Santa Reloaded: The Wisdom of the Inner Child

           

            When I was a young child, maybe 3 or 4, my parents asked me what I wanted from Santa. In my infinite wisdom I replied simply: an apple and an orange.

            Needless to say, my parents were a bit flabbergasted. They even took me to the mall to see the big man in person. My answer was still the same. I sat on Santa’s lap confidently and relayed to him my wish for fruit. Needless to say Santa was also a bit lost for words and my parents looked a bit embarrassed. As a child of the middle class I surely could have wished for something else, something a bit more extravagant: a doll, a toy car, a video game. Anything. (Well anything within reason).

            When I think back to young me, I am amazed by my wisdom. In a world of capitalist overload and wasteful gift giving I simply asked for one thing: nourishment. Plenty of parents buy children the latest hot toy or gadget only to have their child play with it for a week and then let it languish in the basement. But young Reezy knew what was up.

            My parents ended up getting me a plastic orange and apple and a mini play-kitchen set and ironing board. I seemed to be satisfied. About 22 years later I am still struggling to achieve what the younger me achieved with such ease. I am still trying to see through the chaos of the information age and achieve the things that truly nourish me. As I grow older I also struggle to demystify my life’s narrative, including my class privilege and the racial dynamics of growing up mixed-race in a predominately white suburban enclave.

            But as I embark on what has been and will continue to be a profoundly overwhelming spiritual and physical journey I have to channel the younger Reezy. The one who confidently made their desires plain even when everyone else thought they were a little off-kilter. It is my hope that as 2014 approaches we can all slow down and channel the wisdom of our inner child.

A Critical Reading of Mykki Blanco's Wavvy

This is a piece I wrote a while back... Enjoy and I will be sure to have some new ish up soon!

Note: I am not sure which pronouns Mykki uses. I was under the impression that Mykki, also known as Michael Quattlebaum Jr., uses she and he interchangeably. I will use she when referring to the performance artist, whose work is analyzed in this piece.

With the advent of the Internet, queer artists have become more accessible to the general public. But, more importantly, they’ve become accessible to other queer people. Enter Mykki Blanco, a multigendered hip-hop artist, who has already blazed trails for women and queer folx.

Mykki first entered my radar with her 2012 video Wavvy. The video can be found here.     

         

I argue that Blanco, as a contemporary artist, uses the aesthetic tropes of hip-hop and pop culture to illustrate a queer-subjectivity. She does this by using both words and images queerly, in addition to embodying various types of gendered performance. I will attempt to explain my perspective with a critical reading of Blanco’s video Wavvy.

What do I mean by queer-subjectivity? Queer can mean many things. It can mean slightly askew or bizarre. It can be a derogatory term for non-heterosexual presenting folx. But, when I use queer, it refers to a specific type of gender and sexual politics as well as a specific type of aesthetic politics. A queer frame of mind usually regards both gender and sexuality as separate, if at times mutually enforcing, spectrums. Both gender and sexuality can be regarded as fluid, with male and female simply representing different poles. Under a queer rubric, it is possible to be a transwoman who identifies as a lesbian, or a transman who identifies as a fag. It is possible to be a pussy-loving dyke (such as myself) who also identifies as asexual at times, but also identifies as an effete fairy at others. What I find personally so liberating about a queer politics is that it allows me to eschew the restrictions of the gender binary. Not that anyone ever escapes society’s impositions, but queer politics has allowed me to see the possibilities beyond the binary.

This is why I find the music of Mykki Blanco so resonant. Her strength and sex appeal as a performer and lyricist stems from the way she plays with language, imagery and persona.

In the opening scene of Wavvy we are taken into the harsh milieu of NYC, where Blanco is picking up drugs. She is dressed in what I refer to as boi-style; snap back, shirtless, off-pink pants. She mentions to the dealer how uncomfortable she is being on “the hottest block in Chinatown,” and is visibly nervous as sirens wail in the distance. The music kicks in when a cop finds Mykki mid-deal. Our protagonist must then run to evade the lock-up, which she does. She then makes her way into the cargo hold of a truck. She picks up the mic and screams the first lines, “Welcome to hell, bitches/This is Mykki Blanco/New World Order/Motherfucker, follow pronto.” It’s hard not to get attention with an opener like that! With her first two lines she not only invokes the site of hell, with all its attendant associations of sin and debauchery, she conjures  a larger geopolitical conspiracy. And in america, spiritual violence and political violence are often intertwined, especially where queer folx are concerned. In the heterosexual imaginary all ‘deviants’ are assigned to hell. Mykki takes that construction and throws it right back in the viewer's face. Mykki’s visual performance is angular and campy at times, but can still be read as masculine. Spitting lines like, “Maybe she was born with it/ maybe it was Maybelline,” Mykki maintains a masculine posture, but isn’t afraid to femme up her rhymes while doing so. It is this seeming discontinuity that I love about Blanco. Even in a more masculine- of-center register, Mykki still keeps it queer. A brilliant moment in the first verse is when Brenmar drops the beat, and Mykki describes all the hip-hop bros who listen to her prose and then gag: “Oh, this fag can rap/ Yeah they sayin’ it/ They listenin.’” Not only does Mykki shock us by playing with  specters of hell, damnation and political collapse, she speaks directly to her hip hop competitors and homophobic haters. And her message is simple: I do this rap shit better than you.

