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J Bogart
@jonathanbogart.net
760 followers 210 following 1.9K posts
Library worker, researcher and writer about culture from the first third of the 20th century, depressive.

https://jonathanbogart.net
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J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · Oct 1
I'll be participating in this challenge for the next 50 days, mute or follow the hashtag according to your preference. For now my writeups will live only on Bluesky, accompanied by a screenshot of the title card from the music video (or just a regular screenshot if there isn't a title card). Enjoy!
jonathanbogart.net J Bogart @jonathanbogart.net · Oct 1
#TheTwen2ie5 Day 1

50. Yailin La Mas Viral, “Bing Bong”
(Dominican Republic, Nov 6 2024)
prod. Puyalo Pantera & Yailin La Mas Viral

youtu.be/YpoUzo-CflQ
Music video title card. On a background of an out of focus woman with her hands raised in dark rain are the words: BING BONG YAILIN LA MAS VIRAL Parental advisory explicit content 50. Yailin La Mas Viral, “Bing Bong” (Dominican Republic, Nov 6 2024) prod. Puyalo Pantera & Yailin La Mas Viral We begin with a mission statement, or in the Tumblr vernacular, with rent-lowering gunshots, telling those who can’t hang to clear out now. This list is going to be full of songs by, about, and for women of color shaking extravagant amounts of ass, with videos even more monomaniacally focused on the same. Welcome to the post-dancehall world: racialized vulgarity is in, bourgeois auteurism is out. Art is a broad category that has always included sexual titillation, and Puritans, whether of the left or right, are welcome to kick rocks about it. Taxonomically this is a dembow song, although it’s almost post-dembow, a series of giddy sounds in echoey space (is that one break actually just the sound of cheeks clapping?) while Yailin delivers the genre’s usual sexual provocation in a teasing tone. She’s a 23-year-old single mother (her daughter’s coo is one of the sounds in the mix) who has been in in the fast-paced Dominican dembow spotlight since she was eighteen, when I first noticed her among a crowd of young women then entering the field (La Perversa, La Ross Maria, Rosaly Rubio, Arlene MC, Tokischa), but the sproingy, addictive “Bing Bong” has been her biggest pan-American hit yet. YouTube: 264M views | Spotify: 146M streams | TikTok: 851K vids
jonathanbogart.net
#TheTwen2ie5 Day 35

15. Guchi, “No Touching”
(Nigeria, Aug 21 2024)
prod. Tuzi

youtu.be/UIBgKaqcg70
Music video title card. A shot of the interior of a Nigerian hospital, with workers in scrubs, face masks, and hairnets, engaging in preparation for surgery. IV drips, room dividers, and medical charts are visible in the background. Over this, in bold white letters, are the words: NO TOUCHING 15. Guchi, “No Touching” (Nigeria, Aug 21 2024) prod. Tuzi I don’t think I would have predicted at any point in the past six years that this would be my highest-ranking Nigerian song of that same period. No Yemi Alade? No Tiwa Savage? None of the more world-shaking Nigerian hitmakers to have emerged in the 2020s? Guchi is a minor figure at best in the panoply of Nigerian pop; successful, sure, but not overwhelmingly so, and with such a pronounced tendency toward playing fresh-faced schoolgirl roles in her videos that I was mildly surprised to learn she’s 27. (But given that she started in 2019, that makes sense. Everyone looks younger and younger, the older I get.) But this song, man. I said in my 2024 year-end roundup that I was hearing it as a song of asexual desire for connection even if it wasn’t intended as one, but after spending months with it I can’t believe that it wasn’t intended as one, even if those aren’t the words Guchi or her songwriters would use. “Cause I need it for my healing, for my healing.” Asexuality doesn’t have to be unconditional to be real, and maybe it’s the fact that I gleefully embrace so much allo- and even specifically hypersexuality in pop that makes this gentle plea for presence, rather than verbal or physical caress, to be the medium of love for now hit so hard. YouTube: 977K views | Spotify: 941K streams | TikTok: 71K vids
November 11, 2025 at 3:08 AM
jonathanbogart.net
how i spent my friday night:

buttondown.com/jonathanboga...
Going Out, November 2025
Last Friday, I clocked out of work at 5:30 as I normally do, then pulled out my phone and opened Google Maps. My destination was 2.6 miles away. I had more...
buttondown.com
November 10, 2025 at 10:40 PM
jonathanbogart.net
#TheTwen2ie5 Day 34

