C+ // Crooked Smile // J. Cole ft. TLC

This song is REAL. 

There's a lot of strong messaging to women, mostly about insecurity about looks.

• Love yourself, girl, or nobody will / Oh, you a woman? I don't know how you deal / With all the pressure to look impressive and go out in heels / I feel for you / Killing yourself to find a man that'll kill for you / You wake up, put makeup on / Stare in the mirror but its clear that you can’t face what’s wrong / No need to fix what God already put his paint brush on / Your roommate yelling, "Why you gotta take so long?"

Then there's this verse:

• To all the women with the flaws, know it's hard my darling
  You wonder why you're lonely and your man's not calling
  You keep falling victim cause you're insecure
  And when I tell you that you're beautiful you can't be sure
  'Cause he don't seem to want you back
  And it got you asking
  So all you see is what you lacking
  Not what you packing
  Take it from a man that loves what you got
  And baby girl you're a star, don't let 'em tell you you're not
  Now is it real? Eyebrows, fingernails, hair
  Is it real? if it's not, girl you don't care
  Cause what's real is something that the eyes can't see
  That the hands can't touch
  That them broads can't be, and that's you
  Never let 'em see you frown
  And if you need a friend to pick you up, I'll be around
  And we can ride with the windows down, the music loud
  I can tell you ain't laughed in a while
  But I wanna see that crooked smile

And then he starts talking about racism and the system! oh snap! Crooked Smile vs. Lolly? No comparison.

But let's break it down according to criteria:

• Name calling? Bitch is a weird word. Sometimes it's empowered. Sometimes it's mean. Sometimes it's an identity. Sometimes it feels...objectifying, as it does here. *sigh*
• I got smart, I got rich, and I got bitches still / And they all look like my eyebrows: thick. 
• Woman in relation to man? Mostly I think it's in relation to herself and her internal criticism. Yes, it seems like the cure is first that he tells her she's beautiful. And she is totally worried about what guys think, but he seems to be calling that out. 
• Woman objectified? It seems to switch off from complimenting/objectifying "what you packing" and then saying the outside doesn't matter/you're made by God. Mixed messages.
• Woman disempowered? But calling that out. AND calling out racial power systems. yay!!
• We don't look nothing like the people on the screen
  You know them movie stars, picture perfect beauty queens
  But we got dreams and we got the right to chase em
  Look at the nation, that's a crooked smile braces couldn't even straighten
  Seem like half the race is either on probation, or in jail
  Wonder why we inhale, cause we in hell already
  I asked if my skin pale, would I then sell like Eminem or Adele?
• 
  

Ultimately, the song, though giving some mixed messages, is trying to empower people to embrace their flaws/not really care about them so much. Amen to that. 

• My shit is crooked look at how far I done got without it / I keep my twisted grill, just to show them kids it's real / We ain't picture perfect but we worth the picture still