A clip from Monday night’s episode Love & Hip Hop: New York, shows rapper Remy Ma in the recording studio, dropping some bars that did not sit well with viewers. Holding , in one arm, Remy holds her phone in her other hand, where she reads f the lyrics into the mic. The first few lines, in which Remy spits, “They got this saying, ‘integrity comes first.’ Social media makes it worse,” were not the cause any controversy surrounding the clip. Instead, the Internet decided to focus on the message—and delivery— the new few lyrics.
“Real mothers don’t…twerk,” Remy exclaims, with a pause between “don’t” and “twerk” that comes across as way funnier than it should. Because we can’t hear the beat that Remy’s flow is attempting to match, the pause seems to be non-sensical. The result Remy’s insinuation that a “real,” i.e. “good” mother doesn’t twerk, as if a woman can’t do both, coupled with this comical brief silence had the Internet in tears.
However, it’s the next few lines that are sparking more serious discourse on the clip. Many folks are taking issue with the lyrics that follow. “She a nurse. Wash the clothes, make dinner and dessert” further re-enforce Remy’s implications that, instead twerking, a real mother has a “proper” pression like being a nurse, and does domestic duties like laundry and cooking. Remy’s recording session then gets interrupted by her baby, and the timing almost makes it seem as if Reminisce herself is objecting to her own mother’s ideas about motherhood. While this is obviously just a coincidence and good editing, plenty people did object to Remy’s ideas, and saying the lyrics are “misogynistic.”