Drake’s subtle or not so subtle proposal to Nicki Minaj on “All Night Long” is a prime example of how the Young Money clique has developed a propensity for making ill-conceived ideas acceptable. “I love Nicki Minaj, I told her I’d admit if/I hope one day we get married just to say we f*****g did it.” Was that heartfelt?
Do you think that his comrade might entertain the idea of being engaged to the self-absorbed player or is this just another installment in a series of sexual exploits cloaked in a pseudo love/lust song? The methodology which has been embraced by the hip-hop elite like Jay-Z and Diddy, Drake and his cohort Lil Wayne, have co-opted the bragging rights to mindless lyrics about sex, love and money.
Sadly thanks to the Lil Wayne baby factory and Drake’s desire to bed all of the women in the world, millions of mis-guided young brothers are adopting their philosophy and sadder still putting it into practice. U.S. Census Bureau shows that the number of single-mother families more than triple in a 30 year span while the number of single-father families quadrupled over the same time period. There are now 3.1 million black single mothers raising children alone.
Emotions reign high in the lyrics of this crew, but the words are just lip-service and the feeling is fleeting. And this whole scenario is even more destructive for the fans who are integrating the rhymes into their lives and bringing the scene to life in living color. Why would anyone who knows the struggles and the drama associated with growing up in single-parent household perpetuate the cycle of single moms and absentee dads and curse their descendants. (According to Education Week 26, the high school dropout rate for African American females is 41 percent, but for African American males it’s 52 percent). They make songs that promote money, cars and clothes as the symbols of success; so for all those poor teens singing about real love and affirmations of life — it’s apparently all lies.
No one wants to say with conviction that the words repeated on the radio and piped through headsets directly into your thoughts and consciousness effect your value system. Money that is not working for you depreciates every day, like cars and material assets, which are actually fools gold. About 10.4% of the entire African-American male population in the U.S. aged 25 to 29 was incarcerated, by far the largest racial or ethnic group. or As of June 30, 2008, there are 846,000 black male inmates held in state or federal prisons or local jails in the United States. This represents 40.2% of all inmates for the same year.
While Drake and Lil Wayne boast about being partners in the game of making music and money, but what if their music is breeding bad behavior and providing ammunition for immature fathers who abandon their children — in their minds doing it like the stars do?
Drake and Lil Wayne have ample income, but the Drake and Lil Wayne imitators spit ryhmes that young girls get wrong, and confuse sex with love. How long will the black community listen to the lies dispersed through hip-hop? Does Jay-Z still want to be a gangster? Hell no, but everyone wants to fake like they do in the music game, just like Lil Wayne. Prison visits for Lil Wayne are star-studded, but for most brothers the most they have to look forward to are making collect calls.
Fatherless children are suffering, and repeating the deceit of Lil Wayne and Drake lying in songs and convincing a whole generation that they are speaking the truth. Will there be millions for the rappers broken-hearted baby mamas and the illegitimate children who will repeat the cycle and fraud of their famous fathers. Who will sire the next abandoned baby? –phil mi
