Self- proclaimed Free Style King and definite fixture in the Hyphy movement Mistah Fab, has recently released a video for his song “Fuck the World” directed by Aris Jerome. For how Mistah Fab did and if it paints a precise painting of Oakland, keep reading….
The short film is dramatic showing only in black and white. Fuck the world is a gritty, first person perspective of life in an inner city like Oakland. Like many big cities in the United States, our youth of color especially young black men think there is no hope. Surrounded by negativity, poverty, drug infestations, gang retaliation, pimps and drugs–some may think life isn’t worth living.
Mistah Fab photo taken by Diwang Valdez
Mistah Fab, offers a voice to young black men living in the hood who don’t have hope. Mistah Fab tackles deeply rooted issues like poverty, murder, imprisonment, mental health,depression and drug addiction. A few of the stories that unfolded that brought awareness to me was of a 15 year old boy who was using cocaine to escape the pain or of the dice game between close friends which turned into murder. A young boy killing his best friend then being sent to prison to realize he will never see day light again.
The hook of the song, itself describes a heavy issue by using words ” crack – baby”. The crack epidemic hit Oakland horrifically in the 1980’s. For example,
Researchers found that during the time period studied, cities with the worst crack problems were Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New York City, Oakland, Baltimore, Newark, Washington, D.C., Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle. The states with the worst problems were Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland.[16] ” [ How bad was Crack Cocaine? The Economics of an Illicit Drug Market. Researched by Steven D. Levitt and Kevin M. Murph ]
Mistah Fab masterfully describes these situations that affect our community. His perspective — a young rapper from Oakland with a heart for his community –is valued. Mistah Fab is valued by his fellow rap peers and legends of the game of rap like Raekwon ( Wu Tang Klan). Un-officially, the Mayor of Oakland, Ron Dellums appreciates Mistah Fab giving voice to issues deeply affecting Oakland according to Mistah Fab’s twitter.
The final cuts of the short film, were of two young black men.
The two young black men were : Tupac Shakur and Oscar Grant.
Tiny Tee's BIG small World 
Tee, as someone who does research on the effectiveness of Hip Hop and how it can be used to give a voice to this part of our population that is often shut out and misjudgded, I really enjoyed this post! I’ve lived and worked in the Oakland community for about four years now and my perspective on these issues change daily. The infultration of Crack Cocaine definitely has a huge impact on inner city Oakland. It’s sad what these people must endure, and I feel like the only way that we can get out of this situation is by true unity from everyone in the community. I really appreciate how Mistah Fab did something different than his usual material to get this message out. Once again, great post!