16. Baby Cortes, “Loki Puti Fina”
(Cuba, Dec 20 2024)
prod. Roberto Ferrante, Ernesto Losa

youtu.be/N_-6lf84q54
Music video title card. A ahot of Baby Cortes surrounded by five dancers in an open, empty warehouse-style building. Over top, in a leopard-print font, are the words: BABY CORTES LOKI PUTI FINA 16. Baby Cortes, “Loki Puti Fina” (Cuba, Dec 20 2024) prod. Roberto Ferrante, Ernesto Losa One of the most exciting, novel, and explosively growing genres of urban music across Latin America today is Cuban reparto: a relief for those of us deeply aware of Cuba’s central place in Latin music history, but also of how the post-1962 embargo has systematically excluded Cuba (with some exceptions) from the broader conversation in Latin music in the generations following hip-hop and dancehall. Reparto can be understood as a Cuban analogue to Puerto Rican reggaeton or Dominican dembow, but born of the specific cultural and economic pressures of Havana. I talk about it less often than I could because my bias towards female voices mean that the big names in the current generation of reparto (Bebeshito, Wampi, etc.) have a tendency to slide off my attention, but I’ve become a devoted fan of the one woman currently given resources by Italian label Planet Records, Baby Cortes. Daughter of the late José Luis Cortes, the virtuosic flautist of Los Van Van, Irakere, and his own NG la Banda, she’s pushing reparto in a pop direction, as in this whistle-hook girl-power dance number with amapiano accents that is, save for the build-and-release kickdrum parts, barely reparto at all. Most excitingly, I don’t think she’s made her best work yet. YouTube: 408K views | Spotify: 4.2K streams | TikTok: 1 vid
November 10, 2025 at 3:20 AM
jonathanbogart.net
the thing about being a sheltered missionary kid is that my judgmental indie snob phase didn’t come until later: at sixteen i was still new enough to pop culture that it all felt laden with the capacity for wonder. two years later though, hoo boy
notthatmilo.bsky.social milo @notthatmilo.bsky.social · 2d
What do you like now that 16 year old you would hate you for?
November 9, 2025 at 8:02 PM
jonathanbogart.net
i’d say i wouldn’t even know how but of course i know there’s a website and an app and that i could get to them with minimal effort because i read and retain knowledge instead of outsourcing my thinking to an algorithm
clairesnonsense.bsky.social Claire Waller / Ellie Graves/ Claire Lunn @clairesnonsense.bsky.social · 2d
Hands up if you've never used Chat GPT ✋

(I feel like Dozer and Tank in The Matrix right now - at first I didn't use it because, rather ironically, I'm lazy and stubborn (peak Taurus energy there) - literally no, don't make me use the new thing I don't wanna. Now I'm glad I didn't 😅)
baddestmamajama.bsky.social Jessica Ellis @baddestmamajama.bsky.social · 3d
Probably a good way to tell right now if the job you’re applying for is run by absolute dumbfucks is to ask if they’re using AI.
November 9, 2025 at 4:35 PM
jonathanbogart.net
#TheTwen2ie5 Day 33

