This album is dedicated to all the teachers that told me I’d never amount to nothin’, to all the people that lived above the buildings that I was hustlin’ in front of that called the police on me when I was just tryin’ to make some money to feed my daughters, and all the ni—rs in the struggle, you know what I’m sayin’?
—Notorious B.I.G., “Juicy”
I just threw away a lifetime of guilt-free sex and floor seats for every sporting event in Madison Square Garden. So please, a little respect. For I am Costanza, Lord of the Idiots.
—Jason Alexander, Seinfeld
Every culture recognizes the hustler.
Greek mythology devotes as much praise to Odysseus – builder of the Trojan Horse; blinder of Polyphemus; the man who outwitted Circe and Proteus – as it does to the legendary warrior Achilles. The Native Americans of the Midwest venerated the mythical Coyote, trickster extraordinaire, while the Norse had Loki, who could even change his gender. You can find more classical fables, from Aesop to Jean de la Fontaine, that honor the cunning prey overcoming the mighty predator than vice versa. From the Monkey King of the Ming Dynasty to Anansi, spider-god of the Ashanti, every human society reveres cleverness and wit.
These mythological gods and heroes play a variety of roles. Anansi was a storyteller; Coyote, the creator of man and the Earth; Loki, a thorn in the side of Asgard. But they all share the similar Jungian archetype of the hustler: the underdog surviving on his wit.
Smooth operator.
What is a hustler? To “hustle” is to hurry, to put forth the muscular effort to rush along. It comes from the same etymology as fast-talking someone: the smooth flow of street patter meant to overcome someone’s objections and trick them into something they wouldn’t agree to in quiet reflection. A hustler has to talk fast, move fast (to avoid trouble) and think fast (to come up with a clever story).
Note that hustling lives strictly in the province of the underdog: the poor, the common, the disadvantaged. If a king breaks a treaty and attacks a peaceful nation, he’s not hustling: he’s dishonorable. But if Haile Selassie breaks a treaty and attacks the warlords who outnumber him, he’s clever. Irwin Rommel, the “Desert Fox” whose tanks outmaneuvered Patton and Montgomery in WWII, was a hustler; Stalin, who sent Russians to die by the millions in defending Stalingrad, was not.
While the concept of “justice” has varied radically throughout history, every culture has had one. Everybody always has a notion of what somebody deserves. In feudal Europe, noble lords deserved the labor of their serfs, while the Church deserved homage from the nobility. In ancient times, when might made right, conquerors deserved the spoils of war.
But in every culture you found the hustler, who took more than he deserved.
The best summary of what makes a hustler probably comes from Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas:
After awhile, it got to be all normal. None of it seemed like crime. It was more like Henry was enterprising, and that he and the guys were making a few bucks hustling, while all the other guys were sitting on their asses, waiting for handouts. Our husbands weren’t brain surgeons, they were blue-collar guys. The only way they could make extra money, real extra money, was to go out and cut a few corners.
So we have a distinction between earning for a living – whether by labor or conquest – and hustling. And we have a distinction between the orthodox power of the mighty and the unorthodox hustling of the low. These distinctions are almost universal across the human race. They transcend barriers of language, skin color and history.
I’ve just fast-forwarded through ten thousand years of human history. Still with me? Good. Then, to quote the Notorious B.I.G., “turn the pages to 1993.”
Though there’s never a great time to be young, black and poor in America, the early 90s were particularly bad.
In March 1991, Rodney King was pulled over for speeding in Los Angeles and, after failing to cooperate with cops, subsequently beaten by four LAPD officers. Leaked footage of the beating sparked a public outcry, which boiled over into rioting once the four officers involved were acquitted of all charges. The rioting throughout the summer of 1992 led to over 50 deaths, more than 2000 injuries and $1,000,000,000 in damages. The resulting investigation exposed what many residents of Los Angeles had long suspected: endemic corruption and brutality within the LAPD.
