We love hip hop because, in 1996, Geto Boys dropped RESURRECTION. THE WORLD IS A GHETTO was released single from the album and on the ORIGINAL GANGSTAS soundtrack.  Scarface begins THE WORLD IS A GHETTO by paying tribute to a toughness that can only be molded out of poverty.  Americans believe that America is the greatest nation in the world.  Self-made men make America.  Men born with values that distinguished them from the rest and allowed them to rise from the dust into captains of industry. American folklore is a rag to riches stories.  American folklore is toughness and individualism. History credits men like Rockefeller, JP Morgan and Carnegie for building this nation and exemplifying the tenacity and creativity needed to mold America but when Scarface says 

Let’s take a journey to the other side

Where many people learn to live with their handicaps, while others die

Where muthafuckas had no money spots

And if they did then they ass went insane when all the money stops

he flips the folklore on its head.

Real toughness resides with the poor.  It is the poor that carry on through sickness and pain.  America is a nation built by slaves and by the overworked American worker being taken advantage of by men like Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan.  In the late 1920s when the stock market crashed, it was men of wealth-who lost it all-that jumped from buildings or swallowed the barrel of a gun and tasted steel as their last meal while the poor were evicted and carried on in shantytowns, waking up every morning, and facing the new day.  

 Hip hop has a long history of being the canary in the coal mine.  It is the poor who live in the fault lines of the American political and economic system.  Poverty is racial, and African Americans and the Latinx communities yell, point and shine a light at the social unrest that plagues this nation.  While the rest of America was in shock at the Los Angeles Riots, Rap had foretold of the looming explosion, and the system criticized the music instead of paying attention to the warning.  

Today we face a pandemic that is an existential threat to both the political and economic systems.  Everyone is going insane because money is stopping, and our homes are turning into our prisons.  In this quagmire we can turn to the Scarface verse and the entirety of Bushwick Bill’s verse 

Five hundred n***** died in guerilla warfare

In a village in Africa, but didn’t nobody care

They just called up the gravedigger

And said come and get this Muthafuckin’ n*****

Just like they do in the 5th Ward

In the South Park and The Bronks and the Watts

You know they got crooked cops

Working for the system

Making po’ muthafuckas out of victims

‘Cause don’t nobody give a fuck about the po’

It’s double jeopardy if you’re black or latino

They got their muthafuckin’drugs in the slums

Got us killing one another over crumbs

Think I’m lying? Well muthafucka I got proof

Name a section in your city where minorities group

And I’mma show you prostitutes, dope and hard times

And a murder rate that never declines

And little babies sittin’ on the porch smellin’ smelly

Cryin’ cause they ain’t got no food in their bellies

They call my neighborhood a jungle

And me an animal, like they do the people in Rwanda

Fools fleeing their countries to come here, black

But see the same bullshit and head right back

They find out what n***** already know

The world is a ghetto

And realize that a large portion of our population has been living in this reality for generations.  

The fear in people’s bellies who have been immune from this reality is that poverty is looming, and the system does not care about the poor.  

The coronavirus pandemic began in a distant land, and as the virus grew, segments of the American population did not care.   Governments throughout the world turned a blind eye, lied about the severity of the infection, and were slow to react.  Inaction is leading to deaths, and impoverished segments of the population will be hit the hardest; this is a reality in China, Italy, and in the United States.  In the United States, the inaction by the federal government will be double jeopardy to the black and Latinx population. Rural poor white regions will also be walloped because of the lack of hospitals, hospital beds, and resources.  

Affluent Americans are fearful of death, but they are also concerned about the economic impact that the pandemic is having on the country.   The crackdown that Americans are experiencing will only intensify as testing becomes more available.  A recession is inevitable, but what is becoming a possibility is an economic disaster like the Great Depression.  The difference with this situation is that solutions like government work programs are off the table with a pandemic.  The mechanisms of capitalism which have feasted on the poor will only generate abundant poverty in this situation. Poverty will multiply exponentially, and every single market and industry pushed to the brink of existence.  Now, that is the fear and the worst-case scenario.  The government could get a hold of the crisis and everything will be okay but every day as thousands of Americans are laid off, the fear and anxiety of how they are going to pay rent and put food on the table will intensify.  

THE WORLD IS A GHETTO is a criticism of capitalism and the realities of poverty and racism.  The silver lining is Scarface saying, “let’s take a journey to the other side/where many people learn to live with their handicaps, while others die.” In order to get through this crisis Americans are going to have to be tough and live through it or die, and that’s a harsh reality and a hard truth, but millions of Americans have been living this reality for a long fucking time.  

What we see (what we see) every day (every day)

Living in the ghetto this is where I stay

What we do (what we do) to get by (to get by)

Live or die, the world is a ghetto

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