 Jah
Does Rule
There are arguably four stages of an artist’s career.
1 First
there’s the ascent, where an underground buzz
precedes the artist’s first debut (A couple cases in point:
Nas’ pre-Illmatic verse on Main Source’s Live at the
Barbecue joint, or 50’s prolific mix tape background, or
currently Kanye West’s production credits). Sometimes the artist
never lives up to the promise and their fans wonder what happened
between underground success and mainstream sales. Remember Canibus
and Rass Kas? The ascent is sometimes spread over several albums as
the artist learns the business and finds their true artistic self.
2
Second phase is the peak, where the artist demonstrates
a mastery of craft and releases a couple projects that appeal to even
non-fans of the genre and could end up being classics.
3 Third is the plateau phase
where the artist struggles to maintain relevance for a number of reasons
including complacency, the reality of their no longer being the “hot
new artist,”or possibly their inability to convince his or her
fan base to grow with them as they age or explore music outside
of popular radio formulas (anybody cop Q-Tip’s jazz album?).
4 Lastly,
as you might’ve guessed is the
descent phase better known as the “YOU FELL OFF”phase.
This brings us to Ja Rule.
Ja Rule seems to have gone through the first three the phases mentioned
above. Look at his guest appearance on Jay Z’s Can I Get
A followed by his own Venni Vetti Vicci which he admits
the success of which people thought was a fluke (Vibe 2001). Then
comes the triple platinum success of Rule 3:36 which was
topped by the four million plus sales of Pain Is Love (which
introduced us to Ashanti). As one might imagine in this day and
time, the content of this frontman of the Murder Inc. family (now
shortened to The I.N.C.) though unoriginal, found an audience, even
with the inevitable comparisons to Tupac and DMX.
Now, I’m not the one to proclaim the end for this brother
but when kids in the hood are asking, “how
much does it cost to kill Ja Rule?”
(as in kill his career, the answer being 50 Cent), something’s
wrong, the street cred is waning, not to mention peers like Busta
Rhymes, X, and Eminem all taking jabs at him along with 50. With
the lackluster sales of The Last Temptation and Blood In My
Eye which combined, have sold barely one million, are we seeing
the fickleness of hip-hop at its epitome, gobbling up a former magazine
cover boy? Or has Ja’s relevance been surpassed by the emergence
of 50 Cent, the newer and more “authentic” thug from
the same NY borough, or is it the public tiring of Ja’s formulaic
radio-friendly tracks with sing-a-long hooks by Mary, J-Lo, and
Ashanti? Is LL the only MC that can achieve longevity with this
strategy? Someone must’ve tore out chapter two of his hip-hop
thug manual, where it explains thugs don’t FEEL, you can’t
SING, EMOTE or grow as an artist and writer.
Whatever the reason for his waning popularity and if The Rule’s
career really is on the descent, (he said himself that he’d
do five albums and be done) what legacy has he left? He’s
had “hits”, some catchy hooks, but what has he said
worth remembering? Here are some lyrics that stood out to me as
I perused his rhyme booklet.
| Lord,
can we get a break? We ain’t really happy here. Take
a look into our eyes and see pain without fear ( The
March Prelude – from Venni Vetti Vicci – 1999) |
| Ja’s
the dream and ni**a’s wake up and sweats its about horse
head in your bed, ni**a
Gun in your mouth potty it out wrong ni**a, spit one more
thang and have your hood
Pouring out liquor…. the murders I.N.C. is above all
ni**s, it’s the lord in me and we can never be at a
love’s lost… (“We
Murderers Baby” from Irv Gotti presents The Murderers
– 2000) |
| There’s
nothing but love spread between me and my ni**as we bust guns
together and f**k so many bi****s but I know that hell is
callin, in the name of the Lord just let a ni**a in cuz I
ain’t done nothing wrong, but love thy self and harm
other ni**as that wanna stop my health…
(“Love
me, hate me” from Rule 3:36 – 2000) |
|
| Baby
girl if you was by b***h, you can taste a d**k, I like the
mouth moist…
(“If You Were My B***H” from Irv Gotti
presents The Murderers – 2000) |
| For
all them days when it rains and it feels like thangs ain’t
getting no better for me
Nobody loves me, sometimes I wish God could come down and
hug me and wipe the tears from my eyes….
(from
Pain Is Love 2001) |
| Yall
ni**as wanna get it crazy, come on y’all can’t
fade me, the music is slavery, roll up and haze, because most
ni**as is lazy cotton pickers…
(“Pop
Ni**as” from The Last Temptation 2002) |
We see a range of topics, issues, contradictions and struggles
in these few lyrics. They offer hip-hop’s regular diet of
the last several years: ignorance, gunplay, misogyny, thuggery,
fornication, flossin’ and perhaps most telling, theodicy,
a complex word to describe humanity’s ongoing struggle to
understand God’s permittance of suffering, especially by “good”
people. A culturally fogged understanding of holiness is what allows
these people to really think they are good in the first place. We
cannot hold a carnal mind accountable for understanding spiritual
things, I can only hope Ja Rule, aka Jeffrey Atkins comes to an
understanding of this truth. Jah does
indeed Rule. He’s both lamb and lion,
full of mercy and grace, but righteous and just
and therefore will judge sin. These lyrics and the very real pain,
disillusionment, and willful disobedience they speak of caused me
to look at Psalm 103.
The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor
will he harbor his anger forever, he does not treat us as our sin
deserves or repay us according to our iniquities…
Psalm 103:8-10 (peep the entire psalm)
Jah, does indeed rule.
A shortened form for Jehovah, Yah in Hebrew (because there
is no letter “j”), this name of God speaks to his sovereignty.
Ja Rule is on to something with his obsession with pain and love.
His tattoo speaks volumes, Pain is Love, or whether the willingness
to love is or can be painful. The willingness to be vulnerable is
love, which is exactly what Christ demonstrated on the cross and
all these centuries later, its still being misconstrued by many
as weakness. If Ja Rule never recovers from the beef with 50 and
reclaims his place as a secular fan favorite, hopefully he’ll
realize that his significance is NOT tied to hip-hop anyway. Even
as he parlays his “success” into films and other ventures
perhaps he’ll ponder how and why
Farakkhan used Jesus, and the Bible in his consultation with
him. The reason is because his true solutions, his true manhood,
lie there. Any other experiences with organized religion, including
bitterness resultant from deception by the JW’s (Jehovah’s
Witnesses), or the hypocrisy of “church folk”, including
women who may have prompted this lyric:
| I
may have struck a chord wit the Christians but yall got the
freakiest b****es out of all the religions…(From
Clap Back, Blood In My Eye 2003) |
none of these experiences, no matter how real, disqualify biblical
Christianity and a personal relationship with The Redeemer. Our
modern world has yet to, and may never see this modeled on a large
“pop culture scale.” But the Remnant IS present, it’s
still recruiting.
The “pain” or difficulty to embrace Christ for fear
of what people may think or say is truly love, the realest love,
it’s the strongest love of all, its what keeps the earth spinning
and prevents it from coming undone, just long enough for cats like
Ja Rule to receive, and come in, one brotha, one MC at a time.
Ja Rule, He as in Jesus, is always on
time, He gave you HIS all but will you be His?
…He is patient with you, not wanting
anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance
- 2 Peter:3:9
-vessel 01.29.04 |
