Big Sean: Part Nice Guy, Part Misogynist
EntertainmentBig Sean wasn’t really famous until he started dating a famous woman. He somewhat acknowledged his lesser status on Drake’s “All Me,” when he bragged about Naya Rivera, rapping: “My new girl is on Glee and shit/ Prob’ly making more money than me and shit.” That same verse opens with this unfortunate line: “Ho, shut the fuck up.”
Sean and Naya’s engagement ended bitterly, so he blessed us with the frigid ether of “I Don’t Fuck With You”—which isn’t about her, he says, except that it is—and now he’s got an album that’s in part an ego-fueled journey into the mind of a dude dressed in his best fuckum-bruh outfit.
He hardly lacks emotion. He’s rapped sentimentally about women before—“Ashley” is an ode to one of his first loves. He’s cried on stage. In real life, he’s played second fiddle to two high-profile, powerful women (currently, Ariana Grande), which makes his raps seem even more like aspirational performance art. He’s always struck me as the nice dude with infuriating misogynist streaks. Not really a straight-up woman hater, but someone who defers to a persona and who’d be quick to hop on “Suck it or Not.” “Ho” is a crutch in his vocabulary.
Dark Sky Paradise, his third album, sticks with this Kanye-esque approach of egotistical sadness, mostly targeting gold diggers and side chicks. It’s a back and forth between casual aggression and honest love. Unlike his biggest competitor Drake, who personalizes his relationship experiences so much that it doesn’t feel like an indictment of women, there’s little wallowing and psychoanalyzing from Sean. It makes for a more stressful listen, half enjoyable and half a headache. The bluntness and beauty of “I Don’t Fuck With You” is a classic example.
It’s easier for women to rap along to that song if we consider it more of a relatable breakup anthem, which it is, than a song about dodging “a crazy bitch”: He doesn’t hate us, he hates her. Or, he hates “those type of women.”