The final track on Doja Cat’s new album is named after the famous local delicacy. But the way she used it leaves some questions.
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ICYMI, Doja Cat is currently gearing up for the release of her new album, SCARLET, dropping this September 22. Already, she’s got a hit on her hands with Paint The Town Red topping charts and TikTok trends. And in the lead-up to the release of the LP, Doja treated us to one more single called Balut. But before you grab the Philippine flag, the way she used the popular street food may not be the best of executions.
NOT THAT KIND OF BALUT
As the final promo single before the release of SCARLET, Doja Cat dropped Balut last September 15. It’s been rumored for months that Doja reportedly named one of her new songs Balut, an interesting choice, to say the least. But it was only confirmed though when she dropped the official track list and eventually, the actual song.
But when you listen to the track, the mellow tune has nearly nothing to do with the dish. Now if you’re wondering why the song has that particular name, the rapper explained the meaning of the track on Instagram saying, “It signifies a bird being eaten alive. It’s a metaphor for Twitter stand and the death of Twitter toxicity. The beginning of X and the end of tweets.”
As we all know, this is not what balut is, even if Doja said on a recent Instagram Live that she tried the dish for the first time and liked it. It is not a bird being eaten alive but the a fertilized bird egg that, while eaten directly from the shell, is already dead. Even if Balut was supposed to be about Twitter, Doja probably shouldn’t have used the Filipino street food as an example considering how the meaning of the song and the dish itself are a far cry from each other. It’s an inaccurate metaphor if you ask us. But then again, this is Doja Cat we are talking about, so maybe she intended for this to happen.
RIGHT WORD, WRONG USE
Love it or hate it, balut is not some extreme kind of food that should be depicted as if you’re eating a bird alive. And this isn’t the first time balut has been misconstrued in Western pop culture (*cough* James Corden *cough*). TBH, it’s giving Westerners co-opting Asian culture that they don’t fully understand as they misconstrued things that are normal to most Filipinos. Filipinos dishes won’t have you feeling like you’re competing on Fear Factor.
TBH, the track itself is a bop and gives us shades of vintage Doja. But a problem stems when you try to depict it as something it’s not and make it an edgy dish when it is not. Let this be another reminder that when we see people outside of the culture use our words and terms, it’s important to know whether or not they’re using it properly. The last thing we need is for other people to depict regular aspects of Filipino culture as not what it is supposed to be.
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