Rappers and the law

Bad times could be looming for American rapper Li´l Wayne. The 27-year old hiphopper from New Orleans could be facing up to a year in jail for illegal possesion of a weapon. He is not the first rap-artistwho lately had the threat of being 365 days confined dangling above his head. Strangely enough fellow hiphop-artists T.I. and Li´l Kim were his predecessors with the same amount of jailtime. What´s up with that anyway?

Suddenly people seem to be doing four whole seasons behind bars. Of course being in jail period, is already bad enough. Unfortunately there are more than a few in the hiphop-world who can say they´ve had this experience. New Yorker from Jamaican descent,  Busta Rhymes, had had regular run-ins with the law; Baltimore-born DMX had to explain his actions of abusing his dogs to the police. Then there is Coolio (who had hit Gangsta´s paradise more than a decade ago) and fairly recently the man who oozes lots of personality, Snoop Dogg,  had trouble coming into the UK due to an earlier arrest.

It´s striking that only in the rap-scene these sort of things seem to occur. It´s virtually non-existent in other music-genres. Death-metal artists, for example, may be scary in some people´s eyes, but that´s maybe all they are. ´Scary-looking´. But it´s known that in the United States a high percentage of specifically, black men, is in jail. And rap-start, have we find, aren´t obviously, exempt from that. I actually like, for instance, Li´l Wayne. I liked how he celebrated ladies who have a bigger size in his video from last year ´Lollipop´.

So is this going to jail from rap-artists ´simply´ a ´comes with the territory´- thing in this branch of music? Maybe a strange kind of ´rites of ´rites of passage´ ? Do they view that as such? I hope not. ´Weezie´ and all the others are too fantastic to be such a terrible self-fulfilling prophecy.

By Maritere Nguema