I took pink skies as a metaphor for his girlfriend’s nether regions…if he has nothing else in his life. (He says his home is Sierra Leone — war torn, chaotic but still home)…in all of the difficulty being a young man in this world, you can take solace in the one you love…and in making love.
The ills of the real world are spilling over Ladera Heights…or the “sweet life”. The illusion of perfect slowly unravels…shit begins to get real.
The satellite needing a reciever could also be a metaphor for the girl/guy living the sweet life. So as the outside world tries occasionally breaks through to the willfully ignorant person living the sweet life, and they try to ignore the hardships of the world outside of their privileged cocoon, they find themselves unable to turn off the signal fully.
Meaning they cannot fully detach and enjoy the sweet life, because a part of them feels guilt or itches to know what lies outside of their Ladera Heights world.
Frank is saying he met a sexy African groupie girl with an English accent…see various sexy Nigerian/Eritrean/Ethiopean/Somoali/etc. supermodels.
Ex:
Liya Kebede
Or perhaps Cleopatra is a stripper…note the 6 inch heels…or beter yet just a woman with a love for dangerous heels.
We don’t see people arguing what the hell the Greeks/Roman people looked like. Is it so insane to think one of the greatest civilizations could have been one of brown and African people? With that aside I love Frank’s afrocentrism.
I laugh at all the homophobes who heard this song, fell in love with it, then shuddered to think they might have been singing along with a man, (who may) have been singing about another man. Ha!
I interpreted him saying “Don’t curse me” in reply to the the taxi driver who says “Allahu akbar”, as a rejection of prayer for a God that (according to most religions) wouldn’t approve of his love. I think he refers to his unrequieted love as the bad religion…not islam. But I’m pretty sure he isn’t saying islam is a bad religion. he
S saying unrequieted love is. Although I see how it could be interpreted that way, and I hope that isn’t what he’s trying to say. And I don’t support any discriminationatory speech against islam.
Lupe also touches on the subject of white privilege, and the assocation of poverty with blackness.
Clearly here Vanilla = white, and chocolate = black
Vanilla = white.
White privilege refers to the advantages whites accrue from american society as a result of the disadvantages to people of color.
Young parenthood in a war torn land…children playing adults, raising another generation of adults who may or may not continue their parent’s legacy. Making it the best they can. Sounds a lot like America. Hopeful.