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Newest - Highway to Hell - DREEEEEEW!
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Weekly Dose of Thunder #4
88 MPH
Rich Cerow
The rap world took another hit today, with Suge Knight losing a hundred million dollars or so in a
court case with a former partner of his who he apparently squeezed out with a smear campaign and some
intimidation tactics. And this coming right on the heels of the Game / Fifty Cent feud (which thankfully
ended peaceably), as well as the arrest of The Inc.’s Irv Gotti. Besides adding up to an already-stellar
2005 for rap music, all these legal / social entanglements lead us to the question at hand in this week’s
episode: street cred. Hip-hop is in the unusual position of being wildly successful and thoroughly mainstream,
but at the same time, once rappers make it big, they feel the need to remain tied to the streets and their old
lifestyles, indulging in nearly-street level crime in order to retain their credibility. This is not behavior
multi-millionaires regularly engage in (Unless, of course, this is a movie from the 1980’s. In which case,
the evil head of the corporation will, despite the fact that he has legions of insanely loyal underlings who
are willing to die for him, take it upon himself to murder someone with his own hands. Because that’s how far
above the law he is, what with Senator Richter in his pocket and the captain of the police force in cahoots
with him. And the only way to bring him down will be for that one rogue cop, who’s at least disobeying a direct
order and possibly has already been suspended from the force for getting to close to the truth in this case,
to broadcast a video of the evil CEO on TV where he goes into excruciating detail of his scheme to wipe out
the underclass to build condominiums or something like that. And, inexplicably, a whole bunch of people will
be watching this broadcast on giant TV screens in public places).
Anyway, as I said, multi-millionaires don’t generally still have strong ties to the drug trade (except
as customers). There is one notable exception to this, and I think it may be because he set the template for
rap moguls everywhere: John DeLorean. Think about it, DeLorean still ran his business like the drug racket he
was always in, despite it having gone respectbable.
The DeLorean is often compared to a graceful yet deadly bird of prey.
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He sold one of the earliest forms of bling, with his flash
cars and the impossible glamour of being forever associated with the Back to the Future movies (which prominently
feature Huey Lewis, who’s another clear antecedent for modern rap stars, considering the bloodbath that was his
feud with Ray Parker, Jr. You don’t mess with Huey Lewis’ intellectual property, cause he will cut you. Bad).
Anyway, DeLorean, despite being the owner of a car company, didn’t think that was enough, so he just kept on
selling cocaine on the side. And eventually he got caught (his car business crapping out for making, like, the
most expensive car in history, probably didn’t help his situation), and went to jail. And let me tell you, he
was the baddest former CEO in that white-collar prison. I guarantee you nobody messed with Johnny D cause he
had built up all kinds of street cred. Also, he could go back in time and kill your whole family before you were
even born if he felt like it, making it like you’d never existed. Now, that’s power. He probably got three,
four desserts every lunch hour. And why? Outta respect (this is also why some neighborhood kids also used to
carry his mother’s groceries home).
This is only the 1st string of Huey Lewis and the News. Depth is why they
continue to make the playoffs every year.
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Which is why I think we as Americans should all thank John DeLorean for his uncompromising work as a model
for all rap moguls (businessmen in rap are always moguls. Probably because it sounds like Mongols, and the news
media is always trying to portray Suge Knight as some kind of barbarian. That media, if they’re not exposing a
corrupt businessman’s plan to pave over a national forest to build some kind of quasi-futuristic office building
of the future which requires the deaths of thousands of people trying to stand in his way, they’re bashing hip-hop.
Racists). Frankly, his shaping of the pop music landscape is almost 100% responsible for the plethora of songs
about booties we enjoy today. So, XtremeWailing.com, in association with the Girl’s Christian Soccer League,
presents John DeLorean with our first ever Most Awesomest Evil Businessman Who Undoubtedly Constantly Travels
88 MPH Award 2005. John DeLorean, we salute thee!
You, too, can step in the Wayback Machine, by sending me a primitive e-mail at
rich@xtremewailing.com.
I get most of my e-mail by telepathy these days, but I guess I can check the old inbox every now and again.
All editions of Weekly Dose of Thunder
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