17. Karol G, “Ay, DiOs Mío!”
(Colombia, Jul 10 2020)
prod. Ovy on the Drums

youtu.be/Ou2c2aj5Fcw
Music video title card. An animated shot of white 8-bit clouds in a blue sky, with a pink heart emerging from between the clouds. In pink, also in an 8-bit font, are the words: Ay, DiOs Mío! 17. Karol G, “Ay, DiOs Mío!” (Colombia, Jul 10 2020) prod. Ovy on the Drums 2020 was hard for everybody. One of the ways I coped with the (barely, in my case) increased isolation and (very much, in any case) increased social anxiety and online paranoiac meltdown was to retreat to a handful of songs that captured my attention over the course of the year and play them over and over again. “Ay, DiOs Mío!” was one of them, despite the fact that I had a bit of a grudge against Karol G for being one of the enormously popular Euro-passing Colombians who had become the face of reggaeton in the latter half of the 2010s over the Afro-Latin Panamanians and Puerto Ricans who had originated and popularized it. But my first loyalty was not to reggaeton but to pop, and this was a perfect pop song, from Ovy’s music-box plinks to the sudden injection of rhythm in the “me hizo tra-tra” bit (a callback to a reference point for #48 on my list; everything’s related). Karol’s attack here is feather-light and deceptively sweet: the song describes her being giddily seduced by a fan who she refers to as “tu man” (your man) throughout — but whether she’s taunting his betrayed partner or she’s delivering herself as a willing third to a couple “que le gustaban toda’ mis canciones” (who liked all my songs) is left as an exercise for the listener. YouTube: 617M views | Spotify: 675M streams | TikTok: 57K vids
November 9, 2025 at 3:44 AM
jonathanbogart.net
on the train home last night my headphones died so i got to learn that cool cosplay teens are recommending each other the 90s Knightfall run of Batman, something i remember as being too schlocky for my own teenaged taste at the time
November 8, 2025 at 7:48 PM
jonathanbogart.net
started reading cortázar’s rayuela, stopped to go to a standup comedy show, trying to contain multitudes despite it all
November 8, 2025 at 3:27 AM
jonathanbogart.net
#TheTwen2ie5 Day 32

18. Malaïka, Joey Montana & Elisama, “Dos Pedas”
(Mexico [Haiti] + Panama, 2023)
prod. Andy Aranda, Erick Pérez, Bobby Sierra

youtu.be/SB3aWtVUXIM
Music video title card A shot of Malaï in red cowboy gear leaning agaijst the bar in a smoky, dimly lit taberna. Joey Montana and Elisama are vaguely visible in the shadows. Over this, in red semitransparent letters, are the words: DOS PEDAS JOEY MONTANA | MALAÏKA | ELISAMA 18. Malaïka, Joey Montana & Elisama, “Dos Pedas” (Mexico [Haiti] + Panama, 2023) prod. Andy Aranda, Erick Pérez, Bobby Sierra The only song in my whole list that isn’t based on an African or Afro-Latin rhythm; although there’s some busyness with the sticks on the edges of this song, structurally it’s an waltz-time corrido tumbado with banda accompaniment. Malaïka is a young singer from Guadalajara whose ancestry is both Haitian and Mexican: her debut song back in 2022, was a self-portrait soca-inflected tune called “La Mulata” (the mulatto woman), and she’s also experimented with reggae, disco, afrobeats and zouk rhythms. But this classic Mexican taberna sound, with two Panamanian reggaeton singers as her guests, is my favorite of her songs: a spiteful, woozy kiss-off to a shitty ex, full of scabrous Mexican slang that should deal a death blow to any man unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of it. Joey Montana is a handsome, popular nonentity, but I first paid attention to this song because of Elisama, my favorite discovery of 2019 whose career has yet to break out of the lots-of-features- no-real-hits stage. This wasn’t one either, too trad for the urbano audience and not macho enough for the corrido one. YouTube: 21K views | Spotify: 264K streams | TikTok: 93 vids
November 8, 2025 at 3:01 AM
jonathanbogart.net
memo to self: you’re too old, go to the early shows.
November 8, 2025 at 2:39 AM
Reposted by J Bogart
nedraggett.bsky.social
What's great about this news is that it further demonstrates how UCSB has become a truly important general archive location for music all around. Their famed cylinder recordings collection alone, online for listening, started two decades back, for instance.
Preserving the Past & Sharing It Today: A New Partnership with the University of California
The Dust-to-Digital Foundation and the University of California, Santa Barbara have partnered to make thousands of historic recordings freely accessible to the public.
dusttodigital.substack.com
November 8, 2025 at 12:23 AM
jonathanbogart.net
some day i will write my essay about how ACG's now public-domain funny-animal comics of the 40s and 50s (mostly written and drawn by moonlighting animators, including some Michael Maltese credits) were way more in the spirit of Looney Tunes than any of the official licensed comics ever were
declouxj.bsky.social Justin Decloux @declouxj.bsky.social · 4d
Do you want to listen to two grown men review awful Gold Key Looney Tunes comic books?

