Where do we draw the [expletive] LINE?!?!

According to Nobodysmiling.com Lupe Fiasco’s business partner Charles ‘Chilly’ Patton just got sentenced to 44 years on heroin charges.  Prosecutors did not present evidence of a link between the 1st and 15th Record Company and drug dealing but the connection ‘was implied’.

Didn’t the Kennedy’s make their money bootleggin during the prohibition and then clean up their money and run for office?  I guess this business model never fails, unless you sell heroin and get caught.  But then again, the money is made and Lupe is one of the hottest rappers on the planet right now. Mission Accomplished!

Based on this model, perhaps we’ll see little Sean Carter Jr become president one day.  I know he’s not born yet, but between, Beyonce and the Jigga-man, who wouldn’t vote for this kid?  He’s a shoe in.  Never to know the run down row houses his pops sold smack from in Brooklyn and Newark.  I guess that’s why Jigga pulled the plug on the Dream Hampton assisted autobiography. 

In a totally unrelated topic I just found out that they are tearing down Astroland in Coney Island.  What the hell am I doing in DC, I need to be back in Brooklyn!  I need to take pics of Astroland like everyday for a week before they tear it down.  What a sad day that’ll be.  What’s the world coming to.

Anyway, I heard the single and saw Kaye’s new video.  What’s this dude talking about right?  I really wasn’t feeling it?  Maybe I should listen again or something.  I have no doubt that the album will be full of surprises and it’ll be dope, but this lead off single just threw me for a loop.  Word on the street is the album is getting pushed back again.  They need to stop frontin’.  I know hip hop aint sellin’ like it used to, but this is Kanye.  He’ll move 150 thousand units the first week after shipping platinum.

Lastly, Al Sharpton is continuing to do his part in ‘cleaning’ up Hip hop.  He’s bringing his campaign to Detroit in conjunction with the NAACP’s mock funeral for the N-word.  At a press conference in front of the Motown Museum Sharpton spoke of the 60’s and James Brown and how women were not denigrated nor was the N-word used.

I don’t know I still got mixed emotions.  Yeah in the 60’s we struggled, we didn’t have it like we do today.  Today we use the N-word, although we’ve made tremendous inroads and some black folks are really wealthy.  It seems backwards, but it’s true.

50 cent owns 10% share of Glaceau, makers of Vitamin Water.  And on May 25, 2007, The Coca-Cola Company agreed to buy Glaceau in a cash deal valued at $4.1 billion.  Now, I know this is all ‘paper money’ but technically that means 50 is well on his way to half a billion dollars!  But he uses the N-word and denigrates women.  At the same time the machine that is 50, has probably paid for salaries and doctors and put food on the plates of many, many people.

So, which is right?  Who is the ‘better’ person?  A James Brown type person, who influenced a generation with positivity and creativity but beat his wife and abused drugs (may he rest in peace, I’m just stating the facts) OR; a 50 cent type person who denigrates people publicly but privately funds an empire that may employ hundreds if not thousands of people.

The aforementioned Kennedy’s were dirty for a point.  No ones pointing any fingers at them.  Does that mean what they did is ok, or just in the past.  Is it ok if 50 goes straight and never has another booty shake in his video? 

Yes, these words are bad.  No question.  I’m just having a hard time drawing the line.  I find myself constantly reevaluating what’s ok and what’s not ok.  Is it cool to have nudity on TV (Europe does it and they are far less violent than we are as a society) should prostitution be legal, should we ban the use of the N-word, should we even care about the N-word, should weed be legal, should abortion be legal, so actors can say the N-word and rappers can’t, actors can depict violence (to a chainsaw massacre degree) but rappers can’t talk about it?  Meanwhile, they’re all making millions.  I’m sitting at home trying to draw the line and they’re all making money hand over fist.  I guess that’s just the Nacirema Dream, right?  Maybe little Marquis Jackson will be Sean Carter Jr’s running mate.  The slogan will be “Carter/Jackson 2040 - These Niggas aint Playing”