Where Marx Meets Migos
The rap trio’s usage of <em>bougie</em> preserves the philosopher’s original intention.
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“You know something, we ain’t never really had no old money,” the Migos member Offset begins the trio’s 2016 megahit, “Bad and Boujee.” “We got a whole lot of new money, though.” Although there are differing opinions about whether and mean the, and, no matter which spelling you choose, the word has something to do with class. The original derivation is from , a French word just as difficult to spell as it is to pronounce, that is most commonly used to refer to the affluent social class (middle or upper middle) whose material interests are tied up in the means of production and private property. So how did the term evolve all the way from Marxist theory to mainstream trap music?
