Katy Perry loves rappers. She cherishes their awkwardly phrased porno lyrics. And she loves whipped cream. So, naturally, she just released a song called “Bon Appétit” featuring Migos. Yes, it all makes perfect sense.
We’re 11 weeks deep into her album rollout, and Katy Perry’s second single sits in stark contrast with her first. “Chained to the Rhythm” was her big, dystopian gesture (“Stumbling around like a wasted zombie / Yeah, we think we’re free”) following a presidential election that her favored candidate lost rather badly. Given the acute pessimism of “Chained,” and the artist’s ongoing a-woke-ening as it’s played out on social media, it seemed entirely possible that Katy Perry’s next album would be a massively disorienting and potentially ill-advised protest record of some sort, complete with a deep post-facto Bernie Sanders dis track and a bonus cut titled “Obama Cared.”
But Perry’s chaser to “Chained” is called “Bon Appétit” because Miss Katy Kat is singing about food, and the Migos (they’re all present, this isn’t one of those songs where Takeoff is inexplicably missing) are rapping about food … or are they? “Bon Appétit” is a wonderfully frivolous song full of goofy culinary metaphors for sex acts; a kitchen sink full of ___, if you will. There’s a lot of “spreading” and “eating” on this song, aye-ooo: “I’m a five-star Michelin / a Kobe flown in.” (I am quoting Katy Perry directly.)
As far as collaborations go, “Bon Appétit” is also the latest great entry in the Migos world-domination project. Ever since Quavo achieved peak rapping on a Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment album, we’ve understood that Migos is down for virtually anything in the way of guest verses. Here, we’re treated to Offset reimagining a donut as a calisthenically taxing bedroom maneuver: “I grab her legs and now divide, aight / Make her do a donut when she ride.” Mind you, this isn’t even the only new pop posse cut that features the Migos out today. The new DJ Khaled single, “I’m the One,” also dropped Friday morning, and that song features Quavo, Weezy, Chance, and the Biebz all bopping and comparing pickup lines (“I make your dreams come true when you wake up / And your look’s just the same without no makeup”). This is the sexiest Friday morning in recent memory.
