“One, two, three, and to the four…Snoop Doggy Dogg and Eric Cantor’s at ya door…” Come again? Ah yes, isn’t it the hippest of ironies. Two groups who wouldn’t be caught dead in the same room together are practically brothers from another mother. The similarities are so apparent that one wonders when Mitt is going to change his name to Lil’ Rom and Rick will change his name to Young P. Don’t believe me?…peep this… (that means “check this out” for the un-hip)
1. Lack of Creativity, Plenty of Lies: If you had to summarize the death of Gangster Rap and the Republican Right in three words; they would be, “Dumbing it Down.” Real rap music used to be a craft that valued originality, strong metaphors, unique delivery, and lyrical wordplay. Republican politics was a craft that valued new ideas, education, progress, and financial savvy. What happened? Well, the culprits in both groups grew up watching their predecessors getting rich, being promiscuous, buying mansions and Benz’s “givin ends to my friends and it feels stupendous.” A little Biggy Smalls, but I digress. The simple fact is, they got spoiled. It’s the old music video trick. They see the house, they see the money, they see the power, and they begin to think they don’t have to work to get these things. Their mentors growing up forgot to tell them that you have to read, master the english language, learn about business, work hard, and surround yourself with good people if you plan on being successful. Most importantly, they never learned how to be creative, they just copied what they saw on TV. The problem with Tea Party Rappers and Republicans is that they’re both singing the same old tired Hip-Hop song. It goes something like…grab your guns, get the money, sex the girls, sell some drugs, and kill the n***as. That’s right, Death Row Records and the Right Wing Records run on the same platform! Matter of fact, Rick Perry might have executed more people than all the gangsters on Death Row Records. The only difference is Gangster Rappers still go to jail for selling drugs and killing people, MC Gardasil gets to run for President. The bottom line is that acting cool and spitting out the same canned lyrics just isn’t enough. Complex issues require creative answers and the majority of the fan base is way smarter than they think. Sarah Palin is no different than a misguided inner city youth who thinks rapping ridiculousness pays. The sad thing is that Political Gangster Rap still pays because the uneducated minority that believes this nonsense still has some money to give. Gangster Rap fans do not. Regardless, both forms of lies will see their demise in the next five years because putting a money hungry moron on stage won’t get you votes and it won’t sell records. Sure you’ll see a Fox News commentary here and an MTV video there, but in the end, the majority of the fan base will say the same thing, “Haven’t I heard this song a million times before?” Next channel.
2. Claim Jesus, Worship Money: Ahhh, Gangster Rappers and Republicans with their Jesus pieces. If you didn’t know, Gangster Rappers often wear super expensive, gaudy chains adorned with a large charm of either a cross or Jesus’s face. That’s called a “Jesus Piece.” This is how a Gangster Rapper claims Jesus in his or her life. It doesn’t matter what obscenities they glorify, they put on that Jesus piece and everything is alright. This is very similar to the way right wingers claim Jesus by saying they’re Christian. It’s the big gold chain around they’re neck that says “hey, look at me, I roll with Jesus.” They think they’re appealing to Christian conservatives. What they don’t realize is that true followers of Christ can see the emptiness of their faith and put them in the category of the false prophets the Bible warns about. That’s not to say their faith is not strong, oh, it’s strong alright. However, their master is not the creator of the Universe, their master is the creator of the Bentley outside…and the Bentley is good. This new crop of Right Wingers and Presidential candidates are nothing but wannabe gangsters. There’s no code, there’s no loyalty, if you stand in the way of the money, you’re getting destroyed. Period. Women, children, gays, the poor, it doesn’t matter. “Left my wifey on the death bed, didn’t even get to me…now I’m with tha mistress, flossin up in Tiffany’s.” Now that’s gangsta! Who was that, Tupac? Oh my bad, that was Too Live Newt.
