Decoding the subtle lyrics of Tyga’s ‘Stimulated’

By now you’ve heard Tyga’s subtle new track, “Stimulated,” which supposedly details his relationship with the barely-legal Kylie Jenner. The video depicts Tyga hunched over a composition notebook, thoughtfully writing out lyrics, interspersed with shots of him rolling a blunt and hanging out with his teenage girlfriend.

As the website Genius has taught us, song lyrics are often jam-packed with hidden meanings and literary references. Thank god you have me, dear reader, to enlighten you, because “Stimulated” is about far more than Kylie Jenner. Let’s dive right in, shall we?

Tyga references Jean-Jacques Rosseau’s famous words: “Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” Tyga is so aware of how societal constructs have imprisoned his mind that we can actually hear his chains clinking.

Tyga asks the listener to reevaluate their preconceived notions, to question whether their opinions are derived from critical thinking or if they are merely regurgitating cultural norms.

To enlighten yourself, Tyga tells us, you must be intellectually stimulated. When he says, “This is how you get richer baby,” he’s referring to being rich with knowledge, and emphasizing that in the diseased society we are doomed to endure, knowledge, power, and money are forever intertwined.

Tyga is metaphorically at the bank, penetrating the core of capitalism. The more famous he becomes, the more power he has to destroy the system from within—or so he hopes.

Tyga reminds us of radical feminist Andrea Dworkin’s famous quote: “Woman is not born: she is made. In the making, her humanity is destroyed.” When his male hands touched “the bitch” (Kylie Jenner), her humanity disintegrated.

As Plutarch once wrote, “The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” Tyga’s mind is the hottest and the “flamest.” But recall Heraclitus: “Fire is want and surfeit.”

Tyga critiques the prejudices and Kafkaesque bureaucracy of the U.S. legal system. His lyrics are reminiscent of the famous Henry David Thoreau quote, “If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.”

Ah, Las Vegas, a paradise built on the shifting sands of money, so full of artifice that it can be forever syndicated and recreated like Minute Maid juice. The myth of the individual is just that: a myth.

Tyga raps this sarcastically, pointing to the inequity of heterosexual intercourse. As Naomi Wolf noted in The Beauty Myth, “Women who love themselves are threatening; but men who love real women, more so.”

Unfortunately, the educational-industrial complex is but a part of the vast, cruel machine we call America. The most educated individuals are often burdened with student loans, unable to realize their potential in this dystopian hellscape.

Here Tyga smugly references the useless luxury objects the upper classes covet. He never forgets the wisdom of Karl Marx’s: “Nothing can have value without being an object of utility.”

Tyga can’t help but giggle at the absurdity of aspiration in a globalized future. The lure of the American Dream is preposterous to him.

Tyga, savaging the materialist status quo, turns Andy Warhol’s quote on its head: “Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.” You need heart and flow to make true art.

Tyga reminds the oligarchs, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” (Gandhi)

The “big girl” Tyga refers to is, of course, capitalism. “The bureaucracy is a circle from which no one can escape. Its hierarchy is a hierarchy of knowledge,” Marx wrote. In order to overthrow the system, we must deeply penetrate this big girl.

I’m pretty sure you all get the idea: Tyga, the dark horse, our Marxist hero, comes to save us from the burdens of currency and classism. We can only pray that he’s not too late.

Photo via TygaVEVO/Flickr