False Identity?

“Fake thug no love, you get slug CB4 Gusto, ya luck low…”
Nas – The Message; It Was Written

Why is it that there are SO many “thugs” these days? Everywhere you look there is someone with his hat bent to the left or to the right. There is always someone with his jeans hanging low. What about the cats who can talk a good talk about the streets, and what they will do if…

Where does all this come from? Is this a product of what Hip Hop produced? Maybe, but Hip Hop doesn’t deserve all of that credit. It would only be fair to disperse the fault throughout the music world and the sports world. There are probably most certainly more prospective areas to blame as well, but the two biggest are sports and music. Athletes and other entertainers have probably the strongest impact on people and their views. Everyone wants to be like 50 Cent, Allen Iverson, or Kanye West. Hell, a lot of people even wanted to be like Michael Vick at one point or another.

Some people like to believe that children are easily impacted when they aren’t properly reared. They believe that when there aren’t enough influences for children (i.e. dad locked up or dead, mom and dad working crazy hours, etc) they are easily influenced by things that may be detrimental. Could be true. May be true. Might not be true. Who knows? Does growing up in a household where your dad is absent mean anything about what you’re going to be involved in later in life, or how you perceive yourself as a young man or woman? I think it plays a part in the way you will perceive yourself growing up most certainly, but I wouldn’t go as far to say that you are destined for trouble because of it.

I don’t want to stray too far away from my original question though… Why is it that there are SO many “thugs” these days? I remember back in the late 80s and early 90s to even the mid-90s, you couldn’t as much as wear a baseball cap… let alone wear it cocked to a side. Your favorite colors had to be gray and white, or some other primary color. You definitely couldn’t wear red or blue though, and for damn sure you couldn’t wear red bottom and a red top… and likewise for blue. I am happier than anyone these days that those laws are not still around, because red and blue are some of my favorite colors. If this were the early 90s, I’d probably be somewhere beat up or shot because of my outfit. Now that those laws aren’t around anymore, people have taken advantage. White kids with blue fitted hats cocked to the left or right, black suburban kids with red and blue sweat suits with one of the legs pulled up. They all look like they just came out of a rap video with Cash Money. The part that takes the cake though is that many of these people have never seen drugs, guns, violence outside of their parent’s arguing, and many other things that these entertainers talk about. It’s just like fake studio rappers. I see your gums bumping, but I don’t see your actions coinciding.

A lot of young people today don’t realize or understand what connotations the colors and the sideways hat had across the land of America in earlier times. There are even a lot of older people who still wear their hats turned to one side in representation of what they used to do, what they used to be around, or what they wanted to do when they were growing up. Even though people are not banging anymore, the colors and left and right still have a connotation. Do people still care? Not as much… depending on where you are.

Everybody’s a thug these days, or at least want to look like one. On second thought, maybe looking like a thug isn’t the right phrase. I’ll rephrase that and say that everybody wants to pose as something or someone that they are not.

Like Andre 3000 said, “You white tee, well… to me, looks like a nightgown. Make your mama proud, take that thing two sizes down.” You can still wear your white tee’s and top shelf jeans with your Air Force 1’s, but try looking a little more presentable. People don’t want to see your Hanes, and you can still be cool with a pair of jeans that fit properly. In most cases parents do not agree with what their child wears, but a fight everyday isn’t worth it. So what really can the parent(s) do?

Hip Hop is still going to exist with or without fitted hats, Air Force’s, sagging jeans, etc.

I’m still stuck asking myself, why are there so many “thugs” these days? What’s up with the false identity?

Keep Hip Hop Alive, One Bar at a Time.

Over and Out, DocBoone.