Jennifer Lopez gave us good club music, like “Waiting for Tonight.” (WHO CAN FORGET THE GREEN LIGHTS IN THE MUSIC VIDEO?) A classic. But she has another side to her music that is all about honor. One of the keys we see in J.Lo’s music is she is proud of being Puerto Rican and proud of being from the Bronx. New York City is not an easy place to live, much less grow up. Love her or hate her (I respect her), you can’t take one thing away from Jennifer Lopez, she has worked so hard to have all that she has. The woman has busted her butt, from movies, to perfumes (can you smell Glow without it being next to you? I can…), to music, and then television– I mean, come on! Not only that, but she did her own thing and included urban flair to her presence, making her a style icon.
Image by Fragantica
The woman is a force. Her songs, “Let’s Get Loud” from On the 6, and “Jenny from the Block” from her album This is Me… Then, really encapsulate how proud she is of her roots and how much she feels indebted to them.
In “Let’s Get Loud,” we have a Jennifer Lopez who is proud to be Latina and not afraid to take up space. She sings, “Presente,” marking her presence. It’s like, “I’m here.” This song reminds me of high school. I was talking in Spanish with a friend, and a teacher told us that when we would switch into Spanish, we got 10 times louder. What can I say, we are passionate people. This song is about feeling the rhythm and music. Something we Latins know all too well. This song was appropriately co-written by Gloria Estefan, a Spanish music legend (she knew the rhythm was going to get us…). A snippet of it was performed recently at Biden’s Inauguration. (Source) “Life’s a party. Every minute; every day.”
“Jenny From the Block” is all about staying humble and remaining in touch with your roots. Ben Affleck makes an appearance. (Bennifer, anyone?) Does anyone else feel like Ben thinks of J.Lo as the one who got away? Anyway. That’s a topic for another day…
/Don’t be fooled by the rocks that I got I’m still, I’m still Jenny from the block Used to have a little, now I have a lot No matter where I go I know where I came from (South side Bronx, from the Bronx)/
Image via Giphy
She gives us a little reference to “I’m Real,” when she says:
/I stay grounded as the amounts roll in I’m real I thought I told ya (I’m real)/
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The truth is that no matter where you end up, when you succeed, you stand on the shoulders of those who came before you. This is what we call “honra.” J.Lo reminds us of this every step of the way. She says it loud. “Boricuas in the house.”
This song really brings serious nostalgia with it. I was like 11, it was 2001, and I was living in Charleston, South Carolina. I was deep in a friendship/youth group that thrived off of pettiness, jealousy, watermelon lip gloss and gum (the good kind). Typical when you are a tween. This song was it. “I’m real” by Jennifer Lopez and Ja Rule. We were all singing it. We’d be getting ready for a church talent show and try making choreography to it. I remember we went out to do some kind of service to the community, and a truck was at a light, just beside us. It was Sabbath, and we all chimed in singing this song and got berated big time. We still felt cool, though our cheeks were burning.
Image of JLo with no burning cheeks, via Fanpop
This song was on the J.Lo album, released in 2001. It took us by storm, this song. There are definitely a bunch of drug references and language we did not understand, but there is an effortlessly cool vibe to this song that makes you walk with swagger. It’s a ridiculous song about a couple trying to figure out if this is as good as it gets.
J.Lo’s side of the song is about a woman who goes through so many relationships, and says:
/My appetite for lovin’ Is now my hunger pain/
Apparently, this was the first song where she wrote the melody. It was more personal. (Source) Even in 2001, she had already had plenty of public relationships.
In a world full of fakes, here they are trying to convince each other that they are the real deal (“I’m real”). It’s not a deep song, but it topped the charts for five weeks and gave J.Lo a less pop/ballad sound and a more R&B sound. Swag. Can we have a moment of silence for her pink velour suit? We all wanted one.
Image via Cosmopolitan
As I’ve gotten older, I have seen so many people show who they “really are.” People I knew growing up end up being totally different humans. Literally. Huge departures from who they were (supposedly). It almost makes the past feel like a lie; another world; another time. It all almost feels fake. One realizes that part of this is due to the lack of sincerity in people. People thrive off of being fake and knowingly manipulating things so they can reap advantages, attention and status in certain circles. On top of that, they treat others with hostility and judgment. Then, BOOM, they surprise you. They really surprise you.
