Patatoa

One Monday morning in August, a press release announced that Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion would collaborate on a song. This piqued my interest. Two of hip-hops brightest personalities on the same track, can’t lose. A couple of times later that week, I’d poke around to check if the track dropped. The following Friday, the song and video dropped. I dropped what I was doing. I’ll get to the song and accompanying video shortly, but as the video wrapped, I slowly realized I had been anticipating the song all week. And it was worth the wait.

"WAP" likely serves as the lead single from Cardi B’s follow up album to 2018’s Invasion of Privacy. With songs like "Bodak Yellow", "I Like it", and "Best Life", Privacy was easy to like. It built on Cardi’s hype and exploded her in to the mainstream. Almost at the same time as Cardi B played Saturday Night Live, Megan thee Stallion was breaking through. 2019’s Fever is probably her real arrival to most (myself included.) But she has one of the most formidalble discographys today with four fantastic releases in as many years, including this year’s Suga, I’m not sure any artist has the kind of steam that Megan thee Stallion has built up. "WAP" delivers and builds on each of their reputations.

Quarantine 2020 had a wealth of fantastic music, and much of the best came from empowered women. Charli Xcx, Fiona Apple, Laura Marling, Phoebe Bridgers, Haim, Taylor Swift all dropped stellar records during the most locked-down era of the pandemic. If all those records served as the bellwether for a moment in music, "WAP" is the undeniable gale. It came at a time when many of us had little to feel good about. Maybe because of our gender, or our skin color, unemployment, or difficulties of employment during such times. "WAP" is so inexcusably empowered that you, the listener, recall your own sense of self-determination.

At a time when fewer and fewer of us have a say in what we get to do in our day to day lives, pandemic-related, social justice-related, or other, here are two black women singing so positively about their wants, themselves, and their partners. In the world of this song, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion know specifically what they want. They need these sensations fulfilled, their men need to fulfill x and y criteria, and they know their sex is so worth it they expect all of the above and then some. There’s no dreaming either. It’s not a wishlist, its a job specification. At the same time, there is nothing frivolous expressed about the song either. The song doesn’t objectify men or trivialize sex. Its less of a gender swapped "Cherry Pie" and more of a me-first "Whatta Man."

Which isn’t to say the song doesn’t share any qualities with a song like "Cherry Pie," "WAP" is delightfully nasty. As assertive as Cardi B and Megan thee Stallion are with their expectations so too is their vocabulary. There’s little I could add to this topic that isn’t already said, but it is wonderful to hear women talk so frankly and explicitly about sex. Men enjoyed doing so as far back as the 50’s, and that there is still some bad faith pearl-clutching in 2020 is disheartening, but also encouraging because it feels like the death throws of feminine sex-positivity being taboo.

This summer was light on fun, and rightfully so. We didn’t get to see the beach, experience new locations, visit hotels. But we did get to live a bit vicariously through Cardi B and Megan thee Stallion. No hotel, they invited us to a house. And there were whores in this house.