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Lady Gaga's new single off the forthcoming album ARTPOP leaked online yesterday, and depending on whom you talk to, it's either called "Aura" or "Burqa." Quality of the track aside (music bloggers have mixed opinions), it pretty blatantly sexualizes Muslim women. But that hardly makes it "controversial," which is pretty much as far as our discourse has gotten on the issue.
Look, Taylor Swift's choice of dating partners is controversial. When Miley Cyrus cut all her hair off? That was pretty damn controversial. When a white American pop star fetishizes the women of another culture in order to sell records, that's not controversial. It's unequivocally insensitive, if not worse.
Lady Gaga has worn burqa-like outfits before as a fashion statement. No one is quite sure what to make of them — the Daily Mail wrote that the veiled outfit she wore to a 2012 fashion show courted "controversy," and that she was "treading on dangerous ground." Well, she keeps treading the same ground, without much damage.
The lyrics of Gaga's new single complement the "sexy" burqa-like outfits she has been known to wear (at the same fashion show 2012, she wore a sheer, hot pink burqa with jeweled panties underneath, pictured above). Gaga hasn't confirmed that this leaked single is hers, but it sounds authentic and music blogs are treating it as such. Here are the lyrics to the new song (starting at the bridge, with emphasis added):
I’m not a wandering slave, I am a woman of choice
My veil is protection for the gorgeousness of my face
You want to fancy me cause . . . woman to loveBut in the bedroom, the size of them’s more than enough
Do you wanna see me naked, lover?
Do you wanna peak underneath the cover?
Do you wanna see the girl who lives behind the aura, behind the aura?
Do you wanna touch me, let’s make loveDo you wanna peak underneath the cover?
Do you wanna see the girl who lives behind the aura
Behind the aura, behind the aura, behind the aura
Enigma popstar is fun
She wear burqa for fashion
It’s not a statement as much as just a move of passion . . .Behind the aura, behind the aura,
Behind the curtain, behind the burqa, ARTPOP.
And the audio: