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The rank and file, as indicated above, received nothing. Like unpaid interns working in desirable law firms or publishing houses, the rank and file saw their position as an opportunity — the proverbial foot in the door — that would, they hoped, lead to a promotion to foot soldier. While the rank and file aspired to be just foot soldiers, the foot soldiers aspired to become officers, the officers dreamed of becoming gang leaders, and the gang leader — the only one in the local syndicate who could actually afford to live large — hoped to one day get grandfathered in as a director and collect from all of the franchises.

Anyone who is potentially hazardous to a player’s pursuit of wealth constitutes a threat or possible roadblock — family members out for the player’s riches; friends who have become hangers-on; and ex-girlfriends, groupies, or women in general. Today, National Football League (nfl) and nba rookie camps feature lectures on the risks of lending money to friends, maintaining an entourage, or bedding a groupie. Professional athletes tell all sorts of horrifying tales of backstabbing uncles, family members who had once vanished but reemerge with treacherous intentions, and seductresses who poke holes in condoms or freeze used ones (exactly the portrait of women painted in mainstream rap).

Knight’s underworld standing in California extended so far above ground that it enabled him to play puppet master with both the Bloods, a Los Angeles street gang, and the Los Angeles Police Department (lapd) and evidently get away with two murders. indd 35 35 1/12/07 4:59:13 PM piring gangstas, black and white alike. The deaths were a reminder of hip-hop’s foundations in the street; at any point hip-hop could transcend its subsistence as art. 2Pac and Biggie may have understood the street, but they were artists, gangsta-rappers at moments in their careers, but never real gangstas.