Killings giving this music a bad rap

By MIKE ROYKO

Like most middle-age white guys in suits, as we are often sneeringly described, I have paid little attention to such gangster rap performers as Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur.

To be frank, I knew nothing about Shakur and his art until he was shot to death last year. And the first time I heard of Mr. B.I.G. (a k a Christopher Wallace) was last Monday morning when word came he was gunned down in the same manner as Shakur.

My indifference to their cultural contributions has nothing to do with race. Most of my adult life I've listened to and collected jazz, blues and other music performed by black artists. One of my sons heard so much of it while growing up that he became a music critic and has a jazz collection that would be the envy of many radio stations.

But I drew the line at rap, especially of the gangster or gangsta persuasion. The repetitious thump-thump of the music can bring on a migraine. Even worse are the lyrics, about having one's sexual joys with women who are called demeaning names, doing or selling drugs and engaging in gunplay.

If sociologists want to tell me this music has deep cultural significance because it tells us about the hardships endured by young urban black men and their estrangement from mainstream American society, OK, I'll buy that.

But I still prefer listening to Louie Armstrong, Errol Garner, Scott Joplin or even the Mills Brothers.

It's difficult, though, to ignore the rap culture when its leading practitioners or business associates are having each other shot, or their fans are shooting rivals, or whatever the heck is going on.

Try to imagine what a public shocker it would be if, one day, Frank Sinatra was leaving an awards banquet and was zapped. And if, a few months later, Tony Bennett got it the same way.

Or if Luciano Pavarotti was gunned down as he came out of the stage door of an opera house. And, not long afterward, his rival, Placido Domingo, was zapped.

So it is hard to ignore the gangster rap field when the bullets are flying.

But what is going on? If anyone knows, they aren't saying. A few black journalists from rap magazines have been interviewed on TV, and some said the famed rivalry between West Coast rap (represented by Shakur) and East Coast rap (that of Notorious B.I.G.) is highly exaggerated by "the media."

The media can be blamed for many things. But I flatly reject it exaggerated these two men to death.

It's also been suggested various black criminal gangs that are maturing into a black version of the Mafia - Crips, Bloods, Stones and such - have recognized the big money being made in the rap entertainment industry and have muscled in or are in the process of doing so.

If so, it wouldn't be the first time crime figures have taken an interest, business or otherwise, in the entertainment field.

Going back to the days of prohibition speakeasy/nightclubs, mob guys who controlled the booze and the clubs could decide where bands, singers and standup comics performed.

Modern Las Vegas, with its big casino nightclubs, was virtually created by the American Mafia, with financing from the Teamsters. So any performer who had an opportunity to work in Vegas was bound to have at least a nodding acquaintanceship with those Hollywood has dubbed "wise guys."

And there have been big Hollywood stars - George Raft and Sinatra come to mind - whose friendship with Mafia dons was never any secret.

There was also the touching romance - as presented in a recent TV movie - between ugly Chicago mob boss Sam (Momo) Giancana and the lovely Phyllis McGuire, of the singing McGuire sisters.

But I'll say one thing in behalf of the American Mafia - it had enough business sense and artistic appreciation not to go around bumping off the star entertainers.

If the murder of Notorious B.I.G. is treated the same way by the mainstream media as was the murder of Tupac Shakur, we'll know little about why it happened.

Those who report and write about these crimes treat them as cultural and sociological studies. We'll be told about the unhappy boyhood of Notorious B.I.G. and his days pushing drugs on the "mean streets" of Brooklyn, just as we learned about the roughneck origins of Tupac Shakur.

So how come when somebody put a slug in Momo Giancana's head while he sauteed sausage and peppers, nobody got all teary-eyed about his rough boyhood on the mean pavements of Taylor Street?

Crimes used to be covered by hard-nosed crime reporters who didn't give a hoot about the unhappy childhoods of those who got in the way of bullets. They were concerned with who did it and why.

Now if they ever discover who did it to Notorious B.I.G. and why, we'll probably be told those who pulled the triggers also had unhappy childhoods.

Even worse, that they were cursed with a lack of rhythm.

Chicago Tribune