ENGL 1101 - Fall 2020 - Hip-Hop Reader - PEASE

Emily Wiggins

My Life - The Game ft. Lil Wayne

The colors are dull, they don't stand out against the headstones in the cemetery. The clip is fairly monotonous, except for Lil Wayne's bright red outfit. The headstones appear to be blank, as if the names don't mean anything anymore. A statue of an angel seemingly praying over the dead stands center stage, the evident focal point of the scene. This is one of the beginning scenes in the video for "My Life", a song by The Game and Lil Wayne. Throughout this video, these two artists put on display their feelings, regrets, and struggles about living and growing up in "the hood". They truly are, as Lil Wayne says, "looking to find a way through the day, [and] a light for the night."

In the video for the song "My Life", the urban experience plays a crucial role in the overall impact by pulling on one's heartstrings through intensely realistic clips. Within the first five seconds of this video, two people are seen running frantically down the sidewalk, their faces out of view, just their tennis shoes are seen. Using this distinct camera angle, the video hints that their faces are not important, their identities are not important. They are simply two more indistinguishable faces to add to the list. Cut to the next few seconds of the video, where a man is lying on the sidewalk, shirt drenched in blood. A paramedic is standing over him, yet the man is unresponsive. The swift action of withdrawing and firing a weapon in the heat of the moment lead another to fall at the hands of his community. This video signifies a plea, a plea to end the unnecessary killings, to end the unjust murders of innocent people.

To further exemplify the urban experience, there are two noteworthy scenes that should be discussed. One of these scenes is the robbery of a local cornerstone. Snippets of the scene are shown as the video plays, with the last scene being a window shattering in slow motion as a man shoots a gun. This devastating clip illustrates how easily one can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The other scene of importance is when a young boy is shown, clearly The Game as a child, kneeling by a grave. The video plays through this scene quickly as the lyrics, "I needed my father, but he needed a needle" are played in the background. This video relies on pathos to pull in the person watching. This heartbreaking rendition of a son losing his father describes a prevalent issue in the lives of many children whose parents choose drugs over them. Tricia Rose, in her essay titled "Rap Music", explains how in the late 1980's, rappers shifted to more complex themes in their lyrics. This shift began with groups like NWA, who rapped about "life as poor young, black, male subject[s]"(24). Rap transformed from songs that told stories into songs that shed light on serious issues in society, like racism and poverty.

Lastly, multiple events are happening in the span of five minutes, and to convey all of this information to the watcher, the director uses a technique similar to fast cutting. Fast cutting is used in film to show many different shots in a very short amount of time. As the song wraps up, all of the unfinished storylines throughout the video are completed. One clip after another, the answers are revealed. The police officer caught the boy, the man on the sidewalk did not survive, and all of the people in the cemetery slowly vanished into thin air. This technique represents how life in "the hood" can feel. People are dying one after the other, and there is almost no time to mourn for one, because the next is following shortly behind.

In conclusion, the video of the song "My Life" by The Game ft. Lil Wayne represents various ideas based on which part of the video is being focused on. By placing one's focus on the urban experience and "the hood", the video stands as a plea to end the horrors taking place in communities like the one on display in the video. In addition to this, one can place their focus on the camera, and the way it captures the storylines. It can prove to be symbolic of the seemingly consecutive deaths. Clip after clip of death shows how life can be for those living in poverty-stricken areas with high rates of crime and violence. The video embodies the themes of many rap songs today, making it universal and relevant to today's hip hop culture.

Emily Wiggins

Modern-Day Bonnie and Clyde

As time goes on and someone finds themself getting farther and farther in the wrong direction, sometimes the only thing they can do is start over. When 2pac went to prison, he tried to do exactly that and become someone else. While he was in prison, he studied the writings of Niccolo Machiavelli, a political philosopher. Pac decided he needed an alias, so he went with Makaveli. Machiavelli's writings are heavy in war tactics and strategizing, so this name change could be because 2pac was ready to strategize in the hip hop scene to get to the top. This new metaphorical name showed other rappers that 2pac wasn't playing around, he was ready to dominate in this industry and become a new person. The word machiavellian, a cunning and immoral person, is derived from Machiavelli, and that word truly sets the tone for his final album. He released only one album as Makaveli due to his untimely death, and in the album is the song "Me and My Girlfriend". 