And listen, no one is perfect. We are all on a journey and life is long, but I have a satisfaction in knowing that no matter what stage of life I found myself in, I haven’t put on a show. I’m real. Always have been. And by God’s grace, always will be. Many didn’t like me (and still don’t) and tried to cut me down, but I was the real deal, babe. And that counts for something.
Sharing the song below for nostalgia’s sake because that’s what we are doing here right? Music takes us back to a place and time, and this song does just that for me. I’m 11 again, in the hot South Carolina sun with my friends. I have a little too much lip gloss on my lips, and I’m telling the world I’m real, “and I can’t go on without you.” Hard loving. Straight thugging. What song gave you swag as a kid, even if you didn’t know what it meant? We all have one.
Welcome to the Jennifer Lopez mini series. She has been in the spotlight lately after another relationship went south. (A-Rod was bad news). It all starts in 1999 for me, just after the Selena movie.
1999. Take me back. My first memory of Jennifer Lopez was her duet with Marc Anthony called “No Me Ames” on her debut album On The 6. Insane. When I saw the music video on VH1, I thought they were soulmates. Weirdly, they wouldn’t get together until years later. This ballad was the beginning of something— maybe. If you see the video, you will understand what I am saying. As a Puerto Rican, I was fully invested in this love story. This was my Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston breakup. Also, as a Puerto Rican, the impact JLo had on the music and movie industry meant a lot to me. It was solidarity.
Another weird fact is she has the exact same birthday as my mom, and they both had twins. See, JLo and I have been connected for the longest.
“No Me Ames” is a song about a woman not afraid to fall in love and a man who is ill (at least in the video, this is the story), pushing back. It’s a complicated couple. A couple telling each other not to love each other for certain reasons. It is a song of back and forth where they are crazy in love but almost afraid it won’t work out for myriad reasons. When you listen to it, it feels like the inner dialogue that we all go through when we carry baggage but have found a person we don’t want to live without. At least, this is what it means to me. At one point, they tell each other to not believe each other if they tell each other not to love each other anymore. (Find a sentence with more “each other”s— I dare you). Such a sweet moment, as they hug in the music video. The video ends with a young Lopez on the floor in a black Spanish looking funeral outfit at his grave, lying by the headstone with flowers. (Rich in Latin drama).
Image via Fanpop
This rendition is a cover of an Italian song, “Non Amarmi.” I love Italian ballads. Dramatic and complex as heck. They took the song and made a Spanish cover. Here was a song that also put the world on notice that Jennifer Lopez was a Puerto Rican powerhouse. The world had no idea what was coming. A huge theme and thread in JLo’s music is homage to where she is from. I respect that.
The melody would get stuck in my head. And while it’s a bit melancholic, the song always made me happy. It gives me a eurphoric soar-through-the-sky vibe. The chorus has always stayed with me. Like, if I age and lose my memory, I would probably still remember this one song.
Image via Fanpop
Image via PurePeople
Part of me dreams that this was when Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony fell in love with each other. Both of their love lives are complicated. In 1999, Marc Anthony had just broken off his engagement with Claudette Lali. And then weirdly, in 2000, without much of a gap he married the stunning Puerto Rican Miss. Universe Dayanara Torres. In 1999, Lopez had come out of her divorce with Ojani Noa, the cuban waiter, and then started dating Sean Combs, aka: Puff Daddy. That same year, Lopez and Puff Daddy were arrested after the infamous shooting outside of the Times Square nightclub. (Feels like eons ago…) JLo and Anthony didn’t marry until 2004. They had twins, and then finalized their divorce in 2014 (filed in 2012).
And here is where we romanticize things more than they probably were in real life… (as we tend to do when romanticizing) it’s videos like these that damage our little heads. Lopez said that in Anthony she found “someone who could make me feel loved and wanted in my loneliest hour… Thinking back, maybe deep down I knew that this was a Band-Aid on the cut.” (Source) Doesn’t sound very soulmatey…
Image via Fanpop
Between the two of them, including their own public relationship, they have eight high profile relationships. The song is about everlasting love. Looks like they still haven’t found it, reminding us all that we are all in the same boat, hungering for the same things and sometimes settling in all the wrong places. We want that eternal, unafraid love. A love that won’t die, continuing on after we are gone.
