ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the sexual politics of African American singer Truth Hurts’ 2002 hit song “Addictive.” I challenge dominant accounts of “Addictive” that posit that the song’s unauthorized sampling of the Bollywood film song “Thoda Resham Lagta Hai” extends the post-9/11 imperialist logics of orientalism. I offer, instead, a re-reading of “Addictive” that centers gender and sexuality, and I argue that such a centering counters orientalist/imperial narratives and produces Afro-Asian solidarity. In all, my analysis of “Addictive” seeks to provide alternative theorizations of the political importance and possibilities of contemporary Afro-South Asian music in the US.
