Get Rich or Die Trying

Attentive readers will note that Friday marked the first weekday without a post since this page's inception. In fairness, it had been a busy news week and I was anxious to skip town for some r & r. But today I am back in effect.

The real news over the weekend, as far as I'm concerned, was the altercation that took place aboard a chartered jet at Murtala Muhammad Airport in Lagos on Saturday, between American rapper 50 Cent, aka Curtis Jackson, and Nigerian counterpart and apparent foe Idris Abdulkareem, aka Eedris Abdulkareem (pictured above). The disagreement allegedly started when Abdulkareem refused to vacate first-class seats reserved for 50 Cent and his G-Unit crew. Mr. Jackson was not directly involved as he was waiting in a car outside the plane when the incident transpired.

This wasn't the first time trouble had arisen between members of 50 Cent's security detail and Mr. Abdulkareem; backstage scuffles were reported during earlier tour events. The onboard melee was sufficient to bring 50 Cent's Nigerian tour to an abrupt end, as he and his entourage immediately arranged transportation back to the U.S.

Judging from Abdulkareem's appearance, I would say that he and 50 Cent would be about evenly matched in a fight. Then again, 50 did famously survive 9 gunshot wounds, some to the head, in 2000. The larger issue raised by the fight and the resulting cancellation of 50's Nigerian tour is whether American hip hop acts--with all of their emphasis on "bling bling" and "gangsta" attitude--are welcome among more modest local talent. I know that 50 and other American rappers are extremely popular in western Africa--the question is whether African rap artists feel slighted when the posturing of American stars begins to trivialize their own efforts and, indeed, the plight of their native countries.

While 50 Cent is well known to have lived the life he portrays on his records, his success in pure dollar terms will never be matched by a regional star like Abdulkareem. Nonetheless, a certain irony emerges if a trip to Africa was jeopardized by that success and the envy it may have caused. Suffice it to say that "live by the gun, die by the gun" has a very different--and much less trivial--meaning to Nigerian youth than it does in the U.S. One would hope that this fact would compel both African-American and native African rap artists to keep their schoolyard bragadoccio under control while touring with one another, lest other countries begin to witness the escalation of such petty nonsense to dangerous levels, as happened here during the 1990s east coast-west coast farce.