This is the latest public appearance from the rapper, in line with several podcast episodes and video interviews on The Breakfast Club, Bryhana’s podcast and even a Bumble roundtable. All of his most recent appearances have shared themes of intimacy, rethinking Black masculinities and exploring sexual freedom. I am never surprised to see anyone featured on StyleLikeU, a channel I’ve loved for nearly a decade and whose interview concept aptly named What’s Underneath is a sort of performance art, challenging subjects and viewers to grapple with the complexities of identity, trauma and relationships in a way that has maintained its essence and ethos all these years later.
Jidenna’s appearance on the channel is part of a new partnership between StyleLikeU’s founders (a mother-daughter duo) and the Man Enough team helmed by Justin Baldoni. An initiative meant to challenge toxic masculinity and champion male liberation. The 23-minute video boldly titled “I Robbed Women of Their Baby-Making Years” follows the standard What’s Underneath format. Jidenna slowly removes his accessories and various articles of clothing while he ponders over questions asked by a faceless voice behind the camera. The physical unveiling is symbolic, he is baring his soul. He looks great as always, his ensemble tells a story which he proudly explains as hybrid African-matador chic with a bit of Hasidic Jewish inspo.
He begins by laying his horse-tail switch on the ground, inherited from his Igbo father. When asked if he uses his style to distract from any internal messiness, Jidenna responds “Maybe”. This sets the tone for the rest of the interview as it weaves through his takes on Black men and their fear of intimacy. Jidenna seems to assume the role of insider-outsider. He has seen the dangers of this aversion to intimacy up close and he now takes it upon himself to challenge it.
Jidenna starts to lose me early on when he concludes his reflection on the need to instill a comfort/familiarity with intimacy in little boys with the manifestation of this failure being harmful to women. How does this lack translate to hurting women? I’m not following the natural progression that Jidenna seems to assume here. Does insecurity absolve men? As I watched, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was all strategic on Jidenna’s part. Does this women-led channel lend him legitimacy? Is it supposed to be easier to absolve him?
Right off the bat, he gives us his reason for being here, that this is part of his journey of rediscovery. This being the transparency and vulnerability required of him to share in this way.
I wonder why men must destroy women on their quest to find themselves, to become better. I rarely notice this pattern among women , most of us in fact work hard to stop harming ourselves in the endless pursuit of self-discovery. Often we find ourselves embroiled in some man’s journey as the sacrificial lamb, the side-effect of his undoing.
As bangles come off, there is Jidenna’s declaration as plain as can be. “I was a master manipulator”. He delves into specifics, how he gaslit the women in his life, unashamedly wielded his power as a man and recognized artist. Is it performance when he asks “How could I do that to Black women?” Is it enough to be disgusted with this past version of himself?
Do we have to admire this self-awareness? I wonder what and who this vulnerability is in service of. I think we are supposed to be impressed that Jidenna is well aware of the harm he has perpetuated all while maintaining a false, progressive image. At first, I was amused by his self-deprecation. He does in fact know that he is perhaps the chairman of the fake woke, alt-Black fuck boy committee. As he says, many of them are disingenuous in their bohemian clothing and asymmetrical hair. They are engaging in a performance. Betting on their aesthetic choices being enough to speak for them. Assuming we will fall for it, except we often don’t. As one woman commented under his recent promotional Instagram post “Jidenna is just The Game for girls who read books”, this particular brand of nice guy is becoming increasingly clockable and this is just the latest case-study. Jidenna has left us with a lot of material for cultural fodder and has perhaps revealed much more than he intended. His own brief exploration of the contradictions of aesthetic taste and personal politics indicates broader implications. Nathalie Olah delves into the significance of aesthetic choice in her new book; Bad Taste or the politics of ugliness. Olah explores the ways elite groups practice modes of concealment to obscure the harmful ways in which wealth is accumulated and maintained. In an interview for Dazed Digital she notes Obama’s curated playlists as an iteration of this sort of deception. Obama and other liberal elite rely on specific external/superficial markers to represent them, to serve as an arm of their values. Much in the way that Jidenna and his alt-Black fuck boy crew expect their aesthetic choices to conceal the misogynist within.