Gangsta Rap and the American Dream

Listening to TB's mixtape in the woods, as you do, I was struck by how much certain generic rap reflects the American Dream. TB, named after Tuberculosis cos he is proper catchy I presume, was handing out his twenty-four track demo on the streets in New York, but we had yet to play the preposterously overlong item in question. While the actual tunes were alright, the rhyming was decent and the level of bass satifactory, it was some of the most uninventive music I have ever had the non-reaction to listen to. Guns, money and hoes, the simple lives these guys are living, represent the American Dream though: capitalism and the right to bear arms, making money, making money, shooting things, doing as you please, forging a path, making money, shooting things, manifest destiny, making money, spending said money. Just because the money they make is from drugs, the things they are shooting are each other, and what they are spending the money on is hoes and drugs, with a smattering of jewelry and presumably some bullets, nothing could be more traditionally American than gangsta rap. But this argument probably wouldn't fly in Wyoming.