Don’t get caught up in the lengthy and didactic title, just know that it tells you every thing you need to know about how AMG won my confused teenage heart over two decades ago and has led to multiple documented occurrences of me karaoke rapping that shit since… Until Rihanna came through like a mutha fuckin G with a muthfuckin anthem, that basically summed up the singular sentiment of my IC heart and that I could rarely access the lady balls to articulate…
I have been an Independent Contractor (IC) for most of my life and I am counting Hairstyling in that most… But probably even before then in the depths of soul I wanted justice. And justice looks to me like “Pay Me What You Owe Me”. Without getting too personal, let me put this out. I have personal debt and I have karmic debt. And I am sure if some businesses could figure out a way to get out of me what they think I owe… I’d always be in debt. My biggest debt,however, it a debt of gratitude to RiRi, that spunky, disturbed Island-Child for finally releasing me from the mantra of misogynoir that I have been chanting all these years…
All I really wanted to say was “Bitch Betta Have My Money!” Because a $4.25 minimum wage wasn’t shit. Because I wanted to get paid all of my monies for braiding all of your hair or doing all of your nails or posting all of your bills… But the infectious DJ Quik beat and rudimentary 90′s lyricism of AMG drew me in and there I stagnated repeatedly rapping from place of a stinging womanist self-loathing. The ratchet in me could bust down every verse, word for word,a nd line for line… The conscious woman in me was woke and couldn’t sleep on the negativity of what coming out of my mouth… I was spitting pure unadulterated, unethical pimpin…
Then while I was sleeping literally… this happened…
I heard the song and have been singing the song and slowly driving out the archaic lyrics that had long ago taken up residence (for free might I add) in my brain… It didn’t take long for RiRi’s BBHMM to take root in my mind, heart,soul, and spirit… But then this stunning visual and commentary by the Great George Arnett Dowdy (read it here) incited a Viking Funeral for AMG’s version and Shrine built in Honor of Our Lady RiRi of Get Yo Muthalovin Monies! Slaymen!
In brief Brotha Dowdy broke it down like this:
1. Yazzz! She aesthetically slayed! #BlackGirlsAreMagic
2. And while serving some activism realness on white male patriarchy, black woman body and financial agency, reparations, and attacking the archetype of fragility and innocence. #BlackLivesMatter #BlackWomenMatter #BlackMoneyMatters
3. It’s still problematic because Violence and Money…
And Our Badass Lady RiRi gave the really, real, realness in this video, letting us know that “If you thought this was just about an accountant skimming from the till, Acquire your entire existence, edges, and eyebrows together.” As Brotha Dowdy reminds us… “WE have bigger fish to fry.”
Purple Hair And Converse 