Here is a preview of a 40-minute video you can watch now on The Important Cinema Club Patreon:
November 7, 2025 at 9:40 PM
jonathanbogart.net
misread Katseye (LA girl group) as Katteyes (Chilean urbano it girl) and briefly thought the Grammys were way cooler than they are
November 7, 2025 at 9:21 PM
jonathanbogart.net
yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
iannagoski.bsky.social Canary Records @iannagoski.bsky.social · 4d
I am very grateful to The Attic for allowing me to get some things off my chest.
If I never get to write my Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, this will hold the place for where it would have been.
It's the basis for the shows I'll be doing in the EU starting next week.

theatticmag.com/features/248...
None of Us Know the Words: Lessons from the Mid-20th Century Monocultural Americana
Contesting the vitality of a multicultural, multi-ethnic America, this article offers a glimpse into the Mid-Twentieth Century American music.
theatticmag.com
November 7, 2025 at 5:56 PM
jonathanbogart.net
Gaga because the rap vote will be too split, there's enough lambent english-first sentiment no matter how liberal the electorate considers itself, and sheer name recognition
rollingstone.com Rolling Stone @rollingstone.com · 4d
#GRAMMYs ALBUM OF THE YEAR NOMINEES

» Bad Bunny, ‘DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS’
» Justin Bieber, ‘SWAG’
» Sabrina Carpenter, ‘Man’s Best Friend’
» Clipse, ‘Let God Sort Em Out’
» Lady Gaga, ‘MAYHEM’
» Kendrick Lamar, ‘GNX’
» Leon Thomas, ‘MUTT’
» Tyler, The Creator, ‘CHROMAKOPIA’
November 7, 2025 at 5:11 PM
jonathanbogart.net
no struggle like the workday where you forgot your glasses at home because they're still not a part of you yet and your brain chemistry won't let you form automatic habits anyway, time to increase magnification on all my browsers
November 7, 2025 at 4:00 PM
jonathanbogart.net
me and today’s nyt strands
Th-this is my hole! It was made for me!
November 7, 2025 at 2:27 PM
jonathanbogart.net
#TheTwen2ie5 Day 32

19. Amaarae, “Reckless & Sweet”
(USA [Ghana], Mar 17, 2023)
prod. KZ Didit, Cadenza

youtu.be/oBMiNencjrU
Music video title card. A shot from above of what looks like grainy, lined CCTV footage of a car parked on a narrow road, its headlights on. Barely visible in the darkness, a figure stands a few feet ahead of it. Over top of this, in a script that also has CCTV artifacts, are the words: Reckless & Sweet 19. Amaarae, “Reckless & Sweet” (USA [Ghana], Mar 17, 2023) prod. KZ Didit, Cadenza Following my interests down their own rabbit holes has also left me oddly blinded to the ways they resound in the wider music world; I was taken by surprise when Amaarae was all over my Bluesky timeline earlier this year upon her new album’s release, because in my head she was still the weird little Ghanaian indie girlie whose sweet but muted voice I had fallen in love with back in 2018; sure, I realized that she had gotten bigger since (the lavishness of her videos increased with every album cycle, which doesn’t happen if you don’t do numbers), but because I was mostly attuned to her collabs with African performers I didn’t realize that she was getting bigger over here, where she lives, too. I’m not really a fan of the new album, because she’s dropped the smoky, detailed afrobeats I’d been loving her for and gone in a more hyperpop direction without being at all hyper herself. But I’ll always have songs like this one, produced by Londoners to a kind of smeared afrobeats effect, Amaarae singing bummed-out poetry about people who want to use her for her money, and vowing to be all about the money herself in revenge. It seems to have worked, if the publicity push she’s getting is any indication, but I’ll always kind of miss my ignorance. YouTube: 2.7M views | Spotify: 46M streams | TikTok: 1.3K vids
November 7, 2025 at 3:23 AM
jonathanbogart.net
#TheTwen2ie5 Day 31

