Ciara, Ride | After Dark

On the 24^th edition of After Dark, we explore the naughty, risqué & utterly sexual vibes behind, “Ride” by Ciara. 

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nnuendo? More like full-on sexual vibes! Welcome to After Dark , a column featuring songs that are best suited for nighttime, specifically, the bedroom.  Like Controversial Tunes , the records featured here raise eyebrows.  The difference between the songs of CONTROVERSY and DARK? These songs specifically focus on the universal topic of S-E-X. The dark records gracing After Dark are old and new alike, with all genres of music welcome.  On the 24^th edition of After Dark, we explore the naughty, risqué & utterly sexual vibes behind, “Ride” by Ciara.  

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Theme & Lyrics

“He love the way I ride it, He love the way I ride the beat / Like a freak, freak, freak.” The ‘ride’ that the Grammy-winning “Goodies” singer Ciara references involves the joystick , and I’m not talking video games! “Ride,” which appears on the 2010 album, Basic Instinct, is naughty, raunchy, and risqué. C enlists Ludacris for the assist, which seems to be a match made in heaven… maybe hell – God probably isn’t a fan!  I mean, Luda should probably get down in his knees and pray, particularly when it comes to lines like, “She ride it like a roller coaster / As soon as I get her to the top, she screams.”

Part of the raunchiness can be attributed to the songwriting/production team, comprised of Christopher “Tricky” Stewart, Terius “The-Dream” Nash, and Kuk Harrell.  The-Dream, specifically, has been known for his fair share of dirty songs, so, it’s not surprising his pen plays a role on this ‘hot and bothered’ cut. Ciara is lustful – horny – and likewise, gets the boys horny too. She claims to be a gymnast at one point, but the only gymnastics she’ll be competing in are in the bedroom, or, wherever her and her man enjoy ‘making love.’

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Music Video

The music video , as you’d expect, is sexy as H-E- - . Ciara is a beautiful woman, and her dance moves are on-point.  Of course, she also rides a bull, which symbolic of that, um, well-endowed joystick, we assume.  That said, I’m not certain this music video would be enough to damn anyone to hell.  Since “Ride” arrived in 2010, we’ve had more risqué, NSFW videos that involved more skin and sex. Still, hot !

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Final Thoughts

This slow jam runs north of four-and-a-half minutes.  It’s worth every titillating second of the – wait for it – RIDE! Vroom, vroom !!!

Also appears on :
Ride: 3BOPS No. 47 (2021)

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Ciara • Basic Instinct • LaFace • 2010
Ciara, “Ride”: After Dark No. 24 [: Brent Faulkner, cottonbro from Pexels, KoolShooters from Pexels, LaFace, Luan Queiros from Pexels, The Musical Hype]

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