Bizness

[felephant]

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The chorus of this song is:

What's the bizness yeah!
Don't take my life away don't take me life way
From a distance yeah!
Don't take my life away don't take me life way
I'm a victim yeah!
Don't take my life away don't take me life way
I'm addicted yeah!
Don't take my life away don't take me life way

This chorus is perhaps the richest lyric I've ever come across. I want to try and capture a little of what I see in it, because I keep talking excitedly about it to people but getting lost in all its layers. I'll just look at the "I'm a victim yeah!/Don't take my life away" line.

Most obviously, the singer is presenting herself as a victim to someone with the power to take her life away (kill her? or something more general - grind her down), and she is begging him not to do so (is she suggesting he not do so from mercy? compassion? I don't think it's determinate). But for someone begging someone for her life, the singer is hardly cowed. She's dancing and singing with swagger and joie de vivre. This is not how victims act, and by acting this way she undermines the authority implied by her words. What is the psychology of this tension? It's flipping off Death, mooning your executioner. When can you do this? When you're powerless to change your lot; or when you don't respect who has power over you, and you will rather die self-determining and dancing than live subjugated. There is an inspiring bravery and strength of will in the psychology.

This is in the "don't take my life away". In the "I'm a victim" there's something very different going on. Victims don't sing and dance and smilingly look you straight in the eye. But this singer does. The point here is that victims sing and dance too: it's not only those who have long faces and begging on streets that need our help and who have demons: victimhood is often hidden, and rarely all-consuming. This point broadens, and is bolstered by the fact that the melody is so infectious that we can't help but sing along: victims are not just those stuck in prison cells and caught in the middle of wars; we are all victims. We are all oppressed by systematic inequalities and repressions, and the fact that we can also feel joy should not lead us to forget all the things that conspire to make our flourishing impossible. And we shouldn't be coy about this, as the singer isn't coy. She is not hanging low her head and waiting for whoever is victimising her to stop; she is taking the stage and the power, raising awareness, forte making the point manifest and embodied.

This is not all that's going on in those two lines; it's only a fraction of what I see in the chorus, which I don't entirely understand even intuitively. And the chorus is only a small part of the song, and then there's that astounding music video, with its bizarre costumes and assertive children and upside-down make-up.