Deeper Than Rap: The next Curtis?

I thought Rick Ross might be able to benefit from his beef with Fiddy Cent, despite the fact that he pretty much had his ass handed to him.

Fiddy Cent taking Rawse's baby's mother shopping for a new coat and insinuating that he made sweet, passion love to her was incredible death blow, the likes of which we might not ever see again in hip-hop? What could possibly be worse? If he videotaped himself dropping loads all over her shiny forehead? Yarggh!

If I was beefing with a guy - like, really beefing with a guy, not just mocking him for failing to do anything worthwhile with his career, I might consider taking his significant other to Burlington. Except, I'd be worried he might shoot me, once he found out. That's some cold shit, even if you could care less about the hoo-er in question. Which, in all likelihood, you probably don't. It just makes you look like a sucker.

But I figured most guys could probably sympathize with Rick Ross. Let's face it - if you're not a very good-looking guy, you're gonna have to compromise yourself in order to make love to an attractive woman. Even if you've got a lot of money, you're probably gonna end up dealing with a lot of hoo-ers. In that sense, it's hardly any wonder Fiddy found Rawse's other baby's mother advertised in the back of some hoo-er catalog. That's probably where Rawse found her in the first place.

From Jay-Z to Nas to Fiddy Cent himself, there's hardly a rapper you could look at and think, Wow, he really lucked out, in terms of his relationship. At least Beyonce's got a lot of money. But sometimes I wonder if even I couldn't find a black chick just as hot as any of those guys' girlfriends. And I don't think I need to run down for you fruits the litany of issues I'm dealing with. Of course, I've got a specific woman in mind, though I suspect she's mostly interested in me for some sort of ego boost. You know how it is when you're a black woman and you're in any kind of decent shape. The world is your proverbial oyster.

But I digress.

If were one of these TIs, I would have dropped Rawse's Deeper Than Rap back when it was supposed to be released, last month or whenever. As it is, it looks like it might not hit the streets until tax write-off season. Or maybe not until a year or so later, like that last Nelly album.

I'm assuming the main issue is that Rawse has failed to come up with a song people like. Ironically enough, it's the same issue that plagued the last couple of Fiddy Cent albums - they kept pushing them back to come up with bigger and better publicity stunts. Then when they finally came out, no one really gave a shit.

As far as the Rawse album is concerned, I know there was that song where he was bragging about how many "crab meats" he eats on a daily basis, as if it wasn't already obvious. The video was so ridonkulous it was almost kinda brilliant. Almost. He should have teamed up with those guys The Lonely Island and went hog wild with it. He could have at least had Scott Storch make a cameo.

"Built Like That" > Whatever that new Rick Ross song is.

Or who knows? Maybe Rawse can still come up with a song people like. I'm sure that's what the label is counting. Don't be surprised if you hear another one of those god-awful DJ Khaled songs, with Rawse, Fat Joe, Lil Wayne and the rest of them, along with any number of other variations on songs that once worked for Rick Ross.

The thing is, the fact that he bricked with a single in the first place is probably a sign that people have moved on. If Fiddy Cent has yet to get out of the slump that he's in, how in the fuck is Rawse gonna come up with another "Everyday I'm Hustling," or whatever it's called? Just because it sounds like it didn't require much thought to begin with doesn't mean it's gonna be easy to replicate. Ask D4L.

Rawse probably would have been best off trying to capitalize on the publicity generated from his beef with Fiddy Cent. So, no one likes his music anymore - he could have at least had that many more opportunities to promote it. Isn't the entire record business built on effectively promoting shit people probably wouldn't like otherwise?

I'm sure Rawse could be doing as many radio interviews as Fiddy Cent, provided he'd be willing to discuss the fact that he used to be a cop, and that he'll be forever resigned to dealing with hoo-ers. Instead, I see he's been canceling radio interviews, because he doesn't want to discuss his prison guard past. He won't even cop to the fact that Fiddy played him in that video with his baby's mother.

We'll see how well that works out for him.