BY GARRY GRUNDY
Who says the G.O.P. and hip hop are at odds?
It makes perfect sense to me that both 50 Cent and George W. Bush retain a large amount of approval from the American people. At the top of the charts and still holding onto the approbation of the American public, Bush has taken cues from blockbuster hip-hop sensation 50 Cent, and given the American people what they have always wanted in a leader: Dubya embodies hip-hop’s highly mythologized P-I-M-P – and America is eating it up!
Adored for his seemingly egalitarian demeanor and a ghetto-fabulous propensity for conflict resolution, hip-hop’s PIMP is a hustler – an affable master of exploitation, riding as a lone ranger – taking no suggestions, no prisoners and with an internal compass that places him above any law.
Boy, I know you done heard about me…
Iran might do well to pay attention to 50 Cent’s collaboration with the lyrically talented and wildly provocative Eminem in the equally popular hip-hop anthem “Til I Collapse:”
Now, don’t think I won’t hit ya’ because I’m popular…
Catch ya’ slippin’ I’m gonna give you what I got for ya’,
My clip loaded with 16 shots for ya’…
Have you ever had a warm gun on your waist, and blood on your shoe,
Cuz a nigga’ went and said the wrong shit to you?
You ain’t been through, what I been through – you not like me, and I’m not like you.
In these profoundly disturbing lyrics lies the core of American foreign policy on global terror. It seems that our troops’ tragic friendly fire episodes can be jointly explained by our trigger happy president and the 120,000 troops attuned to Fifty’s radio anthems – friendly fire episodes are to be expected.
‘Alright, let’s get it on!’
Nevertheless, this John Wayne presidency resonates with many Americans – the detractors emerging from the Starbucks / Apple G4 / vegetarian / pro-abortion / Boy Meets Boy / metrosexual / ‘God is dead’ cultures of America’s East and West coasts.
They clearly don’t count for Bush.
Where we can find linkage for these groups is in the forces of immediate gratification. In this current administration and within hip-hop’s bling-bling culture – a PIMP is ostentatious; a master of shock and awe, Dubya personifies the bling-bling – exercising a fiscal accountability that seems more like welfare queen than that of a President of the United States.
Larry Lindsey was chief economic advisor to President Bush during his first two years in office. Lindsey estimated that the rebuilding of Iraq would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 to 200 billion dollars.
This was not what Dubya wanted to hear – so in December 2002, Lindsey was forced to resign from the White House economic team as part of a gangsta’-styled expurgation.
Bush knew about the war on terror and its costs early on. Can this explain why no bidding took place when the government awarded contracts for rebuilding Iraq? It’s a lay-up for Dick Cheney and the boys at Halliburton, Donald Rumsfeld and the boys at Bechtel.
50 would approve of Dubya’s hustle. The principles for the G.O.P. are the same as they are for a hip-hop PIMP: Get money. Look out for your boys. And most importantly… Murder your enemies, because they’re trying to murder you.
And we love it.
We like watching America establish global dominance from our living rooms. In the face of fear and uncertainty, it’s a move that remains in sync with America’s rejection of nurture, and our embrace of over-consumption, psychological isolation and self-absorption – this is because really deep down inside, we still remain un-avenged for the collapse of those two towers in New York. It is for this reason that we’re gonna give George W. Bush his $87 billion – and then some! – letting the rest of the world know we are still in the game. Powerful. Rich. And gangsta! Those throngs of dainty Euros and White Chocolate Mocha Espresso drinkers in those blue colored coastal states are now immaterial:
F – I – F – T – Y -C- E – N – T and Dubya – I – M – P,
We internationally known, and locally respected
Now, boy I know you done heard about me.
I’m a P-I-M-P!
We’ll see where 50 Cent is sitting on the charts in November 2004.
Garry Grundy’s column appears biweekly.