With a growing army of fans – including over two million Twitter followers – American rapper Latto has a powerful platform for calling out misogyny, which she takes full advantage of with her latest lyrics, penned for her new single P*ssy.
As a female claiming her piece of the pie in a traditionally male-dominated genre, Latto is no stranger to harassment and double standards in the industry. Earlier this year she spoke of an unnamed male feature on her album 777 who, because she rejected his advances, made clearing the track more difficult than it need be. And lyrics from P*ssy echo the sentiment underpinning this kind of entitled male behaviour: “If I demand my respect, watch he paint me as crazy.”
But the real target of Latto’s lambast extends beyond the music industry: the 23-year-old Atlanta native points the finger squarely at the lawmakers whose landmark ruling in June reversed the 1973 Roe v. Wade sanctioning of a woman’s constitutional right to abortion. Women all over the world have reacted with outrage at the Supreme Court’s regressive ruling, spawning a wave of protests. Globally, the United States can be perceived as a champion of human rights – for example, following Roe v. Wade several other countries, such as Tunisia and Cape Verde, emulated the ruling of the Supreme Court. Its decisions reverberate, and the fear is that this recent adjudication could have a ripple effect too.
Latto’s sense of injustice at the legal verdict is visceral in her lyrics: “How you ain’t got a p***y, but got opinions on p*ssy?/ That’s p*ssy, my ovaries ain’t for you to bully.” And the song’s title, far from being gratuitous, demands digging a little deeper, as illuminated by Latto herself: “P is for protecting women’s rights. U is for understanding this is not just a woman’s fight. S is for stand up. The other S is for speak out. And Y is for your body, your choice.” The RCA recording artist augments her unambiguous message by sampling Betty Wright’s 1968 Girls Can’t Do What the Guys Do, creating a raw blend of strong statement and catchy music.
But lyrics are only one part of a package, which includes video and artwork, both of which draw upon the collaboration of women. The video, co-directed by Latto and Sara Lacome, depicts shots of the rapper surrounded by kittens, contrasted with clips from protests that erupted in he wake of the Roe v. Wade overturning. In a press statement Lacombe explained that the video is “symbolic that [women] can be both hard (the lyrics) and soft (the world we placed her in)”. Kate McIntyre’s artwork for the cover of the single continues this thread, controversially displaying an in-your-face image of woman’s spread-eagled legs birthing delicate pink flowers, with what appears to be the White House in the background. McIntyre sheds light on the powerful concept behind her cover image: “The woman in front of this outdated institution is breaking the ground with her body, just like we will break new ground in the continuing fight for women’s rights.”
When Latto, former winner of The Rap Game, shared a 22-second snippet of the song prior to its release, she faced something of a backlash, with one Twitter user accusing her of “using serious issues to promote [her] song” and another later unleashing this diatribe: “This is poor taste, so close to porn, and the words are to sell, because I don’t think you really know the issue.” But Latto, who once admitted to being a “goal driven success monster”, was quick with her riposte, pledging to donate part of the proceeds to Planned Parenthood. The musician was swift to remind her critics that she had actually addressed the issue of abortion in her acceptance speech at the BET Awards earlier this year, where she was voted Best New Artist. She unapologetically defends her right – responsibility, even – to use her platform as a vehicle for raising awareness: “I AM using my power (platform) to make a change.”
In this, Latto is following in the footsteps of a host of recording artists, which should go some way to muting those who level the charge of “capitalising” in her direction. Tupac Shakur did this, rapping “And since a man can’t make [a baby]/ He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one”, with Shad picking up the cause in Still Shining: “ There’s no girls rapping so we’re only hearing half the truth.”
Thanks to female performers like Latto, girls are rapping, and increasingly so – and ready to tell the other half of the truth.