"Me and My Girlfriend" is one big metaphor. The girlfriend that 2pac can't live without is his trusty gun. He goes everywhere with her, and she protects him. She has a bad temper, and she's not afraid of a fight. This song clearly revolves around this strong metaphor, it's the prime focus of the piece. 2pac juxtaposes his relationship with another by spitting the phrase, "'96 Bonnie and Clyde, me and my girlfriend". This evidently is a comparison between his relationship with his gun to Bonnie and Clyde, the infamous criminal couple of the 1920s. This enables the listener to clearly understand how 2pac sees his gun, to him it's more than an object, it's his partner in crime. In the next line, 2pac says there were "doin' 85 when [they rode]". This is another reference to Bonnie and Clyde, as they were going 85 miles per hour in their Ford V8 when they were shot and killed. This song was released in November 1996, two months after 2pac's death. It was written as if it was almost a prophetic ending to his life, a foreshadowing of his death. 

Another strong facet of this song is spirituality. 2pac mentions God and religion throughout the song in multiple instances. In the chorus, he raps that he is "trapped in this world of sin". This phrase is seemingly ironic, as 2pac discusses how horrific and sinful the world is, yet he participates in the sinfulness by killing others as he explicitly says later on in the song. There seems to be a small struggle within the rapper to choose between falling into the sinful nature of his community or not. His gun, however, keeps him from doing the right thing, it's too tempting to resist. In the second verse, 2pac says that his "gunfire [is] exorcisin[g] all demons", which is another reference to God and spirituality. Pac could've easily said that he was shooting and killing people, however he used this spiritual reference instead. In the next line, he refers to the gun as his "mafioso messiah" and that her "congregation [is] high [and] ready to die". Messiah is a common word used for God, and congregation is usually referred to as the followers of God. He is describing the gun as his God, and that there are many that worship it. 

Aside from the few lines by Virginya Slim in the beginning of the song, the song opens with the line "look for me, lost in the whirlwind". This line represents an allusion. 2pac could be alluding this line to the Bible, specifically, Jeremiah 25:32. It says that "evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth." So, this could be another reference to God and religion. However, this line could also be referencing a speech given by Marcus Garvey. In the speech, he is telling black people to "look for [him] in the whirlwind or the storm". The speech was about slavery and staying strong amidst the worst conditions imaginable. Not only does 2pac say that he is "lost in the whirlwind", however, he also says that he was "raised in the whirlwind". This seems to be somewhat of an oxymoron, as typically someone who is raised in a specific place would never become lost in it. The opposition of words convey the internal struggles 2pac was facing. Although he was raised and grew up with violence, he is lost in it. It isn't a literal meaning of being lost, but a figurative one. He doesn't know what to do next.

In summary, the figurative language in the song "Me and My Girlfriend" by 2pac is an essential component to the piece. The whole song is metaphoric, and relates Pac's girlfriend to his gun. The song compares this relationship to Bonnie and Clyde, while also comparing it to the relationship between God and his disciples. This is done throughout the song, with snippets of different lyrics mentioning spiritual ideas. The song also reveals the struggles the rapper faces inside when it discusses the whirlwind. He doesn't know what to do in his life full of crime and hate, although he's lived in it since childhood. This machiavellian anthem, when inspected deeper, is much more than meets the eye. 

Hip hop is an overwhelming presence today, with millions of listeners and artists who are praised like Gods. This worship and praise, however, can sometimes be too much for people. Depression and mental illness is a common topic amongst rappers, especially in recent years. The rise of SoundCloud Rap has taken over the industry, showcasing some of hip hops biggest names right now, like Juice WRLD and Lil Uzi Vert. These artists and others like them seem to have one strong recurring theme in their music, mental health problems. Many prominent rappers cannot seem to escape the lifestyle they rap about, and end up losing their lives to battles with their mental health. 

Truett McKeehan, an aspiring young rapper, grew up in a stable household. His father was TobyMac, a well-known Christian rapper. Truett rapped with his dad on songs, but as he grew older, he decided he wanted to make a name for himself and become a rapper. He was only 21 when he died of a drug overdose. He seemed to have a great childhood with a loving family, but that didn't matter. On the other hand, Juice WRLD grew up in an unstable household. His parents divorced early in his life and he became a heavy drug user in his teenage years. He started his rap career on SoundCloud and quickly rose to fame, but he couldn't seem to escape the unrealistic lifestyle portrayed in his music. Sadly, he died at the age of 21 from a drug-related seizure. 

As time has gone by, hip hop has grown dramatically--evolving from DJ Kool Herc's transformative beats to the SoundCloud Rap we frequently hear on the radio. Some of the rappers who come from SoundCloud, in fact, have become faces of the industry. Big names like Juice WRLD, Lil Peep, and XXXTentacion have all come from this genre of rap. These rappers, unfortunately , have more in common than just careers as sound cloud rappers. Each of these rappers addressed mental health in their music, and passed away either directly or indirectly from drugs or mental illness. This has become a growing issue facing the hip hop industry, artists seem to be losing their lives left and right to drugs and mental health issues. 

