I didn’t think it was possible that someone could still have the audacity to say, “It’s the freakin’ weekend” at the end of the day on a Friday in 2023. As though they had no awareness about R. Kelly’s tie to the phrase (indeed, it could be argued that he, like, invented that phrase). Maybe they didn’t. It was possible they had no idea that the etymology of said sentence was from “Ignition (Remix).” But I found that hard to believe. It only took one glance to appraise this person—this woman—as a millennial. In other words, someone who would be well-acquainted with “Ignition (Remix).” Maybe she was so attuned to it that she wasn’t even aware of the cultural osmosis that had prompted her to say, “It’s the freakin’ weekend” in the first place. And sure, maybe in 2002, that might have been a common parlance, but after “Ignition (Remix),” everyone automatically associated that “saying” with R. Kelly. 

Thus, I could only surmise that she had simply decided to go the “French route” of being unoffended by R. Kelly’s well-publicized history of abuse by now. For, like me, she had found herself working in an office in Paris, where the “rules” felt slightly different than they would have been in the U.S., where any little off-handed phrase might serve as fodder for going to HR. As I probably would have, to be honest, were we not in France. Maybe I hadn’t been here long enough to embrace the “perks” of insensitivity. While this other woman, whose name, ironically, was Grace, had long ago decided that she was going to abandon her American hangups, chief among them being the constant worry of “offending” someone. Maybe “offense” wasn’t even the word that could be used to describe what I experienced, from my vantage point as the building’s receptionist, when I watched her saunter out the door of the office with a group of co-workers and dare to declare this R. Kelly lyric as though it truly were 2002. Maybe, as far as the others were concerned, it was. Because it’s not as though anyone outside of their birth cohort worked with them. There was no one younger (or older) around to tell them how ridiculous and anachronistic such a phrase sounded when said in earnest during the present. It seemed, if anyone was going to burst that bubble, it would have needed to be me. 

Unfortunately, in my role as a lowly receptionist (a glorified “greeter,” if you will), I was also the last person who would have been able to “speak out” against any perceived slight, regardless of the fact that 1) the declaration of it being the “freakin’ weekend” was not directed at me and 2) it wasn’t technically affronting for someone to utter a phrase that may or may not be a direct reference to a grotesque sexual predator’s song. Which, of course it was. I’m sure, in the end, Grace meant “no harm” by it, that she was merely trying to give her French co-workers something tantamount to un petit goût of her American joie de vivre. But there was nothing joyous in an R. Kelly reference. And there barely was in 2002, when allegations against R. Kelly were already made public. Indeed, the same year “Ignition (Remix)” was released, a sex tape of R. Kelly urinating on an underage girl had been widely circulated. Not to mention his highly questionable marriage to Aaliyah in the mid-90s, when she was just fifteen to Kelly’s twenty-seven (and yeah, it was particularly “ick” that he produced Aaliyah’s debut album, called Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number).

What’s more, they were only able to get married because Kelly helped her forge the necessary documents to make it seem as though she was actually eighteen. Therefore, a “consenting” adult. A part of me wanted to run out of the office and remind Grace of all this, just in case she forgot, or maybe never even knew in the first place. It wasn’t totally improbable. She was just a white girl, after all. But I stopped myself. I was still new on the job, and it was important that I didn’t “make things weird,” at least not for another few months. And besides, maybe it’s better to “pick one’s battles” in terms of what you’re willing to deem offensive. I had a feeling there would be plenty more “unwitting” triggers where that came from, and that I ought to mete out my reactions with prudence. 

But now, I was faced with a more pressing issue: that she had gotten the lyrics to “Ignition (Remix)” stuck in my head. Now I’m not trying to be rude/But hey, pretty girl, I’m feelin’ you/The way you do the things you do/Reminds me of my Lexus coupe/That’s why I’m all up in your grill/Tryin’ to get you to a hotel. How obvious it was that “R.” was a predator. “Hiding” in plain sight, as they like to say. More accurately, “the culture” hadn’t caught up to the idea that it’s pretty goddamn heinous to treat women the way they were in the 00s. It might have been the first decade to signal the oh so “futuristic” twenty-first century, but the truth was, things were more retro than ever, misogyny-wise. More to the point, a tolerance for misogyny that has been more gradually worn down as of today. Just not in France. The place I decided to move to without really examining that piece of the society. And again, it’s not as though that aspect of it was all bad. Sometimes, it could definitely be charming. Unless, of course, that was just my own long-standing internalized misogyny talking. I don’t know anymore. What I do know is that Grace’s words were sending me down the rabbit hole of remembrance, as I also recalled another verse from the song, the one that goes: Now it’s like Murder, She Wrote/Once I get you out them clothes/‘Privacy’ is on the door/But still they can hear you screamin’ ‘more’/Girl, I’m feelin’ what you’re feelin’/No more hopin’ and wishin’/I’m about to take my key and/Stick it in the ignition.” Such a subtle metaphor. 

So yes, while “It’s the freakin’ weekend, baby, I’m about to have me some fun” might sound “innocent” or “innocuous” on its own, when framed within the context of the entire “Ignition (Remix),” there’s no denying its foulness. That R. Kelly is saying he’s about to have the kind of rapey “fun” that the weekend will allow for him, mainly by extending the curfew for the sort of underage girls he’s pursuing. But again, maybe I ought to give Grace the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she really had no awareness of what the presently “antiquated” phrase (somewhere on par with “get your eagle on”) is associated with. 

And then, about five minutes later, after I had turned all the lights off and locked up, I saw her in the driver’s seat of a parked car (who drives in Paris?—apart from those who are paid to) outside the building, laughing with one of the co-workers she had previously walked out with as I heard it. The unmistakable bassline and lyrics to “Ignition (Remix).” This woman, I decided, was a monster. She rolled down the window at that moment to call out, “Hey Janine! Do you need a ride?” I most certainly did not. Nor did I need to spend any additional time outside of work with someone so utterly uncouth vis-à-vis her musical tastes and cultural references. So, politely, but vehemently, I shook my head. Non.