What’s worse than writing lyrics that normalize rape in a mediocre rap song? Trying to excuse them. Rick Ross ignited a firestorm when he rapped “Put a molly in her champagne, she ain’t even know it. I took her home and enjoyed that, she ain’t even know it” on his song with Rocko and Future, “You Don’t Even Know.” After he was bombarded with tweets lambasting the lyrics, he went on Q 93.3 radio station in New Orleans to offer this explanation:
I wanted to come down to the radio station. There is certain things you can’t tweet, you have to verbalize. I want to make sure this is clear, that woman is the most precious gift known to man, you understand? It was a misunderstanding with a lyric, a misinterpretation where the term rape wasn’t used. I would never use the term rape. As far as my camp, hip hop don’t condone that. The streets don’t condone that. Nobody condones that. So I wanted to reach out to all the queens that’s on my timeline, all the sexy ladies, the beautiful ladies that have been reaching out to me with the misunderstanding. We don’t condone rape and I’m not with that.
If Ross thinks we’re slow enough to believe his lyrics weren’t about date rape because he didn’t use the term “rape,” well…that’s an insult unto itself. What do you call the act of slipping a drug in an unsuspecting woman’s drink and then, “enjoying her” while she is unconscious if not rape?
Word games like this enable so many men to claim there’s a gray area for rape depending on the victim’s sobriety, attire, relationship with her attacker, sexual history and so on. It’s what propels people to put rape into categories like “legitimate rape” (ahem, Todd Akin). Rape is rape whether the attacker is a stranger hiding in the bushes or a rapper at a club slipping drugs into women’s drinks.
Rick Ross’ explanation is most likely the result of pressure from the label to mollify the situation after a radio station has announced they won’t play his music, petitions have been drafted and signed, and women and men everywhere are demanding rappers be more responsible when crafting lyrics.
It’s not enough for Ross to call women “precious” and “Queens” after suggesting that it’s okay for our precious, regal bodies to be used and exploited without our knowledge or consent. But if he is willing to genuinely apologize, he should start by taking responsibility for just how damaging and egregious his lyrics are instead of trying to sidestep the backlash by playing with semantics.