32 Saba: Care for Me

When I was ‘reviewing’ the extremely impressive and undeniable Noname album a few dozen entries back, her close musical conspirator Saba guesting on one track gave me an uncomfortable feeling all of a sudden. I had placed her compatriot’s album a full thirty five places higher on the list. Was it really that different and that much superior? Was I guilty of the ‘male glance’??

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I’m sure I’ve talked about the ‘male glance’ on numerous occasions before, because it is something that I wholeheartedly believe exists and am extremely wary of being guilty of it myself. I’ll explain it again, because I can’t remember if I have before, and anyway this is the first post of this blog you’ve ever read, isn’t it? You’re only here because I added ‘keira knightley rim job’ as a tag. Not what you expected, I know, but still awesome, yeah?? Don’t forget to hit subscribe. I will explain what the ‘male gaze’ is after the jump, because bah gahd I need dem clicks:

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69 Noname: Room 25

“My pussy teaching 9th grade English/My pussy wrote a thesis on colonialism/In conversation with a marginal system/In love with Jesus”

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When Noname released her second album back in some time in the past (there really is no way of knowing), Amazon offered the opening (and possibly best) track, Self, to listen to as a sample. Early in the song she states “Y’all really thought a bitch couldn’t rap huh?/Maybe this your answer for that, a crack era/The Reagan administration that niggas are still scared of?”, and being the sucker I am for commentaries on the (still) worst US President of the modern era. Soon afterwards, she utters the aforementioned bang up the elephant line that you really should be well aware of by now, and I was sold. I immediately chucked £7.99 at Noname and her scholarly vagina. I later found out that she was also on Bandcamp, so purchased it again in the assumption that she was likely to see a lot more of the money, judging by the amount of cash Amazon siphoned off when I published a couple of books a couple of years ago. For that reason, ‘Room 25’ is the only 2018 album that could be considered so good that I bought it twice.

The thing is though, what does that line actually mean?

Continue reading “69 Noname: Room 25”