Like a paper doll, trying on different outfits of style and substance
The Rap on Rubio
By MAUREEN DOWD, NYT
WASHINGTON
Not long ago, scrolling for a movie, I saw that “Notorious” was on.
How can you resist Cary Grant as an American spy in Rio recruiting Ingrid Bergman to seduce and betray a Nazi played by Claude Rains?
But it turned out to be a very different “Notorious,” one about the rise of gangsta rapper Biggie Smalls, a k a The Notorious B.I.G., his artistic relationship with Sean “Puffy” Combs at Bad Boy Records in New York and the bloody East vs. West feud between Biggie and Tupac Shakur, a star in L.A. who spent his final year at Death Row records.
Like the 1946 “Notorious,” the 2009 gangsta rap saga offered sex, strife, danger, gats, Champagne, a strong immigrant mother and trust issues. Crack replaced uranium as the perilous substance. The movie climaxed with Tupac getting shot in a car on the Las Vegas Strip in 1996 and then, in retaliation six months later, Biggie getting shot in a car in L.A.
Little did I know, as I brushed up on gangsta rap history, that the topic would soon spice up the overture to the 2016 presidential race.
Gangsta rap used to be a reliable issue for politicians, but they were denouncing it. Now Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is praising it — and right at the moment when Republicans are pushing the argument that guns don’t kill people; it’s a culture glorifying guns and violence that kills people.
(More here.)
WASHINGTON
Not long ago, scrolling for a movie, I saw that “Notorious” was on.
How can you resist Cary Grant as an American spy in Rio recruiting Ingrid Bergman to seduce and betray a Nazi played by Claude Rains?
But it turned out to be a very different “Notorious,” one about the rise of gangsta rapper Biggie Smalls, a k a The Notorious B.I.G., his artistic relationship with Sean “Puffy” Combs at Bad Boy Records in New York and the bloody East vs. West feud between Biggie and Tupac Shakur, a star in L.A. who spent his final year at Death Row records.
Like the 1946 “Notorious,” the 2009 gangsta rap saga offered sex, strife, danger, gats, Champagne, a strong immigrant mother and trust issues. Crack replaced uranium as the perilous substance. The movie climaxed with Tupac getting shot in a car on the Las Vegas Strip in 1996 and then, in retaliation six months later, Biggie getting shot in a car in L.A.
Little did I know, as I brushed up on gangsta rap history, that the topic would soon spice up the overture to the 2016 presidential race.
Gangsta rap used to be a reliable issue for politicians, but they were denouncing it. Now Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is praising it — and right at the moment when Republicans are pushing the argument that guns don’t kill people; it’s a culture glorifying guns and violence that kills people.
(More here.)
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