But where Mykki surprises us is in the chorus. Whereas the scenery from the first verse is urban, urbane, harsh and masculine, the party where Mykki sells wavvy is like something out of a Derek Jarman film on acid. All red curtains and candles, and a multiracial, multi-gendered cast of art-school hippies. Each and every one posed out like a Botticelli nude. Mykki is again shirtless, but with a red wig instead of a snap-back, a pair of gold laced black panties instead of pants and lipstick glossin’. She also stunts in heels. But, concurrent with this change of scenery and outfit, is a change in mannerism and speech. “I bite the, bite the, bite the head off a harpy,” Mykki intones. She invokes a mythical creature that is both feminine and terrifying. And in patriarchal america, one of the first things that we as a people have forgotten is the terrifying and dangerous power of the feminine. Mykki can femme it up, but it is still in your face. She shows young women of all genders that it is still possible to be pretty and powerful. In fact, sometimes it’s the pretty bitches who are the most terrifying in their prowess. She conjures spirituality again, “I cry blood tears/ Holy Mary, Holy Mother.” Violence directed at queer folx is often justified using spirituality. But yet again, Mykki re-appropriates spiritual imagery, this time turning to Mary Mother of God. For me an important part of queerness has been taking back the spiritual from those who would conclude that all queer folx are destined for hell. It is not uncommon for feminist re-appropriations of spirituality to concentrate on the forgotten stories of the female prophets. What is so powerful about Mykki’s work is that she summons the feminine and the masculine with her words playfully and effortlessly. And during the second verse we see Mykki blow out a votive candle, while her posse gets up to gender bending high jinks in the background. Oh, and all of the confetti, all of it! The rest of the video cross-cuts beautifully between Mykki's femme performance, and her boi performance.

The chorus, “We make love to the night/in the back of the club/yeah we feelin’ alright,” portrays the still secret world of queers, who are often relegated to the back of the club by a homophobic politics that demands that gender-non-conformity never even be seen, much less “tolerated.” But Mykki is of course a poet by trade. In the back of the club one can "make love to the night," itself. Indeed, the very metaphorical essence of Wavvy seems to be about poetry and mysticism. And that combination, judging from all the different bodies partying it up in the video, packs one hell of a liberatory wallop.

Francesco Carrozini and music producer Brenmar all of course contribute to the greatness of the video and track. This piece is simply my interpretation of Mykki Blanco’s art. I have noticed aesthetic similarities between all of Mykki Blanco’s videos thus far, which is why I am focusing on her as emcee and visual artist. This particular use of mise en scene, lyricism, gender presentation and gender performance represents a queering of pop-music that is fiercely intellectual, as well as inspiring for queer and LGBTQ communities. Especially those of color.

When her shit drops and hits the six-million circulation…….

My Take On Beyoncé

Just for full disclosure, before I get into my argument I want to say that I haven’t actually seen the whole visual album all the way through.

            But I still wanted to weigh in on the spectacle that is Beyoncé’s eponymous album. There is much to be said about Beyoncé and her status as a feminist. Two sides of the debate were captured by CrunkFeministCollective’s Reasons I’m Here For Beyoncé, the Feminist and Real Colored Girls’ The Problem With Beyhive Bottom Bitch Feminism. While I think both articles brought up good points, I’d like to raise two specific issues. The first economic, the second aesthetic.

            According to Celebrity Net Worth.com, Beyoncé has about $300 Million to her name. This last album, which was released without promotion, had already sold more than 600,000 copies as of Wednesday, December 18th. Which means that it shot to number 1 on Billboard after only 5 days. And as staggering as this feat is, it’s not really surprising. She is Beyoncé; at this point an almost messianic figure to her fans. She’s known for her bigger than life operatics and an even bigger live show. Her ability to dance in heels changed up the world of dance so much that performers of all genders have taken up the challenge of pirouetting in stilettos.

            However, there is something that still irks me about the whole thing. The album is on iTunes for $15.99, which I guess makes sense since it does include 17 new visuals as well as 14 new tracks. However, a star like Beyoncé certainly could afford to release the album for cheaper or better yet, release the album as a pay what you can project via an independent web domain. After all, she has $300 Mill to her name; she can afford to take the hit. I agree with CFC’s analysis that feminism does not belong to the P(laya) H(ater) D(egree) havin’ crowd. However, feminism does not belong to those with the biggest bank account either. I’m not going to sit here and say that Beyoncé is not a feminist, because after all, if Miley Cyrus is a feminist idol, than hell Beyoncé certainly is one too. But I’m also not going to hold back my critique of capitalism and Beyoncé’s very real participation in capitalism and the hierarchies it encourages. Because after all, who would Beyoncé be without her fans, many of whom did not balk at paying $16 for an iTunes album. All of this in a busted ass economy.

