***Where Hip-Hop Nation Corner Boys Meet The Be-Bop Night Corner Boys- A Nod To J. Cole's "Dolla And A Dream"

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman:

On the face of the matter it would seem improbable, very improbable, that a leading voice of the hip-hop nation today, j. cole, and an old reprobate radical  mired, deeply mired if the truth be known, in be-bop 1950s rock and roll, now called the classic, uh, geriatric age of rock and roll would have any points of intersection. Moreover mired, mission mired before the flame goes out, in youthful transistor radio (for the clueless check Wikipedia) memories and so preoccupied with transmitting those memories for the ages (cyberspace ages anyway). And if it hadn’t been for happenstance that I ran into a young woman, Kelly, at a political event, an anti-war rally, and mentioned to her that I was somewhat bewildered by the lack of political or social focus in what I had heard in today’s music and she mentioned some of j. cole’s stuff that she was crazy about that would still have been so. Naturally, since like I said I am also in the midst of a craze of my own in trying to present archival material from the 1960s that had some social content, I checked out some of his lyrics.

 

The distance between a young black man growing up in the ‘hood of Fayetteville, North Carolina (to speak nothing of that huge army base at Fort Bragg that drives the life of the town) in the recent past, post-civil rights marches time, “post-racial” time and a 1950s be-bop rock white kid growing up in “the projects” turned out not to be so far after all. The connection: a simple lyric taken from j. cole’s Dolla and a Dream about how his mother, blessed mother of course, blessed now that time has shown us the error of our ways in those titantic mother-son battles, had to sew patches on his pants “to make do” when he was young. No heavier social message needed to grab this writer’s attention. I remember, and have written elsewhere about, my own hand-me-down patched non-fashionista childhood. I remember being given my older brother’s cast-offs to make due and in turn passing, if it was still possible to do so with such cheap Wal-Mart- like materials onto my younger brother.

Then there was a family famous story that concerned me about the time when I was in elementary school trying to impress a non-projects girl at a school square dance demonstration and had cut up one of my only two or three pairs of pants to give myself a righteous farm- hand look. When my mother, who was invited to, and attended, the dance demonstration, saw what I had done she started yelling at me about my disrespect for her and my father by ruining those pants when she had no way to get more in front of everybody. I got holy hell about that for weeks. And, needless to say, had no chance, nada, no go, with that girl after that. Yah, it was like that.

Small stuff, silly in the great Mandela scheme of things, but it points out that tough reality of wants, constant wants, down at the edges of society, down among the projects dwelling, where everything is no, can’t do, can’t have, forget it, and you don’t need that anyway. And points out as well the hard reality that down in those mean streets the struggle for existence takes up far too much time. The struggle for the daily bread, literally on some days, takes the better instincts of our natures and numbs then up, makes the pursuit of those higher goods seem ridiculous. So anybody, any “gangsta” had (has) a great gravitational pull for kids trying to fill up that empty want hole.

Then it started like it always does in the big fight against wants, started just like the generation before me, the old 1930s corner boys making all their noise (and winning junior corner wannabe admiration). Started simply with a “clip” here (grabbing stuff from stores, usually jewelry stores and record shops and slipping it under, well, under something, your coat, your underwear, whatever), the jack-roll there (the usual victim some older resident of the projects, an easy target, and easily left behind unlike going uptown and facing that cop madness trouble), maybe a small time gas station robbery or extortion racket as you moved up that food chain (armed, armed against any thought of resistant. See the romance of the gun has a long pedigree, long before it became the tool of choice, or necessary, in the midnight drifter world). Cheap jack stuff, petty stuff when you realize the personal and social cost, but stuff to make those want blues go away, for a while until that craving comes back. Yah, maybe you don’t know what I mean but hell my brother j. coles knows what I mean, knows damn well what I mean.

Dolla and a Dream lyrics- j. cole

For all my ville niggas man,
All my Carolina niggas man, (lights off and shit)
All my real niggas, no matter where you come from

A dolla and a dream, thats all a nigga got
So if its about that c.r.e.a.m., then I'm all up in the spot.
I was raised in the F-A-
Why a nigga never gave me nothing?
Pops left me, I ain't never cry, baby, fuck him, that's life.
And trust me I'm living,
Look what a nigga made out,
The shit that I was given,
Look what a nigga came out
The shit that I was given,
Look what a nigga came out
Momma sewing patches on my holes,
Man, our hoes couldn't put this flame out.

Straight up, I got my back against the brick wall,
I'm from a world where niggas never pop no Cristal, it was pistols.
You pass through, you better pray them bullets missed y'all,
I thank the Lord He let a nigga make it this far,
A lot niggas don't, a lot of moms weep.
I gotta carry on, all the weight is on me.
You never know when a nigga might try to harm me.
Rest In Peace that nigga John Lee,
I pour liquor, homie.

It's foul, but yo the world keeps spinning,
Gotta keep winning, get up off this cheap linen,
Nigga Imma eat, even if it means sinning,
Niggas want beef, Imma sink my teeth in 'em.
Pause, I go harder, I am all about a dollar.
You niggas street smart? I'm a motherfucking scholar.
So trust me, I ain't stopping 'til my money is long,
So much dough, them hoes will think I'm rocking money cologne.

Have a model at the crib waiting, "Honey, I'm home."
Cooking greens for a nigga, give 'em plenty, a dome.
It's funny, we dream about money so much its like we almost got it,
Until we reach up in our pockets, its time to face reality,
The ville is a trap nigga now,
And if you ain't focused you gonna be here for awhile, yeah.