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Hip-Hop, Lil Boosie, Six Murders and Commercialized Homicide

By Boyce Watkins, PhD on Jun 25th 2010 12:18AM
Filed under: Celebrity Finances, Dr. Boyce Money

Comments (13)

The rapper Lil Boosie (aka Torrance Hatch) has been hit with some serious allegations involving drugs, murder and all kinds of other nasty activity. We reported Lil Boosie's situation recently here on AOL Black Voices and should update by noting that Lil Boosie has been allegedly linked to another five murders, which may cause the rapper to face the death penalty. I am not here to judge Lil Boosie or talk much about the specifics of his situation, but I thought it noteworthy that in a recent Billboard article, Boosie's violent lyrics have come back to haunt him.

In one of his songs, 'I Know,' Boosie had this to say:

"So put yo fist up in yo pockets and them bullets in the chamber" and "I'm itchin to kill, gimme a reason I will. I'll end up grippin a steal."

Most of us dismiss this type of lyrical content to be nothing more than a rapper attempting to live his Superman fantasy life on wax. I know plenty of good, decent law-abiding Americans who recite lyrics like this every day, no different from those of us who love films like 'The Godfather.'

But hip-hop has an interesting perception of realness to it, in which most of us judge artists based on whether or not they actually did commit the crimes they brag about on records. Also, when it is unearthed that a rapper was cowardly in a real-life situation in which he was expected to pull his gun out, his record sales will ultimately decline.


One example is the rapper Rick Ross, who is being sued by a real drug dealer for allegedly stealing his name. Rick Ross (aka William Roberts) is a consistent target of the rapper 50 Cent, who claims that Ross (or Roberts, whatever his name is) never lived the life of crime he claims. I like 50 Cent a lot (the guy is actually brilliant, in a thugged-out kind of way), but my response to 50 Cent is, who cares, man? Do we really want to punish a black man for NOT going to prison? Can we leave the ignorance at the door please?

One on-the-job hazard of bragging about past felonies is that some of this may be used against you either in the court of law or the court of public opinion. With Lil Boosie facing the death penalty for multiple alleged murders, it probably doesn't help his case that he's bragged on records about killing people. Even if the jury is told to ignore such information, if Lil Boosie has been fully marketed and branded as a killer, I can't imagine anyone seriously doubting that he may have had the capacity to kill another human being. Things like this aren't supposed to matter in the court of law, but as they say in hip-hop, it is what it is.

If I were a young artist, I'd be careful about what I put on paper. Those words might come back to haunt you. Also, we can learn from Lil Boosie that keepin it real can ultimately go wrong. Black men don't have to be criminals to be successful.



Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and the author of the new book 'Black American Money.' To have Dr. Boyce's commentary delivered to your e-mail, please click here.

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