The artist formerly known as Mos Def occupies The Throne—and he's goin' guerillas.
Written by Touré (@Toure)
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We are in a crippling recession, but listening to hip-hop would you know that? The supposed music of the street has not, to my ears, noticed that the economic reality for most Black people has changed radically over the past few years.
The discussion of insanely expensive never-worn watches must sound crass to people who every day grow less and less hopeful of finding a job.
MCs are still all about spending money like it ain’t a thang. Their major trending topic is the cash. Meanwhile, the discussion of insanely expensive never-worn watches must sound crass to people who every day grow less and less hopeful of finding a job. I love “Niggas In Paris,” even though much of its self-congratulatory bragging feels out of place in today's climate. The song registers no awareness of how extreme financial brags may turn off some listeners during a prolonged recession. “What's 50 grand to a nigga like me?” is an honest rhetorical question. Jay’s a multimultimillionaire. But it’s also tone deaf.
So the song is ripe for a working class–focused MC like Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) to remake into “Niggas In Poorest,” something more fitting with what many Blacks are going through now. It’s something more angry. Something more Occupyish. Something that gives us an MC who's aware of the current economic climate. “What's $50 grand to a nigga like me?” Bey asks. “More than my annual salary.” This song is a tragic blues. A scream to keep from crying. Or killing. There’s no self-pity here, but lots of soul-crippling pain.
The devastating portait Bey paints suggests the world should be scared of the narrator—not because he has innate violent tendencies, but because he's so crushingly oppressed that his soul is in danger. Bey takes us beyond the workaday details of poor people’s problems—"Doctors say I'm the illest / I ain't got no insurance"—and dives deep into the psychological and spiritual troubles poor people experience. In the song’s third line Bey says, “The whole world hate me.” My God. The loathing of the entire world is an impossible burden to shoulder, and surely one that would break backs and wreck minds. If you feel like the whole world hates you, then you’re a short distance from societally-destructive behavior—or self-destructive acts.
If The Man is watching you so constantly, "surveillance cameras following, police tracing," as if you’re guilty before proven indictable, then where can solace be found? Where can you catch your breath? Nowhere. “We be home and still be scared.” Damn. There’s myriad dangers at home for people who Bey describes as living in an “open-air prison” surrounded by “birds of prey.” So you’re born into a cage and it’s just a matter of time before they get you.
Where Jay imagines himself going psycho in terms of embodying one of the glorious, genius Black Michaels—Jackson, Tyson, Jordan—Bey knows what’s more likely is an explosion that’ll lead to going psycho a la Michael Myers, the vicious serial killer of the Halloween horror movies.
Is life at “home” just preparation for life in prison? “It’s easy and hard to be here.” A person who cannot rest even at home—who lives surrounded by fear and anxiety—can never recharge their battery. They can easily get stuck at wit’s end, mired in a psychological wilderness or spiritual exhaustion. Or both.
Where Jay imagines himself going psycho in terms of embodying one of the glorious, genius Black Michaels—Jackson, Tyson, Jordan—Bey knows what’s more likely is an explosion that’ll lead to going psycho a la Michael Myers, the vicious serial killer of the Halloween horror movies. And who could blame him, given this horrific world and the destruction of the souls inside it?
Bey encapsulates the life-span of this world in a few brilliant lines at the end of the first verse with a tragic story told in brief snatches of imagery: “Who getting faded? Little Maurice in the sixth grade.” 12 years old and he’s already getting high. Maurice is parentless and looking up to the leaders in the drug game. He’s livin’ just enough for the city. A line later he’s, “standin’ behind the deuce-deuce trey.” Behind a bullet, holding a gun, about to fire. That place is just slightly better than in front of it. The Malcolm X quote that follows suggests that they’re both already de facto dead.
The last line of the first verse is eight syllables that tell a familiar but heavy story: “Ice cold. Heat blow. Closed casket. Cold case.” The boy is heartless (ice cold) so his gun fires (heat blow) and he shoots so much and so viciously that he leaves someone’s body so epically destroyed that it cannot be seen by anyone (closed casket). Of course, this murder will never be solved (cold case) because the police don’t care. As one of the controllers of the underworld says in The Godfather, “They’re animals anyway, so let them lose their souls.” That plan, Bey suggests, has succeded.
