Part of the appeal of rap and hip hop culture for suburban youths from upper middle class families is that the music confers a level of badassery, "hardness", and fuck-you attitude that these teenagers can only dream of achieving. Whenever I roll down the street blasting Mos Def's "Ghetto Rock," I, too, enjoy being enveloped by the same sweet illusion. As the song's thick, driving, modified-hard-rock beat kicks in, the amount of street credits that I have in my possession suddenly increases dramatically. All the sexy ladies crane their necks to catch a glimpse of my badass self driving down the street. All the haters get scared and quickly turn their heads away to avoid my piercing stare. At that moment, I am, in the words of Mos Def, "the earth, wind, fire, and the thunder."
Unlike those rhymes that try to lift you up using fluff (tell me more about that fancy car and those name brand bottles of liquor that you consume); or the rhymes about lifting oneself at the expense of others (the number of fools you've smoked and hoes you've banged is the real measure of a man); the chest-thumping, head-swelling, fist-pumping feeling that "Ghetto Rock" leaves you with feels noticeably more real and satisfying. The sick beat and sharp rhymes of Mos Def cut through the bullshit to deliver a very simple message: "I sincerely believe that I am a badass motherfucker, and there's nothing that I need from anyone else to validate that fact."
