Did It On 'Em

I’m not sure what the locus classicus is in rap for a rapper claiming or threatening to defecate on an antagonist.  My earliest reference is DMX’s “I shit on niggas like the toilet,” and is somewhat recently reiterated by Big Boi’s “I’m shitting on niggas / and I’m peeing on the seat.”  Of course, nobody should be surprised about the relative frequency of shit imagery in hip hop: given the traditional association of shit and money, one should expect no less from an art form which has so profoundly sublimated the possession of treasure.  Still, Nicki Minaj’s tremendous “Did It On ‘Em” sets a new benchmark for the trope. 

Obviously, I don’t want to reduce the act of shitting on someone or a group of people to any one meaning.  There are of course whole indices of pleasures associated with excrement that aren’t easily assimilated in what I’m about to claim might be Nicki’s intention, or the intention of conventional rap symbology.  I shouldn’t even conflate those two, because by setting this benchmark as I’m suggesting, “Did It On ‘Em” far transcends one of the key qualities of traditional “I shit on them” moments in rap.  That is, in DMX’s or Big Boi’s formulations, shitting on someone positions the rapper in space relative to the antagonist(s) but underscores that relationality by insisting on a disinterestedness of affect in the act of excretion.  The transformation of the other into the “toilet” is the transformation of an individual with unique qualities into furniture one routinely visits without much care.  When Big Boi says “and I’m peeing on the seat,” it even emphasizes his lack of consideration concerning the object contains his excrement.

“Did It On ‘Em” proposes an coproeconomy of such nuance and sophistication that it can hardly be careless or disaffected, although it certainly maintains the power relation inherent to the trope.  This is articulated and achieved through three key sets of imagery, which describe Nicki herself in terms of motherhood, class position, and artistic virtuosity.

The motherhood theme is cued by the very first line of the first verse, “All these bitches are my sons.”  One of the striking features of “Did It On ‘Em”s syntactical economy is the troubling of grammatical (and semantic) gender, person, and number.  Are these “bitches” women? If so, how can they be her “sons?”  If the bitches can be of any gender, how do we read the choice of addressee, which vacillates from the 3^rd person (the “them” of “did it on ‘em”) to the 2^nd person (“If you  could turn back time / Cher.”)  And for both persons, are we to always understand a plural number, or is the “you” somehow a singular apostrophe? But the gender troubling doesn’t stop with “All these bitches are my sons.”  While the sentiment that the speaker stands in a domination power position relative to the addressee is absolutely consistent and insistent, other sorts of typically stable contexts are ambiguized.  Hence, the mother in this role adopts the classical mantle of paterfamilias and appropriates one of his great privileges, that is, the determination of paternity (“you ain’t my sons / you my motherfuckin’ stepsons.”)  And this dominant relation and privilege is expressed by a multi-gendered figure with, “If I had a dick / I would pull it out and piss on ‘em.”

The idea that the mother would piss and shit on xir children highlights the power relation, which means that inasmuch as it elevates the mother figure, it denigrates the children.  I am not a sophisticated Lacanian, but I would like to welcome a commentary about the maternal vision in “Did It On ‘Em” as one in which the mother is absolutely turned into the father, with the attendant power to let the children die.  Because it’s not just pissing and shitting on the children; there’s a real sense that the children (again, “these bitches” or “us”) are, by virtue of being the excremental property of the mother/father figure, in a precarious state of being at any time disappeared.  The song’s final imagery: “terminator,” “you my seed / I’ma spray you with a germinator,” and of course the last lingering menace, “You used to be here / now you’re gone: / Nair.”  The denouement of the song, by associating the antagonist with unwanted body hair, actually transforms the antagonist into excrement.

All of which is fairly complicated from an economic standpoint.  The remarkable universe of “Did It On ‘Em” is one in which being shat upon transforms you into shit yourself.  It makes sense, then, that what the rapper feels upon encountering this object upon which sie has shit is precisely disgust.  And, again recalling the conventional association of shit and money, it’s interesting that these disgusting, excrement-covered others are actually impoverished.  This is what characterizes the specificity of the encounter with the antagonists in “Broke bitches crusty / disgust me” and the totally memorable “Keep some wet wipes / in case a bum tries to touch me / Ew.”

A last association I want to draw attention to is that “Did It On ‘Em,” despite the beautiful ambiguities that mark its fecal economy, is absolutely unambiguous about the spatial relation of the rapper and the addressee.  This picture is not so clear as to the time of the boast, and one thing I’d like to suggest is that the centrality of the word “just” actually refers to “Did It On ‘Em” itself.  That is, I shit on ‘em by performing the rap “Did It On ‘Em.”  This would be a page from the Wayne playbook, and I’m thinking of the beautiful moment in the “We Takin’ Over (freestyle)” when, as the song nears its end, Wayne raps, “I don’t know what ya’ll about / but I just spit like a dog’s mouth.”  In that line, as in “Did It On ‘Em,” the just can refer not to an unknowable period of time in which the rapper attains glory, but in the temporal moment of the song itself, just now, as you’re listening. 

There’s a way in which then, the confusion about number, person, and gender is meant to constitute the indeterminacy (and thus perhaps the immense size) of the audience.  Whoever’s listening is available for taking the role of the antagonist and risks realizing that oops! they’ve been shat upon.  This risk is in counterpoint to the inclusive balance proposed in the chorus, staged as an exhortation: “put your number twos in the air / if you did it on ‘em.”  Pick what side you’re on, folks—Nicki’s is clear: “she ain’t a Nicki fan / then the bitch deaf dumb.”