Hip Hop is Dope, and America is a Dopefiend Hooked on the Fruit of Its Own Brutality

I’m driving with Truth, a friend who is a music producer. We both make rap music, but he makes beats, too. I’m an undergraduate at the small, private university in my hometown, Decatur, Illinois. He finished his undergraduate degree a couple years ago. We are leaving Jay’s house — he’s another friend — driving from his West Side neighborhood toward the campus at its edge. It’s remarkable, while driving through this neighborhood, what distinguishes the town from university grounds. It’s not the manicured hedges and lawns. They aren’t greener, neater, or more meticulously trimmed on one side or the other. It’s the wrought iron fencing that separates them. The gates are a portal between worlds.