Ca$h App Connectivities

Abstract This article studies how contemporary Black southern cultural production undermines racial and gendered structures of exploitation and foments radical sites of relation by claiming worth under alternative schemes of value that center Black life and demand payment — “cash app me.” The analysis reads with scholar-artist Chaz Barracks's ($Chaz-Antoine) 2020 film Everyday Black Matter and rap duo City Girls’ 2020 antiwork anthem and video “Jobs.” This writing performs an audacious gathering as it is submitted in tandem with Barracks's article for this issue, which offers “con-artistry” as a theory of queer Black joy. This text joins Barracks's con-artistry with my conception of high-maintenance feminism, which describes a contemporary cultural movement in which Black femmes assert their value beyond the confines of respectability and demand what is due to them financially and otherwise within the exploitative context of racial capitalism. The article draws from the standard definition of high-maintenance as “needing a lot of work to keep in good condition” and extends this meaning to describe the depleting physical, mental, emotional, economic, and metaphysical strains placed upon Black femmes under anti-Black conditions, and the considerable care work and remuneration required to survive these strains and access enjoyment.