Reading about this young brother from TI‘s Hustle Gang crew Doe B who got killed after doing a show in Montgomery, Alabama along with a 21 year old college student named Kim Johnson.. She was an innocent bystander who was killed by way of a stray bullet…Such things happen so much, that these cease to shock or even sadden folks.. People do the obligatory RIP shout outs and remark about how the streets is mean and life ain’t fair and keep it moving as if nothing ever happened….Sooner or later we are gonna have to come to grips that we are collectively engaging a ‘death culture‘.. and just like we say no to rape we are gonna have to say NO to premature death amongst our peoples.. We cant ignore this forever..What makes Doe B’s death even more tragic is that one of the people responsible for killing him, had a long standing beef with him.
The word around down is that he was envious of Doe B’s rising success. Even more troubling is the second person responsible appeared in Doe B’s video ‘Let me Find Out’ holding a gun..You can see him about 11 seconds into the video.. The song itself was one about thugging and killing.. It leaves one asking is this art imitating life or life being reflected in art?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxSSA8tKm8s
Young QC
Since we are talking about ‘death culture‘ here’s more for us to ponder.. Consider the story of this rapper named Young QC out of Chicago who was just arrested with 2 friends for the murder of his mom. According to the reports he was out to collect her insurance money. I’ll let folks sit with that for minute u can read about that –>HERE
Below is a video of Young QC making iot rain with his mother’s insurance money
This tragic incident is coming from the same city where a popular artist named Chief Keef who is signed to major record label (Interscope/Universal) to the tune of 6 million has proimised to raise the murder rate with the release of his next album and sadly has two deaths connected to beefs he’s been associated with…U can read about his corporate deal–> HERE
Chief Keef
You can read about Keef’s assertions about raising the murder rate—>HERE
The point being made here is that Black death is big business, its institutionalized and in many ways its a major form of entertainment ..If you’re an artist getting even a couple of million for a record deal, it’s not because you have ‘Black fans’..Its because your music and art is appealing to everyone else outside the community…
In other words simply ignoring and not listening to the music is not enough. The enabling and rewarding of corrosive behavior is something we need to address.. There will always be fools among us. My question is who is empowering those fools and who is standing in the way of us coming together to chart a new course?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLWDM2uZr60
Lastly we should know this extends beyond ‘rap’ as noted about the close ties of music and drug cartels You can read about that –> HERE
As we celebrate Black History month, we should not forget that on this date February 21 1965, Malcolm X and as he was later known, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz was brutally murdered as he got ready to speak inside New York’s famed Audubon Ballroom. There was the famed, Presbyterian hospital right across the street, but it took almost an hour for him to be taken there.. Hopefully we take a little time out to reflect on Malcolm’s philosophies and also the cointel-pro efforts used to take him out and kill him..
Whenever we witness horrific tragedies like the cold-hearted murder of our brother Derrion Albert, this society seeks to assign blame, instead of accessing the problem. Therefore much of the discussion after watching Derrion’s shockingly brutal beating was whose fault was it. So we all begin to search for scapegoats, whether we say it’s the parents for failing to raise them right, the schools for failing to teach them right, the religious institutions for not doing enough to reach out to them, or rap music for promoting sex and violence. Some have even called for the National Guard, anything to absolve ourselves of any work or responsibility. 
If anything Derrion Albert’s death should show us that we can’t just keep our head in the sand and think just because we’re personally doing OK that the suffering of the masses of our people won’t touch us. Derrion was a honor roll student who loved school, attended church and couldn’t wait to go to college, but because his environment didn’t foster these same ideals he fell victim to the mean streets of the “hood”. Just a few days earlier a 5 year old was shot and killed here in Pittsburgh. What did he do to instigate his death? I remember vividly the last time I visited Chicago (my hometown by the way) I received a frantic call that one of my cousins was shot, he had just graduated high school and like Derrion was eagerly awaiting college. He was on his way home from his job when he was caught in the crossfire of two rival gangs. It is only by the grace of God he’s still alive, and needless to say he wants to stay at school rather than come back home to Chicago.
