“I know you ain’t
scared to die. We all gotta go, you know?”
—Tupac, “Death
Around the Corner,” Me Against the World
(1995).
Last week legendary MC Guru staggered his
way over the valley of the shadow of death, but rerouted in good time. For a
second, it seemed the latest addition to the Hip-Hop morgue, which in only a
few months and years has tallied up scores of vibrant artists cut short in
their prime. But on the third day, Guru resurrected and returned from coma to
consciousness. Those who’ve enjoyed his brilliance for years celebrated the
news, but kept in check any excitement, well aware any moment the next shoe
might drop.
Take the last five years as reason to show
Hip-Hop artists love while their lungs still push and pull out oxygen. The Rap
blogosphere seems invested in a sense of immortality—thus Hip-Hop artists can
expect razor-sharp tongue slashing for just about anything deemed “wack” these
days. But once news of their death hits headlines, solemnity falls over the
nation of Hip-Hop. Their sins—forgiven. Within the last 5, Proof and Pimp C
passed, Baatin and O.D.B. escaped. And when my favorite producer J Dilla
disappeared, I choked for a second.
The Hip-Hop community knows a thing or
two about death. Its last two greatest rivals pushed each other off the cliff
over a decade ago. And those responsible for steering warm the pot of hate petered
out with swiftness, before the finger-pointing fest had chance to land their
direction. These days, death in Hip-Hop is second nature. Fans remain on edge,
unsure whose name is next to be struck out on the grim reaper’s#### list, unsure
who forgot to brandish the door post with blood stains—that the angel of death
may pass over. (And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where
ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall
not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.”) Any moment,
any second, any crack or crinkle could mean the extinction of another legend,
another rookie, another newborn whose baby steps hadn’t even yet full formed.
R.I.P., Dolla.
“I see death
around the corner, gotta stay high while I survive/
In the city
where the skinny ni**as die/”
Many Hip-Hop artists, for their part,
fetishize immortality. The brashness and rashness of the Beef industry
certainly turns faster the pages in the book of life, but so do the War
industry, the Wrestling industry, and the Boxing industry—and all the other outfits
where men clash for cash. And not all Hip-Hop artists equate death with a
freestyle—many-a-rapper have explored death for all its fear-imposing stature;
some even egging it on like an outmatched school boy playing psychological war
games on a bully. “Tell the tough guys we’re tougher than tough times,” Mos Def
ordered.
Tupac was perhaps the most audacious in
telling death to go f### itself: that before death’s claws could wrap around
his neck, he would vanish of his own accord. Tupac, like Malcolm X, lived
everyday without fear of the inevitable. Tupac believed his time was short—that
the good never quite get the chance
to set down their traveling bags—and the most to be made out of life didn’t
weigh a penny if not connected to a dialectic vision of revolution. So, when he
revealed, “Trying to keep it together, no one lives forever anyway/ Struggling
and striving, my destiny’s to die/,” we nodded with approval.
We knew what he was saying—not what
many-a-smug (Black) cappuccino-latte intellectuals levitating in ivory towers
have since suggested. We knew Tupac wasn’t nihilistic or fatalistic. We saw his
righteous rage at injustice, and his passion for protest, and his courage to
speak with the tongue of all prophets (hated in his day but worshipped
posthumously). And we acknowledged his god-given right to self-contradict. We
saw in him the candor most could never dream of—to take all the fierce vitriol
of a White Supremacist society and redirect it at the cowards who’ve lived high
off the oppression of Black men and Black women, off the subjugation of Brown
men and Brown women. We saw him breakdance on the valley of the shadow of death
and call evil out for a pop-and-lock
off.
We understood Tupac. But we don’t
understand Nas when he says Hip-Hop is dead—that death ought not to arouse in
us so much fear but courage and love; that death stops nothing, but only opens
up new frontiers; that
death is “not a period that ends a sentence; it’s a comma that punctuates
it to higher levels of significance.” Younger rappers, mostly of the Southern
breed, called for Nas’ legacy expunged. How
dare he! Monie Love lost
10 pounds
trying to douse the flames oozing out of Young Jeezy’s head, ashe wailed over Nas’ premature eulogy.
But from the same prophetic perch Tupac
fired off his sermons, Hip-Hop’s premier professor, Nas, thundered, striking
out power lines: “Everybody sound the same, commercialize the game/ Reminiscing
when it wasn’t all business/ If it got where it started/ So we all gather here
for the dearly departed/.” Death, for Nas, called not for flowers and
gravediggers and handkerchiefs and Black suits but a heightened focus and
awareness to redeem the soul of a culture losing its religion. And death can
only upstage life if the living let it. The dead have lived and let live. The
life after death, Nas and Tupac testified, marks more meaning than the death
process.
So here we are—tip-toeing our way to and
fro, unsure whose bell is next to toll. And we exist as part of a community
where death has run a winning streak in recent times. But as it hovers over the
Hip-Hop horizon, stalking its next prey, the Hip-Hop whole, far and wide, would
have to stand tall come what may, ready to face death down and advice it to go
f### itself. Hip-Hop lives!
Tolu
Olorunda is a cultural critic whose work regularly appears on AllHipHop.com,
TheDailyVoice.com and other online journals. He can be reached at:
