98 The German juice
The girl with the German juice 10
(Cynthia Morgan, 2014, “German Juice,”2015) There is a consistent description of buttocks in the lyrics of Oritsefemi, Olamide and Runtown. Buttocks are described with different lexical items and are repeated consistently in their lyrics. *d7 (buttocks) and r4d7(shake buttocks) are repeated 12 times in “Sexy ladies” and “R4d7.” Each time Oritsefemi delivers these words, the camera focuses on the image of a lady who has big buttocks (see chapter five). Men in the videos are portrayed as being transfixed by the sight of the lady‟s buttocks and find it difficult to regain their consciousness from the buttocks arrest.
In the tracks, “ibebe” and “Bend down pause” by Olamide and Runtown respectively, the artistes repeat the title 25 times. Each time the expression, “bend down pause” is mentioned in the video, the ladies shake their buttocks. The message in the track has no thematic focus other than the buttocks.
The tracks are the evidence of the obsession of Runtown, Oritsefemi and Olamide regarding the female buttocks. In the lyrical narration, the female buttocks are glorified, described as powerful, capable of controlling men‟s decisions and thoughts.
The repeated words are mostly slangy expressions to emphasise and foreground the sexual themes. The selected repeated items are not direct lexical items that address sexual themes; rather they are indirect, suggestive and covered with slang which includes codes of selected group of people. These devices are used to escape the censor boards while they stay in the confines of socio-cultural restriction.
insert the substituted items with sexual words and meanings but with established shared meaning between the artistes and their fans. After establishing sex as the subject matter, the artistes avoid mentioning it in other instances, with the assumption that the fans or listeners already know the appropriate word(s) to insert for the substituted ones.
Excerpt 36:
Baby, Baby give me some more she say she want todo that thing
óyá drop it down low Trans
Quickly, drop it so boy can rule that
thing
And if you wanna, back it up Baby,hold me I go hold
Trans you
If you would like to back it up
Trans
Baby, hold me. I will hold you
Cos this naprivate show Trans
Because this is a private show Make you do me, I go do you
Trans
Please do something to me and I will do
something to you
I know you can‟t wait to touch me Make you love me I go love you
Trans
Love me and I will love
you 5
Baby please, I wanna finish what we started Baby,pull up, pull up, say
Omo I go make you sweat Baby, hold me, I go hold
you
Trans Trans
Beautiful lady, I will make you sweat Baby, hold me. I will
hold you
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(Tiwa Savage, “Without my heart”, 2013) (Seyi Shay, “Murda”
2014)
In excerpt 36, the artistes replaced the word sex with “some more,” “touch me” and
“hold me.” Usually, the women are the receivers of sex, so the female singer‟s use of the transitive verb “give” is intentional. Tiwa, being a representative of female folks, uses the statement: “give me some more” to request for sex. This is intentional; instead of the overt expression like: “give me some sex,” the singer veils the idea of sex with substituted words that do not carry sexual connotations. Most of the expressions adopted by these artistes are mundane expressions of day-to-day language of the common people. This is done to avoid the outright mention of sex. Interrogative statement like: “did he touch you?” is not a strange question to ask a lady who just breaks the hold of a man who forcefully demands sex from her. The cultural demand and the sociological variable of gender on how to discuss sex and who discusses sex have shaped the notion of sex.
Other artistes like P Square and Terry G have also accepted the use of the modal auxiliary verb, “do,” to describe the act of sex. Other statements such as “private show” and “make you sweat” are used to refer to sex. Furthermore, the expression:
“Baby pull up, pull up,” provokes a question like “pull what up?” Sèyí Shay deliberately omits an item; she gives a clue for the omitted item through the linguistic surroundings, which communicate the mood of the artiste. This is demonstrated in the excerpt below:
Excerpt 32: Trans
Baby hold me, I go hold you Baby hold me, I will hold you Make you do me like I do you Kindly reciprocate what I did to you Make you love me like I love you Kindly love me the way I love you Make you pull up, pull up Kindly pull up, pull pull
5
(Seyi Shay, “Murda” 2014)
The preceding stanza establishes the point that the act of sex is about to begin. So,
“pull up” is referring to pulling up of one‟s clothes for the act to begin.
