(Originally ran March 21, 2008)

Rapper Rick Ross talks about dealing drugs prior to stardom in the recent issue of Rolling Stone (the one with Barack Obama on the cover with the headline “A New Hope,” the irony of which should be apparent to everyone but Rolling Stone).

Later, Ross talks about popping open bottles of champagne during his concerts. The interviewer asks Ross which is more satisfying, popping open champagne or popping off a few rounds.

Champagne, Ross answers, reasonably enough. “But you got to pop a few guns to pop a few bottles. That’s just the way it’s designed.”

That’s just the way it’s designed.

It’s not the statement itself that rattled me, but the nonchalance with which it was tossed off; that and Rolling Stone’s callow acceptance of violence as part of the hip-hop stereotype.

Questioning a rapper on his gunplay would seem like questioning a ‘70s rocker on his drug use or on-the-road sex life. Hey, man, it’s just one of the perks.

But it’s not. Where rockers constructed their own hedonistic fantasy worlds (the ones that make such good “Behind the Music” stories), rappers are talking about real-life violence with real-life victims. Only with the mainstreaming of gangster rap - and the mainstream’s refusal to question those messages or at least put them in context (as long as it sells and the bad words are bleeped out for the radio version) - that reality is being sold as a fantasy to an audience jonesing for the newest shock.

It’s like the Roman gladiator battles being played out in the projects, filmed for MTV and supplied with a hip-hop soundtrack.

So why not just cordon off the inner cities behind bullet-proof glass, install stadium seating and sell tickets to suburban voyeurs? Rappers can perform while the crowd watches young black men sling crack, jack cars and kill each other. Sure, you could stay home and watch it on TV, but nothing’s better than the live experience, right?