The Feminine Musique: The Buttress and The Rancorous Female Underbelly of Ancient Rome
In her newest single “Brutus,” alternative rapper The Buttress takes inspiration from the infamous assassination of Julius Caesar to narrate the neglected role of women in Ancient Roman society.
The Feminine Musique is a series where writers analyze portrayals of women in music.
Written by Kaileen Rooks
Photo courtesy of Matthew O’Shaughnessy
Ladies! Have you ever had a disturbingly vivid dream about murdering a man who wronged you and then lathering your face in his fresh blood? If so, I have just the song for you!
The Buttress’ “Brutus” conveys guttural fury through a spell-binding sequence of chant-like synths and feverish, escalating vocals. A heavy bassline and delirious, angsty tone convey righteous revenge, sanguineous self-actualization, and cathartic cleansing of the soul. The track divulges the inherent burden of the female experience — and a grisly escape from it.
Very few historical names invoke as much anger and repulsion as that of Marcus Julius Brutus, whose moniker has come to be synonymous with “treachery.” His traitorous assassination of one of the most distinguished rulers of all time (and the pinnacle of symbolic reference points for all forms of male and white dominance), has inspired virulent hatred in Ancient Roman bootlickers, history buffs, and incels alike. This aggrandized event is decidedly male in almost all modern receptions of it, but The Buttress turns this frightfully phallic story on its head. By incorporating the theme of female subjugation, she not only tells Brutus’ side of the story, but gives voice to an entire class of classical history. “Brutus” is a powerful reimagining of Julius Caesar’s death at the hands of his friend and compatriot. The story is retold from the perspective of a female Brutus, evoking a deep feminine rage against a male counterpart in a way that feels gutturally ancestral in its fervor. It endows the female Brutus with all that was denied of Roman women in the ancient period — the ability to be violent, power-hungry, and most of all, wrathful.
Ancient Roman women were deprived of any agency, sexually and politically. The Buttress’ track explores this conditional existence through the lens of an infamous historical figure — the poster child for betrayal. “Brutus” begins by verbalizing Brutus’ envy of Caesar’s political prowess and influence on society. The narrator introduces her relationship with Caesar, discussing her envy of the people's love for him and expressing her wish that “The people would see me too as a poet / And not just the muse.” Here, she highlights the essential motivation behind her murderous actions to come: rather than being seen as equally capable and influential as Caesar, Brutus’ capacity for power of any kind — in rhetoric, politics, or the arts — is stripped from her due to her sex. This lack of agency removes a sense of self and value. Her gender transforms her into something mythologized and abstracted to the point of dehumanization. Rather, she becomes non-autonomous and relegated to inferiority. She is forced into a position of lesser greatness and ability, despite her carnal hunger for power, recognition, glory. This hunger begins to consume her, and the more she is denied her right to respect and grandeur, the more audacious and homicidal she becomes. In the beginning lines of the second verse she invents her own solution to attain the ability she knows is owed to her and kill her only obstacle to power, the physical manifestation of all in her world that restrains her from her destiny.
Known for her sailor’s mouth and creative authenticity, The Buttress is an artistic hailstorm of vulgarity and unapologetic aggression. Not only a rapper, the Jersey-borne aficionado artist dedicates herself to all pursuits of gritty creative expression, from filmmaking to voice acting. Her candid nature makes itself clear in her lyricism, and her political and social stances are inextricable from her art. Juxtaposing her profane lyrical style with her subject matter, her music is reflective of her deepest opinions and experiences — from Biblical allusions to philosophical pondering about dopamine and drug use. A recurring theme, though, is that of female self-determination. “Brutus” interprets the female experience in a brash and grisly way, echoing the unapologetic individuality of the rapper herself. The track is as filthy and coarse as its creator, the pounding downbeat combines with the rhythmic chanting and laughter of female vocalists to create a background that’s alive with tension. It feeds into a slow-burn plunge into hysteria, intensified by the raw, grating vocals of the Buttress.
Brutus’ lack of self-determination festers into a building sense of animosity throughout the track. In the next verse, the narrator further delves into her own envy and desire for power. As the backbeat builds, leading into the final verses with a pulsating mantra of Brutus’ name, her whispered growl crescendos to a passionate, gasping diatribe teeming with thinly-veiled malevolence and frustration. The slow build throughout the song is akin to the narrator’s slow descent into madness, but can madness fueled by righteous rage even truly be called madness? She interrogates her audience fiercely, asking, “What’s more wrong, that I too wish to be great / Or my mother wished she’d had a son?” At the prelude to its climax, the song finally explicitly examines the central inequality implied throughout the song: the dominance of men in all facets of patriarchal Roman society that cuts women out of public life, and subsequently, history itself. The lust for power the narrator reveals in her lyricism has been denied her for her entire life, as in her world, power, violence, sex, and all forms of domination are reserved for men. Thus, the resentment woven throughout the sonics and lyrics of the song is the result of years of suppression and patronization, a resentment known well to women throughout time.
Climaxing in the actual murder, Brutus fulfills her dark destiny by stabbing Caesar to death amidst a musical atmosphere that is brimming with passion. The Buttress’ tone is pleading yet resolute as she brutally slaughters the object of her envy and ire. She laments the necessity of this murder, and yet reaffirms her violence as her conduit to greatness, proclaiming that she too “[has] a destiny / This death will be art.” As the song relaxes into its ending, it shifts the focus from Brutus’ outwardly violent act to Brutus’ internal battle with her riotous, turbulent psyche.
She closes her story by describing the birthplace of her wrath and envy, asserting in her moody, bitter murmur that “I am scorched by the sun / Of humble origins and born of the cursed sex.” She not only restates her anger at being rebuffed based on her sex but adds another layer by mentioning her “humble origins” or her lack of noble status. Brutus, in history, was a product of the common people of Rome. Caesar, however, was a prominent nobleman and (allegedly) descended from the mythologized founder of Rome, Aeneas. This historical background is part of what makes this line so moving in the songstress’’ lyrics — her Brutus was the antithesis of everything that Caesar was. In the eyes of Roman society, the latter was the perfect ruler: male, noble, rich, and a full-blooded Roman citizen. Brutus’ rage is more than envy towards Caesar; it is a rage that combats the foundational ideological constructions of Roman consciousness that defined her existence. The song reflects the passionate fury of a desperate girl banging on the bars of her cage.
The Buttress ends this song on a profound, robust note. Our narrator has once again adopted her low, potent growl, asserting, “My name is Brutus, but the people will call me Rex,” a Latin word meaning “king” or “sovereign.” Not only is this lyric powerful in its literal sense, but the word’s etymology makes the ending all the more resonant. The word “rex” is specifically defined as a masculine word in Latin; thus, when Brutus strikes down her forsaken enemy and takes power for herself, she not only kills the physical boundary between her and her desires, but she strikes down the abstract figure of male dominance in Roman society. Finally, she asserts dominance over the “man” who subjugated her, once and for all.