BREAKING NEWS! Proof was shot to death overnight here in the D. At a club on 8 Mile, no less. Needless to say, Proof is a hip-hop artist, because otherwise he’d have a name like Bob Smith. He was DOA at the hospital, so I guess it’s safe to assume he wasn’t shot in the fleshy part of the thigh, which was last week’s comic relief on “The Sopranos.”
I recommend that link, which at this moment has the rushed, get-me-rewrite tone of a reporter breathlessly dictating a hot scoop from the cop shop. And there are priceless details: Proof was Eminem’s best man at his cursed January wedding, already defunct. He served as Em’s “on-stage hype man,” whatever that is. And this is the second Eminem posse shooting in recent months; Obie Trice was shot while driving on the Lodge freeway on New Year’s Eve.
Amazing: Proof’s Wikipedia entry already has his date of death on it. By my estimation, he’s been dead barely five hours. The amazing internet.
Please don’t take my somewhat sardonic tone for a lack of appreciation for the finality of death. Every man’s violent death diminishes me, etc. But when you participate in a culture that lionizes violence and gun-toting and all the rest of it, a certain amount of this is, how you say? Inevitable. This is one reason part of me roots for Eminem, who seems to be trying to be a grown-up. I doubt he was in that club, but what do I know?
IMMEDIATE UPDATE: Some sources claim we’re having a rap war. Oh, joy.
brian stouder said on April 11, 2006 at 10:39 am
I view this as much the same dynamic – even if it is manifested in a different style – as when previous generations’ popular musicians all too frequently left this veil of tears via overdose, or alcohol-induced choking on their own vomit, or self-inflicted shotgun blasts.
All of these people live ‘the life’ (whether ‘the life’ is devil-may-care substance abuse, or boozey blues, or [more recently]street violence), to the end.
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Danny said on April 11, 2006 at 11:21 am
If this means less rap “music,” then I am not conflicted in the least.
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Dorothy said on April 11, 2006 at 11:52 am
I’m just impressed that Nancy, who is the same age as me, knows anything at all of any relevance concerning rap and their “artists” (and I use the term extremely loosely)!
That being said, I have to confess I liked the song that won the Oscar for Best Song this year. I wasn’t able to see the live performance, but I saw “Hustle and Flow” and that song really stuck in my head!
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mary said on April 11, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Dorothy
You should watch MTV more and catch the rap videos. All about bling, cars and body parts.
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