50 Cent: Smarten DOWN, Nas!

Here at ML, if 50 Cent didn’t do so many interviews, we’d have nothing to talk about. In this batch of outtakes from his interview in the latest issue of XXL, 50 attributes Nas’ book smarts to the fact opinion that Nas is “not hot right now” and has lost his “initial audience.”

Granted, Hip Hop Is Dead didn’t break any records with its sales, but it has been certified gold, which is more than can be said for a lot of hip hop releases in recent memory. Considering how much record sales have declined in hip hop, and that Illmatic is platinum only once over, I’d say that Nas has actually done a pretty good job of keeping his “initial” fanbase in tact — if Nas has lost anyone, it’s the people who jumped aboard after he did “Hate Me Now” with Puffy and “You Owe Me” with Ginuwine, and, if anything, that was dead weight to be lost. And as far as Nas not being hot right now, it’s true that he doesn’t have a single that’s getting hourly burn on the radio at the moment, but I wouldn’t say it’s from lack of effort — has Nas really been trying to make a radio-friendly single in past couple years? Meanwhile, 50, by my count, is 0-for-his-last-3 in “hot” singles (“Amusement Park”, “Straight To The Bank”, “I Get Money”), and Curtis has twice changed release dates as a result.

Hearing 50 say that Nas is losing his audience, and thinking back to Hip Hop Is Dead at the same time, 2 particular tracks stick out in my mind — “Who Killed It?”, which had Nas on some Dick Tracy shit, and “Blunt Ashes”. I’d say that the latter track, with its different-sounding production (provided by Chris Webber of all people) and Nas’ off-kilter flow, was largely hit-or-miss with fans. But, if you can get past those things, Nas’ lyrics on “Blunt Ashes” are a great listen — he sheds light on some of the mysterious deaths of musicians of the past who have been influential to not just hip hop, but all music in general.

I picked a couple of choice rhymes from “Blunt Ashes” and broke down in greater detail what Nas is talking about. I figure that if 50 is right and Nas is losing fans, the least I could do is try to win back some who may have been confused by the song, on Nas’ behalf. Of course, this shit ain’t rocket science — 30 minutes of Wikipedia and Google searches provided me with all of the information I’m about to share — but a lot of these details were new to me, so I can only assume they’d be new to others as well. Enjoy.

“Sam trusted Womack, with his main lady/
He tossin’ in the grave, like, ‘This is how you repay me?'”

Sam Cooke was 33 years old when he was shot and killed on December 11, 1964, at the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles. The alleged story of what happened, in greater detail on Cooke’s Wikipedia page, goes something like this — Cooke met a lady named Elisa Boyer at a nightclub and took her to the Hacienda, against her requests to be taken home. Fearing that she was going to be raped (she claimed Cooke forced her on to a bed), Boyer escapes while Cooke was in the bathroom, grabbing her clothes on the way out, and “mistakenly” taking Cooke’s clothes as well. Boyer went to the hotel manager’s office looking for help, but when it took too long for a response, Boyer instead went to a phone booth to report herself as having fled from a “kidnapper”. Soon after, a drunken and enraged Cooke emerged from his room, wearing only a shoe and a raincoat, and asked Hacienda manager Bertha Franklin about Boyer’s where-abouts. Franklin said she did not know, Cooke grabbed her, a scuffle ensued in Franklin’s offce, Franklin retrieved a gun she kept in the office, and then fatally shot Cooke. Franklin, who claims to have acted in self-defense, had her story corroborated by Hacienda owner Evelyn Carr, who had been on the phone with Franklin during the incident.

Many circumstances have risen that have led questions to be asked as to just how accurate the accounts of Boyer, Franklin and Carr were. Money of Cooke’s that was never recovered from the Hacienda draws doubt on whether Boyer picking up Cooke’s clothing was a frantic “mistake”, or an attempt to rob him. Also, Boyer’s arrest for prostitution soon after Cooke’s passing draws doubt on whether Boyer was “kidnapped”, or if she was willingly in Cooke’s company. Furthermore, mourners of Cooke have said that Cooke’s body was badly bruised, much more so than a single gun shot wound would have made for. And, to top it all off, Bobby Womack, whom Cooke discovered, married Cooke’s widow, Barbara Campbell, 3 months after Cooke’s death (hence the “This is how you repay me?” line). Womack and Campbell divorced in 1970.

“David Ruffin was punchin’ Tammi Terrell, gave her concussions/
While the Funk Brothers was layin’ down the percussion”

Tammi Terrell, a frequent collaborator with the great Marvin Gaye, died at the young age of 24 of a brain tumor that had been diagnosed 3 years prior, after she collapsed into Gaye’s arms at a performance. Terrell had been romantically linked to famed Motown figures James Brown and David Ruffin, then the front man of The Temptations, both of whom were rumored to have been beaten her (more so Ruffin, though). The novel Number One With A Bullet, written by Elaise Jesmer, a former assistant of Gaye’s, is based closely on Terrell’s life, and suggests that her brain disorders began as a result of the beatings she had received. Despite the many documented fights that went on between Terrell and Ruffin, there’s no way to prove that Ruffin’s, or anyone else’s, domestic abuse of Terrell was what inevitably caused her death. Ruffin, widely known as a heavy drug abuser, died of an overdose in 1991, at 50 years old.

“Larry Troutman killed his brother Roger Troutman/
Then he killed himself, that’s the end of Zapp”

So, Nas didn’t really try to hide this one in any cryptic language — that’s basically the extent of what is known about Roger and Larry Troutmans’ deaths. Roger was found in critical condition on the morning of April 25, 1999, outside of his studio in Dayton, Ohio, having been shot multiple times; he died later at a local hospital. Larry was found in a car, which witnesses described as the same car that left the scene of Roger’s shooting, a few blocks away with a single gunshot wound to the head. Although family and friends haven’t ever known a motive as to why the Troutman brothers’ lives ended so tragically, this 2002 article from San Francisco Weekly mentions disputes between Larry and Roger “over money, over the family business, over Roger’s career as a solo artist and Larry’s role as his manager.”

Download: Nas – “Blunt Ashes”

Download: Sam Cooke – “A Change Is Gonna Come”

Download: Bobby Womack – “Wait Until Tonight”

Download: Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell – “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing”

Download: The Temptations – “I Wish It Would Rain”

Download: Zapp – “More Bounce To The Ounce”

Download: Ras Kass, Dirty Ray, Kam, Tash & Spice 1 – “Still More Bounce (Roger Troutman Tribute)”