Commentary: Middle-class rappers who extol thug life insult parents

Date: Friday, December 24, 2004
By: Wayne Dawkins, BlackAmericaWeb.com

The late Russell Tyrone Jones, 35, embarrassed his dad, the so-called fisherman, at fishing, said his father William.

William Jones, 61, told a reporter from the Daily Press of Newport News, Va. about his son, who was widely known as eccentric rap star ODB.

ODB, aka Old Dirty Bastard of the Wu Tang Clan, died accidentally on Nov. 13 in a recording studio after consuming cocaine and the painkiller Tramadol, said the New York City Medical Examiner. ODB’s colorful performing career included prison time for drug possession and time spent in drug rehab.

Other colorful parts of ODB’s career were claims he was a rough dude from the ’hood.

Fake, the mourning dad who sired the real Russell Jones told the newspaper.

Dad lives in a suburban-like neighborhood of Newport News, and the local paper was more receptive to his claims that his late son was a hip-hop poseur, contrary to what music trade magazines published in New York.

“You know, that story about him being raised in the Fort Greene [Brooklyn] projects on welfare until he was a child of 13 was a total lie,” said Jones in the story published on Monday. “When I read it in the Vibe magazine a few years ago, my other son was here from the Navy. He said, ‘Daddy, did you see this story?’

“I was furious. I tried to get in touch with the guy who wrote the story, but all I got was a tape for two weeks. So finally I called my wife.

“She said, ‘Look, I know you’re upset.’ She said, “Your son did that for publicity.’

“I said, ‘Wow, As hard as we worked.’”

Yeah. Daddy Jones returned to his native Virginia and is retired from the New York City Transit Authority. His ex-wife, Cherry Jones, was a police department dispatcher. Jones said their son grew up in a reasonably stable two-parent, two-income home in Brooklyn.

I recognized that lifestyle. My younger brother and wife are civil servants and live in a house in Brooklyn that’s full of kids. And many of my homies from Bedford-Stuyvesant became cops, sanitation workers and correctional officers after an adolescence of playing basketball and hanging out on the street ended.

Oh, yeah – a lot of them were wild when they were young. Then they settled down, went to work and raised families.

Truth be told, ODB was doing the same: taking care of a wife and kids as Russell Jones.

“To the public, he was known as Old Dirty Bastard,” his mom told the BBC, “but to me he was known as Rusty, the kindest, most generous soul on earth.”

That reality, however, does not enable hip-hop notoriety.

As ODB, Russell “Rusty” Jones had to behave outrageously to succeed. Now, a talented entertainer is dead and not here for his family at Christmastime because of reckless living. That’s a shame.

Midwestern rapper MC Breed wisely warned in his 1991 hit, “There ain’t no future in your frontin’.” And unfortunately ODB’s fronting recalled another hip-hop poseur from a decade ago.

Lichelle “Boss” Laws seemed to be the most gangsta of girl gangstas. She posed with automatic weapons, bragged that she did prison time and claimed she was from the hard-knock streets of Detroit.

Fake, exclaimed her parents.

Lichelle was a good girl who they put through private school and enrolled in college in suburban Detroit. Her parents, an auto worker dad and schoolteacher mom, wanted her to be an achiever, but Lichelle Laws became enamored with gangsta hip-hop culture.

That’s not necessarily bad. What’s odious is what industry people told her she had to do to succeed. Producers "were telling us that we didn't curse enough," Laws told Brett Pulley, then of The Wall Street Journal, the brotha reporter who exposed her as a perpetrator in 1994. Laws and her female partner pumped up their act with profanity; they were a hit for minute, then they faded into obscurity.

Fortunately, and unlike ODB, Laws did not get killed or seriously injured while posing as a gangsta. However, she caused her parents a lot of pain. They were trying to offer a better life and lead by example, and their daughter rejected that.

William Jones, ODB’s dad, fondly recalled taking his sons fishing off Rockaway, N.Y. Dad could reel in porgies and bluefish, but he could never catch the blackfish like his son the future rapper. Young Russell would rib him about that.

I bet Dad wished his son was here at this cherished family time of year.

Parents, don’t give up. Cajole, lecture and plead that these ubiquitous hardcore media images remain largely gross fictions that occasionally become realistically lethal.

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Gotta love Home Theater......

Well, maybe not your neighbors....

People like 'The Game' and '50 cent' annoy the hell outta me.

Funny thing is --rappers from the suburbs, have to pretend to be from the hood, to appeal to an audience in the suburbs!

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And then you get kids who should be aspiring to decent occupations, aspiring instead to be "thugged out" and "Pimpalastic" like their fake gangsta heros.

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"Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." - Matthew 5 v11 KJV

Very waggish indeed.

yea..im sure a lot of rappers had good lives to a certain extent..i mean look at biggie...he could have been a dentist b4 he started selling crack....tupac...went to a great acting school...but decided to be a hard core rapper and live a destructive life. i dont even think he had a real record until he entered the game.

i never really saw ODB has a so call "gangsta" rapper. maybe i need to go back to listen to what he was saying..but nothing really caught as hardcore violent. ne way RIP ODB. its funny how so many are willing to talk **** bout him but god forbid anyone say something bad about 2pac/biggie.

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~MakE IT DRiP DRoP WeT~

I still fail to see the facination with living the "thug", "gangsta" or "rude bwoy" life. Why try to be like them? Real bad man naw advertise. Real bad man life nuh easy. Real bad man life end either in prison or dead house. So why try to be a like them?

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"Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." - Matthew 5 v11 KJV

Very waggish indeed.

Even funnier is the fact that you're from the hood doesn't necessarily mean you're not a punk..... but that topic is for another thread I guess. Why is it that you have to be 'hood' to sell? What makes living in 'suburbia' mean you don't have heart??

Hmm... Jubi scratches head and ponders what makes someone from the projects unable to be knocked out by someone from the burbs.......

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Gotta love Home Theater......

Well, maybe not your neighbors....

Which brings to mind Chris Rocks' stand up performance a while ago. How coming home from jail seems to be celebrated more than coming home from college with a degree.....

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Gotta love Home Theater......

Well, maybe not your neighbors....

LOL!!! The common misconception is that if you're really "hood", you carry a "heater (i just learned this word)", and everyone should fear you. And if you are feared, you're cool in the eyes of your peers. It's all pretty asinine, if you ask me!

So true! Every listen to Hot97 and hear them should out their "dogs in the pen". What about your brothas and sistas up at college?? Real crazy!!!

Mi nuh get dat part either. Why give a man ratings because him did deh a prison weh man beat him and rape im? Dat suppose fi mek im a big man?
If anyting, people suppose to feel sorry fi dem an' try help dem recover from di ordeal and influence kids to avoid that experience rather than holding it up as a badge of honour.

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"Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." - Matthew 5 v11 KJV

Very waggish indeed.

Furthermore, mi nuh really get di point a glamourizing drug dealing an' robbin' people. How yuh fi dance to a chune weh a talk seh certain man jus' a line up people like you fi jook dem dung an' splurt wid dem tings?

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"Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." - Matthew 5 v11 KJV

Very waggish indeed.

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Gotta love Home Theater......

Well, maybe not your neighbors....

That is a very good point....makes me think......