Iyanya also makes use of substitution as an avoidance strategy to refrain from the outright or the direct mention of sex and the act. The substitution is indicated with the use of prepositions, which serve the purpose of indirectness. He renders:
Excerpt 33: Trans
And let me make your head swell I got what you need
I got what you need girl
You go gaga when you log on to this You will go crazywhen you log on to this
In the room so, see my hips o 5
Take it easy boy, sharp on this She say a long saw
(Iyanya, “Oreo”, 2014) Excerpt 34:
Baby Give it to me no delay …don‟t delay
Baby,shake it
Pass it to me like Ronaldo
(Iyanya, “Sexy Mama”. 2013).
Substitution is used in “Oreo” and “Sexy mama” to refer to different things. In “Oreo,”
the demonstrative pronominal item, “this,” is referring to the male genitalia. He borrows from the register of information technology, “log on,” to paint a picture that depicts access. He refers to his genitalia as one that can be logged in and out of.
“That,” on the other hand, refers to the vagina. The female responds to the effect of the male organ and requests that he takes it easy on her vagina. These interpretations are easier because the musical video gives vivid evidence of these sexual meanings.
In “Sexy mama”, even though the same neuter gender pronoun “it” is used in different instances, the reference of each differs from the other. For instance, in line one, the pronoun “it” refers to the vagina. The artiste is requesting for sex in this line, but in line two, the same pronoun refers to the female buttocks. The artiste requests that the female dancer in the video shakes her buttocks. Finally, in line three, the “it” refers to the art of sex itself. He requests for a special skill in the act of sex; the use of Ronaldo with the “it” suggests the type of skill required by the artiste. Ronaldo is a skilful football player who dribbles with ease. However, the name has become a slangy expressionto refer to a male or female that is sexually dexterous with sex. Thus, the reference is not general but relative within a group. The fans share common
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understanding intended by the artiste. The artiste uses the pronoun “it” to achieve various results in the song.
In “Wanted,” Tiwa Savage starts with the introduction of the subject before telling the listeners the main point of the matter. Initially, the listeners would think she is narrating her experience in a crime scene.
Excerpt 35. Trans
My heart is beating
Cos they‟re looking for me Because, they are looking for me And I can hear them screaming…yea ah, yea ah
And I admit I was there
But didn‟t mean you should fall
Cos when it started too bad Because...
I left him there
It was like a gun in my hand
(Tiwa Savage “Wanted,” 2014).
A critical study of the lyrics and video eventually provides the meaning that the digression and substitution are devices adopted by the artiste to create anticipation and suspense in the mind of the listeners. “It” in the track above refers to the body and the sexuality of the artiste. She describes:
Excerpt 36: Trans
I left him there
It was like a gun on my hand
Killing him slow while i‟m shake shaking it
I didn‟t wanna do it cos I know cos (because)
Out in the street they call it murder 5
Hmmm, by the way nothing you fit do Said by the way, nothing you fit do
Cos by the way, I‟m better than you cos (because)
That‟s why I‟m wanted 10
(TiwaSavage, “Wanted,” 2014).
She describes the man as helpless, while she shakes her buttocks. She describes her buttocks as what kills him slowly as the man can only gaze at it, but cannot have a taste or a grasp of it. She explains that she does not want to parade her sexuality, but it is so hard not to flaunt her bodily power, especially with the description of that
„power‟ as a gun in her hand. This means that any man is a prey and she is also in
control of the situation. In the track, Tiwa describes the sexuality of a woman as the feminine power that men cannot but succumb to and this power resides in the female‟s buttocks.
