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Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino Says Chris Brown Song “Perpetuates Rape Culture”

Chris Brown‘s history with violence against women shouldn’t be news to anyone. This has allegedly continued even after his attack on Rihanna with a woman claiming she was punched in the face by Brown earlier this year. Last year’s planned tour of Australia caused a huge uproar and a consequential cancellation, thanks to his abusive behaviour and awful, self-righteous attitude, among other things.

Unsurprisingly, the themes in his song Back To Sleep are making some of us feel very uncomfortable.

Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino has expressed her disgust for the song itself, as well as the fact that it has been in the Billboard Top 100 charts for 17 weeks, on Twitter. She describes it as a song that “perpetuates rape culture” with lyrics like “just let me rock, fuck you back to sleep girl, don’t say a word no, girl don’t you talk.”

Just that small passage is enough to make us cringe.

https://twitter.com/BestCoast/status/721746003183833088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

She slammed Billboard‘s review of the album it features on, which refers to his music as a “stellar collection of panty-dropping and baby-making songs.” She gave them a more truthful alternative.

She finished off by reminding everyone of the big issues of rape culture and the treatment of women in society. She encourages us to find the part of the song where he asks for consent as any respectful human being would.

 

Read some of Cosentino’s insights into sexism in the music industry from social media and a personal essay.

Image: Pitchfork