I was in line at Panda Express last week, trying to decide if the orange chicken was cooked after the year 2000 when a little kid in front of me caught my attention.
He, who would later reveal to me that he celebrated his ninth birthday in August, was singing along to his iPod, more specifically Lil’ Wayne’s new song: “Every Girl.”
For those of you who don’t frequent Hot 103 Jamz’ airwaves, “Every Girl” is a song that explains how Lil’ Wayne enjoys intercourse with, well, every girl.
In the song, he proclaims that he just wants to (explicit): “every model, every singer, every actress, every diva, every House of Diddy chick, every college girl, every skeezer, stripper and every Desperate Housewife that resembles Eva.”
While I admit that verse provides me a few yuks, the rest of the song reads like a Bunny Ranch diary – particularly when he starts rapping about sex with the mentally challenged. Or Miley Cyrus three years from now. I would share more lyrics from the song but I’d rather not give President Long a coronary.
Shocked at the youngster’s song selection, I asked him how old he was and whether he knew what those words meant. As if I should have known better, he replied, “Yeah, I listen to Wayne all the time.”
Now when it comes to politics, I’m just like my long irons – I veer to the left. But a 9-year-old knowing the ‘f’ word and its uses is absurd.
As a newspaper editor, I strongly endorse free speech, but I can’t help but connect this brand of pop culture – and the ideologies it distributes – to the soaring teenage pregnancy and middle school sexual experimentation rates.
In 2007, a school district in Portland, Maine, decided to allow birth control pills to be distributed to 11-year-old girls. And another recent study conducted by www.organizedwisdom.com uncovered that nearly 9 percent of children have had sex before the age of 13.
I’m not naïve enough to believe the music industry is solely to blame. In fact, I’m not blaming Wayne at all. This issue comes back on the parents.
When I was 9 my dad was throwing me batting practice and helping me with my math homework, not performing sing-alongs with me about fellatio. Any parent who thinks it’s permissible for their pre-teens to partake in, or even be aware of, the sexual acts from “Every Girl” should be waterboarded.
