A great use of Rap, showing a literary level not usually seen.

The premise of this song is that three famous rich people are at a party and they start Rapping as a party trick— a bit of “look at how silly I can act at the party”, with a strong overtone of racism, making fun of African-American culture.

Their Raps—just like real ones—are about pimping hoes, murder, doing illegal things, etc. At this point, if it was incompetent-sounding mockery, we’d all be appalled, say “this is a caricature of rap, this is racist!”, and stop the track. The genius of it is that it’s actually really good—The Coup are real rappers, after all. So this is fake and real at the same time, satire at its finest.

We listen to these characters talking about abusing others to get their wealth—which is how many great and “respectable” fortunes were made in real life—and eventually we have to ask why the murder and greed being glorified by “these” people, is any less acceptable than the murder and greed being glorified by “those” people. It sounds just as cool.

Don’t let me get my flex on, do some gangster shit
make the army go to war for Exxon
Long as the money flow,
I be making dough.
Welcome to my little pimp school …

Is the wealthy abuser that came “from the streets” any better morally than the wealthy abuser that whispers in the ears of senators and presidents?

• The Coup – Pimps (Free Stylin’ at the Fortune 500 Club)