Rapper, founder and quasi member of the group Three Six Mafia a few months back announced he was giving a $50,000 scholarship away. Yes, Juicy J the “ratchet king” himself, and World Star Hip Hop were giving away this scholarship. The thing about this scholarship was that Juicy J somewhat inferred that the best twerker would win the money because he is the “twerk King” right? Things got really muddled when he finally announced a winner…who didn’t twerk at all. The winner of the contest ended up being a 19-year-old single mom who was studying biology. People from twerkers to feminists were outraged at Juicy J’s decision but why are we really trippin’ off of Juicy J….I mean his name is Juicy J.
The main point of contention was Juicy J claiming that you didn’t need to twerk to win the scholarship and that the directions explicitly said just describe why you should win the scholarship. Now Juicy J was an a-hole in many ways by going on his Twitter account and insinuating that twerking would be a prerequisite to winning BUT from my research, I found that just as many girls didn’t twerk as those who did.
Some people were crying that Juicy J used his patriarchy to use these women and not actually choose a girl who twerked.
Some were shouting that misogyny was rearing its ugly head
And Some were saying that this was only done because people hate black women.
But my thought once again is that we are talking about…..Juicy J. Let’s think now we expect the same guy whose whole solo album is about throwing money on strippers, staying high, and did I mention women shaking their asses? And did I mention before that World Star Hip Hop was involved as well?
Was Juicy J trolling these young women? Yeah, he was and it was a publicity stunt at the very least. Let’s be for real who will be surprised to find out that the young lady who won didn’t even receive the scholarship? Have the girls have read the directions? Probably. But, why are we getting so deep into all of this over…Juicy J?
Surveying many of the videos submitted by the girls who decided to twerk I came to the conclusion that 50% of the girls weren’t really going to use the money for college. The interesting part of it all is that many of these young ladies were totally fine with shaking their asses to win scholarship money from Juicy J and Worldstar Hip Hop.
Coming from the era of Luke, 95 South, 69 Boyz, DJ Jimi, etc I can appreciate a little booty shake no doubt but if our young people feel they need to shake their asses to go to college then we have a whole other issue to discuss instead of being mad at one Juicy J.
Am I admonishing these girls totally for what they did and taking all the blame away from Juicy J? No not at all but we are acting like Juicy J really is someone to hold in certain regard is what I am saying. It feels that we have become a society of people wanting to be angry for the sake of being angry.
When this contest was even announced Juicy J was putting himself in a no-win situation. If he chose a girl who twerked then people still would have been upset with him for exploitation. It is crazy to me how many people really were upset and writing Opinion pieces about once again…Juicy J.
It’s almost hilarious to even think about. If I talked to my younger self in the 90s/ early 2000s and told you people would be up in arms about the misogyny in accordance to Juicy J I would probably believe that I had come from some alternate future universe because that couldn’t happen right?