Hypocrisy Surrounding Hip Hop

Hip hop is wild. No other genre can make people dance to actual murder confessions and murder threats. People hate murderers and rapists until they rap. If Jeffrey Dahmer had a record deal he’d be lit.

“I’m big Jeffrey I don’t think you want no action, You want action you get turned into pasta”

“Will the real Jim Jones please stand up, hi kids do you like kool aid? wanna see me kill 900 people on a Tuesday?”

That ones weird cause there’s a rapper named Jim Jones. And I don't know if he’s killed people with kool aid. But who has ever seen them in a room together? Not me. Conspiracy theory! Rapper Jim Jones killed people in Guyana moved to America and became a rapper where he can confess to his murders in music and everyone is just gonna dance to it. And he kept the name for the added street cred.

Then rappers have the audacity to look for snitches. I don’t mean to keep going back but god damn. The Tekashi 69 situation really put things in perspective for me. Rappers don’t get how the internet works. They don’t. They can’t. If they did so many rappers wouldn’t be telling on themselves in all their music and social media. You said it right there nigga, track 4 titled “He’ll be dead by Sunday” posted on Saturday evening, after you posted a video on Instagram captioned “No cap this not a threat it’s a promise” where you proceeded to explain how you are going to “put a 30 pack on his head”.

Urban dictionary fucked that whole shit up for rappers. You used to be able to get away with using slang that the police wouldn’t know but now they could just google that shit and urban dictionary be at the top of the page like “Hanna Montana definition: cocaine from the jungles of Tennessee”. I have no idea if that’s what Hannah Montana is but I know it’s drugs. And so do the cops so stop that shit.

Really? That murder from last week is the only thing you can talk about? Where’s your artistic range man. You’ve been alive 16 whole years pull from your other experiences. What happened at school this week? Do you have a crush on anyone? I wanna hear about Tay Ks Valentine’s Day, how he wrote a poem for some high school senior but he’s a freshman so he’s kinda scared but his friends told him it’s a good idea and he’s about to read it to her after the chem lab. Instead he rapped about actually murdering someone and then running away from the police, while he was on the run from the police. Then he posted that shit up on the internet like the police can’t look at your location at the top right of the insta post. “Oh he’s right there at the Waffle House go get em”.

But what does that say about us as a society that we enjoy that? We’re all dancing to this kids traumatizing life experience of having to take another life. And we’re here woahing to it. Hot nigga will always go hard for me. But all them niggas are in jail for that shit. It was a full murder confession with the names of the people who did the crimes and we all just dance to it.

It’s also that the government doesn’t care about rappers lives. Rappers can be threatened, shot at and even murdered and nobody does shit about it. 69s life was being threatened and the feds just swooped in and arrested him. Talking about “we saved his life”. I mean you could’ve gone and arrested the people threatening his life but you got his ass too. And he might deserve it. But then trying to sell the story as “we saved his life” like they were doing him a service by putting him in jail sounds like adding insult to injury. That’s like if someone’s about to smack you, and I come and do it first. I didn’t save you just cause I got to you first.

Tupac and Biggie died like 30 years ago and nobody’s even been a suspect. That’s why Hip hop makes you a conspiracy theorist though. Cause people lie so much but some times, some times it’s very real. So you’re forced into the conspiracies. Suge Knight was on Jimmy Kimmel saying that he injected Eazy E with an aids needle. But it’s not popular belief that he killed Eazy E. I dont know how much clearer he could've been when speaking.

But at the same time there are people that’ll say “it’s just art”. “I was playing a character”. And that’s valid too. It’s the only genre that demands realism but denounces it just as quickly. We want our rappers real until we find out they actually did that shit and everyone is quick to call them stupid and question how they could possibly have put the confession in their music, when that’s obviously what’s going to sell most and gain the most attention. Cause if you're exposed for not doing what you're talking about odds are you'll be slim jesus'd. YBN Nahmir did a remix to Tay K's 'The Race' and the comment section is filled with people clowning him because they don't think he's really "about that life"

We praise their realism until they reach a certain point in their career. When all the eyes are on them and they’re finally making it, here come the police that just ignored you until your song blew up.

