A is for Anaconda
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/ an-uh–kon-duh / (n): an innuendo, an intimation, another word for penis, Sir Mix a Lot introduced the world to "Baby Got Back" way back in 1992 where he serenaded us about his anaconda's love for big butts. But Nicki Minaj sampled his song to describe how she used her body to acquire things like Balmain and Alexander McQueen from dangerous men who put themselves in danger for the love of…danger. Storytelling at its finest she invites us into her exploits and reminds us of an important, often neglected lesson: don’t miss a meal because food is good and you might get thick.
B is for Blow
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/ bloh / (v): take it for what you will, because Beyoncé will not tell you a single thing. From her 2013 self-titled album, “Blow” skillfully evades words that would categorize the song as ‘explicit’ on Spotify. Skittles, pink, cherries, riddles? She relies on innuendos like “turning cherries out” “keep me humming” or “never wasting a drip.” There is a skating rink, neon bright colors, and everybody is having fun (and eating candy). Don’t mistake this for just another commercial song about sex, Beyonce’ speculates about how good it must feel to have sex with her, attempting to wrap her mind around the product of her imagination. She may be talking to her honey (through us, of course) about how much she wants him but she is also making it clear how satisfying she is as she is.
C is for Conceited
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/ kuhn-see-tid / (adj): meaning “can’t nobody do it like you do.” Remy Ma has every reason to be full of herself. And tells us why we should be full of ourselves too. With a skillful use of enjambment, this is a song about raising your standards. Knowing your worth. There are limitations because, she goes from deriving her conceitedness from how much her man loves the way her body is to realizing that having a man obsessed with you is like having a parasite that likes your blood. She lets him know in the end that she looks too good to be fucking him. This is a song about boundaries and knowing your worth that you should get into.
D is for Da Baddest Bitch
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/da/ bad-ist/ /bich/ (pr. n) Not the, but da. Da has more sauce. It's smoother. Allows us to move more quickly past formal diction in order to answer the question, who’s that? With each chorus, we return to this question. Not so much to speculate on the meaning of this two word interrogation, but to leave us feeling like a kid in awe of watching a superhero fly past them after setting their cheating partner’s house in flames. I mean, it is thrilling to see Trina wipe her feet on former Miami Dolphins player Brett Favre’s jersey then go on a justified rampage of Warren Sapp’s (his teammate and rival) property—because who cares about football or niggas? A song about extracting resources and a practice of mindfulness, you may want to move any candles and lighters to another room.
E is for Easy Breezy
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/ byoo-tuh-fuhl / / kuhv-er / / gurl / (adj): a turn of phrase that wonders but for a moment, what does that have to do with me? Kiana Ledé would say not a thing because in her 2019 song “Easy Breezy,” she tells us of her gnawing indifference about her former boo. A former boo wanting more of her attention only because she is no longer invested in him. We’ve heard this story before, we’ve seen the movie but Ledé skips to the credits and hopes for a relationship that is just about comfort: "Look, can we keep each other company comfortably? / Then we can keep this easy breezy.” Meeting people where they are is always an option. So is using people for what they can do for you (with consent, of course).
F is for Freak Nasty
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/ freek / / nas-tee / (adj): being inclined for a good time, not a long time. If you see a stranger running through your friend’s (wink wink) house, do not be alarmed. And Megan Thee Stallion tells us why: “You got a pass around nigga / He a hot potato / I told him, “Eat it or get out / That’s your ultimatum / But stop licking my pussy hard / That shit aggravating.” The 24 year-old-rapper, college student, movement maker, and twerk master spares no details on how to approach such a situation while re-upping the age old adage that sharing is caring. More than sharing, you may consider this stranger a Christmas elf. The ones that are somehow always staring at you when you’re going for another slice of cake, or when you’re getting out the shower, or when you’re wondering if you could do better.
