Criticism Post #2 “Bullets Ain’t Got No Name”

This week we went over the Neo-Classical approach when looking at a text or any different medium of communication. The Neo-Classical approach I chose to blog about this week is “The Canon” which is broken up into five different parts :

1. Invention : how did they come up with it? Inspiration? Outside text?
2. Arrangement : order, why did they order it this way? Procedure, Structure.
3. Style : person’s style, delivery style, embellishment?
4. Delivery : fast? quick? Editing or cinematography?
5. Memory : memorizing, memorable or not memorable and why not?

In this post I want to address the Invention of Nipsey Hussle’s first album “Bullets Ain’t Got No Name.” INVENTION is the reason as to why an artist comes up with something, their inspiration, their big WHY.

In this interview of Nipsey Hussle, the eight second mark is the beginning of his take on what it means to the saying “bullets ain’t got no name.” He explains that in one aspect of the term it is the “South Central state of mind” where gang members in Los Angeles go on what they call “missions” which is purposely going into their enemies’ “hood” and blatantly killing someone. He goes into further detail by saying that if you are a Blood and go into a Crip area it does not matter who you are or what your name is, you are the enemy and you will ultimately get killed, hence the bullet has no name for who “its” victims are. Growing up, Nipsey Hussle was part of that lifestyle seeing 15 to 16 year old kids go on “missions” everyday not knowing if the bullet was going to strike them or not.

The second half of the interview starting around two minutes, Nipsey Hussle explains that young men think that it shows a sign of manhood when getting a gun and shooting it and he wanted to speak on that from experience, from the inside perspective. “Bullets ain’t got no name” is somewhat of a universal truth in that when you shoot a gun it is shot to kill and you have to accept the repercussions that when you shoot you may hit an innocent bystander rather than the person the bullet was meant for.

Another key element to the canon method is MEMORY, which is whether or not the song is memorable. “Bullets Ain’t Got No Names” is memorable to me in the way that the song title is self explanatory and it just makes sense, bullets do not have names to the victims they kill. Following that, the lyrics to the song “pull the trigger, shoot that n****” rhyme even though the lyrics are deemed with defensive language it is easily memorable.

“Pull the trigger, shoot that n****”

This album along with all of Nipsey Hussle’s songs are created with the intention that the gang life should not be glorified, and his rap is the reality of what it is like to be part of that. He was a huge advocate against gang violence since he saw so much of it growing up in South Central Los Angeles in the Crenshaw district. His messages are sent to impact gang culture in hopes that his listeners realize that he is a human like everyone else and wherever he ended up, which was a successful entrepreneur, husband, father, and grammy award winner, any other kid on his block could end up there too.