Not Everyone’s Supposed To Rap

Your Old Droog “You Can Do It! (Give Up)”

It’s hard to tell whether this song, which details the terrible decisions that wrecked three people who started out in life with great promise, is meant to be taken as a cautionary tale, or just some deeply pessimistic schadenfreude. Your Old Droog sounds genuinely disappointed in the failed basketball star in the first verse, but there’s noticeable bile in the way he talks about the would-be model and the aspiring rapper in the second and third verses. But the song isn’t just “look at these pathetic assholes.” Droog’s lyrics are really about the social pressures and negative influences that derailed these people, and without stressing it too much, draws your attention to how these stumbling blocks get built into black American culture as an end result of institutional racism. The point here isn’t that these people are stupid for trying – trying is a good thing – but are likely irrevocably fucked for life because they failed.

Also: I was going nuts trying to figure out what sample this song was built on, and was thinking it was something from the ’70s but couldn’t place it. As it turns out, it’s Richard Swift’s “Lady Luck,” a song that was featured here a few years ago.

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