Glorifying Violence

The title is self-explanatory, and I'll keep this relatively short. I realize there are reasons for this, but we as a society, and more specifically the black community, need to rise above hood shit and glorifying violence in music. Of course, I saw this on twitter, but another "rising star" rapper was killed. Like Pop Smoke, I won't pretend to have been a fan, and I'd never heard of dude until today. Part of that is I simply don't listen to this type of music, which I'll get to later. As is tradition, when someone like this dies there's an outpouring of people on social media paying respects or whatever, but I want to do something different.

As I said above, I don't listen to degenerate music. I just don't. I have nothing to gain listening to negativity, or people talking about getting drunk/high and having sex with sluts. I most certainly do not want to have anything to do with gang activity or blast music with people talking about it. My parents grew up in the ghetto in Baltimore, and they made sure not to have me and my siblings involved with any of that shit. I have a number of thoughts about this, but I'll go into the social media part first. Now, this may be "conspiracy talk" or whatever, and I'm not invested in dude enough to look up whether he was signed to a label, but I don't think it's a coincidence when artists die right after "blowing up" or releasing new music. Like I said, I don't know his situation, and maybe he just finally got caught on the wrong side of what he rapped about, but it's always possible that he was set up by someone trying to cash in on his stardom. The main dead rapper I was a fan of was Mac Miller, and while he wasn't on the gangster stuff, he rapped about drug use and died (allegedly) of an overdose.

It's also, at least in my book, a case of manifesting negative energy. I mean, why is it ever surprising to see a guy who raps about killing niggas, get killed by a nigga? It's common sense, no? Live by the sword, die by the sword, as they say. This brings me back to the culture, and the concept of glorifying violence. Whatever way you spin it, that's what it is. When people grow up in shitty situations with gangs, drugs and violence as the best option, and it's then reinforced in the media, that's what you get. Not to mention the "bitches" that flock to criminals, that's another obvious source of reinforcement for degenerate behavior. With this guy, in particular, I saw that he had 3 kids, and he's my age. To be a thug like that and putting yourself in these situations, when you know you have people counting on you to be there for them, it's just ignorant. Whether that's killing other guys that have kids, or going to jail for you crimes, or laying in a casket yourself, it's all beyond stupid. And the fact that there's an industry that "provides a way out" is ridiculous. There's the supply and demand thing, so clearly there's a demand for this type of music/culture, which reflects back on the people buying in. It's all just a bad cycle. Getting back to the actual music, and following up this paragraph's first sentence, I once again question why this music is popular. I went back and listened to a number of his songs, and he talks about the typical gangster nonsense. Firstly, that continues the cycle I mentioned, and it's never a surprise to see these people dead or in jail. Secondly, for people to be bumping the music is stupid as well. If you sing the lyrics, you're also bringing that type of energy into your reality. It may not manifest immediately, but being around this "culture" only brings negative things.

To me, it comes down to responsibility and knowing right from wrong. There are objectively "right" ways to make money, and there are "wrong" ones that are often illegal, or at the very least looked down upon. If we, as a society, want to get rid of criminal behavior, things need to change. It cannot be a situation where if you have money you get off Scot free. Women cannot continue to breed with degenerates knowing the state will provide everything the criminal won't. Parents need to actually raise their kids and show them how to be successful, not just throw them in front of screens or expect these corrupt schools to educate them properly. Finally, looking at "celebrities" like freaking gods and worshipping money needs to drastically decline. I don't expect any of this to happen, because responsibility and common sense are seen as "oppression", but hey, at least there's a possible solution.