Over on the East Coast, the crack epidemic had just come off its worst years. Though violence was at a temporary low, the introduction of crack – a cheap and potent form of cocaine – had sparked a massive rise in urban gangs and violence. These gangs, and the drug problem, did not vanish over night. The generations weaned on gang life had now come of age. Some branched into traditional gang mainstays such as extortion and robbery; others into different drugs, like heroin or cocaine. But the “official” end of the crack epidemic did not mean the end of urban crime.
Out of this culture came gangsta rap. The term “rap” comes from the Beat Generation, meaning to talk in a laid back, informal manner. Rapping spread through the inner cities as a way to showcase cleverness; Muhammad Ali was particularly famous for his raps. But the Sugar Hill Gang was the first group to make rapping famous as a form of music, by looping a bass beat (“Good Times”) and rapping over it.
The Sugar Hill Gang set the tone early on: rap music was supposed to be true to life. It’s about things the listener can relate to (“have you ever went over to a friend’s house to eat,” etc). But it didn’t take long for voices agitating for social change to use rap as a medium for harsher truths. I could pick from several examples, but “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five is probably the best example.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dShcXDacNXM
Rap grew edgier over the years; see 2 Live Crew or the Geto Boys. It also improved in artistry, with Run DMC and the Beastie Boys being leaders. But it wasn’t until the early 90s that we saw the beginnings of what was later called gangsta. If early rap was about how the folks in the projects lived, gangsta rap was about how the hustlers lived.
Gangsta rap might not have taken off as it did were it not for two factors: the Biggie / Tupac feud, and MTV.
First, while it’s unfair to credit Christopher Wallace (a/k/a The Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, or the Black Frank White) and Tupac Shakur (a/k/a 2Pac or Makavelli) with the genesis of gangsta rap, they became its public face. As high-profile performers backed by ambitious studios, they went from friends to rivals to enemies in a few short years. The feud between East Coast and West Coast rappers was a synecdoche for gangsta rap itself: the opulence, the artistry, the boasting, the implied and actual violence.
And it didn’t hurt that they were both damn good.
Second, while gangsta wasn’t the first rap to get played on MTV by a long stretch, gangsta seemed uniquely suited to the medium. By the 90s, producers had long realized that a music video was no longer an added feature for a song but an essential consideration. Videos went from being an afterthought (consider “Video Killed The Radio Star”) to a vanguard (consider “Justify My Love”). Style and substance have always kept an uneasy truce in pop music – and now visual style was winning.
Into this battlefield came a style of rap that boasted about luxury. Gold rings on every finger and platinum chains around the neck. Packed nightclubs, dark save for recessed lighting under the counters and strobes cutting through cigar smoke. Icy bottles of ludicrously expensive champagne. Women in sprayed-on dresses and bikinis, rubbing themselves with vacant stares.
None of this was new imagery, of course. King of New York, Goodfellas and Scarface had glamorized the wealth that came from drug dealing for years. But gangsta rap was the first genre to put that imagery in service of its music. MTV, a channel that thrived on delivering desirable imagery to teenagers and young adults, ate it up with both hands.
It’s no accident that gansta rap ascended in the 90s. Looking back, it’s clear that gangsta was an idea whose time had come.
Seinfeld probably could not have made it on NBC today. The sitcom, helmed by a young comedian whom few people had heard of, struggled for years to find an audience. But after a while, this little “show about nothing” became the most lucrative sitcom property in the history of network television. It made everyone involved in its production inconceivably wealthy. It struck a deep chord with the American public that remains resonant today.
Why?
Ask Seinfeld fans to list their favorite episodes. You’ll get a wide variety, too wide for me to catalog properly. So I’ll list a few examples, some of which you’re likely to recognize.
- Jerry asks Elaine to figure out if his new girlfriend’s breasts are real.
- George gets admission to a hip nightclub by pretending to have dated a model (whose photo he carries in his wallet).
- George buys a cashmere sweater for Elaine at a tremendous discount because it has a prominent red dot on it.
