Just because R&B singer Kelly Rowland hasn’t yet become the superstar her Destiny’s Child cohort Beyoncé is doesn’t mean she isn’t posting a pretty successful career apart from the supergroup that launched her. Rowland provided vocals for Nelly’s runaway hit “Dilemma” in 2002 and released her first solo effort (Simply Deep) the same year—four years before Destiny’s Child called it quits. That album sold 2.5 million copies. Her next effort, Ms. Kelly, went platinum as well.
“Motivation,” from her third release, Here I Am, is a slow, sultry song. And it’s about sex, pure and simple. No context, no romance, just the down and dirty.
“Oh, lover, don’t you dare slow down,” Kelly purrs. “Go longer, you can last more rounds/Push harder, you’re almost there now/ … And when we’re done, I don’t wanna feel my legs/And when we’re done, I just wanna feel your hands all over me, baby.” Lil Wayne’s guest contribution goes even further than that (!), appropriating words such as “rainforest” and “sugar” as he raps about oral sex and different positions.
Suffice it to say that there’s nothing double about these entendres, no questions about the intended meaning. And the accompanying video is similarly drenched in sensuality, as Rowland undulates with a bevy of half-clothed men and women. Throughout, couples touch and tease, caress and kiss in a steamy warehouse, implying that something like a mass orgy could break out at any moment. In one brief scene, for example, a man kisses an androgynous woman while a disembodied hand reaches up to paw her crotch.
Rowland strokes the chests and sometimes grabs at the crotches of her male background dancers while miming sexual movements. At one point, a woman strokes her shoulders and back suggestively as well.
The unmistakable message throughout both the song and the video is simply this: Sex is all that matters. Sex is all there is. Sex is everything.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