            This brings me to the second part of my argument, which is aesthetic. From what I’ve seen the videos for this album are all shiny surfaces, populated by beautiful, oftentimes androgynous figures. It’s all very breathtaking and impeccably done, but something rings hollow. I think this is especially true of the visual for Superpower.

            It takes place in an abandoned parking garage, where a crop top wearing Beyoncé leads a group of misfits towards an unknown destination. It appears that there is some sort of protest or rebellion going on, but the context is largely unknown. The emotional development and timing of the clip is spectacular. It begins with Beyoncé walking by herself, face covered, then joined by a group of stylish women and as the procession continues it becomes bigger and bigger. Beyoncé eventually takes off her hood to reveal an immaculate green dye job. A car is overturned, Beyoncé breathes life into a fallen rabble-rouser and is eventually joined by former band mates Kelly and Michelle, not to mention Pharell. The clip crescendos into its conclusion as the group of protesters charge a group of riot cops.

            Again, the clip looks damn good. However, it’s hard not to feel like Beyoncé is simply capitalizing on the anarchist chic fallout of protest movements such as those that comprised Arab Spring or even Occupy. Despite vague signs and graffiti about love, it’s not clear what is being protested. And everyone in the video is fashionably alternative not to mention diverse. The whole thing resembles a catwalk more than a riot. It makes one think that what Gil Scott-Heron said was true; maybe the revolution will not be televised, not because media conglomerates wouldn’t find it interesting but perhaps because the revolution is neutralized at the very moment of major media coverage. This is a classic example of what I would call aestheticization, which takes social and cultural movements and strips them of their original meaning, simply putting them on display because they look pretty (see Cultural Appropriation for another example of this phenomenon). The whole thing gets even more complicated when you think about that fact that Beyoncé has made a fortune off of the superpower that is the United States and that she gets to go back to her lux lifestyle after shooting is over.

            That said there is no denying the power of this album. Songs and visuals such as Pretty Hurts and Flawless are sentiments that I can fully get behind. This album also represents a brave and effective new hybridization of Pop, R & B, Hip Hop and Alternative sounds. The versatility of Beyoncé’s musical arsenal is expanding and I appreciate that. Hopefully it will encourage other artists to step up and make 2014 a musical year to remember.

            Again, these are just my observations and my attempt to point out a few things that I think were missing in the conversation. If you bought Beyoncé’s album and enjoyed it, good for you. If you downloaded it for free and enjoyed it good for you. If you abstained, good for you as well. At the end of the day music is here for our enjoyment. This past year has been turbulent and it's important that we find new reasons to love life, and music is chief among those reasons. In Flawless Beyoncé sings, “I know when you were little girls/You dreamt of being in my world/Don’t forget it/Don’t forget it/Respect that/Bow down, bitches.” As someone who grew up on Destiny’s Child that line really resonates with me. I think something young women of color today need to ask themselves is, If we were in Beyoncé’s world, what would that world look like? What would be the same, what would we do differently? It’s my hope that we can channel as much enthusiasm into shaping our own visions as has been put into propping up Queen Bey’s. 

Santa Claus and Other Innocent Lies My Parents Told Me

            It’s interesting how humans create myths in order to justify the status quo.

            When I was a child, I believed in Santa Claus until an embarrassingly old age. My parents would do the whole bit. Buy the tree; make the gingerbread house and cookies. Get up in the middle of the night, put presents under the tree, take a bite out of the cookies and then go back to sleep.

            My sister and I would always be astonished the next day. Santa got us exactly what we wanted!

            It wasn’t until I was about 9 or 10 that my faith in Santa waivered. We went to go visit my mother’s family, which is the Black side of my family. As I was playing with my cousins they revealed that they did not believe in Santa Claus. ”We hate Santa,” they shouted, “because he doesn’t care about us with his ashy bones.”

            Needless to say I was shocked by their irreverence, so I went to ask my parents. Santa was surely real. He left us notes; he took a bite out of the cookies we left him. My mother stuttered when I asked. “They move around a lot, so Santa can’t always find them.” The truth is my cousins were poor. And there is no Santa. Santa was simply an attendant fantasy afforded to me by my parents’ socioeconomic status. A status that was furnished upon my family because of my father’s racial heritage as a high caste Hindu immigrant from a long line of professors. My parents didn’t see fit to explain such things to children. But even then, I could feel both the race and class differences between how my sister and I were raised and the reality my cousins had to live in. These were the same cousins who often teased me for “talking like a white girl,” and the Black side of my family always lived way more modestly than my father’s family.

            James Baldwin wrote in The Fire Next Time that racial inequality in America was a crime of innocence. He wrote of his white compatriots that, “they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it” (Baldwin, 5). I have come to realize that innocence is a luxury there for those who can afford it symbolically and materially.

            I think about that a lot this yuletide as I try to demystify my life’s narrative and move from innocence to guilt to something greater. A part of me mourns the sense of magic that my parents were able to create for me as a child. I now realize that that magic was based on a lie. My journey now is to seek truth. Part of that truth is that the world is actually very cruel. But I still believe in the magic behind the myth. And even though this winter is a bitingly cold one, I am still optimistic that the universe will eventually make that magic apparent to me.