Each of these artists and many others like them address the topics of suicide, depression, and other health issues in their music. One of Lil Peep's albums, "Come Over When You're Sober, Part 1", explores the themes of suicide, depression, and substance abuse. There was an album released for Lil Peep posthumously, almost a year after his death. The songs are filled with drug references, but one recurring theme is the questioning of life. In the song "Leanin", the line "Wake up surprised. Am I really alive?" repeats itself multiple times. The seemingly prophetic endings to these lives are only a piece to the puzzle of mental health issues in hip hop.

Emily Wiggins

 Overdosing on the Lifestyle: The Unexpected Effects of Drugs on Rappers

It seems to occur like clockwork. One after another, headlines appear on the television of the most recent deaths of young rappers. After so many of these headlines go by, fans lose the feelings of pain and sadness. Fans become numb to the devastating news, because it's almost like they expect it to happen. The deaths aren't expected as one may think, these rappers aren't physically sick and awaiting death, they're mentally sick, battling lives filled with drugs and the struggles of substance use. This is a prominent issue facing the hip hop industry in particular. Every time one turns on the radio and a rap song begins to play, it's almost guaranteed that song will have some form of drug reference, whether that's explicitly saying "I smoke weed" or just mentioning popping pills and getting high. The unfortunate reality that faces these rappers is their inability to escape the dark themes of drugs and substance use in their music. 

Hip hop artists have made drug references in their songs since the beginning, and they have never been shy about the drugs they're taking and selling. Thus, this isn't a new theme for the genre. However, as rap has progressed, the songs have turned from mentioning the drugs to glorifying the drugs. Moreover, the drugs themselves have risen from unhealthy to extremely dangerous. It began with marijuana, then cocaine in the 80s, and now it has progressed to highly addictive substances like percocet and xanax. In actuality, the glorification of drugs in these songs is the only topic in many of them. All the artists rap about is the drug and how without it, they would be struggling or not alive at all. Many of these rappers are correct, they would be dead without the drug. This ironic declaration, however, proves to be just that. The drugs keeping the rappers alive are the same drugs that are killing them.

Is this ending the only one for these rappers? It can't be, the genre is still alive and there are still many rap artists today. Nevertheless, there are plenty of rappers who do suffer this fate. One well known artist, Lil Peep, is a hapless example. Peep's life ended suddenly in 2017 after he overdosed on a combination of drugs, most notably, fentanyl and xanax. This tragic end for Peep came unexpectedly, but fans guessed a drug overdose was the culprit as soon as they heard the news. Peep's songs never miss the themes of drugs. In one of his songs, titled "Drugz", Peep explicitly says "Yeah I do them drugs / Only do it for the pain, it be f*cking up my brain". In addition to this, Peep's song, titled "16 Lines", includes the phrase "16 lines of blow and I'm fine", which pops up multiple times. The meaning behind it being that after doing some cocaine, Peep would be okay. Until then, however, he made it clear in his music that he was not fine. This line solidifies the irony, he believed this drug would save him yet it had the exact opposite effect. 

Mac Miller, a distinguished hip hop artist who struggled with addiction throughout his life, is another name to add to that list. Miller, like Lil Peep, explored dark themes of drugs, addiction, and struggles with mental health in his music. Early in his career, his song "The Star Room" put Miller's battles with addiction on display. The rapper sings the phrases "Making sure my mom and dad are still somewhat in love / All these backfires of my experiments with drugs". In Miller's music, there is a recurring theme of self-awareness. He is aware of his struggles in the past and present, but he can't seem to do anything to change his actions, as if he is trapped in his mind. Furthermore, Miller's song "Weekend" repeats lines that signify distress, yet the distress can only be artificially relieved by drugs and alcohol. Mac spits "Never will I walk in line / I cross the T's and dot the I's / Wondering well, wonderin' how I got this high / Fell asleep and forgot to die".  Miller did what he is supposed to, yet still found himself wondering how he "got this high". Miller, although similar to Peep in that they both faced addiction, went about it in a different way. Miller's music sends the listener the message that he is concerned with his addiction, whereas Peep's music comes across as apathetic. In spite of this though, Miller still lost his battle with it. He passed away after a "mess-up" of attempting sobriety, leaving his fans mourning.

