You Can't Play with My Yo Yo!

at dinner or something these past few days w/@dopegirlfresh we were talking about pussy carols (a "pussy carol" is a term we came up with on the beach of Far Rockaway last summer w/@dopegirlfresh which are odes to vulvas) and hip hop. well, she mentioned yo-yo’s first single w/ice cube in 1991. i had mentioned that at the time i didn’t consider it a pussy carol, but today she was def talking abt not having folks fuck w/her not just b/c she’s not having it but b/c her “yo yo” could def be her body, self-determination, pleasure, sexuality, and setting her own boundaries, etc.

now, it was 1991 so before you listen and project your 2013 ish onto this joint, keep in mind, what she’s talking about in hip hop is very specific and although i’m not 100% in love w/her calling folks “ho” and what can be read as her policing other Black women’s bodies, the reasons behind that particular stance are not 100% exactly the same to what folks discuss today. similarities yes, for sure! i def embrace her definition of “lady” and how she complicates and embraces/redefines that term for many Black women. This was the femme i was living in the early 90s!
i mean peep the video below the lyrics are after and i bolded the sex-pos parts i embrace and adore about this JAM!

[Yo-Yo]
Its me, the brand new intelligent black woman Y-O-Y-O
Which is Yo-Yo, but I’m not to be played
Like I was made by matell
But this Yo-Yo is made by woman and male
I rhyme about uprights upliftin the woman
For that are superior to handle by any male
Any time, any rhyme, any flow, and any show
And if you ask my producers that we fly and you know

[Chorus: Ice Cube]
You can’t play with my Yo-Yo
“Don’t try to play me out, don’t try to play me out”

[Verse 1]
My name is Yo-Yo, I’m not a ho
I like to flow so swift, its got to be a gift
So yo, let the beat lift, as I rip and rhyme
And rap and slap all the girls who came to dap
To the fact I get the 8-ball often
The earrings I wear are called dophins
Check the booty, yo its kinda soft and
If you touch, you livin in a coffin(word to mother)
I’m in the 90s, your still in the 80s right
I rock the mic, they say I’m not lady like
But I’ma lady, who will pull a stunt though
I kill suckas, and even hit the block
So what you wanna do?
Ya must play it wrong
Cause to me, you simply can’t get none
You wetter, then a hotter ho in snow
Tell em Ice Cube,
(Ice Cube)
No, you can’t play with my Yo-Yo
Suckas

[Ice Cube]
Whats yo name baby?

[Verse 2]
Thats right, my name is Yo-Yo, but know I’m not a dunkin
As I rap, chilly chill bringin the funk and
I steal yo man, as if he is a hawk and
He’ll call me baby, yo, or even pumpkin
I may be buttercup, or even Ms.Yo
We had dinner, and know we drinkin Cisco
Hit the slow jams, its gettin cosy
Your home alone, so now you gettin nosy
Your kinda young, so of course you had to call rhw place
Hang up in my face, its a sad case
So who ya man dippin the dollars, what
Yup, for puttin lipstick on his collar
At home, hes gotta listen to ya holla
But he’ll slap ya, and sock ya, so why bother?
But if you come knockin at my do’(ay yo)
I’ll smoke you, tell em Ice
(Ice Cube)
You can’t play wit my Yo-Yo, sucka

[Chorus: x2]

[Ice Cube]
Fool, 1990 and stand sucka free, yeah
Tell em whats up

[Yo-Yo Rhyming Over Females Voice As She Did Earlier In The Song]
Yo, I hope you realize one day
That ya week is Monday threw Sunday
So listen to my Y-O, heres my bio
And next to me, ha, your not fly yo
Ya lack skills to be a woman thats black
Fake hair in the back, plus green contacts
Yo-Yo, is just tryna to stop ya
Because the world ain’t a big soap opera
It only takes one punch to drop ya
And then the I.B.W.C.* will come mob ya
But no, I’m not livin like that first
Although I pack, a real small gat in my purse(right, right)
But no, its not to cause corruptions
Just to fight back on the structions
Just thought you wanna know about the Y-O-Y-O
Yo, should I tell em Ice
(Ice Cube)
They know what time it is

[Chorus: x2]

[Ice Cube]
Yo-Yo, the brand new intelligent black lady
Stompin to the 90s!
For all y’all suckas
Aye Jinx, I knew they couldn’t fade it
You Can’t play wit my Yo-Yo

[Verse 3]*
The simple to a metaphor, make someone to yell on
To keep it at a latest while they’re yellin, “more, more!”
I am very versatile, changin my ways to different styles
Knowledge is the key, expense is for my background
Label me as a woman, and sometimes I feel imperial
Follow me on the hands of time, makes no man superior
Should we jam and take the stand, and dis back all the
Men who know no more the slang, slang
And thinks wit his ding-a-ling?
I think its time that we defeat
And stand on our on two feet
If we wanna live wit justice and harmony
How many more rounds must I go
In order to let my people know
Times were hard, things have changed
“Don’t try to play me out”


lyrics from here (and i had to edit b/c they were off! http://www.lyricsmania.com/you_cant_play_with_my_yo-yo_lyrics_yo_yo.html

*IBWC stands for “Intelligent Black Women’s Coalition” whatchu’all know about THAT?!
Also, Ice Cube wrote (most of) this song. So yeah, let that marinate.

