Ok, it's official! People are sheep! The influence and power of rap music never ceases to amaze me! Rappers have always had the ability to sell products, and to varying degrees they have been doing it for a long time, but this shit is ridiculous. Even back in the day there were rappers talking about their gold chains, MCM, Louie Vutton, and Gucci clothes but today the advertisements have gone to another level. Some of these rappers might as well start doing commercials for products. I will never forget how Tommy Hilfiger became one of the most popular brands in the hip-hop community with just a couple of simple plugs from rapper, Grand Puba. Until Grand Puba mentioned Hilfiger most inner city Black & Latino kids had never heard of Hilfiger, and why should they have when he was charging more than 80 American dollars for a long-sleeve rugby shirts? Then more recently there was the late Christopher Wallace a.k.a. Notorious B.I.G. and his Versace & Coogi infatuation, which resulted in 80 percent of aspiring 'players' in nightclubs across the country having a real or imitation Coogi sweater. Meanwhile, Foxy Brown & Lil'Kim were seemingly plugging every designer of expensive women's clothing in existence, even shit they could hardly pronounce.

For a little while now what is hot has basically been decided by what is accepted in the inner cities, and I ain't really trippin' about that. But I do have a problem when what is hot is decided by the latest label to fall off the forked tongue of a rapper. Damn people, could you please get some style of your own! People used to always ask if in rap, was art imitating life or was life imitating art, well I think it's now clear that life is imitating something, I'm just not sure what it is. It's like all a popular rapper has to do is mention a product and it's coming off the shelves faster than they can stock it and this phenomenon doesn't just apply to clothes.

Take Jay-Z, who might as well be selling advertisement space on his forehead, and his cronies for example. Imagine how hard it would be for a parent to get any non-retarded child over the age of 12 to wear a shirt, sweater, pair of jeans, or sneakers with 'Goofy', 'Bugs Bunny', 'Bart Simpson', or any other cartoon character on them! If they wanted to they could have been buying that stuff from the Disney or Warner Brothers stores for the last 20 years. Enter Jay-Z, he utters a few positive words about Iceberg's obscenely expensive clothing line, which often features famous cartoon characters and single-handedly elevates 'Iceberg' into urban fashion fame. Soon broke-ass kids across the East Coast (especially the Northeast), were scraping together birthday money, job money, and any other money they could scheme up to get a $120 dollar cotton shirt with a huge ass 'Daffy Duck' on in it. Maybe 'Iceberg' should have put a lolly-pop or two big butt cheeks on their clothes instead of 'Daffy Duck' because you have to be a Sucker or an Ass to spend your money that way.

It doesn't stop there though. Since 'Iceberg', Jigga has been hocking his usual expensive jewelry accessories and automobiles but recently he added Motorola 2-way pagers and 'Belvedere' Vodka to the arsenal. Now every time I go to a nightclub I have to watch clowns stand in the middle of the dance floor and “beam” games and phone numbers to each other. Other times I'm forced to listen to impressionable 30 year olds ask for Belveder Vodka in their drinks, as if they could actually taste the difference. These are just some of the effects that music often has on “adults”. All this madness, while entertainers, record executives and others strictly concerned about their checkbooks, argue that rap music is just entertainment. I guess it's all just a coincidence.

Released: July 2001

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