{"id":2268,"date":"2016-02-04T07:17:01","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T07:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mattralston.net\/?p=2268"},"modified":"2016-02-04T19:03:41","modified_gmt":"2016-02-04T19:03:41","slug":"why-martin-shkreli-is-gangster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/politics\/why-martin-shkreli-is-gangster\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Martin Shkreli Is Gangster"},"content":{"rendered":"

Martin Shkreli is the cartoonishly evil capitalist\u00a0who started a business which bought licenses for drugs with expired patents, and famously raised the price of one from $13 a pill to $750 per pill, which allowed him the disposable income to do what is called #ballin’. While #ballin’ Shkreli bought an album recorded by\u00a0the Wu-Tang Clan of which they made only one copy to auction off to the highest bidder, which he was, for $2 million. This apparently angered several members of the Wu, yet it’s unclear who they expected to have $2 million in extra cash on hand. Clearly those kids in line at the sneaker store weren’t going to pool their bus money. These are the guys who always rapped about the purity of their music, and how they made it for the people. I’m not sure if the\u00a0move to auction off their album was really #keepin’itreal. It almost seems capitalistic.<\/p>\n

After he bought the album, Shkreli got into a social media feud with a few members of the Wu who apparently disapproved of his entire being, particularly Ghostface Killah. Shkreli dissed Ghostface, who\u00a0hit back with a fairly tame yet\u00a0dismissive video, calling out Shkreli for having a “Skeletor nose”, which he does. Shkreli then made a Youtube video<\/a> thoroughly dissing Ghostface, calling him old and washed up, and talking shit about his personal safety in the traditional what is assumed to be tongue-in-cheek hip hop fashion. Then he went on a popular NYC hip hop radio show named after an aggressively white emo 80’s movie called The Breakfast Club and proceeded to talk more shit to Ghostface, such as:<\/p>\n

“If he was here right now, I\u2019d fuckin\u2019 smack him in the face.\u00a0I\u2019m from the streets.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While all outward appearances suggest otherwise, I’m going to make the case that Shkreli has possibly the highest\u00a0gangster credibility in America at this point. Here’s why:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. He talks shit and doesn’t back down.\u00a0<\/strong>See above. Gangsters\u00a0have beefs all the time. Shkreli has a beef with Ghostface Killah. #gangster<\/li>\n
  2. He’s from the streets<\/strong>. He’s from Brooklyn, and not an especially good part. Plenty of #truegangsters\u00a0have come from his same hood. Rappers from Brooklyn mention it ad nauseam. So do gangsters like Shkreli.<\/li>\n
  3. He’s trying to make paper.\u00a0<\/strong>One of the undying tenants of hip hop is that one should make money, however possible, to better his circumstances and FUCK everybody else. How many tracks are there about guys slanging crack or participating in other seedy activities just to get by? Biggy, Jay-Z, name the true gangster, this theme is present. If you want to break down the ethics of selling crack versus procuring licenses to pharmaceuticals, it might be about even.<\/li>\n
  4. He’s an\u00a0entrepreneur.\u00a0<\/strong>Name the rapper, if they have personal stake in a record label I challenge you to listen to one of their albums without being lectured in verse about the virtues of owing your\u00a0own\u00a0business. It’s a lot of shit about how nobody can tell\u00a0you what to do and if they don’t like you, you can tell them to fuck off. This is Shkreli in a nutshell. Often times, if you listen to Jay-Z, for example, he’ll just rap about how he’s richer than whoever is on the listening end of his music. That’s gangster. Just like #Shkreli.<\/li>\n
  5. He’s currently out on bail.\u00a0<\/strong>Shkreli is out on bail awaiting trial for a myriad of financial fraud charges. This is the type of shit cornball rappers like Snoop Dogg traditionally\u00a0idolize. Capone and Noreaga? The obsession with Scarface? Ring a bell? While\u00a0out, he’s also behaving in an extremely #gangster fashion, by publicly talking about shit he’s not supposed to, and generally acting like a lunatic and destroying his credibility. In other words, #doesn’tgiveafuck. Tupac would be proud.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    It’s not fair to claim Shkreli isn’t gangster just because he doesn’t look\u00a0the part. He talks like he’s gangster, and that’s because in every sense of the word, outside of being sickly looking and not outwardly intimidating, he is. Sean Combs isn’t intimidating. Gangsters idolize status no matter the cost. I’m not a fan of capitalism, I’m not even a fan of gangsters. I don’t think songs about gang banging deserve more artistic respect because the subject is actually a gang banger. I don’t think gang banging is a cool activity. I wonder if the critics or general public would have responded well if Michael Jackson wrote an album about child molesting. But, you can’t have it both ways. Sign this asshole\u00a0to Def Jam.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Martin Shkreli is the cartoonishly evil capitalist\u00a0who started a business which bought licenses for drugs with expired patents, and famously raised the price of one from $13 a pill to $750 per pill, which allowed him the disposable income to do what is called #ballin’. While #ballin’ Shkreli bought an album recorded by\u00a0the Wu-Tang Clan …read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[946,945],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2268"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2273,"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268\/revisions\/2273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattralston.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}