I recently asked a girl, "What's the first rap song or rap thing you think of?"
"[The] Thong Song," she answered, almost instantly. "I don't know why."
Some people know hip-hop. Some people don't know hip-hop. My friend is somewhat familiar with it, but "The Thong Song" (1999) was more or less the answer I was expecting.
For people of a certain age, Sisqó's "The Thong Song" is hip-hop, regardless of how into the culture they are. "The Thong Song" was one of the first totally unthreatening rap songs to permeate everything ever when we were first noticing these things.
The first rap song that I consciously learned was N.W.A.'s "Straight Outta Compton" (1988), as a joke with some friends in middle school. But that was 2001. Sisqó's ode to underwear came out a whole two years earlier, and I can guarantee that while learning the N.W.A. song I could, without even trying, have recited every word of "The Thong Song" along with the rest of you. Go ahead, I'll wait.
And yes, the lyric is "She had dumps like a truck, truck, truck."
I didn't even know what a thong was the first time I heard the song (that changed when I caught a glimpse of the video on "TRL" (1998-2008)), but the tune stuck.
No one remembers Sisqó. No one remembers what his album was called ("Unleash the Dragon" (1999)) or what color his hair is on the cover (silver). But everybody knows "what guys talk about." What a lot of people don't realize, though, is what the song is actually about: communist revolution.
By laying out, at the start of the song, exactly what guys talk about, Sisqó levels the playing field. He sets up two categories: ladies, whom he addresses, and guys, whose secrets he reveals. But the secrets that are discussed concern the ladies. Everyone is equalized by the initial revelation.
It is never made fully clear which group represents the proletariat and which represents the reigning political power, but most signs point to the guys as the former and the ladies as the latter. The ladies, according to Sisqó, "like to dance at all the hip-hop spots," and enjoy all styles of music, "not just urban/ she like the pop." The ladies/power get to enjoy the culture and the fruits of the laborers' labor, represented here by Sisqó — a guy — singing the song. The people labor away, producing and cultivating society, but never get to enjoy themselves.
If this is the case, then the demand that the ladies "let [them] see that thong, th-thong, thong, thong," is a demand for the power to be shared evenly. He continues with a cry for the leaders to step down: "Baby move your butt, butt, butt."
The thong itself is the clear representation of communism in the song. It is the hot topic of conversation among the proletariat, and the demand for the reigning political power to let them see it (it, it, it) is a demand to let them see Communism function, according to Marx's ideals, as the political system.
Sisqó isn't necessarily calling for a communist revolution, per se, but "The Thong Song" is the perfect vehicle to indoctrinate young minds with radical ideals: It's catchy, idealistic and highly appealing. Kids get excited when they hear it, and they learn it quickly at a young age. It doesn't make too much sense to realists or those in power, but, as the young audience has aged, many have demanded to see "that thong."
And when the thong has not been produced they have been disappointed.
Life doesn't always work according to ideals. Communism doesn't work in the real world, and a lot of women don't really wear thongs.
But that never stopped Sisqó. Or Karl Marx.
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Mitchell Geller is a senior majoring in psychology and English. He can be reached at Mitchell.Geller@Tufts.edu.
