From Jay-Z to 50 Cent to Kendrick Lamar: The Paranoia of Black Artists Surrounding an Untimely Death

Story originally published on The Demo Tape on March 28, 2019

In the summer of 1991, The Geto Boys released “Mind Playing Tricks On Me,” the lead single for their third studio album We Can’t Be Stopped. The song went on to become a number-one single for the Geto Boys. To this day, it is regarded as one of the greatest Hip Hop songs of all-time. “This track established the South as a serious force in music, proving that these Texans could do dark better than anyone on either coast,” wrote Tom Breihan of Pitchfork. However, what Breihan and so many others failed to realize was that The Geto Boys and their peers were not doing dark, as if it were for show; they themselves were living in the dark.

“At night I can’t sleep, I toss and turn/ Candlesticks in the dark, visions of bodies bein’ burned” — Scarface of The Geto Boys, “Mind Playing Tricks On Me” (’91)

In the 2010 Pitchfork article listing the top 200 songs of the 1990s, Breihan wrote “Every verse works as a window into a fatalistic mentality, as all three rappers naturally assume that death is around the corner.” For The Geto Boys, like so many other young, Black people, the paranoia surrounding death is not one drawn out of assumption; this paranoia surrounding untimely death is a reality. The window which Breihan is referring to is one less metaphorical than it is literal, as a then 20-year-old Scarface was more-so recalling events taking place outside of his housing casements that caused him sleepless nights rather than just creating clever wordplay for our listening enjoyment. The verses work so “well” as metaphorical windows into a fatalistic mentality because outside of the actual windows of the Geto Boys was the unfortunate reminder of their own mortality.

Almost five summers after the release of “Mind Playing Tricks On Me,” the world received Shawn Carter’s debut album Reasonable Doubt. Although it performed relatively low in terms of sales at the time of its release, Reasonable Doubt is now certified platinum and remains one of the hallmarks of Hip Hop, in particularly within the mafiaso rap subgenre; the east coast counterpart of the gangsta rap made popular by west coast rap artists in the late 1980's.

Twenty-five years old at the time of his debut, Jay-Z rapped with the poise and intellect of the doyen we’ve now known him to be, now 13 studio albums into his career. Themes of luxury and self-indulgence reign supreme throughout the 14-track project from the moment the Scarface-esque monologue cuts into Jay rapping on the opening track fittingly titled “Can’t Knock The Hustle.” This motif continues to dominate the sound of the album, making it one of Jay-Z’s most cohesive oeuvres in terms of recurring elements and their role within the sound of a body of work. In the first five tracks of the project lie a slight sense of invincibility, with Jay rapping about his lifestyle and aspirations with no repercussions in sight.

“And fools that think I slip, you fuck around/ You get your guys hit, they built me to be filthy/ On some I-do-or-die shit” — Jay-Z, “Politics As Usual” (’96)

As the project approaches its midway point, the DJ Premier-produced “D’Evils” appears at track six. Infused is a Snoop Dogg sample from “Lil Ghetto Boy” in which the Long Beach native raps “Dear God, I wonder can you save me?” over the sinister knocking of Premier’s piano keys. This question foreshadows the overarching tone of the song.

“This shit is wicked on these mean streets/ None of my friends speak, we’re all tryna win/ But then again, maybe it’s for the best though/ ’Cause when they’re sayin’ too much/ You know they’re tryna get you touched” — Jay-Z, “D’Evils” (’96)

The luxuries that filled the verses of the first five songs on Reasonable Doubt are the theme of “D’Evils” as well, but offered with the consequences of accumulating them. Jay-Z’s first verse speaks on his awareness of the workings around him, as he raps “I never prayed to God, I prayed to Gotti/ That’s right, it’s wicked — that’s life, I live it/ Ain’t askin’ for forgiveness for my sins.” It is with “D’Evils” that the two primary themes of Reasonable Doubt collide — luxury and mortality.