It seems like as soon as you get a record deal you get a charge. No other genre either, just rappers, you get a record deal you get a charge. Buy one get one free. Like they were in the club dancing and then hot nigga came on and they’re like “Mitch caught a body bout a week ago! Ohhh shitt I completely forgot about that! We were supposed to arrest that guy months ago! Aw this is gonna hurt like a butt cheek on a stick Johnson! Oh my god alright, alright all units report to Bobby Shmurdas house, I really fucked up”

They didn’t really have to do much paperwork in that case did they. They just printed out the lyrics off of genius. It had their legal names, birthdays, addresses and social security number.

We just need to get better as a society and not want to listen to murder in our music. I’m a 98 baby so I don’t know a life without hip hop but the more I look back the more I’m starting to realize that music that talks about killing people being mainstream is a fairly new concept. This wouldn’t have been allowed in the 20’s on the radio bout “ I kill a nigga", no these people had songs like “guys and gals and all your pals”. When we came around they were like fuck all that, if you don’t write every drug you’ve ever taken and every murder, theft, time you’ve cheated on a test, lust, sloth you cant make a song. You have to say all seven of your deadliest sins when writing a song these days.

Not that I want music to go back to that. I fuck with I wanna hold your hand by the Beatles but it doesn’t touch birthday song by 2Chainz. “When I die bury me inside the Louis store, when I die bury me inside the Gucci store, all I want for my birthday is a big booty hoe”. He’s pouring his heart out on the song talking about his life desires, aging and facing his own mortality. Any 2chainz song is better than any bum ass Shakespearean play. But hip hops influence on the world is inspiring. Here are these young black kids, from poor neighbourhoods that got these white kids in Sweden talking about “Brooklyn in the house” and "on foe nem". The African diaspora around the world but especially in America is the most influential group of humans on earth. Hip hop is bigger than race, gender and religion and it was made by a couple of kids in poor neighbourhoods in New York City. We create culture. All these sayings that corporations use as their taglines and make billions from like "on fleek" or "YOLO". All these dances that everyone else takes credit for, from fortnite to the white house to schools around the world. Niggas weren't wearing Louis Vuitton or Gucci or Versace or Bape before rappers started wearing them. There are words that didn't exist until rappers said them. Lil Wayne invented bling bling. There are people hooked on drugs right now because their favourite rapper said it was cool to sip lean. Companies pay millions of dollars to use rappers as walking advertisements for their brands because they are aware of how influential they are.

That’s why you can’t really hate on most rappers. That’s why I root for their music even if they did commit heinous acts. Cause we might not like it but it’s what their environment breeds. They’re products of a system that profits off the pain of a people. The actions they took were necessary where they come from because that was the way to get them and their family out of their predicament. But as soon as they’re out of the systemically created hell they're literally boxed in, they're put in jail for what we give them money to do and promote. Cause their song that got them signed and made them wealthy is also the song that they confess to murder in. It’s just a bad cycle. Record labels sign these artists, sensationalize the lifestyle and then continue to promote and glorify the actions and they've been doing it for decades. An artist will either die or go to jail and they'll just rinse and repeat the cycle with a whole new crop of kids eagerly waiting to be chewed up and spit out by the beast.

It’s still free Rowdy, Bobby, Tay K, 69, Kodak Black and DMX. The last two aren’t in jail right now but it seems like they get locked up every other week so I thought I’d get a head start. It really does seem like they get DMX in every other week for some dumb shit though. Oh you thought you was free nigga? What about this jaywalking ticket from 93? You thought we forgot?

