I have become relatively desensitized towards hip-hop.
Meaning: things rappers say in a song usually don’t bother me.
No matter how offensive the words are, if the beat is good and loud enough, statements will get overlooked.
Rap is supposed to shock, disturb and ruffle feathers. It’s one of the elements that made me fall in love with rap music in the first place, and one of the reasons why I still love it today.
VIDEO: Tasteless? Tyga Drops A Trayvon Martin Punchline In His New Song
However, something foreign happened to me over the weekend. A song jolted me. Well, not really a song, but a line in a song.
The song, called “Designer,” and line came from Young Money rapper Tyga, who also released a video to coincide with the track (which you can see above.)
The record is your typical Tyga-affair. Tyga is not trying to save the world with his music. He makes feel good, boastful, materialistic, misogynistic party music.
I had nothing against that.
What I did have a problem with was the following lines:
”I got that gold thang. Make these b*tches scream. Make these p*ssies pop. Killing’ n*ggas for no reason — Trayvon. This that Zimmerman, that drop head…”
I always knew that Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old who was murdered by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, was going to get mentioned in a rap song. (Hip-hop has a tendency to do that: take relevant, newsy stories, and playfully display them in a song.)
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But man, I never imagined it would be this inappropriate, this tasteless and that it would bother me this much.
Trayvon’s named should not be mentioned like this.
First, the tone, theme of the song is all wrong. Like I said before, “Designer” is essentially a sh*t-talking, braggadocio record where he says lines like, “My d*ck hard. It’s in your broad. I swear to God, I pulled it out. My squirt game, on her face. I d*ck slapping, now I’m Dick Tracey.”
Tyga, who I actually enjoy, is not trying to address anything that has any social repercussions.
He brings up Trayvon’s name because he wanted to make a cute, clever statement. I’m not 100 percent sure of what he meant with the line, but it sounds like he’s saying his style, or rap style, is killing.
His rapping isn’t senselessly “killing n*ggas.”
He is senselessly using a line at a time where the wound is too fresh and too deep. Historians have said that the Trayvon Martin case is America’s most important racial incident since Emmit Till. We can’t start making light of this.
Tyga made an error, but I don’t think it’s a malicious one. I think Tyga just wanted to make a clever line. The same goes for rapper Rick Ross, who mentioned Trayvon in Usher’s now song, “Lemme See.” Given, his line — “Chanel Hoodie on, looking like Trayvon Martin. George Zimmerman don’t want it” — wasn’t as blunt and offensive. But it just felt wrong hearing Trayvon’s name on a track where Usher is singing about “gangbangs.”
Earlier this year I wrote a piece hoping that our hip-hop heavyweights stand up for Trayvon in a song.
This is not what I meant.
Rappers shouldn’t try to make unfunny puns when we mention Trayvon. Let’s actually make some statements.