20. Shiiloh, “Touch”
(St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Jan 7, 2022)
prod. Stadic

youtu.be/UieWcJpUJDg
Music video title card. A shot of Shiiloh in a vaguely African headdress and bodysuit, on a red plush divan surrounded by bric-a-brac that looks simultaneously cheap and expensive. Over this, in glowing letters, are the words: TOUCH PRODUCED BY STADIC 20. Shiiloh, “Touch” (St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Jan 7, 2022) prod. Stadic My approach to what I call “tropical music” (African, Caribbean, and Latin American urban rhythmic music) requires me not to care about popularity. It’s nice information to have, of course; and having a grasp on what the broad publics in various regions, or across them, do focus their attention on is a useful method of learning about music I’m otherwise disconnected from culturally, geographically, linguistically, and economically. But unlike a lot of the fan discourse within the genres I pay attention to, I don’t — I can’t — assign any spiritual significance to a flop. Shiiloh, an appealing Vincentian singer briefly promoted by hitmaking Vincentian-born, Trinidad-based producer Stadic, never made any particular waves even within the tiny Caribbean scenes she was aiming for; the low commercial profile of even the best-known and most popular female soca artists, as measured by radio play, streams, and concert sales, has been the subject of journalistic handwringing on the islands for a while now. I’ve had to come to terms with “Touch” being just my special little jewel of a song, its sweet alto sax reconciling me to my shameful Kenny G teen years, plus a strikingly art-directed video that has turned into a bit of a comfort watch. YouTube: 16K views | Spotify: 17K streams | TikTok: 17 vids
November 6, 2025 at 3:36 AM
Reposted by J Bogart
imleor.bsky.social
“What if you make the choice to visit this show with a spirit of openness, with the desire to have a little fun? When you’re through, you might just feel a little mental clarity. You might feel a little lighter.”
Imagine peace - Chicago Reader
In “Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind” at the MCA, you’ll encounter the artist at the epicenter of the avant-garde again and again.
chicagoreader.com
November 5, 2025 at 2:28 PM
jonathanbogart.net
#TheTwen2ie5 Day 30

21. Shaydee’s x Maureen, “Cvni”
(Martinique, Jan 24, 2025)
prod. Mikado

youtu.be/obtOBQ8Zvs8
Music video title card. An underwater shot of the corner of a swimming pool as shadow passes above. Over it are the words: SHAYDEE'S X MAUREEN CVNI DIR. CHRIS MACARI | PROD. FENTY LENTIN | ASS PROD. ARUEÉLIE SIMÉON DOP. MARTY.MOV | ELEC. JEOFFREY RAMAMANJAONA STYLE. LILOU CATTANEO AND THÉO KIMBALOULA | MUA. LUA.PRO | CHORE. TASHINDA AND ISSAKA EDIT. SARA ADJAHO | COLOR. RRONNY.709 | VFX. AILEBERT DIR CAST: DENZEL KIMYAH | DANSERS. CHRISTY, NAOMI, CHRISTELLE plus logos for Chris Macari and Fenty LS Prod 21. Shaydee’s x Maureen, “Cvni” (Martinique, Jan 24, 2025) prod. Mikado Another 2025 banger! I haven’t publicly noticed Shaydee’s before, but she’s a respected elder in the Martinican shatta scene (which is so recent that she can’t be more than thirty), and it’s really just been the luck of the draw that nothing before has struck me as joyfully, as confrontationally, and as rhythmically masterful as this. The spelling of “Cvni” is a way to get around online censorship of a slang term that is short for cunnilingus, and this song is an ultimatum to any prospective lovers: “Si tu ne fais pa de cunni t’auras pas de fesses / sexe” (If you don’t do cunnilingus you won’t get ass / sex). Superstar producer Mikado’s beat is slippery and wriggling, difficult to get a bead on (is shatta taking cues from Senegalese mbalax these days?), but Shaydee’s and Maureen ride it like professionals, glorying in their power as toasters, dancers, and desirable dancehall queens. Maureen was one of the first shatta singers to grab me back in 2019 with “Flex,” and her evolution over the past six years has been remarkable: if I’m any judge she’s a superstar in the making, and it looks like she’s attempting that level up now; she dropped an album less than two weeks ago that opens with a Jamaican collab called “Welcome to Shattaland.” YouTube: 853K views | Spotify: 337K streams | TikTok: 56 vids
November 5, 2025 at 3:26 AM
jonathanbogart.net
#TheTwen2ie5 Day 29

