The issue wasn't that this **** doesn't happen. The thing I take issue with is that I simply don't believe the HUGE numbers of rappers that claim to have seen or done all of this crap, can possibly all be telling the truth.
Think of it this way. There is a HUGE amount of rap dealing with gangland or crime related subject matter. Hundreds, thousands of rappers.
Now, we know from it being goddamn obvious that not every person affected by gangland violence or crime is going to be a rapper.
That means that people who are affected by gang ****, as a group, contain a subset, a very, very small subset, of people who are rappers.
If we extrapolate from that, and assume every rapper is telling the truth about their gang exploits, then we necessarily assume that the proportion of people who are NOT rappers, being affected by the same stuff, increases in proportion to the number of rappers, yes?
Now, knowing how many rappers are out there rapping about this stuff, we have to judge for ourselves whether we believe that many people are actually that strongly affected by gangland violence. even if we assume 2/10 people in high-crime areas are rappers (A figure I would imagine to be an unrealistically high proportion), then for every 2000 rappers, we assume that 8000 other people are experiencing the same **** on a daily basis.
When you total up how many rappers there are, add onto their numbers the number of non-rappers who live the same sorts of lifestyles outside of that musical interest and creative outlet, in my mind, you rapidly reach strospherically high numbers of people that rappers are claiming implicitly live this sort of life. Unrealistically high numbers.
For that reason, I simply don't believe that every rapper, or even a significant minority of rappers, whose subject matter contains gang or drug references, can possibly be telling the truth, because if we were to assume that that many people live lives directly comparable to hip-hop lyrics, we would also have to assume that the areas where these people live are nigh on uninhabitable, human wastelands ruled by mobs and guns. It'd be like trying to back up a statement that said there are places in the US where life is literally like living in some kind of strange mad-max scenario.
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Originally Posted by Pedestrian
As for me, my inbox is as of yet testicle-free, and hopefully remains that way. Don't the rest of you get any ideas.
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Originally Posted by Trollheart
I'll have you know, my ancestors were Kings of Wicklow! We're as Irish as losing a three-nil lead in a must-win fixture!
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