From the Archives: Communal Survival: Holding Each Other Accountable and Healing

I wrote this at my Media Justice column in September 2009. At that time I was not cross-posting here. So, here it is. I'm really proud of this piece. This is a difficult article for me to write. I’m still struggling with this story and my thoughts around it, but think it’s important to discuss what is occurring. Roxanne Shanté, have you heard of her? There’s been a ton of conversation, emails, postings, tweets surrounding the NY Daily News article about her. That was quickly followed by another article in Slate magazine that basically said everything in the NY Daily News article was a lie and that she doesn’t have the education she said she did. As one of the few female rappers in the 1990s, I grew up listening to Roxanne Shanté and still do today. I’ve struggled with this for a week now. I’m not sure where my struggle lays, is it that I’m not ready to debunk her work? That I’m hurt she has lied? That I worry about how survivors are treated in our society? I think it’s all of this and so much more that I have yet to find the words for. The part that gets me at my core is that the media so easily seeks to bring down a Black woman from a working-class background that is serving her community. This is who I am. This is what I do. This could be you. This could be me. I’m not sure people realize how frightening it is to see a Black woman from a working-class background who is an activist be questioned, investigated, and eagerly called a liar. Since the Justice Sotomayor hearings , I have a difficult time recalling a more recent time I allowed myself to pay attention to such an attack. My last vivid memory of witnessing such questioning, interrogation, and name-calling was surrounding Anita Hill. Perhaps this void in my memory is my way of coping with the multiple abuses women of Color endure in the public eye. When I read what activist and journalist Jeff Chang and Wayne Marshall wrote about the situation I realized how important it is to be conscious of what messages are being constructed. Several of the comments responding to his article are by many people I know and read on a regular basis online. Yet, I find it very unsettling that one of the main areas Jeff points out regarding Shanté’s claim to higher education was a history of domestic violence, is used as fodder for people to say “still, where’s the proof?” Only a handful of commenters understood/stand the enormity of being a woman of Color who is a survivor of violence and what coping with such experiences may be for us. We are socialized to believe journalists are supposed to be unbiased. We know that is not true. We all have biases. But for some reason neither article discussed her race and how it intersects with all the other aspects of her identity: gender, class, citizenship status, geographic location, ability (to name a few). I find this sad that people are using race neutral analysis in their reporting. Author of the second article that debunked Shanté, Ben Sheffner, asked me on twitter “What does Shanté's race have to do w/whether the story she told the Daily News & others re Ph.D/Warner Music was accurate?” My reply to him was: “its a pretty big deal. i'm not down for race neutral approaches. we are complex & all our ids matter. look up intersectionality.” To which he responds, “The facts are the facts. No one has successfully challenged ANY facts reported in my Slate piece. Her race doesn't matter.” My response is here. And then he asks about intersectionality. You can read the rest as both our accounts are public and I’m sure you’ll get a kick out of him quoting Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose “facts” have been debunked by the use of intersectional analysis by scholars of Color all over the world. The only time each of the two pieces mentioned her race was when discussing whom Shanté works with and were identified as “urban African-Americans.” As someone who did the traditional route of higher education and has two master’s of arts degree (you can’t write MA squared on business cards), I don’t really care about the paper. I don’t care about if she has a PhD or not. Yes, this may not be a popular position, yet that’s where I find myself at this moment in time. I understand lying about obtaining education is wrong. And I see very clearly how much this lie has affected our community. Many people and several of my friends have rightfully stated that this particular lie does more damage than good. Here’s where I struggle: I know several social workers, camp counselors, hotline counselors, doulas, and the like who have not gone through the traditional modes of higher education and are doing amazing work! What does this tell us about higher education and those who have access to it? I can speak to the fact that many programs do not always teach you how to counsel, they teach you how to critique and do research. These are very different approaches to what is considered “work.” Many of the counseling experience I gained was not only during my higher education career, but through my actual lived experiences of working with people, along with, not only, reading books, going to class, and writing papers. I’m not ready to debunk Shanté’s work because she lied about her educational background. I understand the importance for many, and I’m not saying having a degree does not make a difference it does for many. Yet, I can’t help but feel compelled to remind us all that coping, care, support in our everyday lives comes from people who may have no specific or focused training on providing such care. Think about how you use your friends and family to help you through decisions and experiences. This, for me, is an informal yet crucial part of our ability to cope, mentor, and build community. Shanté choose to call herself “Doctor” may be misleading, as we do not know the entire story (Chang and Marshall speak to this). Choosing to question if the work she has done in our community as valid is understandable. Yet, if Shanté helped one person or 100 people, she has succeeded in my opinion. As a mentor to a young woman for over 15 years, I know that mentoring is no joke! It is hard and rewarding work. If we choose to ignore her work in the field of mental health, I know we can’t ignore her work as a mentor. Many of us witnessed it when we watched Vh1s airing of EgoTrip’s Ms. Rap Supreme. If she is helping women of Color as we saw in the show in whatever capacity, mentor, counselor, advisor than there is reason to call her a success as it’s too often that women of Color are ignored and forgotten. People too easily forget that not all women are treated equally in this country . Her work matters. We can hold each other accountable and still support one another. I see the importance of respecting her wishes to not speak on her surviving violence (can people please realize the importance and power in the term SURVIVOR over “victim”) and how this may connect to some of the lies that have been presented. There are ways of healing, coping and finding support and community that are far more complex. I really want to hear what others think about this topic and also how we as communities of survivors can support one another without hurting each other. I know Roxanne Shanté is a survivor and she too will survive this, after all she does identify as the “untouchable Queen Pin, the most relentless in the business. Makin’ money without men, Sittin’, stackin’ her riches.”