Wow.... That's terrible.....

Yeah, now immagine if you had to serve jail time for every time you played Cops and Robbers outside as a kid. Immagine if your friend lost his fingers when you played Freeze Tag. Immagine if you had your drivers licence revoked for too many moving violations because you lost at Red Light/Green Light. Now, immagine that every friend you ever played Ring Arround the Rosie with has died from a plague...

See, I can take games and pretend that the consequences are real, too. Although, if you actually look at it... they aren't. That is why they are games, whether children play them or adults. You can no more claim we shouldn't shoot people in games because it should make us feel bad then claim that any other game we play should have real life consequences.

garbage

This post (mine) adds about as much to this story as his "song" adds to music in general.

"Imagine if I had to console the families
of those slain I slayed on game consoles.."

Opening lyric: VIDEO PEOPLES HAS LIVES TO Y'KNOW!

@E. Zachary Knight
You're not the only one who doesn't get it.

Most rap music I know is just incoherent rubbish ranting, anyway.

We mastered the art of the digital cuss
When my tutor brought me down to C++
I always thought gaming was a real no brainer
But never really thought of a murder simulator.

The BBFC call it a line in the sand
Jack Thompson thinks more about money in the hand
And rappers who can't string up a simple ryhme
Can always just follow the scape-goat line.

Yo.

Give me rock and roll, which accutally makes sense compared to those lyrics, any day.

@Ben Yaka

i don't know, have you heard the song Reptillia (it's in Rock Band)? that song makes no bloody sense at all.

Yet another reason for me to hate rappers.

Either this kid is somebody's cousin or nephew, or the music industry has become extremely desperate.

Also, the song is more proof that the writers' strike has severely hampered the entertainment industry.

The Streets was rapping about video games right from 2002's Original Pirate Material, even going so far as to rhyme it with his drug use:

"This ain't no wholesale operation / Just a few eights and some PlayStation's my vocation / I pose a threat to the nation!" - The Irony Of It All

So yeah, this new kid should enjoy his fifteen minutes on the pop charts while it lasts.

This is kinda... weak... I don't like rap, but I have listened to it, and theirs some rap I like, but this one... really takes the cake. It sucks, really really really bad.

Doesn't make sense to me, but he's already known as a crappy rapper. Can't imagine this song is any better than his crap they playon Sirius Faction.

I don't think Lupe Fiasco is pushing a pro- or anti-game message. Rather, he's presenting an interesting parallel of the meaning and usage of weapons and guns in different circumstances. Some use weapons to steal for monetary gain; others for a cause; another as a form of empowerment. Yet these three examples suggest they share a common thread in that they are motivated by a personal reason.

The last two examples rapped by Lupe Fiasco are a little more complex - the child soldier fights because he has been desensitized to violence and trained since young to become a tool of war. Yet he's fighting a war that he doesn't really want to participate, as seen by his wish for more childish toys for a soccer ball and him eating candy to give him courage.

The line "Imagine if I had to console the families of those slain I slayed on game consoles.." reminds me of the first Austin Power movie where the movie showed on screen the families and friends of the evil henchmen that were killed by Austin. Likewise, Lupe Fiasco plays on the word 'console' to remind players of how we're so accustomed to violence in videogames that we don't give a second thought about killing a person or character in a game.

I don't really understand the rap bashing in this thread. Sure most of the time rap can be degenerative crap, but Lupe Fiasco's rap songs are more meaningful that the dreck out there.

Ehh.. from a technical stand point, the presentation is terrible, there's that annoying repetitive chorus (Does anyone know what the hell they're saying?), and the only coherent part of the lyrics isn't even done by the artist himself. Obviously not a song or artist that's going to be around for too long, especially if most of his work is of this quality.

Personally, I think it's crap. He's only doing this as a thinly veiled attempt to gain publicity by talking about (if you can call it that) a sensitive topic like game violence and school shootings. Here's to hoping his career as a rapper goes down the shitter rather quickly.

