“Abi your body na meat pie?”

I first pause.

How was this an appropriate response to “I'm fine”? Or did I mishear him the first time? I'm pretty sure he had asked how I was doing and I answered the way I should, but I was overthinking it and the line was silent for too long.

“Hello? Are you still there?”  I decided not to voice my confusion and we carried on with the phone call. After all, I knew this particular friend for his expert use of slangs and social media lingo. It also wasn't the first time something he said caught me off guard, so I didn't want to make it a big deal.

But I had never heard that particular slang before, so I was completely and utterly lost. That same day, as I scrolled through Instagram reels and Snapchat stories, I saw this meat pie body of a thing repeated  again and again. 'Ah, so it's a new thing' I whispered to myself.

My curiosity got the best of me and without wasting any more time, I quickly opened my trusty TikTok and typed in the phrase “Body na meatpie”.

A skinny dude popped up on the screen whose name I discovered is “Mavo”. My nose scrunched up as I watched him dance, wondering what part of this was entertaining.

There were already so many memes and jokes curated from the song. The ironic part is that it isn't even Mavo's song! Another artist called CKay featured him in it and Mavo stole all the spotlight.

In the comment section, people were going crazy with their own interpretations of the song.

One person said Mavo was calling the girl's body a ten (another internet slang for a beautiful woman), another said that it meant the girl's body had stretch marks because of the similar looking marks on meat pie, and all I could think was “What if he just likes meat pie?!”

Seriously, what if Mavo said ‘meat pie’ because it was the first thing that came to his head, or maybe it's his favorite snack?

I am of the firm belief that things shouldn't be made more complicated than they need to be and this is definitely one of them.

We like to sit and analyze the lyrics of our favorite songs and say things like ‘Oh my God, they ate with this line!’, but honestly, what if the artist put that sentence in simply because they felt like it, or they lacked a better way to put it?

Okay yes, I'll admit that some artists actually put a lot of thought into what they write. People like J. Cole, Eminem and some other names I can't remember at the moment.

But the rest?

The same thing goes for literature. In school, the teachers want us to analyze Robert Frost's poems and try to think of the genius behind his words. 

What could have been his motive?

What do you think he meant by this?

Well, what if he was bored and just decided to write that line, ma'am? I know that has happened to me and several other writers (testify in the comments).

It would be incredibly funny if I wrote something today out of complete boredom and some poor student was made to “analyze” it for hidden meanings during an important examination, don't you think?

But I guess that's how legends are made - by blowing their motives up out of proportion.

Till today, I still don't know what it means to have a meatpie body, but in the words of British drill rapper, Central Cee, “I'll accept it nevertheless”.