Main Street Magazine Spring '23

For many years, hip-hop has been the most popular genre of music in America,
especially amongst younger Americans. But due to common and often racial
stereotypes of the genre, whether or not rap music’s influence on society has
been positive or negative has been a point of public debate.
After Kendrick Lamar’s performance of his hit song “Alright” during the 2015
Black Entertainment Television Awards, Fox News anchor Geraldo Rivera
criticized the performance on-air and even went as far as to state that, “hip
hop has done more damage to young African-Americans than racism in recent
years,” arguing that the song’s message was “counterproductive”. Rivera’s
statement was especially strange considering that the message of the song
was one of overcoming hardships related to racism and police brutality, and
did not seem to contain any messages that could easily be interpreted as
being counterproductive — unless, of course, one holds the belief that racism
and police brutality are not real issues.
Rivera and other critics of modern rap decry politically charged lyrics that do
not align with their worldview, revealing their discomfort with acknowledging
either opposing perspectives, or facts about reality. They determine that
lyrics referring to topics like drug dealing and gun violence are automatically
“glorifying,” and are therefore worthy of condemning. But the reality is, many
rap artists are not glorifying things like crime and violence, they instead give
the listener a look into their past or present which can often include such
topics.
While artists such as Kendrick are generally regarded as being exceptionally
philosophical and enlightening with their songwriting, with
Kendrick even winning a Pulitzer Prize for his album Damn.
in 2017, many rap artists with different styles who share
their own valuable stories and perspectives are not
seen in that same light by much of the public.
Maxo Kream is a rapper from Houston, Texas
who is one of the best examples of an artist
who shares powerful insights into his own
past in a unique way that separates him
from the pack. Maxo Kream broke onto the
scene in 2011 after releasing a freestyle over
the trumpet-heavy beat from “Rigamortus”,
the Kendrick classic from his debut studio
album Section 80. Maxo Kream did not let
his newfound popularity go to waste, and he
quickly captured fans with his one-of-a-kind
flow and illustrative stories about his dark past.
He has released many popular songs in his career:
“Roaches,’’ where he describes himself desperately
trying to make it home to help his family who almost
died in Hurricane Harvey; “Meet Again” which tackles the
challenges surrounding having close friends locked up in jail;
“Mama’s Purse” where he grapples with regretful memories of stealing money
from his mother, and how there is no amount of money alone that he can give
to ever pay her back for everything she’s done for him.
I first heard Maxo Kream’s music in 2019 when Spotify radio started playing
“Work,” the intro to his 2018 album Punken. I was immediately struck by
Maxo’s creative storytelling, but what won me over was the incredible beat
switch halfway through the track, which to this day is one of my favorites,
especially because it leads into an unbelievably catchy, fast-paced, and
powerful final verse. The song can be a bit jarring on first listen as Maxo
Kream does not sugarcoat his experiences and gives the listener an honest
look into the harsh realities that he had to face growing up, as well as the
hardships that his family went through in order to survive in their environment.
I have been a fan of Maxo ever since; I kept the song in rotation for years, and
with every listen I became more and more focused on the deeper meanings
behind these lyrics I have heard so many times before.
As an economics and philosophy major, I have a certain way of listening to
these lyrics and analyzing them on a level that many would argue is, “thinking
too deep about it.” But I firmly believe that this is not the case. Even if Maxo
Kream did not deliberately intend for some of these messages to be taken
away from this song, the evidence is all laid out for the listener to come to
well-supported philosophical conclusions themselves, and we must all accept
that part of what makes creative expression so special is that a piece of art
is not limited to what the artist intends for you to take away from it. With that
being said, let’s take a look at some of the lyrics from “Work” that carry a lot
“Trap philosophy,, Maxo Socrates. capeesh.” -maxo kream
of weight. They should help any listener gain a better understanding of the
complicated way we must view morality for people like Maxo, who grow up in
dangerous and impoverished neighborhoods with few resources to make it
out. At the end of the first verse where Maxo Kream touches on topics such as
hiding stashes of drugs and scamming people at a very young age, he says:
Used to ask my brother why he cook with baking soda
Told me I won’t understand this life until I’m older
This ignorance Maxo Kream displays while seeing his brother using baking
soda to cook crack cocaine can be taken literally as a child-like curiosity
regarding the use of baking soda, as well as symbolically to show how a young
Maxo, like many others, did not understand his family members’ drug dealing
lifestyle. His older brother recognizes that Maxo at the time was too young
to understand what was going on around him, but suggests that he too is
destined to follow in his footsteps eventually, and will understand then.
Broke as hell we had to manage, chicken noodle, syrup sandwich
Ju, Medulla, Josh, and Alex, had no beds, we slept on pallets
Daddy was a swiper and my mama was a booster
Cousin Pooh, he was a killer, all my uncles, they some losers
Here, Maxo Kream describes the harsh conditions he and his family had to
face while in poverty. Being broke and lacking basic comfort and security is
a traumatizing experience, and Maxo and his family resort to lives of crime
in order to prevent themselves from falling deeper into poverty. Maxo lists
his family members and the criminal lifestyles that they lead as their
only way to make money, and we see that from his perspective,
the people around him seem to be given two options: either
become a criminal, or become a loser like his uncles.
This is where morality becomes difficult to assess. The
crimes that his family commits are all considered to
be immoral actions, but if they do not have other
ways to make money or eat that day, then are these
actions any less immoral? The severe discomfort
that comes with a life of poverty is traumatic, and
any human would do everything they can to avoid
being put back into that situation if they can help it.
So can any person privileged enough to have never
experienced poverty make any meaningful claims
about Maxo Kream and his family’s morality? Would
anyone claiming that they would do differently in their
shoes be giving themselves an unfair and undeserving
amount of credit? Some would presumably argue that
criminality is wrong no matter the circumstances, and that
Maxo and his family have flaws in their character that cause
them to make excuses for not focusing on education or finding legal
employment to support themselves in a moral way. As we see in the rest of
the track, however, this argument begins to fall apart, and Maxo’s options for
legally making money appear limited and unclear:
See the streets is all I knew, pimps and prostitutes
I never owned a suit, I was known to shoot
This part of the song answers why Maxo Kream resorted to illegal and
dangerous methods of supporting his family. As somebody who grew up
around former officers in the military, doctors, nurses, and teachers, I saw
many paths to legal employment and a future for myself, while also having the
financial support from my family to pursue those paths. An ignorant person in
my shoes could easily criticize Maxo and others for not pursuing a career as a
doctor or a teacher, but this is closed-minded and neglects the simple fact that
the path to those professions was simply not part of Maxo’s worldview.
Maxo grew up in a bubble, as many people do, where he did not see many
options to make a life for himself outside of street life, which was all he had
ever known. One of the main reasons that he cannot leave the streets is the
sheer lack of resources he had to do so, and his line about never owning
a suit illustrates that point. Not owning a suit is just one example of how
the professional and corporate world has barriers to entry, barriers that
systematically keep people like Maxo from entering that world and preventing
entire communities from getting a solid footing to economically benefit future
generations.
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