BTW, this is a better source for the full lyrics. Not 100% accurate but pretty close:

http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/l/lupe_fiasco/little_weapon.html

Wow. Just wow. I am amazed at the level of ignorance and stupidity found on this page. Sucks and Lupe Fiasco do not go together. He's regarded as one of the few shining examples of good hip-hop. And he managed to change my whole view point on Rap.

Now going onto Little Weapons, I honestly can't believe most of you missed the entire point of the whole song. I mean I got it on the first listen. Lupe's part of the song(the video game reference was written by another rapper) is about child soldiers(most likely in Africa) fighting in wars. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go watch Invisible Children, a documentary about African children who are kidnapped by the government and brainwashed to become soldiers. Many of the horrors these kids have to go through include watching other children be gunned down, being beaten and killed, and having to destroy their own towns and families. That's what the first portion of the song is about.

Now we move on to the video game reference. Ok I've listened to this part multiple times and I never found it to be anti video game. For one, it is known that Lupe Fiasco is a huge video game, anime, and comic book geek(which he's reference numerous times in both his albums) so it wouldn't make any sense for him to be anti-video game. Two: The actual lyrics are not in any way saying that video games are bad. It's more of a comparison between the violence found in games and the violence found in real world.

What infuriates me the most is that many of you allow your misconceptions of rap to blind you so that you can just group all of rap as just mindless talking about killing, pimping, and gaining material. While I will agree that there are alot of rappers who do that, people like Lupe Fiasco are what is keeping hip-hop alive today. Want proof? From his first album listen to He said she said, American Terrorist, Hurt me Soul, and Daydreaming. And from his second album listen to Streets on Fire, Hello/Goodbye, Fighters, and Dumb it down. In fact just listen to the first track off of The Cool, which basically explains the whole point of the album. But no you won't do that. Why? Because it's alot easier for you ignorant assholes to just sit in your comfy chairs and just criticize rap because it's alot easier than actually looking for talented rappers. Because regardless of what you think, there's good music everywhere, you just got to search for it. I'm glad that Lupe Fiasco is here, because before I was just like you guys, ignorant and hating rap simply from what I here from the radio.

The song is partially about children serving as soldiers, often times just abducted from their families, so the verse about about playing violent games may have two meanings.

One is that children are not being serious about real life violence that other children are forced to live out. The second is that parents are getting upset over their children playing fake violence while children are living out that violence everyday, but there isn't much coverage of that on the news or in everyday conversation.

So my take on this is that it is satire about people getting upset over fake violence and its also a wake up call to children that other children actually live this life and it isn't something you should want to be.

@Vinzent

But that doesn't mean all rap does it.

@arowe87

You just summed up what I wanted to say with only half the amount of words.

[...] Lupe Fiasco Raps on Video Game Violence [GamePolitics] [...]

@Conejo

That's not what I'm saying. I don't mind if someone doesn't like something, but if you're just going to label this artist as garbage without even listening to the full album or just grouping rap together as one single thing of crap, than that's ignorance.

@ Kemuri

"Because it’s alot easier for you ignorant assholes to just sit in your comfy chairs and just criticize rap because it’s alot easier than actually looking for talented rappers."


Its like this. There could be a fellow who is the greatest gay porn star ever, and thats all fine and dandy. But you see I'm not going to put effort into "actually looking for" said gay porn king, as I am not gay. So why do you think that someone should seek out something they have no interest in?

And for that matter I don't get my panties in a twist when someone says that Metal (my music of choice), sucks.


As for the lyrics themselves, yeah it seems like something Thompson would write were he a rapper. That is a rapper and more literate. But I would be curious to hear Mr. Fiasco's side of the tale on this one. Maybe he does have a different meaning that he is not very well getting across.

But this:

"Imagine if I had to console the families
of those slain I slayed on game consoles."

