Leftology

According to 2Chainz in the Birthday Song, when he dies he wants to be buried “inside the Louie [as in Louis Vuitton] Store”, “inside the Gucci Store”, “inside the Jewelry Store” while also being buried “next to two Bitches.” If burial is considered a religious ceremonial event, can we (based upon these lyrics) draw the conclusion that 2Chainz belongs to the American Cult of Consumerism? We usually want to buried next to someone that we love (like a husband or wife in hopes of spending eternity next to their life long love, with hopes of meeting them in the afterlife), sooooo…I’m just curious as to what Mr. Chainz is saying here? Or better yet, is 2Chainz aware of what he is saying when he says that he wants 100% of his body broken into quarters (25% in the “Louie Store”, 25% in “the Gucci Store”, 25% in the “Jewelry Store” and 25% next to “two bitches”) and buried inside of two separate high-end European fashion repositories, a place that is full of blood diamonds excavated from the home of 2Chainz’ enslaved ancestors, and “two bitches” (alive I’ll assume) serving as his eternal sexual slaves and sacrilegious sacrifices during his burial? I doubt it.

In a country that has its roots firmly planted in both racism and sexism, Black women have  been in a perpetual state of societal cruelty for being both Black and woman. 

Lady Gaga: Misused Vernacularism and the Commodification of Trap Culture              

     As a Black man in America that has lost loved ones, (by way of homicide and or incarceration) to the ills of street violence and the subsequent culture surrounding this persistent poverty and persecution, I am irritated by (what some like Complex Magazine’s Andrew Martin are calling) Lady Gaga’s “first foray into hip-hop culture” Cake Like Gaga. “Why the irritation?” you might ask, “It’s just music” you might say-you can say that, but being in the Trap is (obviously) not a space/topic applicable to the life experiences of Lady Gaga. But it’s a little more complex than that. Wait, before we go into the complexity surrounding the lyrics of Ms.Gaga’s new record, let us define the key term being utilized in this piece (as well as Gaga’s Cake Like Gaga). The term that I am referring to is Trap. What is this word that is being thrown around so frivolously in rap music today? The Trap is the hood/ghetto that houses primarily Black folks in America. This leads us to the Trap House, which is a term used to define a dilapidated (and sometimes abandoned) housing structure, commonly known as a crack house, or a drug den. Now, the working class within Traponomics are the Trappers. The Trapper is the low-level drug peddler. Once one advances within the Traponomic Structure they then become a Trap Star. Okay, now that we are somewhat familiar with what the trap is, you can see why I am adamant about my asservation that Lady Gaga doesn’t know shit about the Trap, Trapping or Trap Houses, and I am irritated by her new record having a hook that consists of the lyrics, “I’ll post it in the trap/ Strapped with the AK/
Aimin’ at your fitted cap.” I’m sorry mighty Trap Star, Lady Gaga, but when you say that you are “strapped” with an “AK” 47-assault riffle, posted on the “Trap”, who’s “fitted cap” are you “amin’ at”? Because if I’m not mistaken, the people wearing fitted caps in the Trap are young Black males. And if I’m not mistaken, these Trappers are involved in a drug war, and a part of a racial caste system that has imprisoned over a million Black men and disenfranchised even more. The war on drugs is almost entirely fought in the Trap, inhabited by people of color. In 2000, Black folks from the Trap made up over three fourths of all those sent to prison for drug offenses. In some states, 80-90 percent of all drug offenders sent to prison have been one race: Black folks, most specifically Black men from the aforementioned Trap. According to Michelle Alexander’s text The New Jim Crow “blacks are admitted to prison on drug charges at rates from twenty to fifty seven times greater than that of white men.” I’m sure that Lady Gaga, as a wealthy, Mega-Star, (not to be confused with a Trap Star) white woman, wouldn’t be in danger of being contained in the carceral conditions befitting those trapped in the Trap. I want Lady Gaga to stay in her lane. I want her to stop irritating me.

     (Hand Raised Like An Eager Kid) I Have A Few Questions About Stereotypes

     What are the negative stereotypes attached to Black folks? Are the stereotypes ascribed to our existence in this stolen land, affixed to our phenotypical difference from “Real Americans”? Is the silhouette of a backwards Blackness born by way of the unwanted seamen of those that mastered massacre and chattel slavery? The same chattel slavery that kidnapped and colonized our consciousness, chained us to the ships of shame, while bending us (woman, man and child) over, spreading our legs and raping our humanity, drenching us in the idea of blackness being akin to animality? Do they take the form of a belief that Black folks are inherently less intelligent than White people? Could it be that Black folks are seen as suffering from failings, not in intrinsic physical ability (because, you know, Black folks are legendary for running, jumping, singing, dancing and fucking all night long), but in the ability to apply logic and reasoning, in other words, explain some shit for the world to digest as food for thought? How widely diffused are racial stereotypes through contemporary American society? Are they located largely mustering on the margins, among the poor and poorly educated, or are they distributed more evenly, prevalent among the more affluent and educated of the “Real Americans”? Being that surreptitious segregation is taking place in the United States, to what extent are these stereotypes deriving from actual shared space with Black folks? I’m not talking about when “Real Americans” plop down on their couches, consuming copious amounts of fattening fast foods and counterfeit Black Reality, rotten with rachetness, that happens to be rooted in the same stereotypical bullshit that they fucked over Black folks from slavery, to Jim Crow and now in the ghetto. No, I am talking about living in predominately Black communities, and not as a voyeur, someone “slumming” or as an academic doing ethnographic research. I mean living with Black folks as equals, devoid of White privilege. Since this is rare, I will conclude that the negative stereotypes of Black folks are the offspring of bigoted ignorance, fear and racism, not just of the individual “Real American”, but as being foundational to “Real American” culture. Their forefathers came in negatively stereotyping the Indigenous People of this land, they mastered the stereotyping with Black folks, and now they have branched out to include any person with an ethnicity that doesn’t originate in Europe. 

Radio Raheem’s Deleted Scene

You jelly doughnut eatin

Black coffee drinkin

Black body beatin

Mark Furmen

Vermin

Traffic ticket givin

High speed chasin

D.W.R.

Drivin while racist

Pepper spray sprayin

Homeless human herdin

Handcuff Hitler

Blue polyester suite

Steel toed boot wearin

Bloody background bearin

Person of pork

Perpetrating as justice

Son of a bitch

Take yo brass

Colored badge

And shove it up your

Crooked cop ass

We don’t want your police protection