G is for Girl Talk
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/ gurl / / tawk / (n): actions speak louder than words unless you are really bad at sex. So says TLC in their 2002 hit single outlining the many mistakes men make when deciding to approach them. T-Boz sets the story straight: “Some of y'all be foolin' us / Big feet big hands just plain big / But sex ain't worth a damn / We women wanna know these things / If y'all got the bat but not the swang.” The grapevine, as it were in the early aughts, protected women especially-so from terrible sexual encounters. In the chorus, Chili delivers an ultimatum to anyone listening that feels like their being singled out: “Put in work / If you don't want the girls to talk / And you don't want your feelings hurt.” But don’t hold your breath. Instead listen to this song and laugh about your awkward sex memories.
H is for How Many Licks
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/ hou / / men-ee / / liks / (phr.): Did you know that a group of engineering students at Purdue University modeled a lick machine after a human tongue and deduced that it takes 364 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? It’s true. Lil Kim talks about an experiment of her own in this 2000 single, “Lick it right the first time or you gotta do it over / Like it's rehearsal for a Tootsie commercial.” With a fitting feature from the man who graced us with “The Thong Song,” she delivers a litany of her pursuits around the world for men with different faces, from different places, and of different races. The only discriminating factor in her exploits lie in how these men can make her look and feel good.
I is for I’m Out​
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/ ahym / / owt / (phr.) to walk away from something, someone, or some place. Ciara and Nicki Minaj gave us a banger in 2013 about how to celebrate a break-up. With an introductory verse from Minaj, the scene is set. Both have experienced a break-up and are hyping each other up about an upcoming night out and why they deserve to have fun. If we ignore the sense that they’re fun is predicated on making their exes (and exes' current partners) jealous, then what we have here is a celebration of life after banality.
J is for Juicy
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/ joo / / see / (adj.): full of juice. Doja Cat wants people to know that she makes music that makes you (yes, you) want to dance. And that is exactly what happens when listening to this song. The lyrics aren’t meant to be any deeper than what you hear, or to be a part of a narrative on which fruits are best invoked when discussing the shape of a woman’s body. But it is a song about celebrating the pleasant surprise that is her body: "If you could see it from the front, wait 'til you see it from the back."
K is for I Kissed A Girl
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/ nd / eye / likt / it / (phr.): used to describe what happens when two or more lips touch each other. The song that put Katy Perry on the map in 2008, “I Kissed A Girl” is about a chance encounter with a girl that she has been eyeing for a while. Perry crosses the borders of her relationship with her boyfriend to experience a feeling that she apparently has been tempering for some time. It’s not good practice to use people as experiments, especially so without consent, but Perry shows us that you don’t need to be in love to experience love.
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*this is a
L is for Love Galore
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/ luhv / / guh-lohr / (n., v., adv.): when there is an abundance of love to give. A song about being young and naive, SZA helps us out by decoding the meaning of her lyrics in an installment of ‘Verified’ on Genius’ YouTube Channel. Her album CTRL, on the whole, was about her younger self’s experience with relationships with people who told her that they cared for her, but didn’t show it. It’s a reckoning, a skrrt skrrt on niggas, and she is now in the driver’s seat making her intentions clear, that she’s in for a good time not a long time. This reversal has allowed her, according to the lyrics, to explore another side of her by dating women. Though demure in the video, she allowed her love to be open to all.
M is for My Neck
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/ mahy / / nek / (n.): the part of the body that connects the head and the body. Khia has single-handedly spread the gospel about cunnilingus to all willing and unwilling adherents. A call and response, when she says my neck and my back, you swiftly join in with “LICK MY PUSSY AND MY CRACK.” We were children hanging out in Ms. Fulton’s first grade classroom asking Khadijah to teach us how to do that (that being twerking) to the tune of My Neck. Put your hands on your knees, arch your back, then quickly pop it, she said, with the hope that the vibrations will trickle down to your butt. We is me, but I’m sure you have a story of your own. While you think about this, turn up the volume and join me in praising Khia Shamone Finch.
