A few months ago, driven by some latent masochistic tendencies that I evidently possess, I decided to rediscover the music and career of 2004’s hottest up and coming rapper, Papoose. If you don’t know who Papoose is—and you’re also a more fortunate individual than I am—allow me to provide a bit of context. Papoose is a rapper who first started accumulating a buzz in 2004 when he partnered with legendary (for shouting over songs, for making up words like “thug-acation,” and for notoriously badly designed mixtape covers) DJ KAY SLAY and released the mildly impressive song “Alphabetical Slaughter.” “Alphabetical Slaughter” was a concept song that consisted of DJ KAY SLAY yelling out a letter of the alphabet and then Papoose rapping a carefully written verse using only words starting with the corresponding letter. It’s the type of gimmicky thing that sounds more impressive in theory than in execution. On first listen, the song seemed like an amazing feat, but after repeated listens a listener realized that the verses were mostly nonsense alliteration like: “Jungle jump juggler, jaw-jabbin’ jeopardizer / Jackin’ jewelry jingles, jackknife jiggin’ jittery jivers.” This did not seem to matter, however, as somehow Papoose was able to parlay the buzz generated by this song into a feature on Busta Rhymes’ hit song “Touch It (Remix),” a few highly downloaded mixtapes, and a 1.5 million dollar record deal with Jive Records. The foundation was in place for Papoose to have a successful career in the rap Industry.

So, what happened? Why is it the case that it is now 2014 and you’ve either forgot/never heard of Papoose altogether? There are a number of possible explanations, but most likely it has something to do with Papoose’s decision to completely over-saturate the market and release 17 mixtapes over a three year period. After like 6 mixtapes, even Papoose’s most dedicated fans soon grew tired of his singular flow, bad hooks, corny punchlines, and general narrative.

The story has a predictable ending; after Papoose single-handedly ran his buzz into the ground, his record label was stuck with an un-promotable artist. For years, Papoose’s album sat on the shelves at Jive and he was eventually dropped from the label. 9 years after Alphabetical Slaughter began to accumulate a buzz, he released his debut album “The Nacirema Dream” independently and it sold a total of 8000 copies.

If this is all you knew about Papoose, you might feel bad for the guy. “It must suck to have your dreams so close to being within your grasp and then watch them shatter completely” you may think. You may even think I’m an asshole for making fun of him on the internet so many years later. HOWEVER, if you were to read Papoose’s twitter feed and listen to him in interviews, you’d realize that he still believes that he sits atop the rap throne and is hence a fair target for ridicule. It seems crazy that Papoose should be so confident in his unfaltering stance that he is a legend in the game, yet he seems to reiterate this stance over and over again. Over the years, in desperate attempts to retain relevancy, Papoose has gone around making ridiculous claims that “Jay-Z is just aight,” releasing diss songs aimed at Kendrick Lamar, and symbolizing the ‘taking’ of much more successful rappers than himself ‘to lyrical school’ in music videos.

A few months ago, I thought it would be funny to google “Papoose” and then filter by ‘News’ to see what would pop up. It was at that moment that I read the best headline I had seen in quite some time: “Papoose Says Government Shutdown Is ‘Perfect Example Of Self-Destruction’” the headline read. The sheer awesomeness of this headline was enhanced by the fact that the writer thought it would be useful to include the word “Exclusive” in the preface to the piece, implying that there was a lineup of people waiting to get Papoose’s nuanced opinion on the issue. Two questions popped into my mind immediately: 1) Who is informing themselves about the politics of the U.S. budget by reading a Papoose interview in HipHopDx? 2) Which editor thought it would be appropriate to include the word exclusive in the story and imply that it was a huge scoop?…In any case, I decided (without actually reading the article) to write a thought-piece about the U.S. government shut down from the perspective of Papoose using a few key facts I know about Papoose’s life. Enjoy!

Wassup everybody it’s your boy Papoose AKA Mr. Got New York City in the palm of my hands, AKA I don’t wear gloves cause they don’t fit over New York City, AKA Mr. pop a cap in your hand and leave you handicapped. I’m here today to talk to HipHopDx about the situation with our government and the politrixx going down in our nation’s capital, ju heard?

So yo, y’all heard that the government just shut down and shit? How’s the nation’s government finna just shut down like that? Our white house out here looking like Blockbuster video on some “We’re closed indefinitely or until we can figure out how to compete with Netflix” shit. And yo, in case you ain’t know…I’m crazy nice with the metaphors. When I said Netflix right there, that shit was a metaphor for Chinese manufacturing. You ain’t even get that though, did you?