“I never sleep, ’cause sleep is the cousin of death” — Nas, “New York State Of Mind” (’94)

This affixation of these principal themes continues especially with track eight, “Can I Live.” In 1991, Scarface rapped of his neurosis with his own mortality leading to insomnia on “Mind Playing Tricks On Me,” as he disclosed “At night I can’t sleep, I toss and turn/ Candlesticks in the dark, visions of bodies being burned.” This insomniac state of paranoia was heard again on Nas’ 1994 debut album Illmatic, when he rapped the infamous line “I never sleep ’cause sleep is the cousin of death.” Again, with “Can I Live,” Jay-Z relays the same feelings as he raps “I don’t sleep, I’m tired, I feel wired like codeine” due to feeling watched and plotted against.

“Well, we hustle out of a sense of hopelessness/ Sort of a desperation/ Through that desperation, we become addicted/ Sort of like the fiends we accustomed to servin’/ But we feel we have nothin’ to lose” — Jay-Z, “Can I Live?” (’96)

Paranoia as a result of an almost inevitable death because of one’s environment is a recurring theme heard time and time again, especially in the music of Black artists. Repeatedly, environmental stressors are revisited in debut, major studio albums like Reasonable Doubt and Illmatic, as artists work to make a name and funds for themselves in order to escape said stressors.

Born in 1975, Queens native 50 Cent was raised around drugs and crime in South Jamaica. His adolescence came at the peak of the crack epidemic ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶A̶m̶e̶r̶i̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶g̶o̶v̶e̶r̶n̶m̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶s̶p̶a̶r̶k̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶c̶r̶o̶s̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶r̶y̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶m̶a̶j̶o̶r̶ ̶c̶i̶t̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶u̶l̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶n̶u̶m̶b̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶s̶o̶c̶i̶a̶l̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶s̶e̶q̶u̶e̶n̶c̶e̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶l̶u̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶”̶w̶a̶r̶”̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶d̶r̶u̶g̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶a̶s̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶a̶r̶c̶e̶r̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶B̶l̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶;̶ ̶r̶a̶m̶i̶f̶i̶c̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶r̶a̶c̶i̶s̶t̶ ̶t̶e̶r̶r̶o̶r̶i̶s̶m̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶s̶e̶n̶t̶. 50 Cent’s mother, Sabrina Jackson, raised him up until she died in a fire when he was 8 years old. After her death, 50 Cent was raised by his grandmother and began selling drugs himself at the age of 12.

On May 24, 2000, 50 Cent was shot nine times in his hometown of Queens, NY. As a result of the attack, Jackson was left with a swollen tongue, a slur in his voice, and the loss of a wisdom tooth. This not only had a sonic effect on his musical releases that followed, but a change in his mind-frame; reflected in the title of his debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, and even further in the lyrics of one of the album’s standout tracks, “Many Men (Wish Death).”

“Every night I talk to God, but he don’t say nothin’ back/ I know he protectin’ me, but I still stay with my gat/ In my nightmares niggas keep pullin’ TEC’s on me/ Psychic says some bitch done put a hex on me” — 50 Cent, “Many Men (Wish Death)” (’03)

On Get Rich or Die Tryin’, 50 Cent raps openly of his encounters with his own mortality, his childhood environmental stressors, and the effect(s) they have on him as a 27-year-old man at the time. Environmental stressors also affect those artists who are inactive in criminal activity, but have an upbringing that shares similar dire circumstances. A prime example is Compton, CA native Kendrick Lamar.

On his major label debut, the 2012 good kid, m.A.A.d city, Lamar crafted an audio short film that follows the experiences of his teenage years in the drug-infested, gang-riddled streets of Compton. With the aid of serene production from the likes of Sounwave and other fellow California natives, Lamar introduces some of the harsh tales and realities of his adolescence. Addressed on the album are issues of violence, substance abuse, generational economic disenfranchisement, and more and their effect(s) on the Lamar family tree and Kendrick himself.

“And I’m not sure why I’m infatuated with death/ My imagination is surely an aggravation of threats” — Kendrick Lamar, “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst” (’12)

Lamar revealed in interviews post the release of the album that one of the acronyms for the album’s title is “My Angry Adolescence Divided.” While the standard 12-track version of the album has great examples of this divide, from “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe” to “The Art of Peer Pressure” to “Good Kid” and “M.A.A.D City,” one overlooked example that exemplifies Lamar’s overarching message lies on the deluxe version with track 14, “Black Boy Fly.” The song chronicles Lamar’s experience growing up in Compton and watching fellow Compton natives Arron Afflalo and Jayceon Taylor, famously known as The Game.