N is for Nasty Girl x 2
This website is a judgement-free zone, but please feel free to judge Destiny’s Child for this song because that is precisely what Destiny’s Child is doing to so-called nasty girls. What is the music video version of a bildungsroman? I don’t know, but the video itself starts with a show and tale of nasty women parading their thongs and midriffs to the tune of, “You nasty girl, you nasty, you trashy / You classless girl, you sleazy, you freaky / I never met a girl that does the things that you do.” When you get to the end of the video, the so-called nasty girls have been transformed by the “Nasty Zapper” after dancing into this room of good fortune. And later, they join the three judges of womanliness in a dance break. It’s all very Extreme Makeover: Slut Edition. But, let us all take solace in that Kelly, Michelle, and Beyoncé have come far from this kind of overt shaming. To get this taste out of your system, I recommend the other Nasty Girl by Biggie and his crew, for a jaunty beat that both pays homage to the late rapper and is an exaltation of everything to do about sex (though we could all do without the hyper-masculinity).
O is for On Read
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/ awn / / red / (n): a state of being ignored because you haven’t served your purpose, LightSkinKeisha and Kash Doll implore us to take money from men. A simple imperative, but the two do not miss a step in explaining the non-reproductive possibilities of sex when had with rich men: “If I'm archin' I'm chargin', the fuck you sayin'?” We are transported to the courtyard of a luxury shopping center, both rappers dressed in the finest, the latest, the most expensive clothing money can buy. Even more, we are invited to draw up our own litany of needs and consider how we may get them met.
P is for Pussy Is Mine
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/ poo-see / / iz / / mahyn / (phr.): feigning ownership over something that you know doesn’t belong to you. One of the few songs on this playlist by a male artist, Miguel keeps his woman at the center of each lyric. He lets her know that he knows that he isn’t the only one to have been intimate with her. But instead of belaboring the point of monogamy, he pleads with her to extend the lie. He seems to be getting off on the lie because this is what entices him and what he wants to be dominated by.
Fetishes, eh. We all have one...or two.
Q is for Quickie
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/ kwik-ee/ (n.): something that takes a short time, especially when someone finishes before you’re ready. It is only appropriate that Left Eye brings us first to the classroom for a lesson in “Left Pimping,” with T-Boz and Chili bringing in the anecdotal evidence. Taken by a man she meets at a music festival, T-Boz agrees to have him over for a quickie, only for him to fall asleep on her. Though he apologizes, it’s clear that T-Boz has no desire to let this happen to her again. Hence the chorus: “First he came / And then he went / Right to sleep so fast / Did he have it up his sleeve / To pull a quickie on me.” He might not have had it up his sleeve but he definitely felt no remorse. The point of the class lies in prevention, so let us all remember to put our wants first, for efficiency’s sake.
R is for Rules
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/ roolz / (n.): regulations governing conduct, touch, behavior, actions, etc. “Play with my pussy but don’t play with my emotions.” This is Doja Cat’s cardinal rule. Money, touch, and attention were all that she required. I think we can guess what happens when you do play with her emotions (if not, go watch the video). Potions, Body Dylan, Dolphins, and Paris Hilton, she gives us a motley of sights and smells and sounds that makes sense because she says so. I have learned with Doja that the best way to approach her music is to follow her irreverent lead (with a two-step). What is to know is what is there, and the only thing I must say is, she wears snakes very well.
S is for Sticky
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/ stik-ee / (adj.): the property of sticking to things on contact. Keke Palmer released this song to the masses while we were all under shelter-in-place orders and started yet another dance craze, the #stickychallenge. It’s an infectious (too soon?) beat that makes you want to do a little dance because the Tik Tok version is too complicated. This is a song about vibes because there isn’t much you can do with the lyrics but say, Aye! Which is everything, because not everything needs to be explained. Palmer is feeling herself and with the #stickychallenge and a personality that makes you feel warm and fuzzy, I think she’s inviting us to feel up on ourselves, too.
T is for The Weekend
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/ thuh / / week-end / (n.): the end of week, often used for recreational and leisurely activities. It’s Summer of 2017 and SZA’s hit single made many people stop in their tracks in a resounding consensus that they too have been sidechicks, both intentionally and unintentionally. But instead of resorting to the usual narrative about being the downfall of someone’s relationship, SZA encourages us to examine a different perspective: “You like 9 to 5, I'm the weekend / Make him lose his mind every weekend / You take Wednesday, Thursday / Then just send him my way.” This is very much a song invested in community peen and I think we should thank her for giving us a model for a familiar, but inadequately discussed way of coupling (or throupling).
