Jay Z:'I knew about budgets, I was a drug dealer"

Yet liquor kills more people than crack by leaps and bounds. So which is the real problem?

 

Alcohol consumed in moderation,responsibly won't harm you. There is no responsible way to smoke crack and you damn sure won't be taking it in moderation if you try it :smt043

 

Man, you really love to take the 'but other people do it' approach to things. White people DO emulate negative things from entertainment with people who look like them. There have been kids who have gone out and tried to emulate Grand Theft Auto. There is the man who killed his family while reciting Eminem lyrics. There was a kid who killed his brother trying to emulate Dexter. You even have white kids from affluent neighborhoods who ... and I hate this term ... act black, trying to emulate what they pick up from 'black culture'. Don't get me wrong man, I KNOW that music isn't the reason for the circumstances. The music was born out of the circumstances.

Really man, my issue with the music is that it takes the lowest of the low and it glorifies the fuck out of it. The message is majorly anti-progressive, it's counter to everything that blacks should aspire to. I'm not even saying all rap has to be conscious, just we are flooded with bullshit right now. To take two rappers that you've probably never heard of from my own city, we need less Lil Mouse and more Chance the Rapper.


And again.,.

You live and die by that other people do it approach. So, you're kinda right... kinda. When compared to other countries, the American education system leaves much to be desired. However, within America there is a wide racial achievement gap between whites and Asians in comparison to blacks and hispanics. Within the context of this country, there is no way that you can tell me that all those white people who we see running wall street put as little value on education as a culture as we do. How do I propose that we change it? Same thing that I mentioned in the gun violence thread just Yesterday. Mentality shift, cultural realignment. It's a change that needs to happen from the inside. Like you said, our circumstances have a lot to do with it so lets improve our circumstances. Or are we waiting for white America to do that for us? Cause that will never happen. Even if they did try, with the current mentality that a lot of us have we'd be resistant to it.

 

I'll add, I actually do listen to rap alllll the time. It's my guilty pleasure. I don't even want to see it go away, I also don't think all rap has to become 'socially conscious', just some of it is really fucking vile.

 

This we agree on

 

Nothing wrong with 'ignant' rap. I listen to waka,chief keef,trap,club music etc... the problem is there's no balance between that and rap with substance. All the outlets (radio,tv,internet) push the same shit 24/7.

 

Well then that's on the public not the rappers. They wouldn't promote it unless people wanted it.

 

come on man, one is legal and one is not. There is an obstruction to one. If anything your alcohol example is proof that if you made crack legal it would be at least as damaging as alcohol.

 

What does legal and illegal have to do with anything? Weed is illegal and does far less harm.

 

It has to do with access.

I can drive over to walmart and buy alcohol.
Can you drive to walmart and by crack from walmart?

You are comparing something that is easily accessible to something that is not. Because alcohol is easily accessible due to it being legal, it causes more issues over crack which is not as easy to access due to being illegal.

 

kudos to Mr. Carter for his music career success and segueing into various mainstream investment endeavors.

The only quibble I would have-- and in fairness, it's not with him exclusively-- is the mythologizing of these guys "drug/crime" pasts (some of this is done by fans, some by the artists themselves, some abetted by the journalists who cover them).

To explain-- if you just accept what the grapevine has to say (or some of these artists' own interviews where they give hints and play coy) they'd have you believing that these folks were the biggest 'drug dealers' in their respective cities before they got their record deals. None of these (gangsta-)rappers had it going on like that back in the days. None of them. Were some of them "hustling" on the block? Yeah. But so were thousands of inner-city teens and young adults back in the 80s and 90s. The crack formula basically democratized cocaine trafficking, to the point where "anybody" could get involved if they could buy an eighth of a kilogram (which may have already been pre-cut with whatever else).
So this notion that your typical "ex-drug dealer turned rapper" allegedly turned away from some multi-million dollar "drug empire" before chucking it all to be a rap singer is ridiculous. Snoop Dogg wasn't remotely any kind of high-ranking Crip along the lines of Tookie Williams, before he hooked up with Dr. Dre. Not a single rapper alive or dead was in any way "Mob affiliated" at all. I know too much about American history to accept any talk along those lines.

 

Sorry the dude sold Crack. Crack cocaine is probably one of the most destructive drugs of all time. If he just sold marijuana or even hallucinogenic drugs I would have some level of respect for him. These are less dangerous, and non addictive. He literally got people hooked on a dangerous addictive substance, and then went on to glorify it with his "music career."


He basically bragged about how he fucked people over to get to his position. Honestly its quite clear the road to fortune, and success is being a sociopath. As well as screwing people over without regard.

 

[YOUTUBE]/ZlgHRzuNYts[/YOUTUBE]

 

Here's one of the comments to this video on YT:

limabeing 2 years ago:

thats hilarious a drug dealer with integrity thats like a fart that doesn't stink

Lol.

 

20 states have legalized the use of medical marijuana...2 states have legalized it for recreational use...I happen to live in one of the 2...pot shops popping up all over the city like starbucks...

This also means that the state is no longer prosecuting possession, distribution or use cases when it comes to mary jane ...in fact, they will be releasing people from our prisons and jails that are incarcerated on petty drug crime:weedman:

 

I have had this argument before with a guy who believes that the drug dealer is not a criminal but a businessman and is trying to make money from the people who want the drugs. I argued that a drug dealer is selling a product that can and will kill a person from frequent use. I have a neighbor who smokes marijuana because he not only feels good, he can see thing better with his eyes and mind. I even stated that the person who manufactures the drug is dangerous because that person knows what is in it. It is no surprise to me. When I saw the film American Gangster, Frank Lucas's business sense and sense of honor, was a sound one and it made him successful. However, it was his product that ruined and took the lives of many who used it. If Lucas was not in the drug business, and into something else, using his business sense, honor and smarts, who knows. Ice-T was a pimp and a drug dealer before he became a rapper and actor. When he got the role of detective Boudofin Tutuola on Law And Order:SVU, he was very thankful for that, even though he was in many films before that. If one can learn from a mistake and turn it around to make a success, I would not hold his past against him. That was then, this is now.

 

Are we really scapegoating dude for the crack epidemic lol?

 

Pretty much. Our entire system is based on exploitation. People get rich off of making people's lives worst far more than they do by making it better and singling out one individual doesn't do anything to stop it.
People who condemn the drugs and the negative culture be better parents and mentors to show the youth there's a better way if you believe so but condemning Jay-z for being what we all know to be the way most become that successful is ridiculous.