blackinasia:

Ke$ha ft. will.i.am - Crazy Kids

Am I the only one deeply horrified by this video? So I’ve been a pretty big Ke$ha fan since the beginning when she released “Right Round” with flo, so I was excited to see how the video for “Crazy Kids” would turn out. When it popped up on Vevo for me a minute ago, I booted it up pretty excitedly, and the horror commenced almost immediately.

I was initially surprised but not deeply offended to see Ke$ha in a hoodie with a “$” on the back of it and donning dyed cornrows and a large number of chains as she walked into a house of only black people with a car outside bouncing from its amps. I sighed a bit, and shook my head but then suddenly this happened about a minute in:

(Image description: Ke$ha wearing a studded ring with the word “CRAZY” across it along with glossy golden large sunglasses, golden hoop earrings and golden grills across her teeth against a bright golden background)

And my jaw dropped. It had gone from merely being somewhat offensive to incredibly so. Golden hoops, grills, huge sunglasses, all in ADDITION to the dyed cornrows for her hair and the hoodie and chains. Basically trying to seem “hood rich” and making a mockery of black people.

And this, please note, is what she and the directors chose to define as “CRAZY,” because, ladies and gentleman, of course anything black is so beyond the pale and ridiculous to the point of being funny for a white person.

The video has other terrible moments like this where (of course) she has pitbulls to complete her black look:

(Image description: Ke$ha seated in the middle of a large leopard print sofa with golden fringe hanging in the background. She is wearing golden chains and dyed colored corn rows in her hair and is flanked by two large pittbulls with large chained purple collars around their necks)

And then, of course, when she leaves the house and goes outside to meet other white people (yay!) suddenly her “crazy” look switches to this and becomes more “posh”, because she no longer seemed to need all of her “black” attire and hair styling:

(Image description: Ke$ha in a black corset with long golden chains streaming from the top and with straight blonde hair flanked by 4 large, shirtless older white men)

It’s both fascinating and hurtful that when your career appears to be flagging somewhat (as Ke$ha’s is) that one of the default responses seems to be to find a POC group to appropriate or shit on as a publicity stunt. This video is painful to watch on so many levels as a black person, and I’m horrified that this got through so many levels of checks and verifications (will.i.am, what the fuck?) to still create such an offensive mess that blatantly appropriates from and makes a mockery of aspects of African-American culture. Awful.