"Don’t get me wrong, niggas is still gang-banging but its only a handful of people that are actually gang-banging. I think people are starting to get to the point where it’s really not cool. It’s cool to listen to the music and all that shit. But to be actually out there playing with your life? People got too much to gain and too much to lose. The Internet is probably saving lives.” — Schoolboy Q"
Though I never gang-banged myself, I knew people who did and no group of people could justify their questionable decision better. At least with a gang, they were able to nurture a sense of family and camaraderie, two things they felt were missing at home.
But I always felt another thing gang-bangers were missing was an ability to see the world beyond the sets they represented. This is why the end of Schoolboy Q’s quote makes so much sense to me. There’s probably no real way to measure the impact the Internet has had on senseless street violence, but we know it offers a way to see more world than was once offered. People talk a lot about the negative effects the Internet has on young people, cyber bullying is a real thing, but also real is cyber inspiring and cyber education.
The frame of reference for what’s cool and what isn’t is wider than it’s ever been, and as Q points out, gang-banging’s allure is getting lost as a result. There’s probably numbers to show this might not be true, but I understand what he’s feeling here. Gang-banging is cool if it’s the only thing a kid knows, but the Internet is making it possible for kids to know so much more.
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THIS. All of this.
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