Free Jacob the Jeweler

Should it be illegal to sell expensive-ass jewelry to rappers and their drug dealer friends? Hold on a sec before you answer that question.

You'll recall that hip-hop king of bling Jacob the Jeweler is currently enmeshed in deep doo-doo (no Ali the Weed Carrier) having to do with his dealings with members of the Black Mafia Family coke dealer gang/record label.

The Black Mafia Family consists of two brothers (actually brothers) based out of Detroit, Michigan who sold somewhere in the neighborhood of $270 million worth of cocaine in the past ten years or so. It's a complex network of dealers and distributors in several different states, but you get the idea they may not be as smart as they'd have you think.

In the past few years, they've become known for showing up to night clubs 100 jigs deep, buying out the bar, and any manner of other such jig foolishness. They started a record label named after their own drug gang to put out some shit called Bleu Davinci and they're also somehow related to Young Jeezy, though I'm not 100% sure how.

How does Jacob the Jeweler figure into this? Earlier this year he got arrested for selling them some chains. Really? According to the Feds, this constituted money laundering.

Question: If these jigs sold $270 million worth of cocaine, and Jacob the Jeweler sold them a chain for $10,000, how exactly does that constitute money laundering? Would the government not know these jigs were drug dealers if it weren't for their huge gold chains? And how was Jacob the Jeweler supposed to know that the $10,000 they gave him came from drug dealing? Maybe Young Jeezy gave them that to carry around his weed.

In general, you get the idea that the Feds are cracking down on Jacob the Jeweler for being in business with rappers. He must have made some insane amount of money in the past five years or so from dumbasses like Kanye West taking their first royalty check from the TI's in the Def Jam building straight to another TI (who's actually a tall Israeli) a few blocks away. Admittedly, the thought is rather disgusting, but still.

Think about it: Martha Stewart went to prison for crimes that involved way more money than these Black Mafia dumbasses ever saw in their life. When she got busted for insider trading, did the Feds show up to the department store where she copped her Sub Zero refrigerators looking for some sort of paper trail?

***

For more on issues having to do with bling bling, Jacob the Jeweler, ignorant black people, and so on and so forth, be sure to check out Reggie Osse and Gabriel Tolliver's Bling: The Hip-Hop Jewelry Book, which hits stores either today or tomorrow.

I got one for free a couple of weeks ago because I'm important like that (I'm even mentioned on page 174). Not that this is saying a whole lot, but it's easily some of the better hip-hop coffee table reading since the days of Pravda Splinter's own Book of Rap Lists, and that's been a while ago.