By Jennifer Morton (Managing Editor, POZ)

[Editor’s Note: This blog entry contains explicit lyrics.]

lil_wayne.jpgI’ll admit I don’t know that much about Lil Wayne or his music. I know he is a popular rap artist, but rap isn’t really my first choice when it comes to music.

But last week, one of the POZ editors sent me a link to the article “Abortions, HIV: Lil Wayne’s Video for ’How to Love’ Goes Deep.” I was intrigued, so I watched Weezy’s new video directed by Chris Robinson. (I might not care much for rap, but I am hip enough to know Lil Wayne’s nickname is Weezy...)

Anyway...the song/video is a story of a young woman and how certain events in her life led her to have low self-esteem. As a result, she makes poor choices and eventually ends up in an emergency room with a doctor telling her that she has HIV. (The ER scene was a bit overdramatic, I might add, but the point was made.) The video then goes into “rewind” and shows what her life might have been like had she been taught how to love herself and others. A pretty powerful message, right?

We were considering if we should write something about the video on POZ.com when Hurricane Irene started barreling up the coast. As I prepped for the impending storm, I forgot about Lil Wayne until Sunday night when I found myself watching the Video Music Awards on MTV. Lil Wayne was scheduled to close the show, and when he came onstage he began performing “How to Love.” I thought it was an interesting choice for him to sing to promote his new album Tha Carter IV (it was released at midnight after the award ceremony). But as soon as he finished the last chorus, Lil Wayne segued into another song on his album called “John.”

To be honest, I had no idea what the song was about because every other word was bleeped out. I listened for a while, but the bleep bleep bleeps became so annoying that I turned off the TV and went to bed. But the next day I kept thinking about the juxtaposition of those two songs and I wondered what the heck “John” was about. Here’s the first refrain:

Fo’ fo’ bulldog, my muthafucking pet
I point it at you and tell that muthafucker fetch
I’m fucking her good, she got her legs on my neck
I get pussy, mouth and ass, call that bitch triple threat
When I was in jail she let me call her collect
But if she get greedy, I’m a starve her to death
Top down, it’s upset been fucking the world and nigga and I ain’t cum yet!
You fuck with me wrong, I knock your head off your neck
Hmm.... not quite as empowering as “How to Love.”

So while I’d like to give props to Lil Wayne for creating a song with a message about the importance of self-esteem, it’s hard to do so after hearing the message of his other material.

As for my music choices, I think I’ll just keep on listening to Adele and Katy Perry.

Watch the “How to Love” video: