This Ain’t A Rhetorical Question

Elijah Blake “Whatever Happened”

“Whatever Happened” is right on the edge of self-parody, with vulnerable sentiments about being rejected presented in a way that seems like it’s at least partly meant to be taken as a self-deprecating joke. But…maybe not? Some guys are not very self-aware. Elijah Blake is singing about a college girl he hooked up with after a Future show at SXSW in Austin, and he’s totally incredulous that she’s ghosting him now after he spent so much money on taking her on trips to Paris. (Three times, exactly.) “I was ’bout to pull you out that dorm and put you up in a suite,” he sings. “It could have happened!” Blake is totally flabbergasted that this young woman – possibly a teenager still – didn’t just drop everything to live a fancy life off his money, as if desiring some agency or following through on her own ambitions are totally outlandish concepts. I’d like to think that the joke’s at his own expense, and that we’re meant to laugh at his thinly veiled insecurity and his inability to deal with being used by this girl when he thought he had all the power in that relationship. But he really does seem upset about this, and I’ve come to side against men in most contemporary R&B songs, so who knows.

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