Got rap?
I have something to say to people who say they hate rap/hiphop/crunk whatevah…they say they do not like it.
I hear people say hiphop/rap talks about violence…so they do not like it. They say it fills their children’s head’s with useless violent images…glamorizes it. I have a few words for “them”.
My child is 15 years old. In her 5th year of life someone very important to our family was shot in his stomach and nearly died. In her 6th year of life we encountered someone stabbed and bleeding to death on the way into our apartment building. That same year, a neighbor was shot over petty shit. In her 7th year of life someone important to our family died from snorting heroin he was too fucked up to realize wasn’t cocaine. She turned 13 and her very first boyfriend’s older brother is shot and killed while minding his own business and dumped in a grocery store parking lot. A week later, her best friend’s sister is shot and killed in what they called “a road rage’ incident.
And here we are in nice Minneapolis/St. Paul the whole time…
2 weeks later~
My child’s daddy calls from Brooklyn at 2am. He calls again at 3am. I think he is partying with my girlfriend who was in NYC on vacation; I was annoyed. She’d asked me to find someone to “show her around” and I’d hooked her up with family there. My girlfriend calls me at 4am and I still do not answer the phone because I have to work in the morning. When called again at 8am, I finally answered the phone.
My 21 year-old step-son was shot to death that night at Louis Armstrong Projects in the Bronx. My daughter’s brother, Jason, was shot and killed when he and his cousins ran from gunfire into his auntie’s building. Jason realized the security door was not latched. He ran back to close it~ loosing his life, but saving 4 of his friends’ lives by doing so. Some great artists have come out of Louis Armstrong…there was a short at Sundance portraying the violence and police corruption there. Will Jason get a movie deal? Doubt it.
Now. Here we are again. A boy my daughter knew from “the park” was shot dead for not giving up a jersey quick enough. 15 years old. My heart aches and I do not have the words to say a thing…
Weird thing is, a bunch of rappers do.
Peace and love, my crazies. Fuck.
Peace and love.
I hear people say hiphop/rap talks about violence…so they do not like it. They say it fills their children’s head’s with useless violent images…glamorizes it. I have a few words for “them”.
My child is 15 years old. In her 5th year of life someone very important to our family was shot in his stomach and nearly died. In her 6th year of life we encountered someone stabbed and bleeding to death on the way into our apartment building. That same year, a neighbor was shot over petty shit. In her 7th year of life someone important to our family died from snorting heroin he was too fucked up to realize wasn’t cocaine. She turned 13 and her very first boyfriend’s older brother is shot and killed while minding his own business and dumped in a grocery store parking lot. A week later, her best friend’s sister is shot and killed in what they called “a road rage’ incident.
And here we are in nice Minneapolis/St. Paul the whole time…
2 weeks later~
My child’s daddy calls from Brooklyn at 2am. He calls again at 3am. I think he is partying with my girlfriend who was in NYC on vacation; I was annoyed. She’d asked me to find someone to “show her around” and I’d hooked her up with family there. My girlfriend calls me at 4am and I still do not answer the phone because I have to work in the morning. When called again at 8am, I finally answered the phone.
My 21 year-old step-son was shot to death that night at Louis Armstrong Projects in the Bronx. My daughter’s brother, Jason, was shot and killed when he and his cousins ran from gunfire into his auntie’s building. Jason realized the security door was not latched. He ran back to close it~ loosing his life, but saving 4 of his friends’ lives by doing so. Some great artists have come out of Louis Armstrong…there was a short at Sundance portraying the violence and police corruption there. Will Jason get a movie deal? Doubt it.
Now. Here we are again. A boy my daughter knew from “the park” was shot dead for not giving up a jersey quick enough. 15 years old. My heart aches and I do not have the words to say a thing…
Weird thing is, a bunch of rappers do.
Peace and love, my crazies. Fuck.
Peace and love.