By Michael Letterlough Jr. 

In 1993, West coast rapper and former Death Row artist, Calvin Brodus, better known as Snoop Dogg, was charged with attempted murder in a drive-by shooting, in which he was later found not guilty. 

In 2002, rap artist Corey “C-Murder” Miller, brother of southern rapper, Percy “Master P” Miller, was charged and sentenced to jail for killing a 16 year old boy, in addition to previous weapons and attempted murder charges. 

On April 20, 2003, Roc-A-Fella artist and Philadelphia native, Beanie Sigel, whose real name is Dwight Grant, was arrested and served time in jail for aggravated assault; returning in July of the same year with attempted murder charges added to his file, which he was recently acquitted of.

On June 17, 2005, Roc-A-Fella rap artist, Barry Reese, better known as Cassidy, was sentenced to jail and charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder for the involvement in the killing of one man, while wounding two others, in the backyard of his Philadelphia home. 

Most recently Kimberly “Lil’ Kim” Jones is serving 366 days in the Philadelphia Federal Detention Center for lying under oath to a federal grand jury in the case of a shooting outside of a New York radio station. While she serves a year and a day in jail, those whom she lied for, who directly participated in the shooting, testified against her and today are walking the streets free.

Unfortunately a number of hip-hop artists such as Sean “Diddy” Combs, Ja Rule, Shyne, Lloyd Banks, Queen Latifah, Foxy Brown and even Def Jam president Sean Carter, better known as rap icon Jay-Z, have all had brushes with the law. Their legal troubles range from drug and weapon charges, to assault, rape and attempted murder. 

But maintaining street credibility and the street’s rules of keeping it real appear to be more important than all the success, money and undeniable fame their careers have brought them. Unlike hip-hop of old, today’s artists write lyrics that reflect violent lifestyles—whether fabricated or genuine—that only get them into trouble. Because they try to live up to those lyrics in reality, they ultimately influence a generation of aspiring artists and young people as well.

“It’s a different world,” said hip-hop expert, Nelson George, author of “Post Soul Nation” and “Hip Hop America.” “Nineteen eighty-five and 2005 are completely different. Eighty-five is when crack was starting to hit, so there is definitely a distinction between rap. People told stories about crack and about the world that was around it. It wasn’t the norm, it was more of an exception in 1985 for artists to revel about being a drug dealer. Now people use that as a badge of credibility.”

“When it comes to street credibility, I’m not gonna say it means what it used to,” said hip-hop icon and now doctor of psychology, Roxanne Shante. “Hip-hop has become so street that people have created these images that never existed. So if anything, hip-hop has adapted to more of the fiction of the streets if anything else.”

Rapper turned actress MC Lyte agreed with George and Shante that hip-hop has changed drastically from the days when they used to “Cold Rock A Party.” But “just as everything in media changes,” she said, “so does hip-hop and so do communities.”
Hip-hop impresario, Russell Simmons, disagrees with them all. He believes that old school hip-hop, and hip-hop today are just about the same as they’ve always been.

“They’re more detailed in terms of their anger today,” said Simmons. “The poets may be a little better, but the ideas are the same. The good news about rap: it hasn’t changed. It’s still about poverty. It’s still voices for a lot of voiceless people.”

But many rappers aren’t recognizing the power of their voices. Many rappers, such as Cassidy, don’t seem to be aware that it’s not only what they say, but in large part, it’s what they do that has an affect on a community of people.

“Everyone looks at hip-hop as if it’s this thing,” said George. “Hip-hop always has been a master station of attitudes within the Black community and it may not be the master station of all the attitudes, but it does speak to certain parts of it. This whole romance with gangsterism; this obsession with guns, diamonds and cars as status symbols, it’s led to a lot of people down really stupid paths that can only lead to one of two places—(dead or in jail).”

The late rapper Tupac Shakur is a prime example of that. A self-proclaimed thug, Shakur embraced the life of a gangster in his rhymes, and some believe that it led to his murder in 1996. George explained that today, rappers like 50 Cent are helping people buy into the fantasy of being a gangster.

“When 50 Cent came out, there were two things I heard when I was in Germany, around the time he broke out,” said George. “The two things (the people in Germany) knew about 50 were: ‘In the Club’ and nine gun shot wounds. Everyone knew about the nine gunshot wounds in Germany, and that made him so celebrated. It gave him credibility; his tales must be true. And it was a thought, ‘if I flaunt my ghetto credibility (and) my wounds, I can become more attractive to people who are buying into the fantasy of the ghetto.”

“(50 Cent) a product of the environment,” said Lyte, “and the environment is from which hip-hop comes. It’s just we need a balance, because those things do exist. People are dying on street corners everyday, so his story does need to be told, but then there’s a whole lot of other stories that aren’t being told. So I feel like, every story is necessary, but in the interim, they shouldn’t be glorified as this is the thing to do.”

So who or what is truly responsible for hip-hop’s violent direction?

“I think everyone is taking part in it,” said Shante. “Not just radio—it’s magazines…I think it’s media on a whole. I think it’s record labels; everybody has to take responsibility for it, but foremost it’s the creative mind from which it comes.” 

But for George and Simmons, it’s far more serious than the media and record labels. In Tuesday’s edition of the Tribune, George, Simmons and others talk about the root of violence in hip-hop, why rappers cant let go of the street life and offering some solutions.