The Empire State of Houstatlantavegas: An Analysis of the City's Effect on Young Women

After analyzing the text of Jay-Z and Alicia Key’s “Empire State of Mind,” I got to thinking that there are similar songs that address the dark issues that big cities and bright lights pose to young women. The messages in Drake’s “Houstatlantavegas” also touch on these issues, but instead of a singular verse the entire song is referencing young women who have been reduced to “exotic dancing” or prostitution as a means of survival.

Drake’s song, “Houstatlantavegas” first offers insight to the listener through the title. One should understand that the title is a combination of Houston, Atlanta, and Las Vegas. These three cities have very provocative, fast-paced lifestyles associated with them and a high abundance of gentlemen’s clubs and prostitution similarly to New York.

The lyrics from verse three of “Empire State of Mind” and those throughout “Houstatlantavegas” touch on identical points.

Drake’s Lyrics Read: 

                                                      

“HEY THERE...PRETTY GIRL. YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU GOT AND I DONT... 

BLAME YOU AT ALL,YOU CANT RESIST IT. ESPECIALLY WHEN THE LIGHTS SO 

BRIGHT, AND THE MONEY SO RIGHT, AND ITS COMING IN EVERY SINGLE NIGHT...”

Jay-Z's Lyrics Read:    

"Lights is blinding,

girls need blinders…

don’t bite the apple Eve”

In both lyrics, there are mentions of light. In Drake’s mention his representation of light is one of captivation. When people are lost, we are encouraged to follow the light but bright light can blind people—from their goals and better judgment—as interpreted in Jay-Z’s lyric. He mentions the blinding effect of light and how the need to no longer be lost makes this light attractive to women who have come looking for themselves in a city like New York. Drake’s mention of “resist” also brings up the idea of temptation. He is saying that women are unable to resist the temptation because of the bright light (which also represents attention) and the extensive amounts of money. Jay-Z’s line about temptation takes us back to biblical times of the first women and her encounter with temptation and how well that did not turn out for her.

Another line of Drake’s that speaks to the problem of young women in the big cities reads: “… she’s scared of ending up alone…” This line is significant because it connects to Maggie of Stephen Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, who feared being alone and resorted to prostitution. Maggie, who also feared being alone ended up meeting her demise and that is the conclusion we are too draw from connecting these two texts.

The looming issue of young women is the city is obviously one that demands national attention as it appears not only in late 19thcentury literature, but two 21^st century rap songs by different artists about different cities. In class discussions, we have seen discussed the importance nature versus nurture and how environmental determinism plays a role in society but with these findings I think it is safe to say that surroundings can affect the outcome of one’s life. Even places like Austin, although not as big as most metro cities, prostitution poses some major community issues.

The Suburbs

The TV show Weeds, created Jenji Kohan, critiques and compares inner city and suburban life in America. Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) plays a white, middle aged, widowed mother who begins to sell marijuana in order to maintain her wealthy suburban lifestyle after the death of her husband. Nancy lives in a wealthy suburb called Agrestic in California. Agrestic is a symbol of a perfect, wealthy, white, American suburb. In every episode, Kohan critiques this "perfect" white suburban lifestyle with the theme song "Little Boxes" written by Malvina Reynolds.

"Little Boxes"

Little boxes on the hillside,

Little boxes made of ticky tacky,¹

Little boxes on the hillside,

Little boxes all the same.

There's a green one and a pink one

And a blue one and a yellow one,

And they're all made out of ticky tacky

And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses

All went to the university,

Where they were put in boxes

And they came out all the same,

And there's doctors and lawyers,

And business executives,

And they're all made out of ticky tacky

And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course

And drink their martinis dry,

And they all have pretty children

And the children go to school,

And the children go to summer camp

And then to the university,

Where they are put in boxes

And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business

And marry and raise a family

In boxes made of ticky tacky

they look just the same.

There's a green one and a pink one

And a blue one and a yellow one,

And they're all made out of ticky tacky

And they all look just the same.

"Little Boxes"

"Little Boxes" portraits white suburban life as dull. Everyone goes to the same university, everyone gets the same job and goes to the same coffee shop before work. Reynolds argues that this wealthy white American dream causes people to conform to what society believes is the correct way to live and raise a family. However, it really just makes everyone into the same boring person.