Stars like Lil Peep and Mac Miller seem to display all hip hop artists as drug abusers and headed for death, but this is far from the truth. There are many rappers who are sober, and many who have never even touched drugs. Vince Staples is one of these artists. Staples grew up in a household surrounded by drugs. His family used them as coping mechanisms, to deal with the stress that comes with life. He witnessed firsthand the long-term effects of drug use to those that he loved, and because of this, he knew to never do them. In an interview with GQ, Staples says that he "just never wanted to [do drugs]. [He's] not the kind of person that [would] do something that [he didn't] want to do." This behavior from Staples, however, stands in contradiction to his music. Staples song "Jump Off The Roof" repeats the line "Cocaine withdrawals and I'm fiendin', I'm fiendin', I'm fiendin". For being so adamant in his sentiment of anti-drugs, it's odd that he would rap about them. And not just rap about them, but imply that he understands how it feels to be on them. The reason for this isn't to lie to his fans, he may believe that the only way for him to have a successful career is for him to talk about drugs. He may feel that in order for him to be relevant and relatable, he needs to have some sort of problem or addiction to the drugs or, at the very least, do them for fun when he's bored. 

Another sober artist that followed this same mentality is J. Cole. One of his more recent songs "Once An Addict" exhibits his mother's struggles with alcohol throughout his childhood. This could be a reason why Cole has stayed sober, because like Staples, he witnessed the negative impacts of alcohol and substances on someone close to him. Aside from this, Cole rapped about drugs and substances just like any other rapper. In his song "How High", the chorus repeats the phrase "how high / so high that I could touch the sky". These lyrics obviously reference his drug use, and further in the song the rapper implies that anyone hanging around him can smoke some too because he has plenty to go around. The lyrics don't seem out of the ordinary, they're pretty typical of modern day rappers. The difference is that Cole, like Staples, is sober. He raps about his experiences with drugs and getting high, however, he admits to being sober in interviews. He proves to be yet another artist that contradicts himself. However, it has less to do with Cole trying to be something that he's not and more to do with his desire to be a successful rapper. 

Drugs fuel the money making side of rap music, and rappers are completely aware of this. These rappers feel that in order to be successful in their industry, they have to be relatable and imperfect like their fans, and they do this by singing about their struggles with drugs and substances. It's evident that this is a major theme in rap songs, and it is a proven fact that raps with mentions of drugs become more popular than songs that have no mention of them. In an article from "ABC News', Robert Priedt used research obtained from the Billboard magazine's 279 most popular songs from 2005. Priedt writes that, from this data, "one or more references to substance use were found in 48 of 62 rap songs (77 percent)." Based on these numbers, it seems obvious that rappers have to discuss these topics in their songs to get that number 1 hit. This persistent theme is more harmful than one may think though, because it portrays this enticing lifestyle to not only fans, but the artists themselves.  

The cycle starts like this, a rapper becomes famous from songs that focus on the rapper lifestyle of partying, sex, fame, and most importantly, drugs. As that rapper continuously thinks about the drugs and lifestyle, it becomes less of just a thought and more of a reality. The constant mention of the drug makes it that much more difficult to stay away from. The artists become trapped in a rapper persona. They are perceived as people who do drugs, so they either actually do them, like Lil' Peep and Mac Miller, or pretend to do them, like Vince Staples and J. Cole. This is not to say that all rappers are sober until fame, because the majority are not. However, it proves that once the fame and the rapper persona is placed on an artist, it is not easy to escape it. Take Kid Cudi for example, a rapper who dabbled in drug use here and there, but never really had a problem with it until he rose to fame. Cudi wasn't shy in talking about his drug use and he let fans know that he used cocaine in order to get through the busy and eccentric lifestyle that comes with being a rapper in the spotlight.

It all boils down to this, the cycle starts with the drug-filled lifestyle rappers talk about in their music. If rap fans decided not to entertain these themes in rap songs, the rappers wouldn't be so tempted to use them. While some rappers are able to separate their personal life from their work life, like Staples and Cole who let drugs occupy their mind solely in the studio, others aren't able to, like Peep and Miller who let the drugs take over their minds completely. Young rappers with potential in the hip hop industry are dying. They aren't able to escape the rapper persona when they aren't in the spotlight. The rising numbers of dying rappers are alarming, and society needs to reevaluate which it would rather have--the catchy songs about drugs or the rappers themselves.

Works Cited

Priedt, Robert. “1 In 3 Hit Songs Mentions Substance Abuse, Smoking.” ABC News, ABC News Network, 24 May 2008, abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=4510327. 

Heath, Chris. “9 Musicians on How They Thrive Creatively Without Drugs or Booze.” GQ, 15 Jan. 2019, www.gq.com/story/clean-musicians.