A few words about Run The Jewels, and that Machiavelli shit

"Jewel runner, bitch! Make the name stick. Not for sale, but I'm taking payments..."
-El Producto
of Run The Jewels




Every time my YouTube autoplay rolls around to the Run the Jewels song Lie, Cheat, Steal, it punches me in the gut.  I mean, this song seems to be even more relevant each time I hear it.  Taken as an overstatement of their real beliefs, Run the Jewels' music (as exemplified by Lie, Cheat, Steal) embodies the most sane response to evil in current events: Be ruthless in service of your virtues.  Killer Mike and El P encourage you to harness the power of your reptile brain to enforce your inner angel's good intentions.  That's that Machiavelli shit.

Even if we can agree that this is the way to go (and I'm not saying we should), it is difficult to get right.  Feeding the reptile is dangerous, considering that fear, rage, and greed are never really satisfied.  They always want more.  What's to stop this monster inside you from taking you over and wrecking your life?  I don't know man, I just make comics...

There is a popular axiom that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  

I don't agree with that.  

Power just amplifies whatever is inside us.  And as Ben Parker teaches us, power and responsibility must always go hand in hand. 

If we nourish the freedom to do evil, calling it expedience, we invite more evil upon ourselves from those to whom we have granted power.  Still, I am not really an advocate for purity at all costs either.  I think we should hold our leaders and each other responsible for whatever we do, even if the claim to be doing it for a good reason is presented.  

We should create the expectation that doing evil has consequences, even if "everybody doing it"... and govern ourselves accordingly.  As for me...

"All I got is this rap art shit.
All I want is a castle.
And to move like a man with a minimum of harassment.
The company of women with opinions and fat asses.
That's my list of demands, you don't answer, you get the Gatling."

* artwork for this post is from my freestyle comic Spontaneous, wherein I explore my own dark side (among other things) for fun and profit.
Have great day!
-samax

Samax Amen is a professional Content Developer, Illustrator and Cartoonist. He is the artist of many great comics you never heard of like Herman Heed, Champion of Children, The Brother and The World As You Know It. He even writes and draws his own comics, like Dare: The Adventures of Darius Davidson, Spontaneous, and Manchild when he gets around to it. Because making comics is hard and stuff, he started GhettoManga as a blog in 2006 and as a print magazine in 2008.



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