So, Atlanta rapper T.I., who was born with the much more prosaic handle of Clifford Harris Jr., is off on his latest marketing tour. Perhaps you missed it.
Well, this one is for more “street cred,” as they say in concentric rap circles. This one is to the federal prison in Arkansas to serve a year and change on a weapons conviction.
Apparently the slammer is where rappers go to get their aforementioned “street cred.” And for the record, Talent Imposter – or whatever the hell T.I. stands for – was arrested for trying to buy, among other less-than-standard household items, machine guns and silencers. Indeed, who could be remotely credible without at least packing some semi-automatic heat?
Apparently Threatening Intimidation’s rap lyrics, as odious as they are, were not, in and of themselves, a sufficient guarantee of “street cred.” He still lacked authentic thug bona fides; he still needed, well, a rap sheet. And the only way to earn one was via a complementary stretch in stir.
And courtesy of Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, here’s a sampling of some vilely vintage Trash Infusion lyrics:
“We know where yo’ family live/ Trust me you don’t want me up
in yo’ crib/ Wit a ski mask on duct taping your kids/ You can pray
all you want/ But I don’t forgive.”
This is a prime example of why so much rap has been labeled – ok, by me – “the anthem of a dysfunctional culture.” It is Barack Obama’s and Bill Cosby’s ultimate bete noire and a cultural and security nightmare to all those who think misogynistic, homicidal nihilism is more than another show-biz niche.
But this is what’s out there – under the guise of “keeping it real.” And this one example, however realistically despicable its theme, is relatively sanitized. This is, after all, a respectable newspaper.
At the risk of outing myself as the quintessential philistine but with new-found appreciation for Jackson Pollock’s drippy canvases, I say, yet again, this is not art nor its practitioners artists. Moreover, Truculence Incarnate and other “rap artists” are merely oxymoronic examples of what you can do with a rhyming dictionary, an anarchistic attitude, no meaningful job skills and a gullible marketplace not yet sated by cultural chaff passing for societal wheat.
This couldn’t have been what Adam Smith had in mind. But it will take a less enabling, more discerning, less politically correct market – along with the propriety pulpit of the first African-American president – to excise this cultural cancer.