Nancy breaks the mold. Although, she still wants to enjoy her life in suburbia. She doesn't have a really job or money to support her family, so she resorts to selling weed. This brings up an interesting contrast. For many wealthy white families, the attraction of the suburbs is to avoid the violence, drugs, and conflict of the inner city. However when Nancy decides to start selling weed, she brings these inner city problems to Agrestic. For instance, at the end of season 3, Nancy buys protection from Guillermo, another drug dealer from the city. As a result, Guillermo begins a "war" between rival drug dealers to protect Nancy's business in Agrestic. However, when Guillermo burns down a local weed farm, it causes Agrestic to catch fire and burn to the ground.

Weeds also illustrates the racial tension between white suburbians and Nancy's black drug dealing partners. In an episode in Season 3, Nancy buys a grow house in Agrestic, and her black friend and partner Conrad moves in. When Conrad's sister and mother go on a walk in the neighborhood, they meet a jogger, who waves and smiles, then runs to the other side of the street to continue jogging. This jogger shows the tension between races that can still make some people uncomfortable. Suburbia has high taxes and is for high income families. As a result, wealthy white families are usually the ones who move to the suburbs. So when this jogger sees Conrad's black mother and sister, she becomes uncomfortable because they just seem out of place.

From the Corner to the Corner Office: Jay-Z's NYC

Jay-Z and Alicia's Key's song "Empire State of Mind" has become the new national anthem of New York City, displacing Sinatra's "New York, New York." As Jay-Z declares from the start, he is "the new Sinatra," paraphrasing his predecessor: "since I made it here, I can make it anywhere." Indeed, the song and video retell that classic myth of the American dream of the immigrant arriving in the city and, through hard work and determination, achieving financial success. In this version, though, Shawn Carter is the protagonist, as the rapper tells his own autobiographical, rags to riches story, growing up in the Marcy Projects to become CEO of Def-Jam Records.

At the beginning of the video, he raps about his origins in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn--"Yeah I'm out that Brooklyn...I'm out that BedStuy"--even referencing his former address of the Marcy Projects at "560 State Street." He makes several dutiful "keeping it real" claims to still be grounded and connected to that neighborhorhood: "I'll be hood forever" and"I brought my boys with me." But it is clear that Jay-Z is on the rise as his opening "Yeah I'm out of BedStuy" is quickly followed by "Now I'm down in Tribeca / Right next toDeniro." Much of the song consists of Jay-Z's boasting about the many new and exclusive places that his money and power can take him. Sitting courtside in Madison Square garden, he is close enough to trip a referee. "Empire State of Mind" is much more a celebration of these monumental sites and privileged points of view, than the democratic public spaces of New York City. [267]

Visually, Jay-Z's American dream narrative is told through his movement from the street corner to the corner office. Inthe earlier shots in the video, Jay is shot in street clothes singing on street corners throughout the city. From 2:35 to 3:20, though, when he raps the third and final verse of the song, we see him in the corner office looking out a large window over the city, the Empire State Building in the background. A second visual clue to Jay-Z success is the repeated aerial views of the city that also contrast the earlier corner perspectives. This is a powerful, totalizing view, one that can gather in the entire city in a single glance, or gas up the (private) jet and escape for a weekend.

As Michel de Certeau wrote of this top-down concept of the city from atop the World Trade Center, the corner-office perspective that Jay-Z cultivates in the video "makes the complexity of the city readable, and immobilizes its opaque mobility in a transparent text." For both De Certeau and Jay-Z, it is perspective that expresses, above all, power. It is literally, the viewpoint of corporate America, which hip hop moguls like Jay-Z have never been shy about celebrating (and perhaps rightly so). Just being there to take it in requires a certain level of access. But it also demonstrates a mastery of the city, a knowledge that one has successfully navigated the mysteries and dangers of the underworld. What such a view point denies is the validity of the million individual struggles of the democratic grid below, though Jay gives New York immigrants a brief nod in his second verse.

Alicia Key's repeated mythic chorus connects Jay-Z's story to the broader one of the American dream:

"Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,

There's nothing you can't do,

Now you're in New York!

These streets will make you feel brand new,

The lights will inspire you,

Let's hear it for New York, New york, New York."

In his second and third verses, though, Jay-Z qualifies this universal fantasy of urban opportunity. While he clearly things of his own experience in relation to the broader "melting pot" of the city, he first warns immigrants there are "8 million stories out their and they're naked / city it's a pity half of y'all won't make it." Then, he devotes the entirety to lurid stories of fallen women in the city. The bright lights that inspire in Key's chorus, for these women, are "blinding": "the city of sin is a pity on a whim / good girls gone bad, the city's filled with them." Like Crane in Maggie, Girls of the Streets, Jay-Z warns of the dangers of the city for a women who does not carefully navigate it's dangers.

(On the Blueprint 3 Tour, Jay-Z performed before a recreated New York City skyline on stage:)