Black popular culture has been remixing its own version of bourgeois, at least since Gladys Knight & The Pips recorded their 1980 disco hit, “Bourgie, Bourgie” (pronounced “boo-jee, boojee”). The song describes a person “from across the tracks” who flaunts their new money with fancy clothes and a shiny car with a sunroof.
Whether you spell “bougie” as “bourgie” or “boujee,” the 21st-century slang word has flipped back to a definition Moliere would recognize. It’s used to playfully throw shade on upwardly mobile people with upper-middle-class tastes.
But sometimes the intent behind the slang word is less playful and more derisive, accusing the subject of being pretentious.
There’s also “boujee,” as popularized in Migos’ hit hip-hop song “Bad and Bouje,” which proudly flaunts newly acquired wealth and a fancy lifestyle — similar to what the Pips were teasing in the 1980s. The video shows well-heeled ladies wearing designer clothes, drinking champagne and eating out of Chanel fast-food containers.
