By Taylor Drake
Image from Medium.com
The original draft of this piece was called “Rappers Must Die”. It was about my dislike for black rappers who coon for attention, the promotion of drugs, and toxic non-black participants. All of those opponents, I wish the worst for, but the overall theme just seemed tone deaf to the tragic deaths of King Von & Mo 3 and the near deaths of Benny the Butcher & Boosie. A more positive message is needed for this time.
Rappers Deserve Life
Being a martyr is overrated, 10 times out of 10 the conflict doesn't warrant the death. I don't think his last breath was caught up with close friends singing about him in tribute, or what the time line will paint when the news breaks. He's sheathed in pain and glances of his family; his kids having to move on without him, the last petty argument he had with his wife, how he went so far but suffered the same fate as if he stayed doing wrong.
Rappers Deserve Life
Roach wings circle their real estate and bite when they pull the sun roof down. C Murder and Mac got nibbles on their wrists from iron cuffs and four letters. The jury wasn't unanimous and the evidence was none existent, we can scream free them, but that exoskeleton they're under has no soul and sharp fangs.
Rappers Deserve Life
But death is certain under a shadow. We're all stumbling in the dark, bumping into cold steel and concrete. Hit the floor and grasp at the scattered collection of lost teeth. The morgue sleeps underneath this cell, a mature flower garden can be seen out the window. Youth is a solitary cage, with a crack in the wall, and a grape vine extending its hand through the gap.
Rappers Deserve Life
I know there's a way to tunnel out of this nightmare. The ancestors speak in small instances and write between the lines in long narratives. We just have to decode outside the bedlam. It may take a titan to set the stage to remove harms way, some might not make it. But a future without strife involves skulls to leave in the dust.
Rappers Deserve Life
Not just life after death.