Brooklyn, New York — Six-hundred freight loads of concrete. Ten million forged bricks. Two-thousand miles of steel reinforcement. Five-hundred thousand laborers. This is only a partial list of the materials required to construct a gigantic monument to slain rapper Christopher “Biggie” Wallace, which has been going on in Brooklyn for the better part of six years. According to foreman “Duke” Allister, the hard work will all be over and the monument open to the public by December. “It’s been a lotta work,” sighed Allister. He’s been living at the site for the past six years, giving orders, checking incoming shipments, and generally making sure that everything runs as smoothly as possible. “Honestly, there was a lotta days I wanted to throw in the towel. I lost sixteen men in one day, just trying to get the giant alligator skin shoe in place. But when you do [the] God’s work, you find the extra strength you need.”
Much of this extra strength came from some five-hundred thousand laborers, many of whom unwittingly signed themselves into indentured servitude by joining the Temple of HipHop Kulture, a social club devoted to rap music. One laborer, who refused to be named, said, “I signed up and paid my membership dues and figured I would get a signed picture of [rapper] KRS-One or something. If I had known I would be abducted in the middle of the night to work on this shit, I would have just paid the Zulu Nation membership fee.” Another exhausted laborer that also requested anonymity remarked, “this ain’t flossin.”
It ain’t, indeed. New York mayors Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg have asked for injunctions against this structure incessantly throughout their respective administrations, with the backup of New York governor George Pataki. However, since the Temple of HipHop Kulture is recognized as a religious organization in the state of New York, the commissioned statue is considered outside of New York’s legal jurisdiction. “We paid our permits, we bought the land,” exclaimed Temple of HipHop Kulture Archdeacon Pious Diddy, speaking from his oak-paneled and gold-trimmed office and pounding animatedly on his pure ivory writing desk, “and damn it, we’re going to finish this monument to the Greatest Rapper Ever! It’s for the people. The people want it, y’all. Watch me on Making the Band 3.”
Perhaps more pressing than the pertinent real estate issues are the labor complaints. Tales of dehydration, beatings, and death have surfaced from behind the plywood walls surrounding the Biggie monument, and legal counsel Jeffrey Hattleboro has filed several injunctions against the structure, which are all due for review by a local judge on Friday. “What’s going on [at that site] is nothing more than common slavery,” expressed Mr. Hattleboro at a press conference outside the monument, “people are being beaten, whipped, and treated like garbage, and religious edifice or not, we’re putting a stop to it!”
Diddy also had this cryptic comment on the situation: “If I require a warm slice of cheesecake from Junior’s, and I get a cold slice of cheesecake from Junior’s, do I not have that which I required? And therefore do I not have the option to discipline my employee? Now I ask you, should that which has not been done properly be responded to improperly, or would it be a more prudent and proper response to respond properly? Obviously, this is the case.”
KRS-One, founder of the Temple of HipHop Kulture, was reached for comment, but no one could decipher any of his commentary.