Rings a little too closely when someone cries out at the horror and violence committed on "those game people." As though, you know, they weren't fictional.


But in closing, yeah I think all rap (that I have heard to date) sucks. You are allowed to think that metal sucks and thats just dandy with me.

Example, from the more recent link, the words:

Imagine if I had the console,
The family of those slayed,
I slain on game consoles,
I aim I hold, right trigger to squeeze,
press up and Y one less nigga breathe,
B for the Bombs press pause for your moms,
Make the room silent, she don't approve of violent games,
She leaves resume activity,
Start and blew hearts, with poor harsh wizardry,
On next part I insert code
To sweeten up the purses of murder work load
I tell him he work for
CIA with A
With operative, I operate this game all day
I hold a controller, connected to the soldier
With weapons on his shoulder he's only seconds older than me
We playful but serious, now keep that on mind
for online experience

Seem like no more than incomprehensible babbling. Incomplete ideas bunched together haphazardly, with no rhyme or reason to them. I simply cannot make enough sense of them to be able to even form an opinion about them.

I don't like rap music personally, and it all sounds the same to me, so I won't bother looking, ok?

Don't slam Lupe Fiasco, and rap in general, due to an absolute butchery of a transcription. Here are the proper lyrics (I believe Bishop G does the rap in question here, not Lupe himself):

Imagine if I had to console
The families of those slain
I slayed on game consoles
I aim, I hold, right-trigger to squeeze
Press Up and Y, one less n***a breathe
Beef for the bombs, press pause for ya moms
Make the room silent
She don't approve of violent games
She leave, resume activity
Start and blow hearts apart, sharp wizardry
On next part I insert code
To sweeten up the little person's murder workload
I tell'em he work for
CIA with A
A operative, I operate this game all day
I hold a controller connected to the soldier
With weapons on his shoulder
He's only seconds older than me
We playful but serious
Now keep that on mind for online experience

"Little Weapon" is about children soldiers, and Lupe/Bishop G draw an ironic parallel between the way children are taught to fight in wartorn countries and how in more "civilized" countries it could be argued that children are immersed in violence through the media (in this case, video games). Of course, the overall point is open to interpretation, but that's the general idea.

There are two issues here:

1. 99% of rap (blah blah that I've ever heard...95% of all rap) is so utterly liberal with grammar and vocabulary, playing on the idea that if their music is being played on a CD or radio they have clearly earned the right to coin whatever lingual jargon they feel like on a whim, that it becomes virtually incomprehensible to most people, including many people who listen to rap music. I've had friends who are into it try to explain to me why they like it, and they virtually all agree that "yeah, you have to listen to it a lot to figure out what they're trying to say".

2. As a result of point 1, you end up practically conveying messages that you may not necessarily mean to convey (or hey, maybe you do). In this case, the most clearly perceived message is that video games promote real world violence, or should in some other way be equated with it. I don't think I need to explain why that is bad.

We don't give children good grades for writing terrible essays (grammatically speaking). I don't understand why we would give musicians platinum albums. Or contracts, for that matter. ALL negative stereotypes that rappers have about them today, they've brought upon themselves.

Listening to the line "we playful but serious, now keep that in mind for online experience" seems to me a play on the idea, that while they are obviously playing a game, they're serious about winning. It seems to be a juxtapositional rap, about playing soldiers rather than being soldiers... I think.

One guy trying to put get controversial lyrics to pass as deep and meaningful. This isn't exclusive to rap, or music for that matter, it happens all the time in all mediums.

MC Hawking may not have as pleasant a voice as this guy but check these fly lyrics yo:

[Rant]
Yo! I've been hearing that a bunch of punk bitches
out there are claiming that they got the skillz to go
toe to toe with the Hawkman in the Quake arena.
Ha ha ha. That's some funny shit.
If you meet up with me on a Quake server, I'll shove my
rail gun so far up your ass, It will knock out your teeth!
Check it!

