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?
Fuck what they talkin’ ’bout
All a n*gga hear is my chains
Clinkin’ back and forth right now
N*gga fuck with me
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.
Why the fuck you so opinionated
Sayin’ how you do it but they ain’t did it
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.
Baby you need a demonstration
This is how you get richer baby
I’m stimulated
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.
I’m at the bank, I’m penetratin’
I’m puttin’ in. I’m penetratin’
I’m getting big, I’m stimulated
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.
I touched the bitch she disintegrated
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.
Up in flames, I’ve been the flamest
I’ve been the hottest you’ve been the lamest
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.”
I’ve been on a plane, you’ve been complainin’
Fuck the codefendant, pistol whip the plaintiff
Hit the mall, then we skip arraignment
They say she young, I should’ve waited
She a big girl, dog, when she stimulated
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.”
Hit Sin City and syndicate it
All the time on the strip in Vegas
I got the juice but I ain’t Minute Maid it
But a n*gga made it just minutes later
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.
Shut the fuck up and let me finish baby
I’ll let you finish later
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.”
Why the fuck you so opinionated?
Yeah you book smart but don’t be gettin’ paper
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.
Shootin’ craps at the wind
Getting’ back to back wins
Made 20 bands playin’ features
And I don’t need a feature for this
N*gga I’m T-R-A, a triple double
Everytime I ball, man that’s triple double
Tom Ford, Balmain, that’s triple stuntin’
Tryna get a nut only gets you nothin’
So I don’t give a fuck who these n*ggas datin
Tsunami the Rollie, my wrist is flooded
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.”
How the fuck can these n*ggas hate it
When these bitches love it, man this shit
Is funny all I can do is laugh, all I can do is laugh
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.
They try to count me out all day I’m doin’ math
All I can do is add, multiply, multiply all day I’m doin’ math
But we won’t divide you ain’t got the flow, you ain’t got the heart
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.
You be on your mark but you’re never ready
You just talkin’ shit I can smell your breath
Sayin’ what you do but you can’t help yourself
Tyga reminds the oligarchs, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” (Gandhi)
She a big girl dog
Fuck what they talking about n*gga
She a big girl dog I’m gonna do what the fuck
I wanna do when I wanna do
She a big girl dog
I’m putting in I’m penetratin’
I’m getting big I’m stimulated
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.
Might take her home, gonna dinner plate it
I don’t heat it up, don’t microwave it.
She already hot she sizzle baby
No salt and pepper she been the pepper
Ima stimulate her yeah simple baby
Fuck with me then I fuck with you
You don’t fuck with me my n*gga fuck you too
She a big girl dog (x3)
I’m putting in I’m penetratin
I’m getting big I’m stimulated
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
