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Yesterday afternoon, it was cold and blustery by the river in downtown Detroit. Really cold and windy for the middle of May. The kind of cold that bites through your clothes and chills your bones. But things were hopping as I walked down Beubian St. on the way to catch the Smart bus home. Some people had put up posters everywhere for Fat Joe. Every pole had a sign for Fat Joe. Some poles had 3 signs proclaiming FAT JOE. As I walked past the Old Green Bar there were dozens of posters for Fat Joe. “I Won’t Tell Fat Joe there’s an Elephant in the Room”. In front of St. Andrews Hall (the indie music place) there were people all looking at the posters for Fat Joe and talking about Fat Joe coming to town.

Who is Fat Joe and why is he coming to Detroit? A bro with a big smile, colorful tee shirt and better dread-locks than Jimmy Hendrix, said that Fat Joe is some kind of hip-hop rap guy from the Bronx. Yep, it looks like Gangsta Rap at it’s finest (or baddest) …

Wikipedia’s got the skinny on Fat Joe:

Fat Joe’s album The Elephant in the Room was distributed by Imperial Records, a division of Capitol Records and Terror Squad Entertainment, and released on March 11, 2008; its lead single was “I Won’t Tell” featuring singer J. Holiday. The album debuted at the sixth position on the Billboard Hot 100.

Fat Joe got in a fight with Papoose in North Carolina recently, and 50 Cent says Fat Joe’s career is already dead. So Fat Joe is coming to Detroit … and I just hope nobody gets hurt.

In June 2007, the Reverend Michael Pfleger targeted Fat Joe as among several rappers he believed promoted misogyny in his billboard campaign “Stop Listening to Trash”.

There is a lot of angry music in Detroit. On the bus ride home, one guy was really angry about the price of gas being $3.69. [Note: It went up to $3.89 two days later.] Then he started yelling: “Did Bush find the weapons of mass destruction yet?” Another guy was talking about the recent Police brutality (allegations) in Philly and said, it was so bad.. made Rodney King look like a walk in the park, compared to that. If things are bad in the City of Brotherly Love (Philly)… must be even worse in Detroit… someone else started complaining about Kwame…

Then the man who was talking the loudest said “I wish God would come back”. “Really! I hope God comes back to stop all this bull-sh__ [injustice]“. “I hope God comes back soon.” Another black gentleman, more soft-spoken (and not as angry) said he “hoped God did not come back too soon, because some people are not ready yet.” That made me think of what my friend Ralph (the preacher) said: “God is patient in His Holy Anger against corruption, injustice, oppression, sin and wickedness. God is patient and slow to anger. God is not willing that any should perish.”

When God comes back to town… he will not come into town like Fat Joe. It will be be a lot worse, but a lot better… all at the same time.

I listened to the conversations and tried to understand what makes people angry. The bus stopped a few times. A few people got off the bus, and others got on. The bus grew quieter. While a few people drifted off to sleep, I read another chapter in Blue Like Jazz.

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