The Dumbest Rapper of All-Time
In my many years in Hip-Hop I have seen and heard a lot of fantastic artists. I have also seen and heard some real dolts. It takes a special kind of artist to earn the title of The Dumbest Rapper of All-Time, though, which is what makes Rico Todriquez Wright so extraordinary.
Rico Todriquez Wright is a 25 year old rapper from Dublin, GA, who managed to give a judge all the evidence he needed to convict him of shooting a man – he told anyone who would listen all about it in a song and then released it on a CD. Wright had already proved himself to be no genius as he was already in the process of serving time for selling cocaine, but to put your attempt at murder on a record and to think it would have no ramifications is just plain moronic. The result for Wright has turned out to be an additional 20 years tacked on to the eight year sentence he’s already serving. He will then serve 20 more years on probation (if he lives that long).
It’s funny, when I first heard this story an old skit from Wyclef’s first album, The Carnival, kept running through my mind. The skit is called “Killer M.C.” and it goes as follows:
Wyclef: Hello, boys and girls. Welcome to Wyclef’s Words of Wisdom. I am here with an MC that everyone is scared of. He has killed over a million people on record and he's still not locked up. What is your name sir?
Killer M.C.: Nuhmsayin? Am...
Wyclef: Yeah. Basically, if you have killed so many people why ain't you locked up?
Killer M.C.: I'm sayin' though like, nuhmsayin?
Wyclef: Yeah, exactly my point. Don't believe the hype.
In the case of Wright everyone could most certainly believe the hype, but if there’s anything dumber then pretending to be a criminal on record when you aren’t one, it’s telling everyone about the criminal things you do when you actually are one. That’s no longer a lyric, that’s evidence, son!
Wright probably felt he was an uber alpha male, king of the jungle in a survival of the fittest. Little did he know Darwin was just waiting for the right moment to rain on his parade. Let this be a lesson to all the supposed gangster rappers out there, if you really did something in the street don’t talk about it on a record. Let this also be a lesson to all the listeners who really think their rap idols did all the criminal acts they rhyme about. If those rappers really did all those things they’d all be locked up right next to Wright.
Comments
That offers a great angle for a history of hip hop informants, though I'm guessing most of their informing isn't related to hip hop.
I interviewed a bunch of freestyle artists in Greensboro, NC about 8 years ago and one of them talked about growing up in a small NC town that he described as a "witness protection town" with folks from other locales hiding out under new identities.
Through the children of such people he got turned on to cassettes of DJ Red Alert's New York radio programs which he credits as his biggest hip hop influence as a kid, I think, in grade school.
So, this kid's growing up in the middle of nowhere but getting this unexpected influence due to a witness protection program.
I bet there's so much interesting material related to this topic just waiting for somebody who's willing to do the work.
Looking at the early years and how witness protection programs affected the spread of hip hop would be one great place to start.
That would be a great counterpoint to Jeff Chang's work!