[Verse 1]
The Mighty Stephen Hawking is a fucking Quake god,
got my finger on the trigger and my eye on the quad.
I know it's just a game, but I didn't come to play,
the Hawkman cometh and he's bringing Doomsday.
You say, "impressive", I already know it,
I'm a hardcore player and I'm not afraid to show it.
I got a Phd in pain and a masters in disaster,
the mighty Stephen Hawking is a fucking QuakeMaster.

[Chorus]
QuakeMaster, QuakeMaster.
The Mighty Stephen Hawking is a fucking QuakeMaster.
QuakeMaster, of disaster.
The Mighty Stephen Hawking is a fucking QuakeMaster.

[Verse 2]
We meet on a server, and I say "what's up?",
when we go at it punk, I'm gonna fuck you up.
Got you in my sights and I'm gonna make you bleed,
get used to hearing this, "you have lost the lead."
Cuz while your camping, I'll be cold lamping,
then I'll kick it in, and your ass I'll be stamping.
I got a Phd in pain and a masters in disaster,
the mighty Stephen Hawking is a fucking QuakeMaster.

[Chorus]
QuakeMaster, QuakeMaster.
The Mighty Stephen Hawking is a fucking QuakeMaster.
QuakeMaster, of disaster.
The Mighty Stephen Hawking is a fucking QuakeMaster.

[Rant]
All right! Now you know what time it is.
I don't care if you're a newbie, or a low ping bastard,
you step to me in the Quake arena and I'm going to tear you
a new virtual Asshole.
Yo! It will sound something like this...

[Chorus]
QuakeMaster, QuakeMaster.
The Mighty Stephen Hawking is a fucking QuakeMaster.
QuakeMaster, of disaster.
The Mighty Stephen Hawking is a fucking QuakeMaster.

@Thefremen

I'm killing you with my eyes.

o/~near a tree by a river
there's a hole in the ground
where an old man of aran
goes around and around
and his mind is a beacon
in the veil of the night
for a strange kind of fashion
there's a wrong and a right
but he'll never, never fight over you...o/~

@Conejo

Yeah now that I think about it there are some rock songs that don't make sense as well. Anyway I like the rap that you can hear on late at night on your local college radio station.

And besides all that these lyrics just didn't make sense. I could probably make a better video game related rap song than this guy.

So we're on the internet and the subject of rap comes up. Per usual there's a few comments about how people hate rap, a handful of people defending rap, noting that rock has similar "flaws, then a few more people weigh in on how they don't have to justify why they don't like rap.

Business as usual on the interwebs . . .

Anyway, considering he made an attempt at a message, I have to applaud him. When top 40 lyrical content tops out at "This is why I'm hot" and "why do you rock that soulja boy", this guy's on his way to the hip hop hall of fame.

As far as the actual content, works for me. He got is point across within the norms of the genre. To complain about diction, sentence structure and punctuation (again, not that the article quotes the lyrics out of stanza format), is like complaining about the core nuances of capitalism. It is what it is, and doesn't address the discussion of the topic at hand: video game violence.

You must be pretty retarded not to understand what he is saying. I bought The Cool and Im a big Lupe Fiasco fan. He's not Anti-game or anything like that and the song in question is Anti-game. if you look up the lyrics (all of them) you can see its more about comparing all murders commited by childeren.

@ Tubatic

...what?

"To complain about diction, sentence structure and punctuation (again, not that the article quotes the lyrics out of stanza format), is like complaining about the core nuances of capitalism."

That isn't even a remotely plausible comparison. It would be more like complaining about the most basic tenets of capitalism as an economic blueprint, and then having someone defend it by saying "but it's meant to promote rewards commensurate with effort". What something is meant to do means jack all if it is completely overshadowed by what it actually does. And whatever he meant to do with this song is overshadowed by the fact that, like much rap, it rapes the English language in the process.And yes, there's certainly some metal and samples from other genres out there that are guilty of similar transgressions, but you have to be willfully ignorant or just completely and utterly clueless to not acknowledge rap as the worst offender.

