The Hustler...

This post is by guest blogger by Tino aka NITO, its his birthday today :-)

**The hustler** the most common phrase the young kids in Zimbabwe want to be referred to as!!! Zimbabwean kids have adopted this mentality that they are all hustlers or should be hustlers in order to get some ‘street cred’ in the streets but the question is do they really understand what a hustler is??? In most dictionaries, the word hustler is defined as someone involved in aggressive businesses or illegal businesses. I doubt the kids using this term know that. Do a quick survey - ask anyone between the age of 19 and 30s how they are doing or what they are up to and the common responses are  ‘I am Gee man u know us hustlers we are running in the streets’ or  ‘hmm just random hustling these days’ or  ‘we are hustling hard’.

Now what is making people think that they are hustlers? Is it the music we listen to or the socialites we see on social media? Some will say that the economy is making people hustle but I doubt that because these same people seem to take pride in hustling. As if its choice not circumstances.

We listen to music about hustling from singers such as Rick Ross, Ace Hood, 50 cent amongst others and we envy the lives they live. To make it worse we have local socialites who call themselves ‘hustlers’ and their 'lifestyles' make people around them want to be hustlers too.

For example,  a youth will look at someone with a 9-5 job driving a Honda fit, drinking local beers at an average bar. Then look at a socialite who drives the latest cars, drinks Veuve, Moet, Blue Label and has a thousand USD bill every time they hit the bar. One would easily select the latter as 'role model'

One follow this 'role model' on social media and be influenced to become a 'hustler' as well. However, one thing these people do not realise is that some of these hustlers are CRIMINALS! They have committed crimes such as fraud, armed robberies, and fake tenders. Their hands are dirty and they are in court more than some lawyers are.

When you look at some of them, you wonder if they are ROLE MODELS or RAW MODELS.

They have given the false impression that one 'deal' can make someone a millionaire or that appearing in court or being under investigation is a good thing.

The sad thing about some of the youths is that they look at their parents who work honest decent jobs or run honest business enterprises and think they are not ‘cool’. They forget that these parents are not under any investigation and have clean hands.

What happened to being proud of having a decent honest career or having ambitions to open a legitimate business?

 Is hustling the next big thing or is my generation is being misled??