After watching a documentary about Peter Gatian and how the clubs he owned in New York and various other places were hotbeds for illicit drug sells, one particular part of it made me ask myself a question, and that question is; “Is the uptick in the use of Ecstasy (E, Molly, or X) by young Black youths one of the reasons why so many of them love the horrible violent music that’s out, and have no feelings about taking the lives of their fellow peers?”
After watching the documentary and hearing them talk about how techno music became popular in London and New York on the back of X fueled rave parties it dawned on me, MDMA is a drug used to make you feel happy and euphoric. I’ve never used it myself but I know lots of people that have, and they all say that it amps things up, makes anything that you do that much better, anything that you like a little, great, and so on.
The dark side of X is that it has been linked to decreased levels of serotonin production and can cause increased depression and anxiety if it is abused long term. After too long of use, it becomes increasingly harder to be happy without it and you go into depressed stages when not on it.
So what this is saying is that while you’re using it, you like everything way more than you would if you weren’t using it, and if you abuse it for too long you you’ll find yourself in prolonged unhappy and depressed states that can lead to just about anything.
So let’s take this hypothesis and juxtapose it with the youth of today, and as far back as the mid 90’s.
During the mid 90’s E became popular on the hip hop scene as an illicit party drug. Knowing what I know about the hip hop party scene from back then up until now, I can safely say that there are myriads of songs that I have heard in the club whilst intoxicated that banged and made the club go up, but there was no way on God’s green earth that I would actually pay for them and listen to them at home or in the car. But if I was on that Molly, I’d probably have purchased every crappy club banger from then until now.
The Lil Kim AEffect
Chapter from The Pawn Queen!
BLK (Before Lil Kim) women in hip hop were uplifting the Black female with their lyrics. Most of the female emcees BLK were women of distinction and were a part of the Black power hip hop movements of the 80’s. You had women like Mc Lyte, Queen Latifah, Ms Melody, Salt and Pepa, Yo Yo, Monie Luv, etc. If you’re old enough to remember these women, if not google them, you will quickly realize that most of them were not sexy, half naked femcee’s but were for the most part, save one or two of them, overweight and wearing full garb. Salt and Pepa were the only ones out of this group of women who wore tight outfits but that was during the spandex era, which by the way is upon us again. These women wrote lyrics about being respectful women.
ALK (After Lil Kim) you will see that the vast majority of female emcees that were allowed to grace the stage as nationally respected women emcees had to fit the Lil Kim mold.
Hip hop had been usurped by the half naked gold digging hussy, as mom’s used to call them. Lil Kim ushered in an entirely new brand of hip hop for women. She was a firebrand, she knew exactly what she wanted and it was money, sex, and partying. Her lyrics were brazen and unapologetic for who she was. No endearing moments of motherhood, no uplifting lyrics of the Black Queen, she was by her own words, the Queen Bee-itch. But what she did have was the attitude of the independent woman who doesn’t know what being independent really is. She is the direct product of the use what you got to get what you want mind state that some black women teach their daughters. She was trying to escape her own reality by either getting a man with money or doing whatever it took to make money, as she willfully rapped about in her lyrics. For the most part she would write her own lyrics and Biggie would make sure that the words flowed properly to the beats and add his input to make sure she sounded good on her albums.
It’s Official – It Controls Your Brain
Dead Prez had a line in “It’s Bigger Than Hip Hop” that went – “Uh, one thing ’bout music when it hit you feel no pain/White folks say it controls yo’ brain/I know better than that, that’s game”. When this lyric was spit by M1 of Dead Prez, all who listened to it repeated the same phrase, or something similar either out loud or in their minds; yep, they’re trying to make rap music the blame for the problems in our neighborhood, it’s not the music.
Because hindsight is 20/20 can we say that now? I say not!
If we, Black men continue to say that hip hop lyrics and music does not play any role in the way we act on any level, then you my friends, are in denial. And when you read this and still say that it doesn’t play a significant part in the way our communities have been shaped over the past 3 decades, then not only are you in denial but you’re a blooming idiot and more than likely a part of the problem that plagues us. Any rational person who wants to be, or is, a part of the solution should be able to correlate hip hop and the landscape of the United Mind-States of African America, with the violence and misogyny that is prevalent within our communities today.
To make it easy for you I’ll sight a few instances that can show a direct cause and effect type of outcome.
In 1991 Ice Cube said “I told all my friends, don’t drink 8 Ball cause St Ides is givin ends” in his song “Steady Mobbin”. Shortly thereafter St Ides became the #1 selling beer in the Black community, this gave rise to commercials by just about all the top rappers of that era. From Ice Cube, to 2pac, Dr Dre, Snoop Dog, The Geto Boys, Mc Eiht, The Wutang Clan, Biggie Smalls, Cypress Hill, EPMD, Redman and even Eric B and Rakim got in on the money grab. St Ides was paying rappers to endorse their malt liquor and it worked to the tune of millions and millions of dollars in sales. This was the very first time that I had noticed the power of hip hop. I never correlated the fact that the reason that I was drinking Old English 800 was because NWA rapped about it constantly, or that we went out and bought Brass Monkey because the Beastie Boys wrote a song about it. But when Cube said that line in his song and then did subsequent commercials, I saw firsthand how hip hop lyrics influenced our buying habits, so why wouldn’t they affect other things as well.
