Rappers Ain’t Nothin but Salesmen

Once upon a time there was a rapper. He wanted to be famous, like so many others but didn’t know what route to take. He thought he would be a party rapper but no club would play his music. So he went to talking about being a drug dealer and boom, things became quite different. Everybody loved him, but not necessarily because of being himself – but because he was an image.

The same could be said for another rapper, this one of the female gene pool. Just being a female rapper was a novelty in itself but she had to go the extra mile. Would she be raunchy? Would she just spit bars all day long to get the public’s attention? She decided to use a combination of both and created a cult the likes which few have ever seen.

Those two examples could lead me to be either a terrible analyzer of rappers or someone from the outside looking in who can easily pick rappers out of a lineup without even hearing one single rhyme from them. When you see rappers stand up for the simplest things to them, you then realize what matters to them and how much power they wield. Rappers are politicians, instead of suits they were named brand streetwear and promote clubs , religion and making money.

Oh, and shooting down haters, can’t forget that one.

For instance, Diddy can shill almost anything – except justice for those that deserve it. Half of me wanted to hope the "Last Train to Paris" caught a leak and fell off the tracks and the other half wanted me to hope for more. That sort of duality can be held to the fact that well – such a man with that much influence must be aware of things like Oscar Grant, Haiti, Chicago teens killing each other every hot summer and so forth. But then again, Diddy’s selling the image of a mogul who cares about his empire and stretching it, not fighting the battles of the little man.



Sure, he can snap witty quotes that become world renowned but you wouldn’t hear it publicly from him that a travesty happened in Oakland. Or there are travesties everywhere in communities across the country. I can understand the normal social conscious artists like Talib Kweli and others of that ilk coming forth about Oscar Grant but that’s their image – the cultural clairvoyants who eat up social events that can cause change at any given moment.

So to folks like Puffy, those cultivators of image that creates some false sense of security and self pride I can’t offer anything except coffins and the rest of us who have to fight these battles without bigger voices. Don’t jump on the squad just to say something ala Jesse Jackson – say something.

Maybe Jay had it right when he said, “If skills sold, truth be told/I’d probably lyrically Talib Kweli/Truthfully I wanna rhyme like Common Sense/But I did 5 mil/I ain’t been rappin’ like Common since.” Once folks get the power, they’ll use to benefit them – and only their interests.