22. Nenny, “Mar Azul”
(Portugal [Cape Verde], Sep 1, 2022)
prod. i.M

youtu.be/tAMi1HfBPAM
Music video screencap. A shot from behind of a woman sitting on a brown sand beach looing out at the ocean. She is wearing a dark skirt and white top, with a white head covering. There are boats on the beach next to her, and poles for fishing nets and rocks in the foreground. There are cliffs in the distance on the left. The image is fairly desaturated, although the boats are painted brightly. 22. Nenny, “Mar Azul” (Portugal [Cape Verde], Sep 1, 2022) prod. i.M Ten years ago, it was writing about “Afro-Luso” music that put me on the path I’m on now: I needed more context for the Angolan, Mozambican, Cape Verdean, Portuguese, and Brazilian pop I was falling in love with, and the broader African, Afro-Latin, and Caribbean musical cultures came into focus as the picture in my head became more complete. Nenny (Marlene Tavares) would have been thirteen then, a songwriter already but not a recording artist yet. Born in Portugal, Nenny moved around Europe a lot in youth as her Cape Verdean-born parents sought economic opportunity after the late-2000s market collapse. She found a sympathetic collaborator in the i.M production team, and began releasing trappy R&B songs in 2019, at the age of seventeen. I’d noticed her then, but didn’t pay much attention until this song hit me across the face in 2022, a coladeira-inflected love letter to her ancestral home of Cape Verde, the blue sea of the title personified as a mother whose arms will embrace her, a raincoat to wrap her up in. She breaks into Kriolu instead of Portuguese part way through, as her soulful voice strains with sorrow and passion. I’ve been a fan ever since of her blend of thoughtful R&B with more regional sounds. YouTube: 1.3M views | Spotify: 1.8M streams | TikTok: 2.6K vids
November 4, 2025 at 4:21 AM
jonathanbogart.net
#TheTwen2ie5 Day 28

23. Italian Somali ft. El Boy C, “Follie Flow”
(Panama, Jan 15 2021)
prod. Capo Musica & Da Silva

youtu.be/TYxGsBHunzo
Music video title card. A street in Panama City, with colonial architecture on either side. A woman is in the foreground, posing as she looks at her phone. Behind her, Italian Somali in red shorts and a pink bucket hat is dancing, along with several backup dancers, and leering at her. Over top of this, in multicolored, multilatered lettering, are the words: FOLLIE FLOW 23. Italian Somali ft. El Boy C, “Follie Flow” (Panama, Jan 15 2021) prod. Capo Musica & Da Silva Reggaeton — or, if you care about the distinction, Latin American dancehall — was created by Panamanian deejays and toasters some thirty-five years ago. So it’s felt important to me to keep up with currents in Panamanian music, which feels much more like it’s in conversation with the broader Caribbean than with parochial Central America. The young Panamanian rapper I’ve latched on to above all others, Italian Somali (a.k.a. Javier Jackson), has only been active since 2018, but like many another dancehall or rap artist he’s immensely prolific, with dozens of singles per year, frequently collaborating with Panama’s dense network of rappers. “Follie Flow” is one of his biggest hits, with a laid-back afrobeats-style production and a lyric chatting up a girl by bragging about his flow, his connections, but mostly his primo ganja. The title is a reference to wealthy Panamanian beauty influencer Follie Dollie, which functions the same way that rappers name-dropping haute couture brands twenty years ago did: bragging about access to wealth, yes, but also telling the young women listening that he pays attention to them. YouTube: 3.7M views | Spotify: 6.1M streams | TikTok: 49 vids
November 3, 2025 at 3:29 AM
jonathanbogart.net
#TheTwen2ie5 Day 27

