Blackinformant.com – African-American culture, news commentary, politics

“In gangsta rap, battles for authenticity can take dangerous turns. As the genre moved from stories of petty crime into super-gangster fables, rappers’ real lives simply could not keep up. What passes for authenticity is really a fragile character developed for public consumption. Record labels, rappers, and even (mostly white) consumers to some extent know this—and act accordingly.

Labels and rappers seize every opportunity to reaffirm their “gangsta” credentials to an unforgiving public. Curtis Jackson must be 50 Cent, twenty-four/seven. The problem is that 50 Cent is made up. He is nearly a cartoon—a hulking black superman who performs thug love to hundreds of women, parties incessantly while not drug dealing or murdering; and who, most importantly, is bulletproof. He cannot live up to that image, because it is impossible. Yet he and the public will continue to feed into it, until he is either exposed as fake or sadly forced to live up to his image and die in a hail of bullets.” (more…)

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I think that the industry is trying too hard to make “50″ into the next Tupac (including the tradgic ending). In the end, it is all about sales where the profits are once again absent from the community. The lives of these bright young men mean nothing to those that want to pimp them for profit (whites and blacks).