Less than a month after dropping the catchy, stuttering, Hilton brothers-shaming diss track “Burn Down the Brixton,” the pseudonymous Jack on Fire has set another insidious D.C. scourge in his crosshairs: street harassment.
With growing rage, vocalist Jackie shout-sings her bitter response to catcallers in “I’m Not Your Fucking Baby,” a send-up of the diminutive, sexualized nicknames assholes use to intimidate women in public spaces. “Hear the whistle, hear the kiss of every fool who thinks I’m his,” she groans in high distortion over a persistent kickdrum and surf-punk guitars. Jack chimes in on the chorus in the (quite convincing) role of a creepy dude licking his chops: “Well hiya sexy lady.” “Mmm, you look tasty.” “Shake it for me, mami.”
It feels good—-cathartic, even—-to hear an unapologetic, impolite retort to the unsolicited comments that can make the city sidewalk a battleground for our dignity and self-esteem. Jackie sounds like she, like most women, has been the target of street harassment for far too long, and she’s not going to ignore it or explain it away because men are just hypersexual beings and they can’t control themselves if a woman’s attractive, now can they?
“Indeed, each of the shitty nicknames ‘featured’ in the song were things I have personally had hurled at me,” Jackie said in an email. “Street harassment has, unfortunately, shaped how I live a lot of my public life and I know I am not alone, so I wanted to remain true to that.”
“We really wanted this song to be a safe space for women to express the frustration that often comes with being a woman in public and get some of that autonomy and control back,” she went on.
I’m giving her bonus points for reclaiming the word “cunt” with pride, too: “I’m not your little fucking whore/I can be a cunt, sure/But as much as you, I own this space/I’m gonna throw that shit back in your face.”
Want to take Jackie’s example to heart and throw some shit around? Read my guide to calling out catcallers from our Etiquette Issue.
Stream “I’m Not Your Fucking Baby” below.