Is Plies’ single “Shawty” a love song or the perfect soundtrack for a ‘Hood porn movie?

I feel a guilty pleasure when I listen to “Shawty” by Plies, a native of Fort Myers, Florida. For one, the music track, the catchy hook sung by today’s hottest R&B singer, T-Pain, and the accompanying music video, complete with cars, jewelry, celebrity cameos, thick and attractive women, and a swimming pool, are fits what seems to be the perfect formula for a hit record on the radio, on the charts, on cable music networks, and on the streets these days.

On the other hand, many who listen to the song would find the lyrics offensive and degrading to women (that includes the music video) and yet every time it plays on the radio I turn up the volume and every time I watch the music video on cable. let’s say it’s “must see TV”.

I’ve said before that Hip-Hop, whether it’s uplifting, militant, political, comedic, nightclub-ready, “gangsta” or “audiopornography,” is very seductive. Even the “anti-Hip-Hop” listener will find it almost impossible not to tap their feet or nod their heads to the beat. And if he doesn’t know or understand the words to the song’s verses, he’ll be able to learn the words (or at least hum the melody) with the catchy choruses.

But I’m not an anti-Hip-Hop listener. I love hip hop. I’ve always been sort of an old soul heavily influenced by ’60s and ’70s R&B/Soul music, and yet my generation and much of my own identity has been shaped by the lifestyle of the Hip-Hop culture. Hop and the sound of your music. Being that I am a faithful follower of Soul music in which most of the themes focus on love and romance, the Hip-Hop love song has always been one of my favorites. There have been many love songs in Hip-Hop but of course the best known, documented and celebrated is LL Cool J’s “I Need Love”.

Well, “Shawty” is not “I Need Love”!

LL is a master of the Hip-Hop love song. First of all, as his name implies, Cool J gets a lot of love from the ladies. But he lived up to his appeal and earned a reputation for writing and performing heartfelt, romantic songs about love and relationships. The lyrics to many of LL’s love songs could have been sung like R&B songs by Marvin Gaye or Luther Vandross without reservation. LL knows how to make the kind of songs that will have mass appeal to ladies regardless of race, age, or geography.

But to keep it completely real, LL has made “love songs” that are more about lust than love: “Back Seat” (“In my jeep… we’re going to do an episode”) comes immediately to mind. Plies’ “Shawty” is more “Back Seat” than “I Need Love.” The song is basically about a boy who is playing with another man’s girl. The relationship is far from serious and the song’s lyrics detail Plie’s own episodes of raw, uncensored and unadulterated sex…

“The first time I caught her shit, she don’t even know how to put it back
Now she’s an animal, I got her sex game right
I taught him to talk to me while he takes a pipe
And opened it up and showed him what a real black like
I told her I don’t normally do this, I don’t fuck the first night
‘Cause after I beat your baby, I can fuck with you for life
I trained her, now she sucks me with ice
I call her my Lil Bust It Baby because she keeps it tight…”

Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a love song!

“Shawty” is a perfect song to play in the background during the weird sex scenes in the typical bootleg porn movie. It’s not exactly the kind of song a newlywed couple puts on to set a romantic mood on their wedding night. The song is made for the late night booty call. As you can see from the excerpt above, the lyrics are explicit and not appropriate for the ears of high school kids. Of course, make no mistake, high school kids are probably the biggest fans of Plies!

However, “Shawty” is a song for grown-ups and I know I’m not the only adult over 30 who enjoys this song. What is it about “Shawty” that has appeal? Is it the music track? Is it the catchy hook sung by T-Pain’s “electronic” sounds? Is it the arrogance of Plies?

There are plenty of listeners who can relate to the kind of rhyming sexual talk on “Shawty.” Whether we like it or not, there are more relationships based entirely on pure sex than those based on serious and lasting true love. People, young and old, are deeply and sometimes dangerously involved in affairs revolving around wild, late-night sexual escapades. The details of these types of activities in the bedroom are often kept secret or reserved for the men’s locker room.

But Hip-Hop artists are going to say what no one else is willing to say, right?

Yes and no.

“Shawty” actually follows a long line of songs, from Rock, Pop and Blues to Hip-Hop, that are full of explicit, raw and dirty lyrics about sex. Some of these songs are celebrated as art, while others are dismissed as obscenity. I’m not one to make those kinds of distinctions. I will say that songs that speak of “love and happiness” (as Al Green would say) are universally accepted and respected because they reflect what most of us supposedly claim we want from our relationships.

Musically there is nothing better than a beautiful love song, well written, well arranged and well performed. I’m not talking about rock, pop, or any other genre, but I personally believe that the best love songs have come from R&B and soul music, songs recorded by singers like Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, The Isley Brothers, etc. But I also think that some of the best Hip-Hop songs ever made have been about love and romance.

I have to be honest to say that the love song is not what it used to be. I almost feel bad for the younger generation of music fans who don’t listen to enough well-written, well-arranged, well-performed heartfelt love songs unless they “dig through the boxes” of their parents’ old records or listen to “old school”. radio station. For example, there are lyrics to some of today’s so-called R&B/Soul music that are as explicit or sometimes more so than anything you’d hear on a Hip-Hop record.

While the lyrics to “Shawty” certainly put off fans of more conventional romantic love ballads, the fact that the hypnotic song is heavily rotated on radio stations across the country and is quickly becoming one of the the most downloaded songs on the Internet. , shows that there is a pretty big audience for music more about wild, crazy, freaky sex with no strings attached than those songs about genuine passionate and committed love.