This totally happened.
I’ve always been somewhat baffled by just how “excited” everybody gets when “Put It In your Mouth” comes on in the club. For all intensive purposes, it usually comes on at the point in the night when the party goes from the joint to pajama jammy jam levels. Hell, as far as great unifiers go, the only musical entity bringing together more people is Justin Timberlake.
But there you have it, “Put It In Your Mouth” the oral sex anthem from 1996 is still going strong. And there’s a reason for it. It just might be one of the few hip-hop songs where men and women are equal. Sure there are lots of songs where a man and woman trade bar, but in almost all of them, the woman hoes herself with tremendous aplomb. Think Trina in “Nann N*gga”. She’s talking about smanging five or six best friends etc, which I’m fairly certain isn’t exactly female empowerment. I could be wrong on this as my feminist handbook got run over by either a Beamer, Benz, or Bentley.
Me and my n*ggas trynna get it ya bish.
By the way, I know it’s “all intents and purposes”. Keep calm and rub t*ts if you love Big Poppa.
“Put It In Your Mouth” on the other hand gives the woman equal time to let the man know exactly what he needs to be doing to please her. And the dude, in this case, Akinyele, is listening, taking notes, presumably because he’s going to eaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat her ouuuuuuuuuut.
Let’s switch gears for a second. Hip-hop has an interesting relationship with female empowerment. If I get any of this wrong, feel free to correct me. Purge me, Brother Numsie. I want the knife. Please. But aside from “Ladies First”, Queen Latifah’s first single where she actually looks older than she IS now and “U.N.I.T.Y.” there aren’t too many known songs where women are “taking a stand” and its not sexual. It seems like all female empowerment in hip-hop is of the sexual variety. She’s pulling dude moves by sexing anybody she feels when she feels it. It’s that Ronnie Ho stuff from The Player’s Club. Aggressive, assertive women who play the game like men do. Except while most men enjoy the sexual nature of the lyrics, I don’t know that any dude was every trying to seriously wife Lil Kim or Foxy Brown. Sure we all talked about smashing, but does anybody know a dude who was like, “yo, I’d like to see if I could build something with a chick like Lil Kim?”
I ain’t saying it ain’t possible, I’m just saying that you might not trust a dude who told you had real feelings for Lil Kim.
Now the reasons for this are probably simple. In order to make it in the man’s rap game the women had to appeal to the men. Long gone were the days where songs like “Poor Georgie” and “Paper Thin” were interesting to hear from women rappers. Even women rappers today like your Rhapsody’s don’t get much burn. Part of that is that you seem to have two types of women rappers, sexxy time rappers and women rapping about rapping – which bores the living f*ck out of most people regardless of gender. Go ask Tyrese aka Black Ty.
Back to empowerment. Men seem to be only accepting even decent rapping women like your Nicki Minaj’s – who is definitely a motherf*cking monster – when the oversexualize themselves. Chicks who can spit only seem to get notice if they dress like they stopped at Frederick’s of Hollywood. Obviously men have always viewed the fairer sex through sexual lenses but it seems like many women have not only embraced it but decided that its how they SHOULD be viewed. Odd future. So even if many women spitters are out there ridin’ ’round and gettin’ it in the booth, the truth is, the successful ones are only getting attention by being as lewd-a-crous as possible. Which is interesting since none of us claim to want to support this music.
You gotta believe in something. We all try. The girls try. The boys try. We all try.
Quite simply, I don’t really think of any of these women rappers as doing much to advance any agenda or equality since they’re all just stripping with words basically. And while I definitely support the cause of the video ho and the pole performing artists, I can’t say I really think they’re doing much for gender equality. It always feels lopsided.
Which brings us back to “Put It In Your Mouth”. It doesn’t feel lopsided. Yes, it’s about sex. But it’s about a man and a woman getting equal time and shine for the same reason…making sure the other knows what is about to go down. There’s almost…dare I say respect there? Plus, its one of the few songs that comes on in the club where dudes stop and listen to the woman in front of them singing the words.
Basically, it’s the only hip-hop song (that really comes to mind) where the man and the woman are equals.
A reach? Sure. But hey, you can’t break a few omelets unless you reach for the stars. Sadatay.
Is “Put It In Your Mouth” the only hip-hop song with true gender equality? Are there others?
What the hell is Panama talking about? Does anybody know?
Talk to me.
-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka MR. I WROTE 900 WORDS ABOUT PUT IT IN YOUR MOUTH aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL HE A 3
