When Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion dropped “WAP,” their sex-positive lyrics sent conservative pundits into overdrive. Well, it turns out the American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation is even more graphic, and Twitter is here for the "accessible heauxing."
A recent interpretation, by Libbey Ketterer, an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter from Ohio, has amassed an incredible 1.7 million views. Unlike the official YouTube video, which replaces "wet-ass-pussy" with “wet and gushy,” Ketterer hasn't sanitized the explicit lyrics, and it shows.
She even managed to interpret the lines: “I don’t wanna spit, I wanna gulp/ I wanna gag, I wanna choke/ I want you to touch that lil’ dangly thing that swing in the back of my throat” with anatomical precision.
In a TikTok video, Ketterer broke it down as follows: “CL-1 finger representing uvula, mouth open to indicate inside of mouth. Wiggling to indicate ‘dangly.' CL-BJ Touch (aimed at uvula CL).”
That being said, it is an interpretation, and she has clarified in a follow-up video that she didn't use the N-word, which is dropped numerous times in the OG lyrics. She did note that, as in spoken language, slurs exist, but she wasn't going to use it. "The reason I’m not gonna show it you is the reason why I didn’t use it in my cover is that it’s still inappropriate for me to sign the word being a white woman."
Ketterer is by no means the first to cover “WAP.” The day after the track dropped, a Deaf creator named Raven Sutton debuted an incredible interpretation of the song. Watch it below.
What these and many other ASL interpretations of WAP demonstrate is that there is considerable room for creativity. Deaf Hottie explains, "When I do a cover in ASL, other Deaf creators are allowed to do covers to the exact same song. Not every Deaf person interprets a song the same way. It's actually dope to see."