Anyways, I get why HipHopDx would wanna interview me about this shit. They musta heard that I’m a wild cultured individual. I slaughtered the alphabet all across the world, fam. I been slaughtered the alphabet out here in the United States, I done slaughtered the alphabet out in Norway, and I just got back from slaughtering the alphabet in England which is some crazy shit because them Monarchist mafuckas be saying “zed” instead of “zee.” Yo y’all remember how wild the crowd went when I did that shit out there, though? (Papoose says, speaking to no one in particular) When I performed that joint out in England, I said “zed” instead of “zee” and them dudes at that taping of the British equivalent of Smack DVD was buggin.

I was talking to my boy recently and homie was like “Yo Pap, you know what’s wild? We ain’t never done no alphabetical slaughterin in Latin America yet” which is some crazy ignorant shit to say, because if you know anything about Linguistics (shouts to Noam Chomsky), you know Latin’s already a dead language. But you know what though? Papoose ain’t even phased by its mortality, ya feel me? I told my dude we finna go to Guatemala THIS year and I’mma bring that shit back to life just so I can slaughter it again! And before dudes on the internet start talking on worldstar hiphop comment sections like “Papoose ain’t even know the difference between Latin and Spanish,” shut the fuck up because I do. I was purposefully misinterpreting the facts for the purposes of wordplay. That’s some shit y’all wouldn’t know about cause y’all ain’t masterful lyricists like me, B. Y’all ain’t never had no shine, my pals. So shut the fuck up about me on your message boards.

I ain’t want dudes out there to get it twisted and think I be catching feelings though. I could give a fuck about them haters, B. Truth be told, I only got three haters — deaf, dumb, and blind. (Editor’s note: This is an actual thing Papoose said on twitter relatively recently). Ain’t a single one of them haters could make me doubt my status in the game as a legend, B. So, y’all can keep yappin on the internet like malnourished Puppies or some shit cause y’all can’t take nothing away from me! I caused a fucking record label bidding war all by my fucking self, ya feel me?! The only bidding war you ever been involved in was over an action figure on EBAY!

And yo, I can tell that some of y’all still can’t get past the fact that I be dropping words like “monarchist” and casually referencing Noam Chomsky and shit. What, y’all think Papoose ain’t learned? Y’all think I ain’t on some verbose shit? Shit’s ridiculous, B. I ain’t wanna keep bringing up the same song because of how extensive my catalogue is, but have y’all even HEARD Alphabetical Slaughter? THAT ENTIRE SONG WAS JUST ME SHOWING Y’ALL HOW MANY WORDS I KNOW. FUCK OUTTA HERE WITH THIS SHIT!

Anyways, on to the politrixx. I ain’t trynna brag here or nothing, but I predicted this shit with our government way before it happened, fam. In actuality, I predicted this shit years ago when I first announced that my album would be called the “Nacirema Dream.” In case you ain’t got no powers of deduction, Nacirema is American backwards which Is some mad prophetic shit cause that’s exactly what’s happening with our government right now, fam. How the fuck you gon tell me that the government is closed? The government ain’t supposed to be closed, it’s supposed to be open. Shit’s backwards! Ain’t none of y’all fucking with Pap’s clairvoyance game, ju heard?!

To be honest though, I ain’t even know if this shit with the government matters to us, nah mean? What the fuck do people from the hood look like giving a shit about Obama and a bunch of white dudes sitting in a room somewhere trynna pass a budget. Homies out here in the streets still trynna get past their lack of budget, ya feel me?AND I KNOW MANS AIN’T SUPPOSED TO BE COMPLIMENTING THEY OWN WORDPLAY CAUSE THAT’S SOME CORNY SHIT, BUT Y’ALL GOTTA ADMIT THAT WAS CRAZY. I’m serious though. The fuck kinda social services we getting in the streets? Rich dudes is libertarians because they ain’t want nothing to do with the government, dudes in the hood is libertarian cause the government ain’t want nothing to do with us, ya feel me?! We gotta fend for ourselves out here, bruh. Out here the glock be the judge, the block be the jury, and the crack rock be our social security, ju heard?!

Anyways, that’s enough of the nuanced political shit for y’all. I ain’t wanna hit y’all with the real shit cause the world ain’t even ready, nahmsayin?! That’s the only reason my album took so long to drop too. I needed to make sure the world was ready before I dropped that much realness on it. Anyways, I’mma have to dip out of here and hit up the studio. I just wrote another classic album in my head while this interview was going on. Nacirema Dream in stores now! PEACE