Memphis Blac (a.k.a Arapahoe) and her niece, Smokahontas Jones, are blazing up the viral charts with their song "Got Dat Work." It's a street hooker's anthem empowering the women of the oldest profession and boasting a music video shot in Miami, Hialeah, and South Beach over Memorial Day Weekend.
Miami's own Matthew Hoyos of Circle Tree Multimedia directed the video, which, in about two weeks, is up to more than 76,000 views on YouTube alone -- not bad for two otherwise unknown independent artists. (The pair owes most of its Internet notoriety, however, to WorldStarHipHop, which first posted the clip on June 10.)
These women aren't new to the music game, though. Memphis Blac has been rapping since 1994 and claims affiliations with J Prince of Rap-A-Lot Records, Ludacris, Pimp C, Devin the Dude, and other Southern greats. She was born in 1965 in Tennessee and spent decades as a sex worker before opening a legitimate business called Precious Treats, an ice cream and hamburger shop, named after her dead sister, in the Dallas projects.
She says her music is an attempt to raise awareness about condom use, the dangers of sex work, and to expose the reality and ubiquity of prostitution in America. Money raised from the track's sale and promotion go to Blac's urban outreach programs to promote education for at-risk youth.
We spoke to Memphis Blac and Smokahontas Jones via telephone from their East Dallas, Texas headquarters to get a bitch's wisdom. Here are the top 50 quotes from our interview with the ladies. Look out for their new single and video, "Hoe Money," coming soon.
50. "Im looking for an investor right now for a tour called '50 Bitches Deep.' It's a group of women on a big-ass tour promoting education."
49. "When they buried my sister, her ho-ass nigga tried to dig up her motherfuckin' body and steal her jewelry after she expired, mane, and that's why he in jail right now."
48. "Yeah, I'm a dirty bitch, but I ain't no filthy nasty bitch."
47. "Men talkin' bout we disgusting? They got dicks that stank, they don't change they draws, they shit they draws."
46. "I hoed for a nigga for a whole year straight before he ever bought me a motherfuckin' wig."
45. "Bitch, consider me a kin to Mother Theresa. I have took care of families and families off working this pussy. I hustle for these kids or else they end up in in the pen, or dead, or wrapped up in this bullshit."
44. "If you fry chicken you got work. Everybody got work, except a lazy bitch."
43. "Everything for sale. I'm the same bitch that'll sell you a cd and suck a dick for a fee."
42. "These bitches just givin' good pussy away. What the fuck I'm a do with a $1200 dollar bag when I can just get the $1200 dollars?"
41. "She played with his dick, but when she got out, she took everything he had."
40. "These once-a-month fuckin' bleeding-ass bitches. Faggot, maggot-ass bitches. These hoes lower than a muhfuckin' snake pussy get."
39. "They don't wanna give a bitch but $100, but they in a $1 million condo."
38. "A bitch mentality fucked up if she thinking a good dick some free dick. What a man don't give one woman they gon' turn around and give another bitch anyhow. Might as well get some money for it."
37. "Everything a pimp know he get from a ho. The ho is the pimp's eyes and ears on the street."
36. "Pimps ain't what they used to be. Ain't no real pimpin' goin on."
35. "You'd be surprised how many ex-hoes have assimilated into corporate America. Heidi Fleiss is a made woman."
34. "Lotta niggas talkin bout going raw for love. These be the main muhfuckas comin' home with they dick all lumped and fucked up and falling off and passing it to they wife."
33. "It's not just the pimp, it's the parents that need to start having conversations with these children bout how to protect they self."
32. "My ass is tied to a hog wire."
31. "I'm an old bitch now. I got a masters in these motherfuckin' streets."
30. "They tell me I'm too damn hard. What the fuck I'm 'posed to be, a piece of cotton?"
29. "Everybody know how to add, but don't know how to subtract, meanin a motherfucker only wanna know when you can count dollars. And that's that."
28. "Now they got the Internet. All these bitches sit on the computer all day in these motherfuckin' hotel rooms sayin', 'How can I help you?'"
27. "The same people who are against a woman flagging a car down are the same that pay 70 dollars just to get a blow job at the strip club."
26. "A pimp manages women. He puts a woman in a location where she can earn a profit."
25. "All women, all nationalities, they gonna use their pussy to barter off to the highest bidder to get what they want."
24. "You may be amazed how many guys say, 'My wife doesn't suck dick.'"
23. "People have fetish and fantasy. One man wanted me to come down and shit on him."
22. "Anywhere a bitch walk she can get a trick. There's always someone wanna get their dick played with."
21. "Anybody will tell you it's hard to get out of the life when you know how to touch down, make a dollar, and survive."
20. "Nobody can tell a ho's side about what goes on in these streets. Only a ho know about what's really goin' on out here."
19. "Porn is the church fucking the father for a blessing. These bitches fuckin' on camera all locked up in contracts. A ho choose a pimp, she don't get no contract."
18. "The ones that's naive come up missing and come up dead."
17. "I ho from a dollar to a million and still come home with more than she make in a nine-to-five."
16. "Your daughter's looking for a man in they life. Hell motherfuckin' naw. He gonna let the bitch call him daddy, but these daddies need to get they daughters off the welfare line."
15. "I'm only sayin' what the fuck I live."
14. "I have seen everything except a motherfuckin' UFO."
13. "Y'all hoes need to get your pimp on a life insurance policy. If he die you got nothing but a pair of hoe shoes."
12. "I got skills. I can fuck up any nigga that's rapping on a mic."
11. "On a dark street on a dark night that first car could be Jason or Freddy Krueger. People don't know what I been through."
10. "People wanna see Hollywood, but don't wanna see Hollyhood."
9. "They go home to they bitches like ain't nothing ever happen ... the nerve of these motherfuckers."
8. "Pimps teach they bitches to be dirty bitches, and I was a dirty bitch."
7. "I may not have a job, but I give blow jobs. That's a job."
6. "My very first song was called 'Please My Pimp.' I wrote it on Rikers Island."
5. "I was born 1965 out in the country. I lived with no running water. We had to shit outside with flies and maggots. We slept on the floor. The first time I got a bed was in a motherfuckin' hotel room."
4. "People be putting bricks in the piles of leaves the kids jump in. I bought my son a trampoline. I had to. I said, 'Let me go ho up and get two trampolines just so these kids could have something to do.'"
3. "I had a raggly-ass nigga on my sleeve and this nigga got eight kids and I'm takin' care of everybody, but if I can make a child smile I do it."
2. "I was 10 toes down. That means that my feet hit the concrete and I gotta get it."
1. "I'm tired. They can call me an old-ass, busted-ass, tired-ass bitch, but they don't pay my bills. I'm just now beginning to become a woman."