In her track, “Lead me on,” Cynthia Morgan substitutes sexual words with non-sexual words to avoid eroticism and vulgarism. She uses words like “plate” as a substitute for vagina and “crown” as a substitute for the head of the penis. The shape of theplate and vagina is similar because both are flat. She mentions that her lover should lick up the plate whichsuggests the vagina, one of the acts of oral sex while the crown represents the head of the penis. The use of “seek it” and “pull through” instead of “seek my vagina” and “pull through my vagina” is a device to avoid breaking cultural and social rules even as she covertly describes sex and sexuality.
Excerpt 37:
Boy rubs it all
When you got the crown Big one, carry on
No need for sweat Like a nice deal
You should lick up the plate Ha
Ah. All you need to seek it The way you pull through That motivates
(Cynthia Morgan, “Lead me on”2014)
The linguistic context and combination of other devices such as simile give vivid description of the sexual implication in the track.
Excerpt 38:
You don‟t need to force it You just have to rock it You gat booty, flaunt it
They just have to love it 5
yea, oh oh ha
(Cynthia Morgan “Sexy ladies” 2013)
Tiwa substituted in the rendition above to avoid direct description of sexual rendition.
In the first line, the pronoun „it‟ is used as a substitute for her body. Instead of her to say:My body (it) was like a gun on my hands, she strategically replaces it with it. She continues in the second line when she describes what happens to the man while she
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shakes her buttocks. She renders that the guy dies slowly when she shakes her buttocks. The use of kill is metaphoric; she describes the effects of the buttocks as one that takes the right to think objectively and renders the man with no choice. In the second line, it is used for a different substitute. The first „it‟ is substituting for her body while the second „it‟ used to represent the buttocks. She, however, escapes the outright mention of her buttocks by engaging escapism through substitution.
Excerpt 39
Oh my God, deep it slow
(Ibebe, 2013 by Olamide)
Olamide engaged the pronoun „it‟ again to avoid mentioning penis and to depict the whole sexual process.„It‟is used as a substitute for the penis. The whole statement describes what and how the sex should be done.
Ellipsis
Ellipsis can indicate an unfinished thought, a leading statement, a slight pause, or a nervous or awkward silence. It is the omission from a sentence or other construction of one or more words that would complete or clarify the construction (Dictionary.com, 2013). It is a device used to achieve avoidance of spelling out restricted subjects. The elipted device is achieved contextually; the artiste did not indicate that items were elipted but the linguistic context shows that there is an intentional communicative act of avoiding the unsaid so as to achieve escapism. Since speakers are experts at implying the unsaid meaning (Grice, 1975), thus „loosely speaking‟ (Anderson, 2013) would help to achieve discursive meaning.
Cynthia Morgan in “Lead me on,” deliberately omits some words which are erotic or carry sexual meanings, because she assumes that she has been carrying her audience along and that they would be able to complete what is missing. She believes that there is a shared understanding on the thematic preoccupation of the track and erotic words can be avoided and unspoken. She assumes that the meaning is not missing while she plays safe without appearing erotic even as she employs this device so as not to break any cultural or societal norm regarding the discreet discussion of sex and sexuality.
Seyi Shay‟s creative use of ellipsis is exemplified below:
Excerpt 57:
The way you flap it on… (on what?) Boy rub it all on… (on what?) Ah. All you need to seek it
The way you pull through… (through what?)
(Cynthia Morgan “Lead me on,” 2015)
The questions in bold forms are inserted by the researcher to further clarify the fact that the artiste deliberately omits some items in the discourse. This initiative is to raise the questions about the ellipted items by the artiste. The ellipted items raise interest and questions about what is missing in the lyrics.
Cynthia has been able to raise the question “what” successfully. The excerpt above is not complete and does not make a complete thought. A follow up on the succeeding lines provides an insinuation, which is sexual, since the theme of the track is sex, just as the video reveals.