The Tragedy of Hip Hop Part One

I’ve been thinking that I need to try to write this. To just let the words in my mind come out as they are on the subject without over thinking the sensitive nature of the subject and without trying too hard to seem clever or to prove I’m a competent writer.

Why is hip hop so fucked up? Am I writing fucked up? What’s being recorded? If humanity as it is now lived on the earth 250,000,000 years ago our best technology today wouldn’t be able to detect our past existence. We’re nothing compared to dinosaurs or these half pig half dog creatures that were the most successful vertebrate to ever live.

The blues. Jazz. Rhythm and Blues. Soul power. Hip hop. Tragedy and hardship runs through the entire trajectory of American black music but instead of getting better I think maybe hip hop is the worst. The most tragic. This creative triumph of black art also a tragedy. It’s really fucked up.

There are certain moments that really freak me out and one of the craziest is the murder of Drakeo the Ruler.

Drakeo the Ruler’s real name was Darrell Wayne Caldwell. He was born in South Los Angeles on December 1st, 1993. The number one song was I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That). Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) was 21 days old. The day after he was born Pablo Escobar was gunned down by the police. Hippos would run wild. Old Dirty Bastard was 25 and Wu-Tang was for the babies. Wu-Tang was for Drakeo the Ruler. Old Dirty Bastard died when he was ten.

During the first twelve months of Drakeo the Ruler’s life there were over 1700 murders in Los Angeles and around 700 of them were gang related.

A lot of time has passed. New generations have joined the older folks on this journey. But the struggle isn’t easing. It bends. It breaks. It explodes. It circles back around. Hope sprouts up. Hope is shot down. Plantations to prisons. Sorrow seems to be the only constant.

At the age of 16 Drakeo the Ruler got caught shoplifting in a liquor store. Six years later he released his first mix tape, I Am Mr. Mosely.

California Code, Penal Code – PEN § 182.5

any person who actively participates in any criminal street gang, as defined in subdivision (f) of Section 186.22 , with knowledge that its members engage in or have engaged in a pattern of criminal gang activity, as defined in subdivision (e) of Section 186.22 , and who willfully promotes, furthers, assists, or benefits from any felonious criminal conduct by members of that gang is guilty of conspiracy to commit that felony and may be punished as specified in subdivision (a) of Section 182

Because of this vague law, that ultimately boils down to the police being able to arrest any person they want to as long as they’re from a certain neighborhood where knowing certain people is inevitable. If you’re a poor black person in Los Angeles it basically means you can be disappeared in the same manner that Pinochet did it in Chile and Marcos did in the Philippines and Ceausescu did in Romania and…

Ultimately, Drakeo the Ruler beat a murder charge, a conspiracy to murder charge and multiple attempted murder charges if you consider three years locked up for crimes you didn’t commit a victory. During his time behind the walls he spent as much time as he was allowed to in gen pop. He shared a dormitory with one or more of the men involved in the home invasion where Pop Smoke was murdered before his 21st birthday. Pop Smoke was pistol whipped and shot with a Beretta M9

for $2000 after being tracked down after an Instagram post.

Drakeo the Ruler also claimed that Soulja Boy was incarcerated at the same facility but chose protective custody over gen pop. While not impossible I can’t find a timeline that would put them in the same prison simultaneously. I do remember that song being immensely popular.

Drakeo the Ruler also spent time in solitary confinement as punishment for a Tweet. He claimed the punishment damaged his mental health and afterward was triggered by the sound a door opening.

Drakeo the Ruler was also disturbed by the murder of Nipsey Hussle and had decided to move from Los Angeles because of it. Nipsey Hussle’s record Victory Lap is a brilliant record.

Nipsey Hussle died after after bullets from an assault rifle and a revolver ripped part of his spinal cord from his body while hanging out in front of his own store in South Los Angeles right around the way from where Drakeo the Ruler grew up.

This weapon does not need a targeted hit to kill. The velocity of a bullet from an assault rifle is so high that if it makes contact with a human body the waves of energy from the impact decimate organs that weren’t even hit. That’s why, if you’ve ever watched the GoPro footage from a mass shooter’s perspective the victims fall dead instantly without making a sound. A shot to the shoulder sends vibrations that instantly destroy the heart and the liver and so on.

Drakeo the Ruler never escaped Los Angeles. On the night that was to be the biggest show of his life thus far, the Once Upon A Time in L.A. festival, he was attacked by a battalion of over 100 men who bum rushed the backstage area. Drakeo the Ruler died from stab wounds before he could take the stage. The way I picture the incident in my reminds me of how I picture the Rwandan Civil War. Most of my understanding of that conflict comes from reading We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families. I wonder if Drakeo the Ruler’s jewelry was stolen. I don’t know the motive or how the attack was organized. What I do know is that it represents a horrible collapse of culture and civilization. I consider it the most shocking and disturbing crime in the history of hip hop.

Again and again. Triumph to tragedy.

Continued : https://birdboyblizzard.music.blog/2022/05/28/the-tragedy-of-hip-hop-part-two/