OPINION

WE DID IT FOR LOVE

DJ Quick had an inspiring song which's hook was an insulting 'if it don't make money/ it don't make sense". That was more than ten years ago on the Murder was the Case short film. In 2007 St Lucas that Ribelatti says it's about time underground emcees woke up to this reality. It don't make sense, if it don't make money (your rhyme that is)

The hip hop personification, NAS, once spit a rhyme that left me thinking. Like soft porn, the rhyme left me thinking HARD. I bet this coming from a conscience MC would leave you as HARD.

"Money is my bitch." That’s what shocked the sox off me, know whatta mean?
Militias of sixteen eyes patched on my homeboy’s theatre system made me realize that today’s info-tainment dynasty is a world of images and audio. This is especially more accessible through the boon of DVD’s. I remember the first time I heard the word DVD was 9 years ago on R-Kelly’s and Nas’ Did you ever think? remix.

The next two years saw yours truly groping about through the mazes of life ignorant of the poisonous word spewed by a man known as the Illmatic MC.

It was during one of my ritualistic magazine reading sessions that I came to know that this meant Digital Versatile Disc (DVD), a metallic version of the Pepin and Merhi videotapes that we loved watching during the fad of our adolescence. However, the DVD’s are here now, even at the cheapest price at a Jozi corner. Yes they are so here that even the ludicrous (lucrative) rap/hip hop music scene has voraciously taken to them as new business ventures. This serves as revelation that rap music as we know it is nothing else but a business. If you are a rapper and you don’t get that, you should consider submitting your CV to the nearest retail store.

A lot of "real" MC’s would kill you for saying that. But as I deliberately pointed out, "rap music as we know it." Now we wouldn’t be aware of rap music had some greedy entrepreneur overdosing on corporate visions not made the music commercially available in our markets. We have the greedy son-of-a-bitch to thank.

Now what many lyricists don’t get is that rap/hip hop is nothing else but a commercial missile that can only explode in our ears at a price. You could err thinking that today music is free thanks to the CD writers that have flooded our homes. Don’t forget that even those evil CDR’s cost at least R2. That’s commercial enough. So, no dough, no music - while you are overdosing underground/ yo bitch is getting fucked on surface ground.

This drives home my point: why do some ignorant rappers think they don’t have to be "all about the money"? Wake up fools, if it wasn’t for money, you wouldn’t even be able to spell the word R.A.P. It’s about the money whether we like it or not. I myself am an underground MC who swore I would never go commercial, but just hooking up my own album has already plunged me into debts with drug dealers at the cost of more than R10 000. And the folks I owe keep banging on my door as if they forget I’m an MC: a real MC, remove yo esophagus/ strip yo naked like city robbers. Fuck a rhyme, vandag I have no choice but to pay back the ten grand, every cent of it - and to do so I must first make another loan for multi-pressing (mastering and replication) so that I can sell some few copies enough to make a profit to get the hags off my back.

The funny thing (I ain’t laughing) again is that yours truly (out of love for the game) tried to pass my copy to a friend who said he was dying to listen to my shit. Three weeks later I couldn’t believe when a guy tried to sell me a copy of my own album at R15 – Whose bitch is money now? This told me I need to give my CD some feet, and of course these love frequenting the hegemonic inflation rate.

Now that I have admitted that going commercial is not an option but a prerequisite I am aiming at pressing at least ten thousand copies of my CD coupled with five thousand DVD’s of my underground life of geddo orgies and blunts with my peeps.

I have my role models to thank for this idea because their lives showed a subtle indication that rap was all about the bucks, the rags-to-riches race. I take after all the real MC’s I used to listen to, and believe me they are not many but their lyrics say it all. It is unbelievable that Tupac and Biggie were competing about who was the richest between them, and Jay Z and Nas, Ja Rule and 50 Cent, Eminem and himself.

How about a few quotes (if I understand the word few).