People have always been doing crazy shit so when did it become a thing to put it in your music? I’ve heard Bobby Brown used to beat Whitney Houston but you never heard a new edition song of him going “I told that girl don’t tempt me, yeah you know that bitch Whitney”. No, they sang about can’t stand you in the rain and things. But at some point it became the norm to put your whole criminal record on a track. But that’s just for rappers. Ariana Grande doesn’t sing about her criminal activity. Like when she licked the donut at the donut store. Then she proceeded to put the licked donut back on the shelf. I ain’t forget.

Girl popstars have it different though. Instead of crime they have to talk about every relationship they’ve ever been in. Beyonce made an album about her husbands infidelity, every Taylor Swift song is about the last Zac Efron looking nigga she was dating and now every Ariana Grande song is about the last man she was with. Any time a dude runs out of material for their next album they move on to the next man. “Ugh this guy is treating me too nicely, if we don’t break up what am I gonna rhyme with hope killer”

I’m kidding but the girl pop stars are slowly turning into rappers. Ariana out here on songs saying names like she’s. Pac She’ll order off the names then talk about “one taught me love, one taught me pain” damn are you tryna shoot the fade? How do any of these guys date these women knowing there’s gonna be a song about them eventually? We all heard the last album my friend, you knew where this was headed. Like you leave the toilet seat up and she don’t even yell at you she’s just in bed with a pen and a notepad talking about “does I should cheat rhyme with toilet seat?”

On a serious note though I somewhat believe a lot of rap music is a trap to destroy the black community. It’s still my shit though. I'm not talking about all rap music. Hip hop is one of the most beautiful art forms ever and an amazing form of expression. There are albums like Illmatic, To Pimp A Butterfly and so much more that transcend just music. But a lot of popular rap music nowadays is telling us to go do and sell drugs, rob and kill other black people and that’s how we’ll get rich. Mainstream rap nowadays is literally named trap music. I don’t know how much clearer they can get.

I still wanna dance to “I’m sliding over cars while I shoot! I think that I’m Tom Cruise” It’s a dilemma. That lines hard though. Side note, I genuinely believe Bobby Shmurda did that during an altercation. He definitely saw mission impossible one night and he’s like “yes that”. And went to slide over a car to shoot at someone like Tom Cruise. And nobody can tell me it didn’t happen.

It’s crazy though when you look back at all the songs we grew up listening to. I don’t think there’s many generations in human history that can say they grew up listening to music that actively told them to kill someone. And now the mass murder rate is high. We’re just violent as a society. When I say we I mean people in North America mainly but the rest of the world plays a hand in it. Every form of media we have is very barbaric from our sports to our music to our movies. It’s explosions and violence topped with a lot of sex. It’s creating a world of horny angry people that wanna blow shit up.

People don’t like to hear that though. People will tell you it’s just art and yes you’re right. But it’s not just a painting I’m looking at, it’s a catchy hypnotic trance I’m listening to multiple times a day giving me specific instructions. “Kill that nigga, fuck that nigga up, stab him in the dick, stab him in the dick” after a while you might wanna stab a nigga in the dick.

Obviously I’m exaggerating but you know what I mean? How many of us learned vital life lessons from movies or music? Me too. So that clearly tells you that this stuff can touch you on a deeper level than you might even realize. So even on a subconscious level I think a lot of most of the media we consume is making us aggressive and angry.

It’s also called media programming. That’s another thing they weren’t trying to be too slick with naming. Television and radio programming. Programming: To input into you, the person watching. I don’t know though. They got bill Cosby and he’s been raping since before a rap song ever came out so maybe people are just fucked up and will do fucked up shit regardless of what we watch and listen to. Maybe the only reason we have more mass murders now is because more weapons are accessible to people who are unstable. Maybe our music is a reflection of the societies that exist within our countries as opposed to the cause of it. And who knows, in the words of the little Mexican girl from that one commercial, why not both? All I know is I'm tired of my favourite musicians being dead or in jail as we continue to support an industry that sensationalizes and romanticizes the violence that got them there. RIP XXXTentacion, 2Pac, Biggie Smalls, Nipsey Hussle, Smoke Dawg, Jimmy Wopo and much more.

#Society #Entertainment #HipHop #Rap