When Rihanna's single, "Work," came out at the end of January, it was met with some confused listeners. Some have called it "gibberish," "jabber," even "nonsensical." I have to admit, when I first heard the song I had a similar reaction. I thought it sounded lazy and couldn't understand half of what Rihanna was saying. But what I and tons of other listeners did not realize is Ri Ri is not simply muttering incomprehensible lyrics; she is speaking dialect in her song.
The dialect is known as Jamaican Patois, which is English-based but with influences from West Africa. It's common all throughout the Caribbean. Rihanna's use of Patois is most notable in the song's hook, which genius.com records as going like this:
He said me haffi
Work, work, work, work, work, work
He see me do mi
Dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt
So me put in
Work, work, work, work, work, work
When you ah guh
Learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn
Meh nuh cyar if him
Hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt, hurting
In the Caribbean dialect, “me haffi” means “I have to,” “ah guh” means “going to,” and “Meh nuh cyar” means “I don’t care.” When you take the time to look at the lyrics/listen more closely, the lyrics are actually pretty self explanatory, considering it is written in an English dialect. Yet people are ignorantly calling this song “gibberish” because it is not written in the glossy English listeners are used to.
It's no secret that Rihanna is from Barbados and this is not the first time she's shown her Caribbean heritage in her songs. 'Man Down' and 'Pon De Replay' alike both have Caribbean influences. Thus, it should not come as a shock to listeners that Rihanna uses dialect in 'Work'. It only makes sense that a Caribbean singer would use her Caribbean roots in a song.
Yet, memes like this one have become widespread across the web:
And tweets like this:
I have to admit, I could see why people view Rihanna's song this way, because that was my initial reaction too: confusion. After all, the dialect is littered between normal English, so listeners could be lost when Ri Ri goes from singing what they're used to hearing to a seemingly foreign tongue. Yet, we should probably refrain from brushing off a song as incomprehensible gibberish without doing our proper research.
It's OK to be ignorant. Ignorance in itself is not inherently a bad thing-- it just means the absence of knowledge. But instead of basking in ignorance and making uneducated comments and 'jokes', we should do our research first.
I think we also, as a culture, tend to be afraid of what we don't know. So what if some of the lyrics aren't our usual scream-at-the top-of-our-lungs dance hall anthems? "Work" isn't my favorite song but its awesome, Jamaican-inspired beat and lyrics are things we should high five Ri Ri for-- not bash her.
