Fuck the world, don’t ask me for shit
Method Man and Notorious BIG said that shit almost what, 15 years ago? God damn, it bums me out that I haven’t heard a hip hop album as good as Ready to Die. I haven’t heard shit that quotable in my entire life. I realized things were going down in rap music around the 6th grade when I was still riding the bus to school. It was the only place I could listen to hip hop and rap without fear of my parents finding it. My parents didn’t really approve of the genre so I was forced to keep my records in hiding. But on the bus, I could put that thing in the Walkman and forget about the fact that I didn’t have many friends, went to school that I hated, had braces and acne; basically was the epitome of uncool. Even though I was a white kid from the burbs, on the bus I got to live the life of a thug through my headphones.
I’ll never forget the day when rap music was almost ruined for me. I got off the bus and some kid tried to impress/ intimidate me by quoting DMX with “I got blood on my hands and there's no remorse. And got blood on my dick 'cause I fucked a corpse”. The fucker just starred back at me smiling, exposing the turkey sandwich caught in his braces. He was waiting for my reaction to his slur of violence and profanity. What could I say? There was nothing to say. He stood there laughing like a prick. To this day, I still hear the mid puberty, high pitched, voice cracking laugh in my head when I think about it. I guess he was waiting for me to say something along the line of ….awesome or eww gross dude. To him it was I guess rap was a novelty. Aside from a few albums here and there, in my opinion hip hop since that day has been a novelty. Soulja boy, Birdman, the very notion that Lil’ Wayne is a “prolific rapper” I feel like everyone has just forgotton what it used to sound like. I’ve come to grips with it, but I really wish I didn’t have to.
Rap for me has served its purpose. It gave me my moments of escapism, when I needed it most. That’s what music is for me and always has been, an escape. I can put something on and forget. Forget about my shitty job, family problems, and angry girlfriends; I forget all of it for that 3 minutes and 57 seconds. I get to sit back for that time and say “fuck the world, don't ask me for shit".
