Image via Darrell Bell

​Hip-hop is the world's most brazenly capitalist genre of music. If Jay-Z's not talking about playing Monopoly with real cash, then Kanye West's tweeting about the cherub-motifed Persian rugs and golden goblets he's just scored at Fishs Eddy. But while certain rotund rap types would have you believe they were running extensive criminal enterprises before they decided to pursue a career in rhymed verse, the truth is more mundane. Most rappers suffer the rite of working demoralizing dead-end jobs while attempting to jump-start their careers and clock up music industry cash, whether it's the Wu-Tang Clan's Method Man greeting tourists at the Statue of Liberty, Biggie bagging groceries at a Met Foods supermarket, or Kanye's mush-mouthed rapping friend Consequence ringing up monochromatic sweater vests at GAP. So when Fat Joe--who just so happens to have released a new album last week--opened his heart to us about sweating it out as a security guard one summer at a sneaker store, we decided to round up a whole batch of New York City's hardest-working rappers--including Prince Paul, El-P, Joell Ortiz, and Tanya Morgan's Von Pea and Donwill--and ask them to talk about their old temp-job blues. Their wretched stories are below.

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