Dupe Dealers: Why Rappers Really Lie

"I never tried to hide my past! I put my name inside all my CDs. My company has my SS #. I could've put a company name...I done been up and I done been down and that's what make me who I am. I never ratted on a nigga! I never prosecuted a nigga! I never locked up a nigga that is first and foremost. I always felt that me being the nigga I am, I never owed a nigga an explanation. When I'm making my music and I'm talking about blow, it's because I did it. When I say that I'm rich off of cocaine, it's because I did it. Those are the street principles that apply." -- Rick Ross

Rick Ross did a little back pedaling a few days ago when he finally admitted to being a correctional officer after first denying it. The Miami rapper has since been ridiculed by several news outlets and blogsites for telling an untruth about his past. However, the story of Rick’s deceit really has nothing to do with him. Like a lot of us, he fell victim to a high. I think Rick James put it best when he said, “Cocaine is a hell of a drug.”
A few years after I was born [1980], President Ronald Reagan and his homeboy Oliver North decided that it would be a cool idea to support a rebel group that would overthrow Nicaragua’s communist government—because we all know that Communism is evil. Known as the Contras, the rebel group eventually ran out of funding. So to pick up the tab, North and CIA operatives allowed tons of cocaine to enter to the US. Most of the cocaine somehow found its way to some of the poorest neighborhoods in America.
Foreign drug distributors sought black males from the ages of 16 to 30 who were intelligent and held a large amount of influence in their neighborhoods. The distributors gave the young men power to open up drug franchises in their communities. Like McDonald’s, there was usually one guy or group that supplied cocaine to other dealers in certain sections of a city. All of sudden, young black millionaires were being created from the sell of cocaine. People like Fat Cat from New York, the real Rick Ross in LA, and the Miami Boys in Miami and Atlanta.
Around the same time, rap was just becoming a respectable form of music. Although rap started as great party music, rappers began to tell stories of the dealers and users that were gripping the inner cities of America. There were eloquent examinations of drug dealing on songs like P.E.’s “Night of the Living Basehead,” NWA’s “Dopeman” and, my favorite, KRS-One’s “Love’s Gonna Get’cha.” Biggie, Jay-Z, and Scarface also told prolific stories of the highs and inescapable lows of the drug business. But by the mid-1990’s, the rap industry hit the crack pipe--literally. Records about crack deals sold, and most of us bought them. The record labels caught on and wanted to continue to sell what the public was buying. Before we knew it, almost every rapper who released a record had a dope tale or two, or three. While rap was once a way for dudes to examine the affects of crack, it suddenly became an endorsement for it. We no longer heard the perils of drug dealing. It became about achieving the American dream through the sell of kilos of cocaine.
So a guy like Rick Ross [the rapper] comes along. He grows up in Dade County and is likely a product of the hood. But he is able to make a few good decisions and earns a football scholarship to Albany State University. However, he gets injured and soon returns home. But he doesn’t go into the streets; he works an honest job as a CO that pays him $23,000 a year. He eventually hooks up with Slip
N Slide records and pursues a rap career. After years on the label, he breaks through with “Hustlin.” Ross builds a new persona and suddenly becomes the second coming of Tony Montana—in order to sell records. He became addicted to the high of selling the life and times of a D-boy. But he never lived that life and I seriously doubt if he “made a couple million dollars last year dealing weight.”
The sad part is that rappers such as Ross, Young Jeezy, Juelz Santana, T.I.[who seems to be maturing], Fat Joe, and The Clipse couldn’t sell you a Kilo of cocaine even if you offered them three times the market value. But they are allowed to promote drug dealing as a viable occupation. The dope man lies need to stop. Youngsters are growing listening to rap and believing in a dead end game. I think it’s about time that rappers put the pipe down.