Chris Lee opens Laws for an Outlaw Culture by citing two such laws:
Law 5: So much depends on reputation — guard it with your life.
Law 8: Make other people come to you — use bait if necessary.
Where do these laws come from?
The two laws are found among “The 48 Laws of Power,” a 1998 book that bundles anecdotes from history’s great schemers — Casanova, Machiavelli, dancer and courtesan Lola Montez, Chairman Mao and con man “Yellow Kid” Weil among them — to make urgent points about how to come out on top in life. The book became a bestseller (it was on the Wall Street Journal’s list for 11 weeks), and now, largely as a result of rap artists’ growing sense of themselves as an entrepreneurial warrior class, is finding new life as the bible for behavior in the hip-hop world.Rappers write lyrics about the book (“The only book I ever read I could have wrote: ’48 Laws of Power,’ ” Kanye West rapped in a famous freestyle), they refer to it in interviews (“In ‘The 48 Laws of Power,’ it says the worst thing you can do is build a fortress around yourself,” Jay-Z noted in Playboy) and they study it as a guide to succeeding in the cutthroat music business.
“The book is like a martial-arts manual for the business,” said Quincy “QD3″ Jones III, a rap producer turned filmmaker who is making a feature documentary about “The 48 Laws’ ” hip-hop connection. “It teaches people in our demographic how to think more holistically about their business practices.”
Some reviewers had a different take when the book first appeared. “By the 36th law, you start to feel unclean and worried about your own morality,” said one. “By the 44th, you have accepted the fact that you are basically immoral and so is the world. By the time you reach No. 48, you are saying: ‘Right, who is my first victim?’ “
The book was also cited by the winner of The Contender, the boxing reality show.