Jeremy Rodriguez, a 19 year old from San Antonio has been found guilty of two counts of murder. What is even worse, the two men he killed were his cousins; Paul Gallegos, 21, and Daniel Gallegos, 20. He killed them and then robbed them of the money, jewelry and SUV. He was riding in the back seat of their SUV when a Ludicris lyric inspired him to kill them.

I am sure this story will bring a lot of heat to hip hop from the mainstream media and hip hop media alike. I really don’t think that all that deserving. For one thing, this young man obviously had some mental issues, no rapper is influential enough to inspire someone to kill their own family. That is some “the devil made me do it” shit. I don’t listen to Ludicris, but from what I have heard, his lyrics aren’t very violent. I am assuming that this so-called “inspiration” came from Ludicris glorifying the finer things in life. If that is the case then I hardly think that Ludicris can be held responsible.

We are surrounding by things everyday that we don’t have and aspire to own, if I decide to kill my parents for the house after watching “Cribs” does that mean MTV should be held responsible? I am not saying that rappers don’t have a big influence on young people and that they shouldn’t be responsible for their message, but a line must be drawn. A rapper talking about his cars does not give someone the excuse to kill someone and get one, if the rapper says to kill people to get cars and someone does it, then that is a different story.