Hip hop’s unsettling obsession with street life and a fake code of ethics that holds no water in the corporate world have resulted in many careers being cut short: either by guns or the four walls of a jail cell.
One of the most evident social factors correlated with gang behavior in predominantly Black Neighborhoods is the lack of opportunities, which mostly stems from centuries of racist policies. Black communities have historically experienced disproportionately worse unemployment rates compared to White communities.
Due to the lack of options, young Black men are forced to turn to sports, rap, or a life of crime as a way to take care of their families and possibly make it out of their troubled neighborhoods. But as it turns out, most of these men after making it out of the hood still cling to their past lives and often make references to it on records, which makes them easy targets for scorned rival gangs and the feds.
During his 2019 trial for murder and drug trafficking, Philly rapper AR-Ab said.
“The court, the FBI agents, and the prosecutors don’t understand my culture,” he said. “We don’t rap about flowers and rainbows. We’re gangsta rappers. We rap about where we grew up. So we rap about drug dealing. We rap about violence.”
While that may be true, some of these raps have translated to real word deaths, with prosecutors using their lyrics as confessions of crimes.
Before his senseless Murder, Los Angeles rapper Drakeo The Ruler’s lyrics from his 2016 song “Flex Freestyle” was used in the trial of his alleged shooting of rapper RJ, born Rodney Brown.
In the song, Drakeo raps “I’m ridin’ around town with a Tommy gun and a Jag/And you can disregard the yelling, RJ tied up in the back.” Prosecutors tried to convince jurors that the lyrics were an admission of guilt.
Although Drakeo, born Darrell Caldwell, was ultimately acquitted, he still spent three years in prison.
For decades we’ve observed the negative trends of rappers going in and out of jail for crimes ranging from parole violations, illegal possession of firearms, racketeering, and murder. This trend has been going on for decades and doesn’t look to be going away anytime soon.
Snoop Dogg signed to Death Row Records just before being acquitted of first-degree murder in 1993. Two years later, Tupac Shakur, served eight months in prison on sexual abuse charges. During the prime of his career, Lil Wayne spent eight months at Rikers Island for gun charges.
In recent times the likes of A$AP Rocky, Kodak Black, 6ix9ine, 42 Dugg, and Bobby Shmurda have all ended up behind bars with some currently still serving lengthy bids. With the recent spotlight on Young Thug’s RICO charges, We’re looking at the disturbing trends of rappers in jail. Some of these are just sad.
