The Null Device

A new study in England and Wales has revealed that one in every four boys aged 14 to 17 admits to being a serious or prolific offender, meaning either having committed six or more offences in the past year or having committed serious offences such as assault, burglary or aggravated Burberry-wearing dealing hard drugs. Then again, it could well be that some proportion of the sample exaggerated their histories to be like their gangsta-rap/east-end-geezer heroes.

¶ crime thug life uk youth 0

The composer of a UK Garage song recently sued a rap group for damaging his reputation by using his record as a backing track to a song allegedly about drugs and violence. The case, however, was thrown out of the high court because the judge failed to understand the lyrics, and thus couldn't tell whether the song was derogatory or not:

The judge said the claim "led to the faintly surreal experience of three gentlemen in horsehair wigs [himself and the two barristers in the case] examining the meaning of such phrases as 'mish mish man' and 'shizzle my nizzle'." In any event, the words, although in a form of English, were "for practical purposes a foreign language" and he had no expert evidence as to what they meant.

¶ grime hip-hop thug life uk 1

Gangsta rap, it seems, is the new Norwegian Black Metal, with performers competing fiercely for who can be the baddest. One rapper allegedly murdered his roommate and ate her flesh, apparently to be the most stupendous badass who ever cut a record. It has been alleged in court that Death Row Records supplied Antron "Big Lurch" Singleton with drugs "to encourage (him) to act out in an extreme violent manner so as to make him more marketable as a 'Gangsta Rap' artist."

"Part of what makes a Gangsta Rap artist marketable is the fact that the artist is a current ongoing participant in violent gang activities," the lawsuit said.

¶ big lurch bizarre cannibalism gangsta rap thug life wtf 5

Could this be the most authentic gangsta rap song ever? Bandit holds up a fast-food place, kills five people execution-style, and then writes a rap song about it.

I said give me the doe you say no, no?
is it no you said stick some lead to your head
guess what punk now your dead
with all that blood bursting out your Head
from Head to toe if you wanna know I gotta go,
thats why they got me on
the worlds most wanted show

Police found the handwritten lyrics in a suitcase, along with stolen money. Instead of a chance to record with Dr Dre, the author got the death penalty for his trouble. Maybe keepin' it real isn't such a good idea after all. (via rotten.com)

¶ authenticity gangsta rap keepin' it real murder thug life 0

Read: Fuck Hip Hop, an article claiming that hip-hop as a form of cultural expression is dead, at the hands of the bejewelled, illiterate thugs who dominate the genre.

All one needs to do is watch cribs and notice none of these people showing off their heated indoor pools or the PlayStation Two consoles installed in all twelve of their luxury cars have a library in their home. Or display a bookshelf, for that matter. No rapper on cribs has ever been quoted saying: "Yeah, this is the room where I do all my reading, nahmean?"

Rappers reflect what has become a new image of success where money is its own validation and caring is soft unless you're dropping a single about your dead homie.

(via bOING bOING)

¶ affluenza hip-hop materialism thug life 0

Dance music culture is a funny thing. In most places "garage" music is just another originally gay dance/club music genre, and is harmless in a fluffy, camp, pill-popping sort of way; in Britain, however, it's the home-grown equivalent of gangsta rap, with guns, bling-bling and hardcore attitude. British garageheads, it seems, are more likely to pop caps than Es, or so the press suggests.

¶ dance music gangsta rap garage grime thug life uk garage 0

Mooks. No, not the retro-fratboy fashion label, but a youth subculture inspired by rap, metal, burlesque images of black culture, professional wrestling, porn and the 'white-trash' identity. (via Follow Me Here)

what white artists have taken from hip-hop is a towering sense of resentment. Rap today has a well of aggrievement, and when a black artist is sloppy about his rage, race relations have a way of focusing the issues for him. It doesn't take much thinking to imagine what a black rapper might be mad about. But when white kids start talking that talk, the rage often comes out inchoate; it appears and vanishes like a half-formed thought. And it doesn't take much to release it... And the easiest targets get flayed the worst: women, of course, and gays.

Half of the 98 percent-Caucasian crowd is dressed for a tractor pull, the other half for a Puffy video. There are longhairs with John Deere caps and denim jackets drinking beer alongside pals wearing Fubu shirts and Avirex footwear. Rednecks dress like roughnecks, and people who in their daily lives keep a distance from black culture have given themselves a ghetto makeover. I ask one fan who loves Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit and even the Marxist, multiracial Rage Against the Machine if he has many black friends. He smirks and removes his baseball cap... He is a skinhead, and he knows he has answered my question without saying a word.

Rap ... makes life on the streets seem as thrilling as a Playstation game. Pimping and gangbanging equal rebellion, especially for white kids who aren't going to get pulled over for driving while black, let alone die in a hail of bullets

¶ alternative bigotry homophobia misogyny mooks redneck thug life 0