Besides the obvious moral bankruptcy, and if you actually believe in Jesus, the impending hell, it strikes me as odd that this anti-Jesus strategy doesn’t strike them as faulty in the long term. Pushing your brothers and sisters down in order to lift yourself up might help you in the short term but backfires 100% of the time in the long term. We’ve seen these strategies long enough to have actual proof, numbers, and statistics. It’s not an ideological guessing game anymore. Studies show that working at MacDonald’s is safer and more profitable than selling crack on the street. http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_analyzes_crack_economics.html . Turns out that selling crack, a mantra for most gangster rappers, has a hierarchy similar to a pyramid scheme. The income disparity between the head of the operation and the street dealers is astronomical. In addition, the quality of life for a crack operation foot soldier is quite low considering the low wages and high mortality rate. So it is clear to see the analogy, essentially, these politicians are at the top of the crack game making the brunt of the profit while their foot soldiers are out getting killed in the street. They flash some cash and jewelry and say, “Hey, you can have this someday, just keep selling those drugs on the street and we’ll bring you into the club.” Well, the crack dealers of politics made two mistakes. One, 30 years passed and they systematically kept the foot soldiers from advancing and getting a larger piece of the pie. And two, they forgot the foot soldiers were the majority, and now the majority is fed up. Occupy Wall Street is nothing but the final scene in the movie “Training Day.” Denzel Washington’s character has been raping and pillaging the neighborhood for years and finally he looked around and realized that nobody has his back. The consequences are here and money can’t save them anymore, God could have, but they walked away from him years ago.
Watch a Republican debate and follow the applause. Hooray for executions, letting the broke die, and letting people you don’t care about die in your wars. Don’t ask yourself what Jesus would do, ask yourself what a crack dealer would do. He’d probably say, “Make your money, boo boo.” What would Jesus do? Well, probably vote Democrat.
3. Slaves to the Street: Deep down, these seemingly dissimilar groups just want to be the man, don’t they? At the basic level these are two groups of people who grew up lacking and are trying to compensate for that lack. One might actually give more props to the gangsters because it’s a safe bet to say they didn’t grow up with money. Many of today’s Republicans are undoubtedly spoiled rich kids who had money instead of good parents. So they grow up as insecure kids, not very popular, and condescendingly anti-social. Rather than find ways to be likable they go the other way and begin to think they’re above everyone else. They revert to the thing they know the other kids don’t have and that’s money. They figure the more they get the happier they’ll be. Money begins to equate to self worth. The path of the wannabe Gangster Rapper is different but the goal is the same; get the money by any means necessary. Say what you have to say, do what you have to do, and cheat who you have to cheat. Tea Party Republicans shouldn’t be watching “The Town,” they need to be watching “Get Rich, or Die Tryin” starring 50 Cent. Good movie by the way.
The sad to truth to all of this is that for all the book deals and record deals, for all the club nights and dinner parties, both groups are just mere pawns in a bigger chess game. They appear to be “ballin” but it’s the man who signs their checks who controls them. Chris Rock says, “If Bill Gates woke up with Oprah’s money, he’d throw himself out of a window.” Why? Because there’s a difference between being rich and being wealthy. Record labels are wealthy, Wall Street is wealthy, and corporations are wealthy. In that pyramid scheme, Republicans and Rappers are the foot soldiers, the street dealers. When the Koch brothers decide to put your album on the shelf, you’re done. No more sold out arenas, no more T.V. appearances, and you often become a pariah in your own circle.
But why would Universal Records or Goldman Sachs even want to shelf your project in the first place? Simple, you lost your “street cred.” Street credibility whether we’re talking about Wall Street or Martin Luther King Blvd. is a code and a perception based on a set of lies. If these lies are not marketed properly or if truth begins to creep in then you will be immediately taken off the roster. Buddy Roemer can’t be an artist on Right Wing Records because he keeps rapping about sensible things like getting money out of politics. That’s like Too Short saying rap shouldn’t objectify women. It’s not going to fly. Watch some of the old Republican debates again. See if you can spot the Gangster Rappers trying to out “street cred” each other. “I killed more people than you.” “Oh yeah, well I robbed more people than you.” “Oh yeah, well I’m crazy, look at my eyes! Don’t mess with me!” And there’s Mitt Romney hoping they don’t bring up health care like it’s a Grammy winning gospel album he did years ago. “No guys really, I’m gangsta, I swear I’m gangsta!”