Some days ago, my boyfriend and I were walking, and we made a pit stop at my apartment. I needed to relieve my tiny bladder, and we were hungry and ready for a meal.
I remember I went and used the bathroom, and when I came out, I saw my journal, where I had left it, on the couch next to my boyfriend with a pen stuck in it where I had left off. My eyes immediately (and sort of frantically) went to the journal.
I started to think about why it bothered me so much that I had left my journal in plain sight. It’s not like there is some deep dark unknown secret in there. (Though I am of the philosophy that someone’s writings should never be read without permission. I respect boundaries and privacy). Anyway, I am pretty much an open book.
Someone reading my journal would not reveal me to be some sort of psycho. But then, as I thought about it some more, I realized something. These are the pages where I process things. Sometimes, I am angry, insecure, overjoyed, excited— it’s like my feelings come out on steroids on those pages, and reading those pages wouldn’t be a reflection of who I am. They are a brain dump. Sometimes, they are a reflection of who I don’t want to be. (Especially when I am angry or hurt).
Those pages reveal how I process my emotions and every thought that enters my head that I find worthy of putting down on paper (and not all of the ones I find worthy of exploring are great— I will admit that. We are humans).
I realized that if someone read my journal, they wouldn’t really have the most accurate sense of who I am. Who I am is what I do with all those emotions and how I am after I process it; whether I act on something or not, or how I act on something.
This made me think of all the writers, artists and public figures whose letters and journals we have. We pretend to know so much about them, but maybe we don’t. Maybe, there is a reason Hemingway requested that his letters and such not be published after his death. (His wife did it anyway. I would come back from the dead and haunt her for that). Maybe Hemingway knew that a reader would assume they knew the him after reading it, when in reality that wasn’t him. It was perhaps how he, as Joan Didion says, found out what he was really thinking, not who he was.
We pretend to know people and want to know more about them by examining that which we think is not revealed. When in reality, a person does tell us who they are, every day, we just need to pay attention.
We are not each waking thought or emotion that rushes through, but the synthesizing and decisions that come after all the ink has been spilled on the paper.
Our Beyoncé series is up. I am putting the songs we looked at in each post here for easy access and tabs.
“Crazy In Love“: Dangerously In Love (looking at Beyoncé’s debut album, Jay-Z’s presence since the beginning, and infatuation).
“Irreplaceable“: You Must Not Know ‘Bout Me (looking at Beyoncé’s brand of feminism, respect, female independence, and being with an equal).
“Halo“: A Ray of Sun (looking at mature love, rigging the game and love that brings light).
“Best Thing I Never Had” and the Lemonade album: Raw and Real (looking at Beyoncé’s evolved feminism, vulnerability and shame, dealing with betrayal, generational curses, character and redemption).
Okay, so we are back for our last post in the Beyoncé series, looking at a mélange of songs by Beyoncé, starting with “Best Thing I Never Had.” A song that made it to #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart according to Wiki. There is something about the piano melody in this song that gets sooo stuck in your head.
So the song indicates that she left someone. He is the best thing she never had, not the other way around. It’s not “Best Thing You Never Had.” It’s a song that she wanted to be relatable to men and women; a song about relief (dodging a bullet). It’s a song where she states over and over again that “what comes around goes around.” The song reveals that she left him for good reason when she sings, “I saw the real you; Thank God you blew it.”
Have you ever looked back and seen people it almost worked out with or someone you almost opened a door to, and then been relieved? I know I have…
This seems to be a recurring theme in Beyoncé’s music– this woman who leaves a manwho “blows it.“ What I find interesting is that her earlier music, whether “Irreplaceable,” “Best Thing I Never Had” (where she in the video is singing in a wedding dress) contrasts with the sentiments expressed in the Lemonade album. Until Lemonade, what we had seen in Beyoncé’s music was a woman who says “bye.” This was her brand of feminism. The following lyric in “Best Thing I Never Had” shows the brand of feminism she was singing about prior to Lemonade:
/Lord knows that it would take another place Another time, another world, another life Thank God I found the good in goodbye
I used to want you so bad I’m so through with that/
But what happens when you love the man and you don’t leave after he has wronged you?
