Miss New Booty
Okay, I’m not commenting on the official music video, which is imbued with the same infomercial silliness (let’s make a video playlist of music videos that use this infomercial framing format then analyze how, in a sense, it lays the devices bare re: a product being sold in the video and the nature of the song itself being a product) as *Nsync’s “Pop” (remember the part when JT beatboxes? Bnssst chka bnssst-a bnssst) and looks like it was probably fun to shoot, I’m more interested in examining some of the lyrical content and working out some of the images it draws up for me because earlier today I was sitting in the car at the gas station when, seemingly without prompt, I began singing under my breath: “Get it ripe, get it right, get it tight” and that might be an indication that I should spend some time with the song.
Or, perhaps, I must be going through some sort of withdrawal from not living with my roommate anymore; she would blast hip hop songs all the time.
I got home and looked up the lyrics.
“Miss New Booty.” What does this mean? I remember hearing this song when it made its debut and I never really parsed the ontology of these three words. It could be a number of things:
(1) A woman is wearing silicone butt pads/padded panties.
(2) A woman just got an ass implant and she’s showing it off at the club for the first time and Bubba Sparxxx is checking it out.
(3) Bubba could be using the term “booty” as a synonymous noun to denote “new prospect.”
(4) Bubba could be using the term “booty” synecdochally for “sex,” as in: “We stopped midbooty when the pizza* guy knocked on the door”—which is super lascivious and I imagine him transforming into a cartoon wolf in a zoot suit, his tongue rolling out like a red carpet, and pouring tabasco sauce on it wildly—like when you call a businessman “a suit.” It’s weird to be reduced and generalized via synecdoche. Fuck you, synecdoche.
(5) “Miss New Booty” could be the woman’s stripper name. Kind of long, but hey, why not.
Setting. Setting might be able to reveal what is meant by “Miss New Booty.”
»“Hit the players club”
Admittedly, when Bubba said “players club” I thought of just any ol’ casual dance club. But then I realized, “Oh wait, is Bubba at a ‘Gentlemen’s Club’? He says “hit the players club” so I am guessing that Yes, Mhm, He Is. I had forgotten about the term “player.”
My mental image of a ‘gentlemen’s club’ is that of Orlando’s from The Wire so I always imagine Bill Withers’ “Use Me” slinking out of speakers and Shardene wearing her big glasses talking to D’Angelo.
Alright, well, with that established, wait a second:
»“I found you, MISS NEW BOOTY”
How do you FIND somebody at a club? I mean, yeah, you can find/happen upon a friend who got lost in a crowd, but how do you FIND someone who is employed?
⌘ + F: Miss New Booty
Do people say that when they go to Subway and see a Cute Sandwich Artist: “I found you, Sandwich Cutie.”
The implication of a search or hunt is unsettling to me, gives me the impression that Bubba Sparxxx & Co. are always on the prowl (cue: cartoon wolf image again—minus the zoot suit, stalking a Subway).
But perhaps Bubba Sparxxx discovered this woman while at Subway; he saw her applying for a job at Subway, got mad jealous of the idea that she and the Cute Sandwich Artist might get together, and asked her if she’d be down to work at a club he knows about and/or owns (What a creep, Bubba!). So, okay, in that sense, it could be a matter of discovering a new star or something.
»“Get it together and bring it back to me”
O K. Is he saying she doesn’t have her shit quite together in the club, that she is dancing so erratically and now that he has noticed her he wants her to just quit “rockin’ everywhere” and just grind up against him? Or is her implant or silicone butt pad falling apart because, if so, okay, yeah, you may want to get it together, but it’s up to you whether you want to “bring it back to [Bubba].”
»“Girl I don’t need you, but you need me”
Um, I don’t think so. Girl is just doing her thing and then you were hypnotized by her booty and now you’re, like, commanding her to “take it off, let it flop, shake it freely.” It just sounds so fucked up and makes her seem disposable and how does he know she “needs” him? She could be using him, too! Tables are turned, Bubba, ya jerk! (Cue: Bill Withers’ “Use Me”)
»“Quarter to twelve and we just getting in”
This is funny that he feels the need to note the time. He seems somewhat concerned that he and his entourage are “just getting in,” like, if it were up to Bubba, he would have been there already, but no, one of his friends was probably taking too long in the shower.
Probably the Ying Yang twins were taking forever, maybe styling their hair. And Bubba was probably shaking his leg restlessly, pounding on the door like the daughter in A Serious Man and, unlike the uncle who yells back while draining his sebaceous cyst, lowercase letters slip out from under the cracks of the door and spell out “we’ll be out in a minute” in front of Bubba’s face and, with a vexed expression and a tisk, he swipes at the letters until they dissolve, then he storms into the living room and halfheartedly plays some game on Xbox LIVE.
»“Shhhhh, let me whisper in your ear”
I know the Ying Yang Twins have that “Wait (The Whisper Song)” but I am not super in-the-know; is that their thing? Are they forerunners in WhisperRap? Hushtonecore? Who else does this? What would it sound like if Kanye whispered in all of his songs and made that HENHHH noise of which he is so fond? Would that be sexy?
Bray into my ears, Kanye, softly, slowly, hoooold me closer tiny Kanye (imagine a pocket-sized Kanye? Let’s make Kanye action figures or pull-string talking Kanye dolls).
»“Hi there. How are things?”
Take your platitudes somewhere else, Bubba. MAYBE AT SUBWAY, YA CREEP. I mean, do you even care what’s going on in this woman’s life? I don’t think so because you then go on to tell her shit like this:
»“Your chest is just whatever”
Really?
»“You bring your cook book and I’m gonna fix that stuff up”
Uh, what a stupid mixed metaphor. Is her “cook book” her bottom? Is her booty full of recipes? Why would she have a cook book at a strip club? What do you think Bubba Sparxxx would cook? Of all the things to choose from, Bubba, why would you call her butt a “cook book”?
And with that, now I am going to think about this post whenever I hear this song.
* 2K12 Resolution: Quit using the consumption/ordering of pizza as (self) effacing humor. Already fucked this one up on Facebook a few nights ago, but it’s okay, there is time to grow—grow fat from eating so much pizza, that is! [gun shot off stage]