- Elaine tries various means to trick a Chinese delivery place into delivering to her apartment, even though it’s out of the area they serve.
- Kramer poses as the head of a corporation (“Kramerica”) to get an intern from a local college.
And so on.
The tone of the episodes ranges from “comedy of errors” to cheap sexual humor. All four characters are guilty of scheming, selfishness and dishonesty. And none of their schemes pay off.
In each of those examples – in fact, in almost every episode of Seinfeld – a main character’s scheme to get ahead backfires. Jerry gets found out and his girlfriend breaks up with him. George gets caught and loses his job. Elaine gets discovered and is mortified in front of a friend, boyfriend or coworker. Kramer’s plans fall through and he ends up in some ridiculous situation. It’s a formula.
Seinfeld is about people trying to hustle and failing.
A true hustler hustles because he wants that little extra, or because legal means of work are either unappealing or unavailable. As Biggie put it, if you want to get out of the hood, “you’re either slingin’ crack rock / or you got a wicked jump shot.” But the characters on Seinfeld hustle out of a blend of guilt and shame. They fear that they’re the least savvy people in the world: missing out on discounts, bonuses or a satisfying life. Note how Jerry laughs at George after he confesses to taking his car to a dealership for repairs. These people hustle, not out of need, but out of neurosis.
And yet they keep failing. The stars of Seinfeld are the opposite of hustlers. They are customers.
If a hustler is a guy who always haggles, the customer is the guy who always pays list price. If a hustler is a guy who fast-talks, a customer is a guy who can be fast-talked. A hustler shops around; a customer orders in. A hustler keeps hustling; a customer grows accustomed.
Okay, so Jerry, Elaine, Kramer and George don’t have any game. Not exactly shocking. And yet, for 9 seasons, they kept trying. They never stopped trying to scam their way out of work, con their way into relationships, or lie their way out of trouble. Never. Even after every previous attempt at either selling a sitcom to NBC, getting rich off of recycled cans or sneaking a bite of Mr. Peterman’s antique wedding cake had failed in a humiliating fashion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHchl4AxsE0
Why did they keep trying? What was the tragic flaw – the hamartia, to touch Aristotle – that kept these characters from realizing why they could never succeed?
Let’s go back to the definition of a hustler. Hustlers live by their wits. They scheme for something extra. And they always come from the social underclass. Remember, someone who’s conniving, greedy and powerful is a villain. Someone who’s conniving, greedy and poor is a sympathetic hero, or at worst a lovable rake.
Are the characters on Seinfeld poor?
Jerry and Kramer live in neighboring one-bedroom apartments in the Upper West Side of Manhattan at the height of the mid-90s real estate boom. Elaine moves a few times, but she also lives on the island. George’s fortunes rise and fall the most: he has a city apartment, then he has to move back in with his parents. But he still bounces from one rich job to the next: real estate, then playground equipment, then eventually working for the New York Yankees – the most lucrative sports franchise in the world after Arsenal.
The characters on Seinfeld are not poor. In fact, I might conservatively say that four white people in their 30s who lived in roach-free apartments in Manhattan between 1989 and 1998 are as rich as it is possible for human beings to be. They are in the top 1% of the top 1% of ten thousand years of humanity. The difference between Jerry Seinfeld and Warren Buffett, as viewed by the richest person in France in the 14th century, is infinitesimal.
The story of Seinfeld is the story of four rich people who don’t know how good they have it. They think they have to keep hustling in order to make ends meet, when in fact they don’t. They think that their conniving makes them sympathetic, when in fact it makes them look petty. They’re displaying the relentless striving of the urban poor without any of the entrepreneurial savvy. The end result is pathetic. That’s why Seinfeld is a comedy.