Celebzz.com
Part II: The Nuance in Lemons
When we meet Beyoncé in Lemonade, it’s like she is a different woman. (Sort of like Mindy from The Mindy Project in the last season). And listen, regarding her personal life, we don’t have too much information. (Or maybe I missed it because I don’t necessarily follow).
For years, there were rumors swirling around that Jay-Z cheated on her. This was later confirmed. Perception is weird when cheating is involved. Often times, the person who feels the most shame is the person who was wronged, when in all reality, they shouldn’t be ashamed of the fact that their partner sucks. They aren’t responsible for what their partner did. As Shallon Lester likes to say, if a relationship isn’t working out, the consequence is never that you cheat on that person, it’s that you leave and respect that person. Cheating is never ok. Ever.
While some cheat to leave, others cheat and stay. With Jay-Z, we have an example of the latter. Beyoncé put some songs out there that expressed her anger. We see this especially with the song “Sorry” (“Today, I regret the night I put that ring on”). She sings that “Big homie better grow up” and that “he better call Becky with the good hair.”
This whole perception game comes into play in songs like “Hold Up,” where Beyoncé sings about the denial and internal dialogue of someone who has been betrayed (she sings, “I saw the devil”). She talks about how she tried to change; how she tried to be the good wife. She reflects, making us feel that internal dialogue of shame as she tries to almost take responsibility for something that isn’t her fault. The video starts with her submerged in water for an unnatural amount of time. Then, she literally opens some doors, and walks out into fresh air– sanity, questionable.
/I smell your secrets, and I’m not too perfect To ever feel this worthless How did it come down to this?/
In the video, she gets a bat and smashes everything in her path. She sings, what’s worse, “being jealous or crazy?” In this album, we see a different Beyoncé. She isn’t leaving; her head is spinning. She is working through it; processing. Maybe this song was just another one showing anger and angst or maybe this video was a way of controlling the narrative and having people see her a certain way, as perhaps she felt that shame that many often feel that really shouldn’t belong to them. She did nothing wrong. By destroying everything in her path, she still looks strong, despite the fact that she isn’t leaving. Even in the insanity, she looks in control. While her words make her sound vulnerable, her actions do not. There is a direct contrast.
Several songs on the album are a brain dump and middle finger to the people who hurt us, but they leaves us confused as to what is next.
What does feminism look like when our hearts are left bleeding out? We continue to face this question when we look at Hillary Clinton, Beyoncé, the Kardashians and so many in the public eye. When you are betrayed, what is feminism? Is it staying? Is it going? Can you be cheated on and then have a “Redemption” chapter like in “All Night” in Lemonade? (This was my favorite song on the album).
Jay-Z revealed his infidelity in an interview where he said, “You know, most people walk away, and like divorce rate is like 50 percent or something ’cause most people can’t see themselves. The hardest thing is seeing pain on someone’s face that you caused, and then have to deal with yourself. […] So, you know, most people don’t want to do that. You don’t want to look inside yourself. And so you walk away.” (Source)
Wiki states that Beyoncé’s Lemonade album wanted to reflect the effects of slavery and racial inequality on relationships in black society, and she also went on to talk about “generational curses” in a 2018 Vogue article. However, while systems of oppression are real (I am a minority myself), I wonder where character falls into all of this. As a society, we often seek to blame systems for dynamics that later, as we try to work through the “generational curses,” we realize the key is in our very hand. If we can choose healing, it means there is much more in our control than out of it, despite the societal systems and inequalities, we find ourselves in a land of choices.
In the lives of those of us who have the generational curses– lives stained with racism, political baggage such as colonialsim and communism, poverty, betrayal– lives where survival was priority, the striving for healing and redemption is the bravest thing we can do. To love is the bravest thing we can do. It’s a winding, dusty road with potholes, frustration and anger. But a broken wing can learn to fly again. Or as Beyoncé sings, we can trade our broken wings for another’s.
/So we are going to heal; We are going to start again/
Lemonade stands out. Beyoncé called it “using our art almost like a therapy session.” It stands out because here is an artist we barely hear speak on her own. We honestly don’t know much about her. Most of what is out there is something imagined by the public and attributed to her, in all honesty. She has been with us for years and years, and finally in Lemonade we got a glimpse behind the curtain. These weren’t generic pop or R&B lyrics that could be sung by Rihanna. We felt raw emotion. This was not the boppy “Irreplaceable,” but a woman really grappling with what it means to love when all goes to sh*t, a past where poverty and racism were front and center, and how feminism can sometimes stem from confidence, but sometimes it’s fueled by righteous anger. We see the fact that redemption is not a religious future but very much here and now. Redemption was painful on the cross and painful in our everyday journey through life. Sometimes, it’s possible. Sometimes, it’s not.
