Michael Irvin’s frustration with his son’s fake gangsta persona is all of us who hope our kids don’t embarrass us one day
OPINION: The Hall of Fame wide receiver’s son raps with a persona that doesn’t resemble his actual life, and Michael Irvin is over it.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
On a recent episode of the FS1 show “Undisputed,” co-host Michael Irvin did a thing that parents would hope to never have to do: publicly admonish their kid for making the family look bad. Granted, Irvin didn’t say his son, Elijah, aka Tut Tarantino, was making the family look bad, but I think it can be safely inferred.
In the middle of a segment in which Skip Bayless, Keyshawn Johnson and Michael Irvin were discussing Ja Morant’s response and retweeting of an inspirational tweet from Deion Sanders, Irvin went on a screed about having to distance yourself from bad elements as an athlete (paraphrasing here). He then hopped right into talking about his son’s rap lyrics, pointing out that his son “grew up in a gated community” and is really rapping Michael Irvin’s life, not his own.
The comments at the heart of the whole discussion really start around the 4:49 mark. Take a gander.
There has been some mixed reaction to what Irvin said, which is funny because this isn’t even the first time he’s said it. He said the same thing back in 2019 on the “Dan Patrick Show.” But some folks are claiming that Irvin threw his son under the bus calling him out publicly, and others believe that, maybe, these kids need calling out. I tend to fall in the latter camp.
For a kid who grew up in rich surroundings and went to the best schools, as Irvin’s son did, it really is ridiculous to listen to this kid’s music. Like, he has videos full of guns, talking about the opps (as folks are wont to do) and all of the druggin’ and thuggin’. And to be fair, it’s not impossible for kids of means to have the kind of lives that might lead to rapping about such shenanigans; Elijah clearly isn’t that kid.
In the most recent clip, that much is evident in the frustration you can hear from Irvin, who must have listened to some new song his son sent him on the way into the studio that morning because it really seemed to be sitting right there for him. (As an aside, most of his public videos and such are all years old at this point, so for Irvin to bring this up recently must mean he’s still rapping the same). And also, he’s right.
It is ridiculous for his son to not only rap about the things with which he probably doesn’t have any real experience or relationship to but to feel like this is how he should express himself as a rapper. I get it. Marketing yourself as a rich kid rapper probably doesn’t have the same appeal as being somebody who “got it out the mud.” But when you’re entirely faking the funk and get exposed, it seems to do more damage than good.
It’s also a slap in the face to the folks who do make this kind of music because those are the circumstances they come from. Attempting to cosplay as a street dude when you aren’t one really is nonsense. He’s also not the first, nor will he be the last one, to do it. Hip-hop, in particular, is littered with rappers whose lives don’t quite mirror the material being rapped about. From the non-Eazy E members of NWA to Boss to Rick Ross to (insert rapper here), there have been tons of people whose music reflected a harder edge than the life they were accustomed to. But for most of those people mentioned, it doesn’t necessarily mean they were lying entirely so much as embellishing circumstances they had some proximity to.
Tut Tarantino, on the other hand, seems to be entirely wearing a gangsta’s persona while keeping that gated-community, private school upbringing in his book bag to presumably pull out when, and if, he needs it — which is part of the issue with pretending to engage in ‘hood dynamics when you aren’t from there. Look, I don’t know Elijah Irvin from a can of paint; maybe once he graduated from high school and did whatever it was he was doing he hit the hardscrabble streets of Dallas, or wherever, and got him some hood bonafides. But I’d wager that he didn’t. I’d wager that living high on the hog means that he saw music as an outlet, and because of the kind of music he likes, he used it as his muse, which led to music that not only isn’t good (it’s terrible) but isn’t his life. His videos feature guns being pointed at cameras, etc. All of the stereotypical trap music trappings at this point. La di da.
And that’s why his father is so annoyed and why I hope to never be in his shoes. Irvin made money to get his kids away from all of that and actually did it. He gave his kids a good life. So to see one of them take that good life and turn it around and make it look like that wasn’t the case is probably super frustrating. This is a dichotomy many Black males deal with, so I get how it happens. To not be viewed as weak or “not real,” we can tend to overdo it to prove our Blackness. Or something. I hope that the life I give my kids doesn’t result in them having to create a life they wished they had that most of us would never want.
The good thing for Irvin is that one day, his son is going to grow out of this phase, and because of who his father is his landing back into the “real world” will probably be a soft one. That’s not so for everyone. Then Michael Irvin can stop talking about it and talk about his son coming to his senses. For now, though…
…I just hope Michael has the patience of a saint.
Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio. He writes very Black things, drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest), but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said: “Unknown” (Blackest).
Make sure you check out the Dear Culture podcast every Thursday on theGrio’s Black Podcast Network, where I’ll be hosting some of the Blackest conversations known to humankind. You might not leave the convo with an afro, but you’ll definitely be looking for your Afro Sheen! Listen to Dear Culture on TheGrio’s app; download it here.
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