by Damian Garde
Daily Lobo
Cocaine and hip-hop have been on-again, off-again lovers since the genre's inception.
In 1983, the Furious Five's Melle Mel released "White Lines (Don't Do It)," a disco-influenced track warning listeners of the dangers of cocaine addiction and trafficking. However, the conscious message of hip-hop's early stars gradually faded due to the crack epidemic of the mid to late '80s. Hip-hop's opinion of cocaine began to gradually shift through releases by Boogie Down Productions and Kool G Rap. However, it wasn't until 1993 that Raekwon would boast of having red-top crack vials at two-for-five. The song was "C.R.E.A.M.," and, much as Melle Mel had been brutally honest about the effects of cocaine a decade earlier, Raekwon realistically described the life of a ghetto youth left with nothing to turn to but crack sales.
Since then, crack rap has had its peaks and valleys. Arguably, the genre's zenith came between 1996 and 1997 with classic releases by Jay-Z, Notorious BIG, Ghostface Killah and Raekwon. However, after Biggie's death, crack rap took a backseat to the fun-loving banality of chart-topping jiggy rap.
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That is, until now.
2006 was a banner year for crack rap, as it seemed every rapper, no matter the region, claimed to be pushing weight. Atlanta's Young Jeezy, still exploiting his "snowman" gimmick, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart with The Inspiration. Miami's Rick Ross - presumably named for California crack kingpin "Freeway" Ricky Ross - also saw a No. 1 debut with Port of Miami. His latest single, "Push It," even goes so far as to sample the title song from Brian De Palma's 1983 cocaine epic, "Scarface."
As I'd come to expect from mainstream Southern rappers, Ross and Jeezy are lyrically bankrupt. Jeezy rests on his gravelly voice to mutter hackneyed boasts of pushing crack, which is only when he doesn't feel like simply belting out the word "yeah."
But at least Jeezy has personality. Ross appears to be a hip-hop prototype made of boring rappers past. He has Eazy-E's inability to change cadences, Mase's half-asleep energy and Warren G's unsmiling, unwitting self-parody. When Ross says, "More cars, more hoes, more clothes, more blow," it's color-by-numbers crack rap at its most drab.
But the genre hasn't entirely lost its edge. Releases by Virginia duo Clipse and Wu-Tang alumnus Ghostface Killah kept crack rap alive with clever wordplay and a few ounces of realism. As is to be expected in an era when T.I. is crowned king of anything, neither of these albums sold beyond wood.
After a four-year hiatus caused by record-label drama, brothers Pusha T and Malice of Clipse released Hell Hath No Fury, a conflicted album full of both crack-hustle braggadocio and drug-withdrawal paranoia. Hell Hath No Fury sounds as though the two rappers had never heard a crack-rap album before - which is a good thing. The clichÇs of Cosa Nostra ambitions are nowhere to be found. Instead, we get the mild self-loathing of "Momma, I'm So Sorry," the understated menace of "Chinese New Year," and finally the paranoid dirge of "Nightmares."
But the best crack opera of the year came, unsurprisingly, from an underappreciated veteran. Ghostface Killah's Fishscale is pitch-perfect from start to finish. Ghost has long favored bitter realism over drug-sale exaggerating, and Fishscale follows that template. Vial-pushing anthems like "Kilo" and "Crack Spot" paint the image of frantic hustlers, trying to move enough cocaine to pay cable bills. But, at heart, Ghost is a storyteller, and arguably the greatest in hip-hop. "Shakey Dog" is a meticulously detailed account of a cocaine heist with Ghost as cinematographer. Tellingly, the bloody shootout that ends the song isn't nearly as captivating as the stream-of-consciousness blabbering Ghost does on the way there. Best of all is "Big Girl," another story finding Ghost in a bar, hopelessly hitting on young ladies doing coke off of compacts. At first, he's the perfect picture of rap misogyny, but upon seeing how young the girls are and their "noses running from the raw," Ghost takes off his mink and gets his father figure on. After offering to pay their ways through college, Ghost says, "All I ask in life's for you to be careful, stay focused and take care of your health."
Who says crack rappers can't be conscious?
