Miriana Conte’s song Kant was selected as Malta’s entry for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, though the singer was forced to change the title and lyrics, as ‘kant’ (the Maltese word for ‘singing’) was deemed too phonetically close to ‘cunt’. The song was a pun on the c-word, with its chorus of “Serving kant” sounding almost exactly like ‘serving cunt’. For the Eurovision TV broadcast, its title was changed to Serving, and the word ‘kant’ was dropped from the lyrics.
The c-word is becoming increasingly common in contemporary pop lyrics, thanks to the influence of ballroom drag culture. RuPaul’s Drag Race popularised ballroom terms such as ‘serving’, and used ‘cunt’ as an acronym for ‘charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent’, to describe drag queen qualities. Drag artist Kevin Aviance’s single Cunty was sampled by Beyoncé on her song Pure/Honey in 2022, and this year Marina released her single Cuntissimo, a feminist anthem from her album Princess of Power.