K. Michelle’s got More Issues Than Vogue but this man ain’t one: Her just-released “Ain’t You” video is vaguely subversive in that she’s styled in all manner of semi-BDSM-invoking chic lingerie, and contrasts it with the notion that she doesn’t need shit from a man, including his cash—“Nope/I drop a hundred band like it’s easy money”—while clearly running the show with her video lover, a handsome yet mostly face-obscured dude who at one point she ties up like a boss before christening with candle wax. K. Michelle!
And yet, the song is also about how this dude, possibly somewhere at the midpoint between a sidepiece and a mainpiece but definitely not her priority, is special in his way—“You the only one I keep it hunnid with, you know.” Yet she never cedes power to him, which is a reason this song is so exhilarating, as she takes on the partial investment of a trillion man-helmed love songs before her. She’ll let him get what he wants but in this transaction she’s allowing it, and at a point bestows the ultimate compliment: “Everytime you leave I need more/might just have to bring you on tour.” She’s a torrid storyteller, hovering in a minor key with a light bit of melancholy and even more apparent motivation to get hers.
