Music has always been my thing. When I was in middle school, I listened to music instead of watching television, unless I was watching music videos. I would sing and dance, alone or with my friends, to the new songs playing on the radio, and I’d even record them on a cassette tape (we didn’t have mp3’s then) so I could listen to them over and over again. What I realized as I got older was that, even though I was listening to music all the time, I rarely ever heard what the songs were saying.
To be honest, what songs were saying didn’t matter all that much to me. As long as it was fun, upbeat, and danceable, I was hooked. One of my most favorite songs was “Baby Got Back” because it had a good beat, my girlfriends liked it, and it talked about big girls in a positive way—or so I thought. I used to dance and sing along with my friends all the time. We knew every word and had a blast belting it out! But at some point I started to hear the lyrics, and I didn’t like what I heard. The song wasn’t about big girls being beautiful at all. It was all about some guy trying to “get with” girls with big butts, tiny waists, pretty faces, and big boobs by enticing them with money. Yuck!
So many things went through my head. I loved this song, but it wasn’t saying anything positive. In fact, it was saying girls only exist to be looked at as sexual objects, that they aren’t valuable people. Don’t get me wrong: there were some good lines like, “So Cosmo says you're fat; Well I ain't down with that!” and “To the beanpole dames in the magazines: You ain't it, Miss Thing!” but when taken as a whole, it was a big let-down. I was kind of hurt when I realized this because I had believed for so long that the song was empowering for full-figured girls like me.
When I hear the song now, I still listen to it, sing along, and remember the fun I had with my friends. The lyrics didn’t stop me from listening; I just started putting more thought into what I was listening to. And once I began paying more attention to how lyrics make me feel, I started feeling motivated to find girl-positive songs, like the ones by Jill Scott about being independent, strong, smart, and believing in yourself. Music became more than just something to sing and dance to. It became a way to find personal validation.
It’s so important for girls to know what we’re listening to because, whether we realize it or not, songs send us messages about how we should look, dress, act, and even feel. So, like Jill Scott says, for girls to be strong we have to understand what’s around us and know what we’re hearing every day. This way we can use our intelligent minds and individual personalities to make ourselves and our surroundings better, now and in the future.
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