@ lumi:

I dunno, some of Keats poetry can befuddle the hell out of me.

Some poets today even purposely ignores standard sentence structure and punctuation to produce works that flow more fluently when spoken out loud, much like rap.

@Kemuri

"HURRRRRR I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT SO IT’S GARBAGE!!!!! Which alot of you seem to be saying."


I don't see the problem with not liking something you don't understand. I have a feeling I wouldn't like a book on quantum physics. And its also my complete basis for not liking the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. Well that and Shinji being the most whiny fictional character of all time.

The only good rap about video games still remains to be Del's "Proto Culture". He reminisces about the warm fuzzy days of SNES, Saturn and Dreamcast (though Dreamcast was pretty new when this song came out).

Bonus points if you can tell which video game Del used for the beat sample.

Baggie:
"Or in other words, 'Look at me, I’m rapping about current issues people are against, which I am also enforcing a popular public belief of people that haven’t gotten too much knowledge about, please pay attention to me. Yo.'"

Oh please. Real hip hop artists rap about current and meaningful issues all the time. It's something that young people and communities that are listening to this need to hear.

*walks in*

Oh crap it's a rap fanboy flamefest.

Ugh... I think people are reading waaay too much into this...

I'm gonna stick with EZK and XDH on this one... Don't get it, don't wanna know. Got better things to do.

@ Blackice

I'm still laughing at your comment! I think you got 'em ;)

*walks out*

It's not trying to place the blame on anything. Among other things, it's a commentary on how the West would be quick to condemn these child killers, but yet we turn around and sell our own children violence as entertainment (via movies, video games, and television). The only thing different about this song is that it actually talks about violent video games in particular, a topic which no rap song has yet tackled to my knowledge.

The dialogue on this comment thread is exactly the type of response this song is looking to generate. Love it or hate it, it's good art because it provokes a response in the listener.

Can I get a line by line translation of this please? I don't speak rap.

@ NoelVeiga

Heh, I thought about that too at first, but there's more important aspects of this story overshadowing it.

@ Silks

"Love it or hate it, it’s good art because it provokes a response in the listener."

No, no it isn't, and no it doesn't. The only thing that has provoked a reaction here, at least from the people who would rather see it forgotten and buried, is the reaction from the people already listening to/supporting it. If people hadn't tried to defend this garbage, I guarantee none of us opposing it would have batted an eye, and we sure as hell aren't going out to buy a copy of it now.

umm... I hope you guys know... that lupe didn't even write.. nor "rap" that part of the song. It was someone else.

I think you're all missing the point. In the first two verses, Lupe talks about how violence is part of the actual life of little children in poor (Third World if you will) countries. The last verse, by Bishop G, is simply to point out how ironic it is that American children only experience violence as just a game. We're very fortunate for that and shouldn't take that for granted.

im a big lupe fan... but 2 things

1. this isnt his verse
2. this verse made little sense in the context of the song


lupe's verse was about the genocide in africa, which is often perpotrated by child soldiers

and it was followed by this guy's verse about video game violence... wtf?

As I am reading the comments to the lyrics I laugh because this is exactly what a lot of thought provoking rappers talk about. Ignorance. You say you don't understand it, well maybe you should listen to the ENTIRE song before judging a single verse. There are a lot of things I don't understand, at one point rock music was one of them, so I sat down and I gave it a listen, and now I actually love it. This is the problem with the world we live in, when people don't understand something, instead of learning about it they condemn it. This song is one of the best songs on the album, with a beat produced by Patrick of Fall Out Boy fame I might add, and deserves a good listen to. As for the so called misuse of the English language, thats why its called wordplay. Its done purposely, in poetry, movies, music and all other forms of art. I wish some of you people actually LISTEN to some of these songs before you judge them.

Captain Mad Kestrel...

Pirates rule!...