24. Meryl, “Coucou”
(Martinique, Feb 21 2020)
prod. Junior Alaprod

youtu.be/rLe5S1UKPko
Music video title card. A letterboxed shot of a nighttime scene in an apartment block. A car is in the foreground, and a woman in tight braids and white leopard-print jacket and brassiere has one leg raised so that her boot is on the hood of the car, and she is staring at the driver, who is obscured to us. Over this is a spiky clover logo and the words: MERYL Coucou At the bottom right of the screen is the logo of her label, which reads FIYAH RECORDS 24. Meryl, “Coucou” (Martinique, Feb 21 2020) prod. Junior Alaprod Probably the biggest artist to emerge from the French West Indies this decade, Meryl got her foot in the music industry as a ghostwriter and topliner for other French rappers both on the islands and from the mainland, including male ones, and she’s evidently more comfortable adopting male-coded postures and fashion than female-coded ones: for example, in this song, she is an observer and a celebrator of a sexually liberated dancing woman whose twerking is changing the world — but unlike so many of her peers in Francophone Caribbean rap and dancehall (Bamby, Jahlys, Kryssy, Shannon, Maureen, etc.) she is not the woman who is twerking. That aesthetic remove, intellectualizing the dance and all its cultural and political implications rather than expressing it bodily, has earned her a kind of respect not always offered to those other women, and she has the freedom to move more like a male artist does, even on songs like this one where she uses a high, feminine sing-song register rather than a more typical direct attack from the back of her throat. The biggest hit off her Jour avant caviar EP, “Coucou” proved she was more than just a skilled, politically-conscious rapper: she could play the pop game too, on her own terms. YouTube: 8.2M views | Spotify: 9.2M streams | TikTok: 4.4K vids
November 2, 2025 at 2:00 AM
jonathanbogart.net
#TheTwen2ie5 Day 26

25. Moonchild Sanelly, “Yebo Teacher”
(South Africa, Jun 29 2021)
prod. Josiah De Disciple

youtu.be/c7e-giHIsfg
Music video title card. A shot of a cloth-covere book being shown to the camera, Moonchild Sanelly's fingers, with sharp golden acrylics, all we see of her on the edges of the frame. The cloth cover is yellow and speckled, and stitched in white thread are the words: YEBO TEACHER MOONCHILD SANELLY 25. Moonchild Sanelly, “Yebo Teacher” (South Africa, Jun 29 2021) prod. Josiah De Disciple Moonchild Sanelly’s career as a fiercely independent, divinely freaky, but above all globally-minded poet, rapper and singer has only occasionally intersected with the live currents of popular music at work in her home nation of South Africa. Which is to say, she was never a gqom or amapiano artist, but she’s used elements of both at different stages; her loopy energy was an essential element of one of my favorite gqom songs of the 2010s, DJ Maphorisa’s “Midnight Starring,” in 2017, and on this sequel to her 2019 song “Yebo Mama” with Heavy-K, she rides the pulse and build of amapiano to create an atmosphere of buckle-down productivity, which according to her promotional statements was intended to inspire commercial entrepreneurship, artistic fulfillment, and female orgasms, all of which are equally important to her aesthetic project. But if the verses and “yebo teacher / okay teacher” refrain are Moonchild as drill sergeant insisting on being your best you, the wordless cock-crow portions are Moonchild as force of unknowable ecstasy, at recess or even playing hooky from her own song. YouTube: 607K views | Spotify: 704K streams | TikTok: 5.3K vids
November 1, 2025 at 2:02 AM