Awkwafina - Marijuana

Rock With This () helps you discover your new favorite songs. We deliver the best of what’s breaking and uncover the left behind tracks that need to be heard. Subscribe for more music, it’s free. ;) Follow us on: Instagram: Spotify: SoundCloud: Facebook: ----------------------------- “Marijuana“ by Awkwafina Curated by: Natalie Silver Spotify: Genre: #hiphop Like almost all people with dormant clout in their adolescent years, Awkwafina played trumpet in her high school concert band. And, like none of her peers who were also trained in classical music and jazz during these formative years, Awkwafina broke into the music industry by rapping about her vagina. That was seven years ago; this is now. With two EPs and several major films behind her, the 30-year-old Asian-American actress, comedian and hip hop artist has moved on to a much more sophisticated discourse: vaginas AND marijuana. How’s that for a Journalism and Women’s Studies double major? “Marijuana” is the eighth track off her album Yellow Ranger (2014), which has self-reflective title and savagely pokes fun at her heritage and her gender-defying presence as a raunchy and unapologetic force in the entertainment and music industries. “Marijuana” is a testament to Awkwafina’s poetic and comic trademark: delivering effortless, blunt proclamations of the self through music, entertainment and comedy, while finding a tender niche somewhere between brutal self-deprecation and masturbatory hubris that speaks to a generation of young, weed-smoking, pissed off women. Her words have become the universal middle finger to a hyper-capitalistic, image-oriented, plastic state of the union that tends to take itself too seriously and worship Instagram with cult-like elect Donald Trump as president. But the key to her brilliance is that her delivery is it sounds damn good. She makes her jokes sing, somehow turning epic punchlines into extraordinary pieces of musical art. Though her ascent into rapdom is, to some extent, portrayed as a happy accident--writing the aforementioned “My Vag” (AKA the “The Catcher in The Rye” of our generation) on a whim, responding to Mickey Avalon’s “My Dick” while playing around on Garageband--“Marijuana” is evidence of the young artist’s evolution as not only a creative, but also a musician. It maintains the raw candor, abrasiveness and epic one-liners she exhibits in “My Vag,” yet is elevated in its production value and level of complexity within its musical genome, proving she’s much more than just a funny girl with a Youtube may or may not like to get stoned and dick around on free Apple applications. Though these circumstances may have contributed to her start, I get the feeling that she writes her unquestionable talent and objective successes off. “Marijuana,” while hilarious and offbeat, is far too complex and lyrically poignant to have been the result of a random, creative rampage. And I sit here writing this, stroking my own ego and justifying my own concert band exodus and decision to pursue journalism and major in Media Studies (the “journalism” of a STEM-oriented university), AKA self-identifying as as The Queen of Unemployment / Penis Jokes / Raunchy Feminism / Somewhat of a Vagina Poet myself, I’m finding myself viewing Awkwafina as some sort of god who may or may not have inspired a new career path for me. Happy listening! I’ll see you next my new SoundCloud page.