, resentment and general feelings of abandonment around that relationship. I felt unloved and unappreciated by many, hedging all of my frustrations about current and past relationships on whether or not they would remember to call, and if they would leave a voicemail if they didn’t get through. I realized that a lot of my energy around birthdays had been with the expectation that if I gave a lot, every time, that everyone would show up for me in the same way on my birthday. The unspoken expectation, and need therein, set me up for disappointment every single time.

Because of this, I’ve had to learn the hard way that giving must be done freely for it to be effective. I’m not necessarily inclined to wax poetic about the spiritual truth of giving, although I believe in it. It’s moreso that giving with expectation is not really giving at all: it’s planting. Planting some sort of feeling and/or accountability with a person, insofar as it comes with the expectation that this person will then acknowledge and reciprocate the energy that you put into them. The most profound lesson my 24th year has given me is that it doesn’t necessarily work like that.

People can love you in a lot of different ways, it turns out. I have been fixated on the princess love affair for most of life, and a lot of that can be attributed to my namesake and her pet tiger Raja. As highly cognitive as I congratulate myself for being, I’ve always had a very fantastical understanding of love.  Try as I might to convince myself and my best friends that I’m totally cool with “hookup culture” and its nuances (except you, Tinder), I’ve always wanted the fairytale love affair. I wanted someone to come in and sweep me off my feet. I think the dissonance there was that my expectations of being swept off my feet revolved not so much around the physical realm, but moreso the emotional. I wanted someone to hold my hand and tell me I made sense and save me from myself.  It’s easy to tell yourself you’re non-tradtional, then, when you’re expectations aren’t as easily identified as 5 dates before sex and chocolates on Valentine’s Day.

What I’m learning though, is that I am absolutely traditional, but operating in a realm and with a currency that isn’t often accessed by many. I trade in vulnerabilities, and they are just as addictive as all of the other substances that are keeping most of us afloat. I wanted someone to show me their soul.

What I’ve learned in the last year, though, is that this is not what love is. True, loves does requires a certain level of truth and vulnerability, but that looks different for different people. This year, I have recovered from a relationship that had all of the vulnerability and the love, but didn’t look like I wanted it to. Another one had all of the support and safety, but perhaps not the love I was expecting. I’ve met a few people this year that I fixated on, trying to establish my love as the one they should accept and prioritize. One in particular made me question everything about myself, pursuing this love that was there but – again – didn’t look as I expected it to. Overall, though, I know without doubt that they all love me.  I am, against all odds, loved. I have people in my life that repeatedly show up for me and do what they can to make my day a little brighter, and that has to be enough. They do sometimes hurt me, and let me down, but they also lift me up and are doing the best they can. That one I learned from my mom. Sometimes, the best that people can do for you may not look like enough, but for them it’s everything. And that has to be okay. I’m not condoning entertaining fuckboys indefinitely (because, why), but I do think it’s critical to meet people where they’re at. We’re all just trying to love and not get hurt, after all.

The greatest point here though, is the lesson I had to learn before I could accept that point, and that was to love my god damn self. This is not in the Elite Daily strain of listicles and empowering memes, but rather the need to sit yourself down in the bath and examine your body parts and think bad thoughts about your family and then some good ones and laugh-cry and sing angsty songs at the top of your lungs because you god damn feel like it. It’s about doing whatever it is you need to do to your hair (for me it was nothing) or your body (again, nothing) to make you happy and just sit with that for a while. I spent so much of my adolescence hating myself, and my body, and the space I took up in the physical realm that I felt like I had to retreat to a life of the mind. My thoughts were sharp, but my body was anything but. After using all manner of people, places, and things to alter my body, this year I said enough. 

While in Paris, I wrote. the Parisian streetside cafe is my new favorite place in the world. i think i’ll compile these thoughts into a written record, but for now, i like the way the ink looks on the page. 

I've just returned from Europe, and after bombarding my immediate and periphery community with luxe-filtered instagrams and pseudo-metaphoric captions, I feel rejuvenated. Or rather, my writing is rejuvenated. 

This blog has, as of yet, been a space to form ideas, and the stasis I've been in has kept it minimal for the last few months. That is, I haven't had many ideas. I think I felt used up. New York can be so overwhelming in its infinite possibility - and yet so underwhelming in its predictability. I oscillate between hyperstimulus and overstimulus - infinitely inspired and yet (in that) exhausted. People here are searching. I wanted to be found. 

I often talk about the city like double Dutch - formidable to watch and seemingly impossible, but once you sync up with the rhythm and find your finesse, you look like the 9th fucking world wonder. After my trip in April to Trinidad and Tobago, I found myself wondering if the spectacle of it all is worth it. I used to think of New York as a badge of honor, some masochistic assertion of how tough and interesting I was. Then I found some quiet, and the soundscape of my nearly-quarter-life indecision became deafening. I replaced the sirens with the silence, but still felt just as panicked. So, this summer then became out seeking the quiet, and finding the choices I didn't have the courage to make in the face of the all impending FOMo. Would I cease to be me outside of the parameters of this place? Would I lose my nerve? Would I lose my music? Do I make sense without the paradigm of constant self-deprecation, narcissism and general insecurity that runs through every person here? I wasn't sure. I'm not sure. 

But then there was Europe. 

I was a hyper feeling breathing living organism again. I laughed. I danced. I ate things that both defeated and delighted me. I travelled to Paris, alone, and wrote soliloquys about the serendipity of my life. I observed and felt and got excited about new sights and sounds and people. I breathed for what felt like the first time in months, and now back in a small apartment in Harlem, I find myself searching for that air once more. 

