THE ARTIST FORMERLY KNOWN AS PISS

THERE IS APPARENTLY A GREAT DEAL THAT CAN be said in favour of what the children nowadays call "rap" music or "hip-hop". Unfortunately I am not personally aware of what these positive aspects may be, unless it is an encouragement being presented to young people from challenged backgrounds to invest in gold so as to adorn their sporting outfits.

ALTHOUGH, OVER FIVE DECADES NOW IN WHICH I have seen myself as fashion conscious, I have never wanted to wear apparel that makes me look like I have just come from having or am just about to go to have a 'shower', rather than a bath, nor do I wish to present myself in footwear for the training track when about to go for dinner at a respectable restaurant. Perhaps I am old fashioned. 

YET I FEEL I MUST COMMENT on the latest developments in the life of curiously much-respected singer Sean John Combs, who has latterly been known, as if he were some form of criminal, as Puff Daddy, Diddy, and P. Diddy, in his position as a role model for a vast swathe of our young people in challenged backgrounds and who would wish to find some way to better themselves, given that the education system in the UK and the USA is horrendously biased in favour of people with blond hair, blue eyes and bank accounts.

THIS STATE OF AFFAIRS MAKES IT even more imperative for the Puffs and Diddies of the world of entertainment to behave themselves correctly rather than simply amplifying schoolboy behaviours into fully-fledged crime: a bit of a smacking in the playground at the age of ten, followed by a music career leading to eight million dollars per annum in music royalties, will not, it appears, lead to sensitive, thoughtful enjoyment of this money, but rather to a real "goodstyle assault with a deadly weapon" smacking of a college teacher after an altercation over how the said teacher was talking to his son, and inevitably leading to a 'stretch' indoors. As if that were supposed to be the way.

 

BUT I AM MAINLY INTRIGUED BY THE NAME changes involved in quite a few 'rappers' as they pursue their path through the travails of trying to avoid being arrested on a series of drug crimes, illegal possession of and misuse of firearms, and or domestic violence charges. Some argue that there is a form of deliberate attempt by the authorities to arrest those such as 'Snoop "Doggy" Dogg', later 'Snoop Dogg' and then 'Snoop Lion', as a sign of how maturely he now smokes his joints, in order to make an example of them. Perhaps the policemen who arrest them may be struggling with cases of mistaken identity. But in any case, the example isn't being made by the United States Police Departments.