Hip-hop is also guilty of creating a ludicrous representation of the crack trade. Raekwon of Wu-Tang Clan went certified platinum on his album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, which included his hit single Ice Cream. Ice cream is street lingo for high quality crack cocaine. Mainstream hip-hop artist Lil Wayne has made a name for himself by overstating how much money he makes from cooking crack and selling it on his respective block. I’m a Dboy, a track from his 2005 album The Carter II exemplifies this point, “In the kitchen over the stove with pots and pans…a hundred grand in rubber bands”. And as if a hundred grand wasn’t high enough for Lil Wayne, he later released a song with fellow southern rapper Birdman entitled A Hundred Million Dollars.
Of the gangster rap genre, Clipse is perhaps one of the most consistent. Not only does the hip hop duo allude to crack in nearly every song, their mixtapes and albums feature some aspect of crack culture. The cover of their multi-platinum 2006 album Hell Hath No Fury depicts the duo sitting on a crack stove. They have also released three volumes of a mixtape entitled We Got it 4 cheap, a reference to crack trafficking. They even feature the Arm & Hammer logo in their Base Tour poster. Furthermore, “Basing” or “Freebasing” is street lingo for smoking crack. If the implications aren’t enough, the song I’m a Roller explicitly asserts, “I ain’t Richard Pryor, but prior to rap I was cookin’ crack over an open fire”.
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