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From: REDACTED@yahoo.com
To: REDACTED@hotmail.com, REDACTED@yahoo.com, REDACTED@hotmail.com, REDACTED@yahoo.com
Subject: sick of mainstream rap
Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 10:29:45 -0800 (PST)

it really sucks how hip hop gets a bad rap nowadays. (no pun intended) all these mainstream artists fucking up the artform for those that have a true love for it.
i really think 50 cent and the slew of imitators that he has spawned or bit from have brought the artform to a new a low. i can't believe kids look up to these fools.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051110/music_nm/life_snitching_dc

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Upon reading the article here was my reply:

Hey REDACTED,

I am really torn on 50 cent. I think he has so much potential. Case in point is his rap on the Game's "Hate it or Love it". It's a morality tale in 30 seconds on par with the film "City of God" - probably the most important film to have been made in the last ten years.

Here they are:

Yea
Let's take'em back
Uh huh

Coming up I was confused
My mama kissing a girl
Confusion occurs
Coming up in a cold world
Daddy aint around
Probably out committing felonies
My favorite rapper used to sing
Check, check out my melody
I wanna live good so shit I sell dope
For a four-finger ring
One of them gold ropes
Nana told me if I passed I get a sheep skin coat
If I could move a few packs
I get the hat
Now that'll be dope
Tossed and turn in my sleep that night
Woke up the next morning
Niggaz done stole my bike
Different day, same shit
Ain't nothing good in the hood
I run away from this bitch
And never come back if I could

Jay Z sings about his own drug dealing past on Kanye West's song "Sierra Leone" that he's figuring if he sell kilos of coke, he can sell CDs and that "he had to get off the boat so he could walk on water" referring to selling drugs to get out of the ghetto. The song is about taking responsibility.

I am seeing a real social consciousness evolve from these rappers. It gives me hope.

I am a pretty ambitious intelligent person who is trying to get in the film business. I look at these guys as taking opportunities and making the most of them, and that path not always being glamorous, but there isn't a lot of hope in the ghetto. I imagine I would much rather rise out by selling drugs, than getting some shitty service job that pays min. wage and never leaving.
Thug life is a dangerous thing to glamorize for sure. I was really pissed when that feud broke out between 50 and the Game and someone was shot outside a radio station. So juvenile! But they publicly made up, and it didn't spiral into the days of Tupac and Biggie.

The "no snitching" policy is born out of many factors: there is no real government presence in the ghetto except for the cops, the schools are falling apart and have little or no after school programs, and the nuclear family is broken by single parenting and working full time jobs. These kids find protection, what they feel is unconditional love and self esteem from their peers. Of course they are going to be more loyal to them than to the government.

We need to be doing more positive things for the ghetto - like putting real money into schools, not just prosecuting the kids that are already lost.

I am going to go see "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" this weekend.

Hollyweird

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And here was his reply:

if i were to compile a list of the 100 greatest rappers of all time 50 cent would be nowhere near that list. shit he wouldn't even make it into the 200 hundred spot. i'm sorry but that example of rhyming that you copy and pasted doesn't really prove anything. all it proves is that 50 cent has therhyming ability of a kindergartner. and that's what i mean when i say that him and all of his imitators havefucked up the artform as a whole. they have dumbed rapdown so much it's not even funny. you want to hearskillful MC's? well you're going to have search beyond MTV and the radio.

and yes i do understand that:
making it out of the ghetto is a hard struggle that most times leads to nowhere. most kids (in the ghetto) don't have too many options besides dealing drugs, gangbanging, or sports. the system was designed to keep them down... i understand all of that and am sympathetic. that's not what i was speaking out about at all.

i'm speaking out about how rappers like 50 cent, Jahrule,Lil' Kim, Nelly, etc... they are a plague to hip hop. because everytime you turn around they're doing stupid crap for publicity to maintain their "hard" image.

and that's not keeping it real, that's keeping it wrong. they're supposed to be role models yet they act like a bunch of idiots. all the while slandering the artform of hip hop. that's just my two cents, from someone who has had a deep love and admiration for this artform ever since he was in the 3rd grade.

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So there you have it. I maintain that 50 Cent has a lot potential to be a voice of a generation and his current, pervasive popularity (A.K.A. MTV) is a necessary component to fulfill such a role.

I will post a review of the film next week. Hopefully, 50 stepped up to the plate and made a film that examines, not just glorifies thug life...

RELATED:

• 50 Cent's billboards yanked after protests
• A shooting in a Pittsburgh multiplex Wednesday night has resulted in a death, and the removal of the 50 Cent film thought to have incited it (via defamer)

# posted by Hollywierd @ 11:49 AM