The tarte lemons life gives us often leave us feeling raw, burned and cracked open. Nothing real is glossy, neat and simple. In Lemonade, we are left with a very nuanced, real Beyoncé, finally. And as she quotes her grandmother in the “All Night” video, “Nothing real can be threatened.” This is all we know for sure.
Mature love. Beyoncé’s “Halo” is not about first love, in fact, the protagonist of the video sings, “I swore I’d never fall again, but this don’t even feel like falling.” We see a woman whose walls have come down (we all have those walls). I love when Beyoncé sings, “I found a way to let you win.” We have a way of rigging the game, when we want to.
We have a surprisingly vulnerable song in her album I am… Sasha Fierce. The song was written by Beyoncé and Ryan Tedder, of One Republic. Tedder wrote the majority of the song and dedicated it to Beyoncé and her husband, Jay-Z.
The video mostly takes place in a dance studio, and there is a lot of light. Light is a big theme in this song. She sings:
Hit me like a ray of sun Burning through my darkest night You’re the only one that I want Think I’m addicted to your light
She likens this man’s presence in her life to an angel. She acknowledges that she is taking a big risk. (Isn’t all love a big risk?) At one point in the music video, we see her in what looks like a wedding dress, underwater.
This song marks a turning point in her music to me. It’s not longer just fluff tunes like “Single Ladies”— I cannot stand that song, as mentioned before. She starts to deliver more emotional songs. We had no idea Lemonade was coming, at this point.
“Halo” is a straightforward song about love’s divine attributes; how it wins us over and delivers us from the fortresses that keep us safe but captive. Despite the fact that the song is not as deep as the pool our wedding dress clad-Beyoncé seems to be submerged in— it’s a start.
The truth is, we are all hoping to have that love that burns through our darkest night.
Tune in for the next post, which will be the last in the Beyoncé mini series. See you there!
Today, we are heading into Beyoncé’s B’day album– “Irreplaceable.” It’s a favorite that would always come on the radio when I was driving in my Drivers Ed class; a class which thoroughly traumatized me. This was the song I parallel parked to for the first time. Memories.
“Irreplaceable” remains one of my Beyoncé favorites. Listen, I am not a super Beyoncé fan. I appreciate her music like I do the next person’s music. I don’t like many of her songs that topped the charts or the annoying “Single Ladies” (though, if you like it, you should put a ring on it). But this is my jam. It’s a song of empowerment where the protagonist has been cheated on, and she is throwing the disgusting man out. Who can forget the iconic, “to the left, to the left, everything you own in the box to the left”? I probably should not have listened to this song while in Drivers Ed, as when I first started driving, I was driving on the left side of the road (the wrong side, here).
Beyoncé shows herself to be an independent woman who is telling the guy, “if I bought please don’t touch.” I love when she approaches him and starts taking his sweater off so she can keep it because she paid for it. Can we stop here and just note that I believe every woman should have a life before she unites her life with someone else. You should be able to provide for yourself and not have to rely on someone else. When we are in a position of reliance, we tend to accept unhealthy behaviors and abuse because we don’t have the means, resources or confidence to leave a situation or person. This song shows us the opposite– a woman who can be on her own and honor her self worth.
Image via Tumblr
The protagonist in the video is ready to see this man go; she sings, “Could you walk and talk at the same time?” YES. The man in the song is trying to manipulate her by making it seem that she can’t do better (“Standing in the front yard, tellin’ me how I’m such a fool, talking ’bout how I’ll never ever find a man like you”). Throughout the whole song, she is letting him know that she knows he cheated (so he is not slick– he was driving her around in the car she got him), and she is not going to tolerate it. He is not “irreplaceable.”
The part that really makes you want to rally (or at least makes me want to rally) is when she sings, “You must not know ’bout me.” This song is very much a departure from the romanticism that tends to seep into songs and literature; this attitude that you can die from a broken heart and never find love again. This woman is like, No, get out, and I will find someone who treats me better. And again, the best part is, she doesn’t need someone. She is complete on her own.
