On March 15th, Philadelphia rapper Lil Dicky released a song with the controversial artist Chris Brown. The song, “Freaky Friday“, is based on the film of the same name. This is represented by having a storyline (common in Lil Dicky tracks) in which Brown and Lil Dicky switch bodies. The beat is a bit catchy and the jokes that Lil Dicky makes about himself are pretty funny, so overall it’s not a terrible song. However, featuring Chris Brown on his track says a lot about Lil Dicky’s values.
For those who don’t remember, in 2009 Chris Brown committed felony assault against his girlfriend at the time, Rihanna, otherwise known as one of the queens of hip-hop. Since then, Brown has garnered media attention for his bad behavior and violence including fights with other rappers, an alleged hit-and-run, and his decision to go to rehab.
Many other rappers and artists have chosen not to work with Brown because of his attitude and behavior towards women, but clearly, there are artists like Lil Dicky that can manage to look past his poor track record and continue to work with him. Regardless of a person’s talent, this track may come off as a representation of Lil Dicky’s lack of respect for women, and his view of domestic violence.
Aside from this, Lil Dicky regularly raps about sleeping with women and writes lyric that mildly objectify women, so the fact that he worked with Chris Brown is almost unsurprising. He also shows his lack of respect for women in the song by recruiting Kendall Jenner for the music video, and the lyrics he wrote for her were “I got a vagina, I’m gonna go explore that right now,” meaning he was just going to explore her body while he had control of it (gross). He clearly doesn’t’ seem to hold women in high regard.
These artists need to be pushed out of the spotlight, and they need to face bigger consequences for their actions. When artists don’t take a stand against injustice (even if only done against one person), it shows where their values truly lie.