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U is for Use Me
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/ yoos / / me / (v.): wanting to be taken advantage of. Bill Withers was a legendary singer who gifted us with songs like “Ain't No Sunshine,” “Grandma's Hands,” “Lean on Me,” “Lovely Day,” “Just the Two of Us,” and “Use Me.” These are all songs that we sang along to without knowing the name or the artist. That remind us of some of our favorite moments. So I was stunned when I heard of Bill Withers’ death, because it took a second too long for me to realize what the world, my world, would be missing. He is the source of so much nostalgia for me, especially now, and nostalgia is a powerful drug. When used in appropriate doses, it can temporarily lift any heaviness off of you. We are indebted to this man's ingenious ability to capture the wonders of the most mundane feeling there is: love. “Use Me” is a song about a man who wants to spread the word about how good it feels to be used. Give him what he wants, and just listen.
V is for Vibes (Bitch Don’t Kill My)
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/ vahybz / (n.): a sense or a feeling about someone or something. In an interview with Complex, Kendrick Lamar told us that the vibe he was trying to kill was that of people trying to usurp his creativity for business and celebrity aims. A song about where he was in his fame and his sense of how people changed because of it, Lamar reminds us to take comfort in our company. So, it’s included in this pleasure playlist to remind you who is reading this that you are compelling just as you are and to surround yourself with people who will remind you of just this.
W is for What’s Your Fantasy
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/ whutz / / yohr / / fan-tuh-see / (qu.): an invitation to make come true your wildest imaginations. Well. Ludacris would like to do some licking and touching, and then he would like to take that licking and touching from the bed to the floor (because there’s nothing like a hard surface to ground you in the act sex). This song is a rhapsody about what Ludacris would like to do with his special someones, where he would like to do it, and how he would like to do it. While he is asserting his sexual fantasy, he invites his counterpart to also divulge what she most desires. Even though it just so happens to be exactly his fantasy, an invitation to realize a fantasy of your own is always appreciated.
X is for Exes
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/ ekses / (n.) former spouses or intimate partners. No shoutouts, no dedications. Exes are meant to be left in the past. This song is about wayward men who unsurprisingly missed out on a good thing. X by Dainá, beauty influencer turned R&B songstress is a song that screams, LOOK AT WHAT YOU MISSED. Maybe you take pleasure in showing up your exes, maybe you no longer think of them as people with rights (everyone deserves rights, but I hear you). It doesn’t really matter here because, how can you not do a little dance to this song? Join Dainá in making fun of her ex in 90s streetwear with her friends. You’ll have a good time.
Y is for Say Yes
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/ sey / / yes / (v.): used to express affirmation. A song about consenting affections, Floetry released this 2003 single, to swoon all over their lovers about their keenness for getting in their pants: “All you gotta do is say yes / Don't deny what you feel / Let me undress you baby / Open up your mind just rest.” A lesson on acting on pleasure and not on logic, Floetry feeds our souls with a lyrical dance towards what will be a night of passion with their partners. This song is irresistable, so just close your eyes and listen.
Z is for No Flex Zone
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/ noh / / fleks / / zohn / (n.): a place where you are expected to avoid any forms of immodest display. Admittedly, it was hard to find songs starting with a ‘Z’ so this is what I came up with. Rae Sremmurd, popular hip-hop duo composed of Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi, released this song in 2014 and I still have no clue what any of the lyrics mean. But what I do know is that when someone tells you not to show up to their party wearing nicer clothes and jewelry than them, then they are dubbing their space a “No Flex Zone,” that is, you can’t look better than me. You really shouldn’t be friends with anyone who tells you not to upstage them in the looks department because foreshadowing jealousy and disparagement are awful foundations for a friendship. Don’t worry so much about the lyrics, but salvage what you can from the beat and Nicki Minaj's verse. Take solace in knowing that you, at least, allow the people around you to shine as bright as they want to.