A different side of G-Unit (with Young Buck interview)
Preconceived notions tend to create wrong impressions. Everyone knows that. So when people hear G-Unitthey tend to think of all the themes in its music. Yes, clubs and partying, but also violence and disrespect are all the themes of the music for Gorilla Unit. For a moment people forget that Hip Hop’s always been about representing the streets and giving voice to the predominantly African-American community. The gruesome side of the Hip Hop lyricism has always been reserved to the mixtape world thou, with the mainstream acts rarely going all out to describe the reality of the streets.
When 50 Cent started going Platinum rapping about guns and drugs and clubs and easy women it scared people. Why isn’t that world changing? Why is it glorified? The problem is simple. People from the gutters in Queens, living on welfare and foodstamps would love to change their life for the better. Street dealers would love to stop risking their lives and jail sentences. Young girls would love to stop turning tricks. Unfortunately there are very few avenues available for that. So it is more logical to relate to the concepts of survival and easy life than it is to go to college when life is what it is for so many people.
When Piggy Bank came out the entire Hip Hop community was shocked and appalled. Only why? Not everyone says ‘Peace’ instead of good bye. Not everyone has a deep understanding and respect for the themes of Zulu Nation. Some people just live. Concepts of domination equal to concepts of survival. Then Get Rich or Die Trying came out. It was a call for many people that did more good than imagined. Developing fighting/survival skills in people with low feelings of self-esteem is a good deed. You just gotta speak the language of the streets to appeal to the streets themselves. Michelle Pfeiffer looked great in “Dangerous Minds”. It may have even been based on real life events, but it was still just a movie. In real life teachers like that don’t exist and when they do they have little to give to kids. Streets teach and those lessons are rather horrid. Teenage girls sleeping around for a little weed. Young boys thinking they’re men just ‘cause they got a gun. Selling drugs on the streets, getting beat up or shot or even killed because that’s what that life is all about. Respect? Power? Loyalty? Those things are understood out of fear, not cultivated from young age as the most important qualities.
Now, don’t get it twisted. G-Unit is making millions off of teaching those lessons. It also catches a bad rap on constant bases. Tony Yayo was close to Israel Ramirez at a Busta Rhymes video shoot and the rumor of his involvement in the bodyguard’s death seemed so real. If he raps about it he must do it. He slaps a 14 year-old kid? Must be true if the papers say it is. Music becomes reality in the eyes of millions.
Another member of G-Unit takes a bit of a different approach toward his craft. Young Buck went through a lot of the same things as 50 and Yayo. He keeps it to music thou. “When 2 artists are mad at each other and have a conflict it’s not beef it’s just about power”, he says in the interview with WORDSnTUNES. Buck joined G-Unit after Banks and Yayo. He was picked for his rap skills, not based on where he grew up and what he did with 50 back in the day. Taking his entrepreneurial nature to the next step he even tried to make peace between The Game and 50. unfortunately after striking a what seemed to be a peaceful pact with the California rapper Buck got heat for it. Jimmy Henchmen’s kid gets allegedly slapped by Yayo and The Game comes out with “Body Bags”, a diss track against 50 and Yayo. Then 50 makes his radio appearance saying that he and Buck ain’t cool no more. Granted he later wrote it off as a joke. Still, it would seem that while Young Buck wants to mediate The Game and 50 want to fight. Who’s right and who’s wrong? It all depends on who you ask. What is real is that Buck is not the instigator for any of it. Why can Jay-Z and Nassquash beef and G-Unit beef can’t be stopped?
So Buck moves away from the now failed efforts and focuses on his music, his life and his music label. Starting Cashville Records, he signed the New York/New Jersey group Outlawz to it. Outlawz made their name when Tupacsigned them before he died. At that point Buck already had a California rapper on the label, C-Bo. Doing shows all over the globe and enjoying his sophomore release, Buck the World, David Brown enjoys the life. “Nothing frustrates me to be honest because I wake up every day and I’m living and I wake up breathing”, he says.
Read the interview with Young Buck and see for yourself.
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