Silly Ho
| "Silly Ho" | |
|---|---|
"Silly Ho" cover
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| Promotional single by TLC from the album FanMail | |
| Released | December 29, 1998 |
| A-side | "No Scrubs" |
| Recorded | 1998 |
| Genre | |
| Length | 4:15 |
| Label | LaFace |
| Writer(s) | Dallas Austin |
| Producer(s) | Cyptron |
"Silly Ho" is a song recorded by American R&B girl group TLC for their third studio album FanMail (1999). The song was written and produced by TLC's long-time collaborator Dallas Austin and was produced under his artificial intelligence alter ego pseudonym named Cyptron.
Instead of Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes's vocals being on the song due to a busy schedule, Vic-E, the then temporary voice-based fourth member for the group's FanMail era, makes an appearance on the rap verse and ad-libs.
It was sent to radio as a promotional single prior to the release of FanMail and managed to reach number twenty-one on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The song also peaked at number fifty-nine on the Hot 100.
It received mixed reviews from music critics, whom complimented the track itself but criticizing its misleading feminism lyrics.
It was also featured on several compilation albums.
"Silly Ho" is a R&B-techno song that built on a foundation of "annoying sonic" burrs and "cutesy chop-suey" synths. The song along with "I'm Good At Being Bad" were said to crank up the "raunch level" for the girls. Two authors Kerry Mallan and Sharyn Pearce analyzed its content in their book Youth Cultures: Texts, Images, and Identities:
"[The song] describes the narrator as a woman who has never relied on her partner to buy her what she wants. Indeed the narrator describes how she bought her own rings, so overturning the conventional associations of rings with romance. Such a position of autonomy is compared with the sexual obligation incurred by the "silly ho" who will do whatever is required by her new."
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Wikipedia