“Lemon” had the world asking “who’s that girl?” for a whole different reason.
Mette Towley is devastating as the video’s formerly unknown solo dancer, strikingly beautiful but also fluid in her movement in ways that look near impossible to duplicate. But leave it to social media to do exactly that. “Lemon” and Mette’s unbelievable moves became one of 2017’s biggest viral dances, blowing up across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and even live on “The Voice.”
But if you only noticed the moves, you missed out because “Lemon” is layers upon layers of cultural gems from jump.
The members of N.E.R.D. never appear in the video themselves, but Pharrell opens this edit of the song in a voiceover: “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” He attributes the quote to a Gloria Steinem speech, though it has earlier origins. So before we’ve seen a single image, we’ve got a feminist insight.
And before she’s uttered a single word, we quick cut to Rihanna, who in the ultimate expression of Black motherhood, sisterhood and love, tends to the hair of a woman at her feet. But instead of parting, braiding, or twisting, we watch her slowly shear every bit of it off. For Black women, hair has history, but it also has weight. The weight of legality, the weight of patriarchy, the weight of femininity, all piled onto our heads. And the moment after Rihanna strips Mette of hers, a “mad ethnic right now” soundbyte transitions us to Mette alone in a darkened swap meet, where she absolutely unleashes.
PAUSE. Because during this scene, Pharrell drops some lyrical tidbits along the way that quickly and brilliantly touch on past, present and pop culture. “Hunt me down like the C.I.A.” is a pointed reference to the federal government’s repeated campaigns against African-American leaders and creatives, labeling them as dissidents, communists, and even funding their capture and/or assassination. “The T.I. case” is the legendary moment in hip-hop history when rapper & already convicted felon T.I. was arrested attempting to buy guns and subsequently found to be in possession of MANY more, but somehow escaped the lifetime in prison usually dealt to repeat Black offenders, with only a year and a $100K fine. The “Eli Face” belongs to Eli Manning, brother of Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning, who was photographed and widely memed over looking unenthusiastic at best when his brother won the Super Bowl. “Wait a minute,” sampled throughout the song is a clip from Senator Arlen Specter confronting a town hall audience member. There’s a few more of those references throughout the radio edit, including “I tried to tell y’all about this dude” recalling when Pharrell spoke on the 2016 election noting people’s vague dislike and obvious gender bias against Hillary Clinton: “‘Well, I don’t trust her.’ But you trust him?” You’ll notice that the antagonists Pharrell describes while he creates space for Rihanna to simply be confident, rich, and seen in her verses, are primarily white men.
Even Mette’s dance moves are a tribute to defying culture. She’s not just dancing, she’s channeling history. African-American dance in particular is rooted in movement of the hips, torso, and footwork—all shown special attention by Mette and focus in cinematography—because enslaved people were forbidden from lifting their feet off the ground to dance. As it always does, our stolen joy simply found new outlets, and in the covertly “mad ethnic” feminist protest song “Lemon,” N.E.R.D. and Rihanna make it impossible not to channel that joy yourself.
Even if Mette does it way better than you.