13 weeks ago, I started the Orbital Bootcamp with 7 other haphazard ideasmen. Ideaswomen? You get my jist. We all arrived with a concept that had somehow cemented itself with us, with ideas ranging from robotics to redistribution. Bootcamp began with little fanfare. We were on our way.

In the course of these 12 weeks (we ended our course last Friday) I did more soul-searching than I have in a very long time. My job requires that I engage in a high level of emotional processing, certainly, but it doesn’t hold the same repercussions for my Jasmine-ness. Bootcamp made me deconstruct my fears of failure, trust in my own process, inability to follow through (sometimes). It made me better, and here are five fast facts that I carried away from the experience. I’d like to share them with you:

1)  Ideas are people, too

My idea (Art We All) took on a life of its own shortly after I began this process. It evolved, was moody, incommunicative and sometimes downright rude. But it was of its own. As soon as I spoke it into existence, it began to change and held me accountable to its journey, not mine. Very powerful stuff for its lowly Facebook beginnings.

2) It’s okay to get fed up

I get bored very easily. By week 8, I was ready to drop out of Bootcamp and forget all about this whole idea. I stayed on. In the process, I came to understand what it was to cycle in and out of a creative process. Sometimes you’re on, and sometimes you’re not, and that’s ok. Rather than dealing with currency of extremism (of which I am the Donald Trump), I decided to just let it play out.

3) Community is EVERYTHING

My classmates and instructors made this experience for me. Accountability, as an innovator, often lies solely with you. Working within the framework of a community, where you can give and take and seek judgement and commiserate and occasionally eat pizza, is incredibly powerful and made all the difference. Find your tribe!

4)  I am only as good as my ability to accept my failures, not anticipate them

I’m going to fail at least once in this life. So much of my time is spent trying to avoid that, and Bootcamp made me realize that these failures are par for the course. Everybody fucking says that, but this time I believed it. And the benefits have eked out into my life, and that’s damn great

5) The what-ifs are the best part

I had way more fun planning the idea and pontificating its progress than I did implementing it. I think we undercut the brainstorming process in search of stability of idea. If you know you know what you want, then that’s great. However, if your ideas process is as much a journey of discovery as it is discernment, then it might work best if you enjoy the ride. I did.

As it stands, I don’t know where Art We All is going. My music career continues to test the limits of my sanity, and so the additional commitment of keeping this community alive, honestly, looks very difficult right now. HOWEVER – I am eternally grateful that Orbital has given me my idea, as big and bad as ever. Maybe that was the whole point – to empower you, the learner, to move forward with intentionality and encompass your idea. Live your concept, rather than pitch it. It certainly has been that for me, and following this process I am ever thankful to Nikki, Gary, Edlyn and Chris for helping to carve that space in my life. It was much needed.

Post script: I often think coming out as “unsure” is harder than any certainty, either good or bad. It’s what stops us from seeking help, this need to be sure that we’re sure. Orbital gave me the confidence to exist in the grey, for now, and so I have to end this post with that affirmation:

Hi, I’m Jasmine, and I’m in Orbit.

Every Black Girl Within a Five Mile Radius: *bursts through the windows* WITH A BAD BITCH THAT CAME FROM SRI LANKA, YEAH I'M IN THAT TONKA COLOR A WILLY WONKA! YOU COULD BE THE KING BUT WATCH THE QUEEN CONQUER! OK FIRST THINGS FIRST, I'LL EATCHA BRAINS! THEN IMMA START ROCKING GOLD TEETH AND FANGS! CAUSE THAT'S WHAT A MUTHAFUCKIN MONSTA DO! HAIRDRESSER FROM MILAN; THAT'S THE MONSTER DO! MONSTER GIUSEPPE HEEL; THAT'S THE MONSTER SHOE! YOUNG MONEY IS THE ROSTER AND THE MONSTER CREW! AND I'M ALL UP, ALL UP, ALL UO IN THE BANK WITH THE FUNNY FACE! AND IF I'M FAKE, I AIN'T NOTICE CAUSE MY MONEY AIN'T! So let me get this straight, wait, I'M the rookie? But my features and my shows ten times ya pay? 50k for a verse: NO ALBUM OUT! YEAH, MY MONEY'S SO TALL THAT MY BARBIES GOTTA CLIMB IT, HOTTER THAN A MIDDLE EASTERN CLIMATE, FIND IT! TONY MATTERHORN, DUTTY WINE IT, WINE IT! NICKI ON THEM TITTIES WHEN I SIGN IIIIT! BECAUSE THESE NIGGAS SO ONE TRACK MINDEEEED! But really, really I don't give a f-u-c-k! "Forget Barbie, FUCK Nicki, she's fake! She on a diet -" BUT MY POCKETS EATING CHEESECAKE! And I'll say Bride of Chucky is child's play. Just killed another career; it's a mild day. Besides Ye, they can't stand beside me! I think me, you, and Am should ménage Friday! P-P-P-PINK WIG, THICK ASS, GIVE EM WHIPLASH! I THINK BIG, GET CASH, MAKE EM BLINK FAST! N-N-NOW LOOK AT WHAT YOU JUST SAW, THIS IS WHAT YOU LIVE FOR! AAAAAAAAAAAAH! I'M A MUTHAFUCKIN MONSTA!