It’s no coincidence that Seinfeld and gangsta rap both blew up in the 90s. There’s no other period in which they could have arisen. Seinfeld only works in contrast to the hustler lifestyle: all of its jokes turn on successful people trying to hustle and failing. And the hustler lifestyle came to prominence in the 90s, thanks to gangsta rap. Jerry Seinfeld and the Notorious B.I.G.; George Costanza and Tupac Shakur. They circle each other like yin and yang in a constant state of dynamic tension.
That’s not where the story ends.
After the end of Seinfeld and the failure of his other sitcoms, actor Michael Richards – who played Kramer – resumed his career in stand-up comedy. This career came to a screeching halt in November 2006, when a cell phone video recorded him at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood, shouting down some hecklers at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood by yelling “He’s a ni—r!” about six times. Richards apologized on David Letterman’s Late Show, as well as to Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson (neither of whom were present at the Laugh Factory, but hey). He claimed that, in his rage at being heckled, he wasn’t thinking about how he responded.
When I first heard this anecdote, I didn’t give it much thought, other than “whoops, another celebrity who’s secretly a racist.” Then a friend of mine, who does regular stand-up gigs in the Boston comedy scene, mentioned the incident while we were talking about the pressures of comedy.
“It’s not just that Richards is racist,” he said. “He is, but most racists have the common sense not to bust out the n-word in public like that. Richards thought he had the crowd on his side. He didn’t realize how quickly you can get the crowd to turn on you.”
Fifty years ago, yelling the n-word six times might have played. Today?
My friend was talking about the delicacy of a comedy club audience, but I took away something else. Michael Richards thought he could get away with the n-word because he thought he was the victim. He thought a room full of black people were out to get him and he was justified in lashing back with the harshest weapon in his arsenal. What Richards failed to realize is that it’s effectively impossible for a successful white male entertainer with tens of millions of dollars in the bank to be a “victim” in a comedy club. He failed to realize the balance of power would never let him be a hustler.
Like the character he made famous, Michael Richards thought he was poor enough to try his luck hustling. But a hustler’s behavior just looks petty when you’re already on top.
So what about successful hustlers? What do they do when they get big? What do you do when you go from an order-taker to an order-maker?
Critical culture rarely has kind words for entertainers who “retire” and then emerge a few years later (consider Brett Favre or Barbra Streisand). But after his so-called retirement album – the Black album in 2003 – Jay-Z released a new disc in 2006: Kingdom Come. No one has yet to call him a wash-up, a has-been or a laughingstock. In fact, Jay-Z – one of the biggest names in late-90s gangsta rap – has become even bigger than ever.
How? By going from gangsta to gangster.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aP0u-uIxB8
Note the change in imagery and iconography. All rappers wear suits and carry canes. But Jay-Z makes a point of wearing expensive-looking suits that look precisely tailored. The difference between how Jay-Z wears a suit and how The Game wears one? Please. Not even close.
The language, the visuals: all speak to a more restrained, dignified display of power. Even the hooks have graduated. Jay-Z samples from an ensemble of socially conscious street musicians for “Roc Boyz (And The Winner Is …)”; from the blaxploitation classic “Shaft in Africa” for “Show Me What You Got.” These aren’t songs for grinding or freakin’; these are anthems that hearken back to an older generation. In the 90s, Jay-Z was bouncing around in oversized basketball jerseys, singing about “big pimpin’.” In the 21st century, if Jay has dirt on his shoulders, he asks you to brush it off.
(I’d talk more about Jay-Z, authenticity, symbols of authenticity, and how the symbol can force you to think about authenticity even when it’s fake, but The Last Psychiatrist does it so much better in this post on the ‘Death Of Autotune’ video)
Jay-Z has become the most important figure in rap music today (seriously, does anyone even question that?) through total control over his image. In addition to his tremendous financial success as one-time head of Def Jam Records, he has reinforced every public appearance – awards shows, concerts, music videos, beats, hooks, lyrics – with the subconscious message that he’s at the head of the table.
Jay-Z has graduated from hustler to chairman. And Michael Richards is trying to scramble back down the ladder.