The Rap

by Ian Frazier

This is an interesting article about Derrick Parker, NYPD's former 'hip-hop cop'. Parker had at one point headed up an investigative team into rap and hip-hop related crime, and is still, even in retirement, the person to go to find out what is happening within the music community.

This falls into the category of New Yorker articles that explain how things you wouldn't have ever thought existed work. Parker now runs a security company, doing bodyguard work and manning the door at events. He is a highly intelligent man, with an encyclopedic knowledge of the communities he has spent his life living in and policing.

My problem with this article is that it's another example of how only the worst of hip-hop is what the mainstream gets to read about. We hear about Busta Rhymes protecting a shooter responsible for killing a bodyguard at his own video shoot, because of the 'no snitching' code. We get to read, again, about shoot-outs between Lil Kim's and Foxy Brown's crews, or how Fabolous came to take a bullet in the leg. And so, once again, it's the garbage that ends up dominating the culture.

I'm not complaining too loudly - last week's New Yorker wrote about Flying Lotus. I just wish I could avoid ever seeing Sean Comb's name in print again (I've been doing a really good job of not hearing his voice).