Shella Good

I have an eight-year-old pet turtle. His name is Jenkins. He was named after André Benjamin of the hip-hop duo OutKast. One of André Benjamin's aliases is Possum Aloysius Jenkins. Seriously. He also goes by MC Chamelio Salamander, which would be a much better name for a reptile, but I hadn't yet seen the video for Sleepy Brown's I Can't Wait, so I missed out on that one (*Note to white people: only BET viewers will get these references, so bear with me - we'll get back on track here shortly).

Jenkins isn't gangsta, however. He's not from the hood, but rather a mall pet shop in Ft. Myers when he was no bigger than a quarter. And his skillz on the mike are pretty lame. So why did I name him after one-half of a Grammy winning hip-hop group from the Dirrrty South?

Because naming a turtle Tupac just sounds silly.

I'd like to think my rap days were just a phase, but can you call it a phase if it continues to this day? But I'm the whitest dude you'll ever meet. Trust me. As I'm writing this, I'm wearing a pink polo from the Gap under a cordoroy blazer. And I know it looks ridiculous to see some jive cracker pulling into the local Linens N' Things parking lot with Wu-Tang or NWA blasting from his conservative all-wheel-drive four-door sedan. But I just can't get through the week without hearing Straight Outta Compton at least once.

Bring Da Ruckus, indeed.

Now I know that rap is not without it's critics. In fact, just last Sunday, the preacher man at church centered his entire sermon on the destructive qualities of profane, misogymist lyrics and such. I agree wholeheartedly with him. So as we passed the collection plate, I put in an extra twenty as if it would somehow atone for my playlist. I'm pretty sure there's a special place in Hell for my 8GB iPod Touch and there's a good chance Satan himself would be offended by some of the content.

Yet despite the admonishment of spiritual leaders (and also my wife), will I continue to enjoy the music of African-American felons glorifying criminal culture and violence?

Fo' schizzle.