Why Hip-Hop and The Streets are So Intertwined

The YSL Indictment and Beyond

In 2018, a friend of mine was murdered. He was sitting in a car with a friend of his, an up and coming rapper. They were in a strip club parking lot at the time of night that can be described as “early morning.” Two shooters, one on each side, came up behind the car and unloaded a flurry of shots.

I soon heard that the murder had been a hit. The up and coming rapper had done a lot of dirt in the streets, and there was money on his head, allegedly put there by a famous rapper. In fact, this was such common knowledge that my friend had been warned for months — including the night of the murder — to stay away from this person.

This is all public knowledge, so this is not snitching. The comments on the up and coming rapper’s YouTube are filled with people explaining the situation and even referring to the alleged sponsor of the hit by name.

In 2016, an acquaintance of mine — let’s call him Denzel — was shot four times in a strip club bathroom. We weren’t acquaintances at the time, but we had mutual friends. I had no idea who’d shot him or why, and I figured no one else knew since there had been no arrests. A few weeks later, a friend of mine told me exactly who shot Denzel and why. The shooter was a well known local rapper with a major deal. Apparently, I was the only person who didn’t know.

These situations were my introduction to just how connected rap is to the streets. Of course, given the YSL indictment and the dozens of rappers dead or incarcerated, it’s obvious that rap and the streets are as intertwined as ever. But why?

Music is Expensive, and Rappers Tend to Come from Poor Backgrounds

The main reason for the tight relationship between rap and the streets is obvious: rappers tend to come from poorer backgrounds. This is not to make an excuse. Many people come from poverty and don’t commit crimes. But music is expensive. There’s a reason every artist who seemingly blows up out of nowhere — from Billie Eilish to Travis Scott — is accused of being an “industry plant.”

Music manager Wendy Day says it costs $150,000 to break a rap artist. Others say the cost is even higher. There’s studio time, music videos, promotion, mixing and mastering, and touring. There’s also the opportunity cost of making music. Every second you spend writing and recording music, promoting music, and shooting music videos is a second you could be spending working.

The most famous example of the cost of pursuing music coincidentally involves Young Thug. After Lil Baby got out of prison, Lil Baby went right back to selling drugs. Young Thug was such a believer in Lil Baby that Thug paid Baby to stay out of the streets and spend time in the studio so Baby wouldn’t go back to prison. This was not a small amount of money. Thug would ask Lil Baby how much Lil Baby expected to make in a day on the streets, and Baby would respond $7k or $10k, and Thug would pay Baby that much to go to the studio instead.

Someone from a different background may have parents or a rich uncle sponsor their music career. For rappers, the sponsor is often the streets.

Rap is Dangerous

Imagine if you had large sums of cash, gold, and diamonds and you traveled from city to city, announcing exactly where you’d be. This is the life of a rapper. Rappers have chains and money as part of their image. Rappers are also often paid in cash, particularly for shows and club appearances, which regularly pay the “back end” of the deal from front door and bar money. Rappers and event promoters must publicize the rappers’ location widely on social media. Often, the amounts that rappers have in jewelry and cash would be life changing for the average person, and people are eager to take those items, so rappers must have security.

Why not Just Use Professional Security?

Professional security is expensive, and by the stage of you career when you can afford professional security, you’ve probably had your friends as security for years. You can’t just cut them off. By this time, they are probably like family and have saved you from a few sticky situations. They also know your routine, your secrets, where you live, where your family lives, etc.

Also, there are things professional security won’t do, like break laws. If a club says no guns, even for licensed security, then licensed security won’t bring their guns inside. Diddy’s 1999 shooting incident is a good example of how law abiding professionals are. Diddy asked his driver to say the gun was his. The driver refused. A friend would have probably agreed. Diddy was fortunate to beat the case, and today he is a billionaire mogul. In 1999, however, he was facing up to 15 years in prison, and things could have turned out very differently. Imagine a world where Diddy was incarcerated from 2000 to 2014. Or from 2000 to 20008 assuming he was paroled after serving about half his sentence. A “goon” is better than a pro in these situations.

Now, when you get big enough as a rapper, you could probably hire professional security and put your “goons” into some sort of other work. But those people tend to not have skills that translate to the corporate world, and your label / management likely already provides you with a full team that meets all your needs. One reason Jay Z stands out so much is that he actually did find corporate roles for his friends — roles they excelled in.

Conclusion

These are just a few reasons even successful rappers keep dangerous people around them. In 2015, I moved to LA and spent a lot of time in and around the entertainment industry and got to know many artists on a personal or social level. There is an 80% chance that even the softest rapper you can think of has someone around them who is there for the sole purpose of shooting someone if things get out of hand. Jack Harlow’s DJ, for example, is facing a murder charge for a shooting caught on video at a club in Kentucky. And that homicide allegedly was allegedly a result of the victim confronting the DJ about yet another homicide she believed he committed.

I wouldn’t wish incarceration on anyone. I spent 28 days in a federal prison. It was not fun. I hope rap and the streets become more separated. So many great artists are prematurely deceased or languishing in a cell. But for rap and the streets to grow apart, rappers will have to move smarter and distance themselves from any sort of criminal activity — either completely or by adding layers between themselves and crime. Communities will also have to find ways to support promising artists so those artists don’t have to turn to the streets for funding.