4. A Declining Fan Base: “Hip-Hop is dead.” You’ll hear that from two kinds of people. Either, an old school rapper who misses the days when even gangster rap had truth and creativity. Or, you’ll hear that from fans that crave Hip-Hop with the substance it used to have. That said, Hip-Hop isn’t dead, just like Democracy isn’t dead. It will never die, because in it’s essence, Hip-Hop is a movement just like Democracy. As long as freedom of expression is mixed with a thirst for progress, these two movements will not only remain alive but will thrive and flourish. It is just a simple fact of life that these movements will go through growing pains. Right now, what we are experiencing is essentially the death rattle of, quite honestly, lying.
All the whack entertainers you see today whether on a concert stage or debate stage are the children of an industry that lied to them. The lies told by the establishment Rappers and Republicans in the past were being absorbed by a whole generation of young people who actually believed it was true. Once a Rapper made money and got out of the hood, they knew that their old lifestyle was a dead-end for young people. Yet they kept glorifying it. Once Republicans got into office they knew they had to compromise to get things done. Yet they kept demonizing the other side. Now those young people grew up and regardless of what Reagan ACTUALLY did or what happened to Tupac, they’re determined to be thugs. Matter of fact, that is a better word to describe them, not gangsters, but thugs. There’s no substance, just bang bang shoot em up theatrics. Not to worry though, the hope and change we’ve been waiting for is finally here! No, not Barack Obama…the internet.
Ironic that the same vehicle that rattled the music industry has rattled politics to its core. Not only does the internet provide more options but if you lie, we know about it! No really, the video is right there. Now you combine television and the accessibility of mobile devices and you’ve got yourself a perfect storm of hope and change. You’re not putting much past the majority in today’s world. Arab Spring…internet. Occupy Wallstreet…internet. Election 2012…internet.
The fact is that the crowd that the extremists appeal to is quickly declining in size. What’s actually happening in our country and what some of these people are saying just doesn’t square up. The electorate fell asleep in 2010 but believe you me they had a cold bucket of water poured on them real quick. The votes won’t be there in 2012 just like records sales aren’t there anymore for artists that don’t appeal to the masses. That’s right, Republican politics is going to have to go “Pop.” That’s music lingo for going “popular,” which means they’re going to have to break out of the partisan gangsta mode and start appealing to a wider market of Americans. They’re going to have to make music that people of varying ages and ethnicities will want to listen to. The majority of the country believes in fair taxes, infrastructure, and education. So when Republicans step in the recording booth in 2012, they better be in there recording their next pop record. Yeah sure, your teabagger homeboys will say you sold out but let’s face it, it’s the rest of America that’s going to keep you employed. Hey, Lil Wayne used to be a Gangster Rapper and even he wizened up.
If that doesn’t convince you, then let’s break it down into simpler blocks. Old racists are dying and young people are growing up. Talk about dumbing it down. Do you know that there are 18 year olds right now that think Ice T and Ice Cube are actors? Yeah, crazy huh. Those guys created Gangster Rap and now Cube makes kids movies. Good for him too, he understood that his music had a time and a place. When those guys were making Gangster Rap somebody had to be the voice from the streets to tell people what was going on. Gangs and crack were running rampant and these guys were living it. The turning point came when the major labels decided to commercialize the story. It became profitable to spit out gangster rhetoric and it paid for a while. But over time the art was lost and the words were cheapened, and quite frankly, people died. Two of the best rappers in history gave their life to street cred, and that just doesn’t make sense to the kids of today. Young voters in their 20’s grew up in a world where one of the top rappers was white and one of the best golfers was black. Their circle of friends is a true melting pot of races, sexual orientations, and backgrounds. They truly don’t understand the racial overtones of the politics of today. Right Wingers think they’re accomplishing something by bashing Obama instead of presenting policy but they’re merely digging their own graves. The more they do that the more backlash there will be. Did police brutally diminish the Occupy Wall Street movement? Nope, just put more lighter fluid on the flames. Right Wingers need to see the writing on the wall and wizen up because when Pat Robertson tells you to tone it down, it’s time to do some soul searching. If not, then at least reach out to the Gangster Rapper electorate. The Republican Right Wing can agree to buy their records in exchange for votes. It won’t be enough to save them but at least they’ll die in each other’s arms.
mrpolitikin 