Damian Marley's New Song Asks Gangstas, "Is It Worth It?"

Jr. Gong strips away the fantasy and takes us inside a "Gun Man World."

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Shottas always look so glamorous on the silver screen. Remember Jimmy Cliff's character Ivan in The Harder They Come? He used to love watching shoot-em-up flicks at the Carib cinema to the point where he actually believed his own hype. "Starbwoy can't dead till the last reel," he told himself as marched into an ambush, six-shooters in hand, only to be cut down fusillade of hot lead courtesy of a platoon of soldiers and police.

Much like his dad, Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley specializes in burning all illusion. Gongzilla's latest song, released this morning, asks a simple but profound question of all those seeking to live or to glamorize the gangsta life: "Is it worth it?" Exploring all the crevices and corners of a "gun man world," the song points out that most gun men are neither wealthy nor happy. Many have families, and few have bright futures—if the cops don't get them, it might be another ghetto youth looking to earn a stripe. After all, as the song says, "As one don rise, a next one fall."

(Via Boomshots)

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