66When I was twelve I went from Chuck-E-Cheeseto selling work to fiendsNow I’m grown as hell, the trap the only thing that work for meThe opening lines of the incredible closing verse reference the popularchildhood experience of going to Chuck-E-Cheese as a way to give theaudience a sense of just how young Maxo was when he was thrust intothese dangerous and illegal activities. While this line may seem like ahumorous and creative line that glorifies his drug dealing as a child, Iconsider it to be a tragic example of oppression that far from glorifiesthis lifestyle. Lines like these show the listener the sad reality of howMaxo and many others in his situation find the carefree aspects of theirchildhoods being abruptly cut short, as their need to feed themselvesand their families requires them to grow up much faster than they shouldever have had to.Maxo saying that the trap is the only thing that works for him even ashe has gotten older is one of the most telling lines of them all, as ithighlights a central issue within this conversation. The word “trap” itselfeven indicates that the people growing up in these tough areas have noeasy way to leave, and this is because the rest of society is not set upfor them to succeed. Once somebody becomes comfortable with streetlife, it becomes unlikely that they can make an easy transition fromsomething like drug dealing, to a desk job where their coworkers wouldlikely not talk, dress, or act similarly to the people they have been aroundfor most of their life. Not only that, but economically we see things suchas the welfare trap restricting low-income earners, making it impossiblefor many to find higher-paying work as they would see their governmentassistance disappear, leaving them worse off than before.Where I’m from, if you a star, you handle rocks or shootin’ hoopsMy dad was locked up, doing time for crackin’ cars for revenueTwice a week he call my line, to preach and tell me what to doTold me follow mama rules, read my book, go to schoolBut instead I bought a tool, hit the trap with Janky JuThe first line of this section, “handle rocks”, can mean both dealingdrugs as well as dribbling a basketball. This double entendre is MaxoKream’s creative way of articulating the commonly believed notion thatselling drugs or playing basketball are the only ways for people like himto escape the streets and find great success to financially support theirfamilies. This can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy when entirecommunities see these as their only options for making it big, strivingto become drug dealers, athletes, or even rappers, while neglecting thepaths less traveled.Throughout the song, Maxo Kream highlights examples of hisgrandmother, mother, and father preaching to him to stay in school andfollow the rules, but this advice, as positive as it seems, falls on deafears when the resources required to escape poverty are inadequate,and therefore he must resort to illegal and undesirable means inorder to survive the next day. You would think that this advice wouldbe convincing coming from his father, who is in jail for making thesame decisions that Maxo was making, but this did not change Maxo’sbehavior — neither did the knowledge that his brother was shot in theface living the same kind of lifestyle, a topic that he covers in this songand others. This isn’t because Maxo is making these decisions and livingthis life because he thinks that he is invincible and will surely avoid thefate of his father and brother, but instead because he is not convincedthat he has a choice and that these are risks he must take in order tohave any chance of success.Many people from privileged backgrounds do not understand why Maxocould not apply himself in school and use education as a way to gethimself out of poverty. This fails to take into account just how inferiormany schools in impoverished and racially oppressed communitiesare in terms of resources, quality instruction, and recognition fromuniversities. It is less likely for somebody to excel in high school andespecially college without the guidance of a parental figure who has hadthat level of education. While people from high schools like the one Iattended can focus on their studies and ensure that future opportunitieswill come from their academic commitment, it is not the same for peopleat lower quality institutions where education is not prioritized in thesame way. This is one of the main challenges for people trying to escapegenerational poverty.Even if education or professional resources were improved, there stillremains the hurdle being financially comfortable enough to focus theirtime, money, and attention toward long-term goals and away from theday-to-day struggles illustrated by Maxo Kream. Educating people onwhat is right and wrong is an ineffective strategy for creating real change,and the goal should instead be to reform society so that we do not seeentire communities in a situation where their most logical courses ofaction for short-term survival include acts of crime.In this same vein, this idea of “glorifying” crime, or telling people the“wrong” thing to do, is not nearly as dangerous as many make it out tobe. This is because many of the people committing the types of crimesthat we hear about in this track are doing it for the same reason Maxoseems to be doing it, because they have no other options, not becausea song made it sound like a good idea. It is true that many childrenmay hear songs like “Work” and miss the message, truly believing thatthese acts are being glorified, especially if grown men like Rivera aremisinterpreting songs like “Alright”. I would argue that this concern is notnearly enough for one to claim that hip-hop needs to stop being playedby young people, not just because the consequences would presumablybe limited, but because any resulting negative effects would pale incomparison to the positive effects coming from people who can properlyinterpret such valuable insights from lives much different than their own.People do not commit crimes because it is a desirable thing to do, andpeople like me should not receive any moral credit for not being drugdealers or committing other dangerous crimes, because they would beentirely irrational. Crime often happens because society leaves regularpeople without options to provide for themselves. This idea is difficult formany people to come to terms with because it challenges a worldviewthat many of us have held since we were young: that criminals areinherently bad people, and that the best way to deal with crime is to takethose bad actors out of society in order to save everyone else.Correcting our worldviews is an important goal for all of us to have. Sincewe need to hear other perspectives in order to make those changes,what better way for people from difficult backgrounds to share their storythan to tell it through the most popular form of music, which is known forreaching the ears of the youth. People like Rivera who attack rap musicclaim that the content of these songs is damaging the black community,but he is mistakenly addressing the symptom of the problem as opposedto the root of the problem, a problem that he would likely have a betterunderstanding of if he listened to more perspectives such as MaxoKream’s with an open mind. Believing that the way to fix the issuesdiscussed in rap music is to silence the voices of these marginalizedpeople is misguided thinking and shows that critics of the genre are nothonestly with the struggles of others, but instead are upset with the ideathat they have to hear about them. When the stories of marginalizedgroups fail to reach the ears of the privileged, we have people dismissingpowerful songs such as Kendrick’s “Alright” because they do notrecognize the struggles of others as being real issues. This is dangerousand unjust.The biggest takeaway I received from countless listens to theshockingly raw and honest personal testimonies presented in “Work”by Maxo Kream is the way in which they challenge common Americanassumptions regarding ostensibly immoral things such as criminality.The persisting narrative in America is that criminals find themselves inthese situations due to this conception of their inherent immorality thatseparates them from moral, successful, law-abiding citizens. This paintsthe picture that these people are failing society, while in reality, societyhas failed these people and no progress can be made to address thisgreat injustice until this perspective is collectively realized.Creating a society where impoverished people’s only rational options areto do seemingly immoral things and then claiming that those immoralacts are a result of their inferior character is an absurdly evil practicethat should never have been allowed to gain traction and ought notcontinue. One of the best ways to combat this is by analyzing songslike “Work” by Maxo Kream himself, or by listening to stories from otherpeople in similar situations so that they can become more humanized.This way we can see the world as not a battle between good and badpeople, but instead strive collectively to create equitable systems insociety that ensure that normal people are not incentivized to do “bad”things.
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