Image via Mylife
It’s not about arrogance or pride– but about knowing who you are and how you deserve to be treated. Beyoncé, in this song, gives us so many quotable lines. She hammers her point home with one of my favorite lines, “So since I’m not your everything, how about I’ll be nothing? Baby, I won’t shed a tear for you; I won’t lose a wink of sleep.”
Image via Pinterest
This is a song I sing at the top of my lungs, and you should to. A person who doesn’t respect you is not irreplaceable. Don’t shed a tear. Just let them know they can keep packing to the left.
“Forgiveness to me is not me forgiving you. I don’t have any godly power. Forgiveness is a gift that I give myself because if I would live in hatred today, I would still be a prisoner, and we are the prisoners of our own mind. The concentration camp is in your own mind, and the key is in your pocket. […] If you want freedom, think about that freedom comes after you go into that rage. You got to have rage before you even start forgiveness. […] Love is not what you feel, it’s what you do.” Wisdom from Dr. Edith Eger, Holocaust survivor who was on The TSC Him & Her Podcast. Listen here.
Our next artist mini-series is based on a woman we don’t know much about. She barely gives interviews, and to be honest, what we do know about her (or speculate about her) is through her music. Beyoncé. She appeared out of nowhere, it felt like, after her career with Destiny’s Child, solo, when I was in junior high. I remember sitting at my friend’s table while she finished up breakfast so we could walk together to school. We would see the music videos. That was a thing, back in the day– watching music videos on VH1.
Image via Giphy
Our song today, “Crazy in Love,” was Beyoncé’s all star single that put her on the map. It was the opening song to the 2004 movie Taxi. I can see the opening scene of that movie every time I hear this song. (It has been on a zillion soundtracks, since– Bridget Jones and White Chicks, included).
The song was released in 2003, and it was the lead single in Beyoncé’s first solo album. Also key to note and common knowledge is the fact that her now-husband Jay-Z is featured on the song. He arrived to the studio at 3 a.m. on recording day, and in ten minutes, he had his verses and contribution to the song ready. (Source)
The song is all about infatuation. That obsessive behavior that can land us in odd behaviors when a relationship is new. Apparently, no one is immune to it, not even Beyoncé.
The lyrics touch on the fact that she doesn’t want him to go, and the fact that this love is making her act crazy. I love the line that says, “If you ain’t there ain’t nobody else to impress.” Anyone? In this pandemic, who are we trying to impress? We put makeup and clothes on for no one, these days (except when it’s time to see our love). The song remarks her discussing him and her behavior with her friends. We see this idea that she exists in a community of girlfriends and informs them of her thoughts and relationship. (Not everyone operates like this, so worth noting).
Image via Giphy
The video starts with Jay-Z introducing Beyoncé to us, and he tells us “history in the making.” Looks like he believed in her from the start. Baby Beyoncé walks down a street in heels and booty shorts with incredible confidence. The video is all over the place. At one point she is walking down a street, then she is posing for what looks like a circle of ring lights on a rooftop, then she is chewing blue bubble gum and blowing bubbles (a nice early 2000s touch), then she breaks open a fire hydrant and is dancing in its stream and finally she is doing a choreographed dance in a bright and colorful outfit. There is no apparent theme other than the fact that she is establishing herself as a sex-symbol, and she is marking her territory.
Listen, it’s not a deep song. It’s a fun one that evokes nostalgia. It reminds us of immature love’s beginning, and it documents the beginning of a music legend. The early days. It also presents us with Jay-Z and Beyoncé as a duo, a duo that would later marry, have children, struggle and stay united in an ultimate power couple status. It’s their genesis. This is why we start here, as we look at Beyoncé’s music journey, so far.
Image via Tenor
When they recorded this song, I wonder if they knew how pivotal they would be in each other’s lives. Do we ever know, right off the bat? Was it love at first sight? When they met was she all like, “lately I’m foolish, I don’t do this.” Were they crazy in love? Beyoncé’s debut album is titled Dangerously In Love. Was this a foreshadowing of what was to come?
Regardless, it’s a great pump up song. Have a dance party in your living room. Put on the heels and strut. You ready?
GABRIELA YARELIZ 