Rappers often killed by their own lifestyle?

December 17, 2002 4:54 PM

Rappers often killed by their own lifestyle?Maybe they are right? maybe phillyhiphop.com should call for a boycott of the Metro for printing this prime example of cheap, ill-researched, obtuse journalism (.pdf, html in the phillyhiphop.com article). Yes it is offensive, but is a boycott the only way we can react to piss-poor journalism?
posted by keno (22 comments total)

BTW, just in case you don't know Jam Master Jay, he was one of the most respected and generally all-round-nice-guy (salon.com) rappers in the public eye.
posted by keno at 4:59 PM on December 17, 2002

And he was a DJ, not a rapper.

This columnist is writing for people like my mother. She says she doesn't know anything about rap, and she says she doesn't want to -- because she knows it's evil. Paradoxes, logical fallacies -- whatever. People believe what they want to and there's always someone making money telling them they're right.
posted by argybarg at 5:04 PM on December 17, 2002

news flash: human beings often killed by their own lifestyle!
posted by quonsar at 5:47 PM on December 17, 2002

Quonsar:

I think you're missing the point. Jam Master Jay wasn't killed by his own lifestyle.
posted by argybarg at 5:57 PM on December 17, 2002

I haven't followed up on it recently, but I thought Jam Master Jay was killed because of a drug deal he was involved in that went awry about a decade ago. If that's not a lifestyle killing, then what is?
posted by The God Complex at 6:08 PM on December 17, 2002

And apparently it is particularly important to "keep it real " by maintaining a street credibility, which ostensibly means acting out whatever you do in your videos.

Wow. This is strange.
posted by eddydamascene at 6:15 PM on December 17, 2002

Has there been any determination as to why Jam Master Jay was killed yet?
posted by BGM at 6:19 PM on December 17, 2002

In the Salon article that keno linked to, the following statement by the author is interesting:

"[I]t's one thing to take out 'Pac and Biggie, as devastating as those killings were to the hip-hop world. At the risk of taking thug rap at its own word, when you live by the sword, you die by the sword. Jay was 37, a married man with three kids and no particular reputation as a thug or a hard case."

The author of the Salon piece appears to agree, in part, with the author of the Metro article, though plainly not about Jam Master Jay.
posted by waldo at 6:31 PM on December 17, 2002

Chuck D weighs in
posted by inksyndicate at 6:53 PM on December 17, 2002

as expected, black men killing black men is caused by white men, according to chuck d.
posted by aenemated at 8:28 PM on December 17, 2002

That's because Jam Master Jay was a middle-class, college-educated man. Of course he didn't have any thug in him.

And like I said, I heard he was killed because of an old drug bust. So maybe there was a little thug in him.

Contradictions abound!
posted by The God Complex at 8:30 PM on December 17, 2002

aenemated, if you really read Chuck D's essay and thought that was a reasonable summary of his thoughts...well, let me be polite and say that you need to work on your reading skills. Or, less charitably, that your monochromatic agenda gets in the way of your ability to process information.
posted by argybarg at 9:27 PM on December 17, 2002

From the Metro article:

Yes, I know that he was a pioneer who helped create that cacaphonic genre. And that he was a good rapper, whatever that means. To most law-abiding citizens, talking about a good or bad rapper is like talking about good and bad rapists.

...

Run DMC had renounced illegal activity. Do you know that the Mafia never admits to any illegal activity either.

Normally I'd be offended (not enough to boycott, but hey); the absence of basic punctuation and fact checking just makes it funny.
posted by Tlogmer at 9:32 PM on December 17, 2002

God Complex, the only coverage I've seen on the 'drug deal gone bad' theory of Jam Master jay's death is denials by friends, family and artists he had worked with. Given that he was known for campaigning against drug use, those denials seem quite legitimate to me.

Do you have a source for your rumor, or are you just baselessly sullying a good man's reputation?
posted by mosch at 10:30 PM on December 17, 2002

The article sucked. The editors should have caught it and pulled it. The writer may want to get a window installed in his stomach so he can see where he is going while his head is up his ass.

Boycott? Maybe not right away. But I think that someone needs to have a sitdown with the editorial board and see what steps they will take to repudiate that nasty column.

The piece is almost criminally negligent at best. At worst it is slander. Jam Master Jay deserves better.
posted by hipnerd at 10:33 PM on December 17, 2002

your monochromatic agenda gets in the way of your ability to process information.

Dear argybarg,

"This climate as I mentioned in past articles could be the glaring signs of modern day good ol amerikkkan COINTELPRO."
"TRACING THE BREAD CRUMBS TO THE BIG BAD WOLF; THE WHITE MALE EXEC HIRES THE NEGRO TO CREATE, PROMOTE, FINANCE, AND PROTECT NIGGAISM."
"Yes, amerikkka loves the 'NIGGRO' niggers created from hired negroes and my rebellious self is clear on tracing these crumbs to the big, bad, wolves who duck the accountability of all of this. The JIMMY IOVINES, TED FIELDS, TOMMY MOTTOLAS, DOUG MORRISSES. Big head honcho white men who hire negroes to cultivate the climate of 'niggativity'."

Your friend,
Chuck D
posted by Homeskillet Freshy Fresh at 10:46 PM on December 17, 2002

Homeskillet:

You've excerpted three quotes from a very long article that takes nearly everyone in and around the music industry to task. My point is that summarizing that essay by Chuck D as: "It's white people's fault" is ridiculously wrongheaded -- and I know that thought occured to you as you carefully filtered through the whole article for those three perfect quotes, especially as you realized how many quotes wouldn't have worked.
posted by argybarg at 11:34 PM on December 17, 2002

Do you have a source for your rumor, or are you just baselessly sullying a good man's reputation?

Of course they'd come out and admit it if it was true, because image is about honesty and everything, right?

It would be baseless sullying if I told you I thought it was true. I told you I'd heard that was the case but hadn't followed up on it.
posted by The God Complex at 12:22 AM on December 18, 2002

argybarg:

Nope. He takes two former heads of Def Jam to task for not contributing more money. He briefly mentions the ghetto poseurs. But before, after, and even during this, he's attacking white people.

But this is not a surprise. This is Chuck D's M.O. At his best, which is often, Chuck D sheds light on the black struggle. At his worst, he thinks "elvisification" and "amerikkka" are clever. His monochromatic agenda sometimes prevents him from fully processing information as well.
posted by Homeskillet Freshy Fresh at 12:25 AM on December 18, 2002

The Metro is such an awful paper anyway - I don't understand why anyone reads it.
I'm also suprised more people don't seem to question the content of a free newspaper with very few regular advertisments in it.
posted by soplerfo at 6:37 AM on December 18, 2002

Homeskillet:

I'll agree that Chuck D is clumsy. He sometimes flails wildly at every target he can find. Sometimes he just comes off as a mouthy jerk, sometimes as a heroic figure. But he deserves this much credit: He just about never lapses into straight-up Bash the White Man shtick. That's what struck me as a misreading on your part.
posted by argybarg at 9:49 AM on December 18, 2002

The Metro is such an awful paper anyway - I don't understand why anyone reads it.

They read it because it's available on buses and trains for free and they're bored. What I don't understand is why it's on the Web.
posted by soyjoy at 10:18 AM on December 18, 2002