Coming out of Centennial High School, Afflalo was regarded as one of the best basketball players in the nation and labeled as a five-star recruit. He would commit to play for the UCLA Bruins and spend three seasons there before being named the Pac-12 Player of the Year in 2007 and being drafted by the Detroit Pistons with the 27th overall selection that same year.

Also once a student at Centennial High School, The Game rose to prominence around the same time as Afflalo. In the early 2000s, his debut mixtape You Know What It Is Vol. 1, found its way into the hands of P. Diddy. The Game would ultimately sign to Aftermath Entertainment and work under the tutelage of Dr. Dre, leading to the release of his debut album The Documentary in 2005.

“I wasn’t jealous cause of the talents they got/ I was terrified they’d be the last black boys to fly out of Compton” — Kendrick Lamar, “Black Boy Fly” (’12)

Meanwhile, Kendrick Lamar’s rap career was just beginning. In 2004, he released his first mixtape, Youngest Head Nigga In Charge. After gaining a local buzz, he would go on to sign a deal with Top Dawg Entertainment. From there, projects such as 2009’s Kendrick Lamar EP, 2010’s Overly Dedicated, and 2011’s Section.80 would deliver him a nationwide buzz before the release of his critically-acclaimed good kid, m.A.A.d city.

Though now a household name, Lamar revisited doubts he had about whether he would ever reach the heights of a pro basketball player like Afflalo or a rap star like The Game on “Black Boy Fly.” These doubts never stemmed from a lack of confidence in his own abilities as an artist. Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith saw the same talent that Lamar always saw in himself, that we are now seeing on display at one of the highest levels in rap.

These doubts Lamar had regarding his own ascension to stardom were due to the violence he witnessed around him in Compton. On “Black Boy Fly,” he raps “And shortly, I got discouraged/ Like every time I walked to the corner, had them guns bursting.” With “the crime waves bigger than tsunamis,” Lamar already assumed his life would be cut short due to his environment; or at least he worried of the threat of such an outcome.

“What am I to do when every neighborhood is an obstacle?/ When two niggas making it out had never sounded logical?/ Three niggas making it out? That’s mission impossible” — Kendrick Lamar, “Black Boy Fly” (’12)

The feeling of fear was revisited once again on Lamar’s most recent album, 2017’s DAMN. Five years removed from the release of GKMC, DAMN. rose to the top of the charts, moving 603,000 album-equivalent units in its first week. Backed by singles “Humble” (№1 on the Billboard Hot 100), “Love” (№11), and the Rihanna-assisted “Loyalty” (№14), DAMN. became Lamar’s largest commercial success. The album led to his four leg, 15 country, 52 show DAMN. Tour.

Even with all of his newfound success, and years spent widely-regarded as one of the best rappers alive, Lamar still rapped on DAMN. about his fear of returning to his environmental stressors in Compton, and possibly dying before securing his goals and aspirations. At the time of the release of DAMN., Lamar was 30 years old. On track 12 of the 14-song project, “FEAR.,” he raps of the angst of his 27-year-old self — the age at which he released his third studio album, the critically-acclaimed To Pimp a Butterfly. Though years and millions of dollars removed from the stories of his adolescence, the paranoia of losing everything, including his life, still haunts Lamar.

“I’ll prolly die anonymous, I’ll prolly die with promises” — Kendrick Lamar, “FEAR.” (’17)

Rap is now the most popular genre of music in the world, recently overtaking Rock. As its popularity continues to soar amongst fans of all ages and races, the stories of Black artists will become even more amplified. While this continues to happen, it becomes even more important that these artists retain their humanity in the eyes and ears of the public which consumes their art.

Songs such as “Mind Playing Tricks On Me” by The Geto Boys, “D’Evils,” by Jay-Z, “Many Men” by 50 Cent, and “Black Boy Fly” by Kendrick Lamar are just a few examples of Black artists and the fear of coming to grips with their own mortality. This paranoia isn’t born out of the ignorance of their humanity and the fact that they, like us, will one day die. This paranoia is the result of environmental stressors that not only birthed their art, but threatened to take their life away before we may have even received their audio autobiographies. Their music is just a reflection through the windows of those who lived to tell their stories — not just a lens into a fatalistic mentality for our entertainment.