• 'I put some cash in yo pocket made you a man again' – Holla when u c me - Tupac
  

• 'Talkin’ ‘bout chu getting’ money but it’s funny to me/ all you niggaz live and tell me why you fuckin’ wit’ me/ I’m a self-made millionaire… now it’s all ‘bout Versace, you copied my style' – Hit em up - Tupac
  

• 'Fuckin’ wit’ a made nigga MOB (money over bitches), fuck ‘em all let ‘em understand my plot to get richer/ watch more than six figures… they got me fiendin’ for my cash like a fiend when he dreams of drugs… til the day that I die/ I’ll be remembered as a paid nigga, outlaw til the grave' – Made niggaz - Tupac
  

• 'You never thought hip hop could take it this far/ now I’m in the limelight coz I rap tight/ time to get paid/ blow up like the World Trade/ born sinner, the opposite of a winner, remember when I used to eat Sardines for dinner… now [costly liquor] keeps me busy/ girls used to diss me/ now they write letters coz they miss me/ I never thought it could happen/ this rappin’ stuff… when I was dead broke man I couldn’t picture this… no need to worry, my account handles that… birthdays were the worst days/ now we seep champagne when we thirstay/ damn right I love the life I live/ coz I went from negative to positive' – Juicy - The Notorious BIG

• 'First I talk about how I dress this is, in diamond necklaces, stretch Lexuses, the sex is, just immaculate' – One more chance Remix - The Notorious BIG
  

• 'Believe me sweetie, I got enough to feed the needy/ no need to be greedy/ I got mad friends with Benzes… forget the tellie (television) we’ll just go to the crib and watch a movie in a Jacuzzi… ‘How you livin’ Biggie Smalls?’/ in mansions, and Benzes, givin’ earns to my friends/ and it feels stupendous/ tremendous cream/ fuck a dollar in a dream… money, whores and clothes, all a nigga knows/ a fool’s pleasure, whatever/ I had to find the buried treasure/ so grams, I have the measure/ however, livin’ better now/ Gucci sweater now, drop top BM’s I’m the man girlfriend' – Big Poppa - The Notorious BIG (Ready to Die)
  

• 'Ain’t nothing changed except the number after the dot on the Range/ the way niggaz lookin’ at me now, kind of strange… pride in decidin’ crap, crab or lobsters/ who say masters don’t prosper/ niggaz is actors/ niggaz deserve Oscars/ now we buy homes in unfamiliar places - 'I love the dough' - The Notorious BIG, featuring Jay Z
  

• 'Playin’ Monopoly wit’ real cash… being broke is childish and I’m quite grown' – Jay Z

• 'Producing geeze like sperm' - Ain't no nigga - Jay Z
  
  'That’s Nas ain’t it?/ made it rich from entertainment' – Street dreams - Nas (It was Written)
  

• 'Don’t hate me, hate the money I see' – Hate me now - Nas
  

• 'Hit the record store/ never let me go/ get my whole collection yo… got all o’ y’all watching my moves/ my watch and my jewels/ hop in my coupe, dodge interviews/ like that, it’s not only my jewels/ I ice anything, plenty rims/ look at my tennis shoes, I ice that/ who am I?/ tha back twister, lingerie ripper (you can only rip if you can buy), automatic leg-spreader, quicker brain getter' – Got yoself a gun - Nas
  

• 'The mighty dollar or the mighty Allah?'
  

• 'My money is my bitch, my bitch is my money' – Nas
  

• 'I wear your advance on my neck' – Stunt 101, Lloyd Banks
  

For more, visit yo nearest hip-hop shop. Yeah, you gonn pay mad dollar for that shit, son. I wonder if you is MC, still screaming hip hop, real hip hop. Yes, I’m also in it for the love dog, the love of money. After careful analysis of the undeniable COLOSSUS of rap, Nas and Money is my bitch, I thought, yeah right, "money is my bitch," Nas said/ but the bitch moved in with Jay Z, bastard!