The very next year Redman came out with a song called “How To Roll a Blunt” in which he rhymed about how to use a cigar as rolling paper for weed instead of using joint paper. Before this song people smoked joints instead of blunts, although blunts had started hitting the streets before the song came out but it solidified its place in black communities after Redman wrote about it. Blunt cigar makers have made 100’s of millions to billions in revenue off the sale of Blunt cigars since that song was made 20 years ago.
Witness King James The Decider
9 years ago an 18 year old high school basketball phenom decided to bypass college and go straight to the pros. He was immediately castrated for doing so because so-called “basketball aficionado’s” wanted him to go to college and “learn how to play the game”. Lebron promptly won the Rookie of the Year award over Dewayne Wade who played 3 years at Marquette, and Carmelo Anthony that played 1 year at Syracuse. He did something only 2 other players in the history of the NBA had done, average over 20 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists per game. The other 2 players that accomplished this were Michael Jordan and Oscar Robertson, two of the best players the game has ever WITNESSed, pun intended. Looks like things worked out!
During his rookie season he was crowned King James by the marketing heads at Nike and as any 19 year old would have done, if put in the same situation, he accepted the title and ran with it. But regardless of what he did, anyone that knows endorsement deals know that they have a lot of control over your on and off the court image, so he had little to no input into the decision. Besides, if you were offered $90 million to endorse a shoe, and be crowned as a king, you would have made the same decision as he did with no hesitation.
Two years later, in 2005, he made another decision that had sports pundits, business execs and anybody with an opinion up in arms. The Internets was on fire. How could this young [black] athlete be so brazen? Lebron fired his agent and hired his long time friends to run his fastly growing empire. Everyone had something negative to say about this move. He was making the biggest mistake of his life, his career as a major endorser was dead in the water. How could he let these young [black] kids RUiN his career like this? But Lebron had faith in the abilities of his friends and they never skipped a beat, gaining more and more endorsements and helping their lifelong friend build an even greater empire. Once again things worked out the way he planned them!
The following year, in 2006 he led his team to the playoffs but they got knocked out in the Eastern Conference semifinals by Detroit. The next year, in 2007, he led his team to the Finals for the first time in franchise history but was defeated in 4 games by the San Antonio Spurs. The following year they were knocked out in the semifinals and the year after they got Shaq to help him out. They made it back to the conference finals but were defeated by Orlando.
In 2010, Lebron’s last year under contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers, they went back to the playoffs and were defeated by Boston in the conference semifinals once again. This would be his last year wearing a Cavalier uniform; The Decider had decided to use free agency to take his talents to a new team.
Martial Law Chicago, Coming to a Street Corner Near You!
228 + murders and 100’s and 100’s more shot this year in Chicago already! Why, people are asking? Why so much violence is such a beautiful city? You have a plethora of talking heads; the mayor, the police chief, and anyone else with an opinion churning out answers and happily standing in front of cameras at press conferences all around the city, but the violence continues on.
At this point Jody Weis has to fill a little bit better about his track record as police chief here. No matter what he tried to do it kept coming back to these wild wild west type of spring and summer occurrences. I remember posting on a social network a few years ago that I loved it when it rained during the summer, and everyone chimed in about the rain helping to break up the heat, the smell of rain and so on, but I came back and said, I like it because at least then you’ll know that there will be no shootings. Because for some reason gangbangers don’t like getting wet. When it rains no one is standing around outside selling drugs, smoking or drinking, they’re all in their cribs or somewhere indoors, so the shooting stops. But as soon as the sun comes out it’s back to the gunplay.
So as city leaders debate about what will stop the shootings, making it rain seems to be the only thing that has stopped it so far, and rain is an act of God, so in short, only an act of God can stop it. Or there is one other alternative, Martial Law. Yep, you heard it here; martial law is the only other way to stop the violence besides an act of God!
Let’s be serious, the vast majority of the violence in Chicago is centered in the same neighborhoods every single year, then you have a few problems outside these areas but nothing as major as what you see in Englewood week in and week out. Would the mayor be wrong for laying that option on the table? I say no! The mayor should have the option to declare martial law and disperse them to these problem areas until they can get it under control. As a Black man spewing this I know this will get a lot of people heated and the so called Black leaders will chime in about how it’s like being back in slavery. Or what’s going to stop them from putting all Black people in concentration camps like they did the Japanese, blah, blah, blah!
Which would you rather see; a neighborhood of law abiding citizens being murdered weekly, and be under the control of vicious gangs, or an over powering military presence that makes sure that the gangbangers stay in check for the most part? Yeah, it will cause some angst amongst the community but no more than being scared to sit on your porch.
So to all you gangbangers who are destroying your communities because of drugs and gang affiliation, Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, Fuck your rights as American citizens. You are enemy combatants and you should be treated as such. The vast majority of people that live in these areas are law abiding citizens and you are making it hell on them day in and day out. People can’t even sit on their porch or near the front window of their homes because one of you no aiming bastards are shooting the wrong person all the time. Travelling to and from work is a problem because of you ignorant bastards. Continue reading