G. Twilight Links Criminality & Fatherless With His Epic Song “When Your Father is Missing”

If you’re looking for a dope song to add to your playlist, then “When Your Father Is Missing” by ‘G. Twilight’ is the one for you. The artist bares his naked soul with a personal story that many people in urban American environments can relate to. It’s the perfect anthem for hardened hustlers, who’ve struggled with fatherlessness and a lack of guidance. The song is eerily reminiscent to Tupac’s “Papa’z Song” and the closing track of Jay-Z’s fifth studio album “Where Have You Been”. Produced by CashMoneyAP, this quiet and unexpectedly intense song honors Hip-Hop’s golden age with a melodic blend of R&B, Jazz and Soul in the process. Hailing from Detroit, MI, ‘G. Twilight’, i.e. ‘Gangster Twilight’, is slowly starting to make a name for himself. With his exceptional previous releases, a long list of mixtapes, singles, and even an NFT album, G. Twilight’s new banger, “When Your Father is Missing” may be the icing on the cake. The song paints a picture of his humble beginnings and what has unfortunately become the typical culture of the Black American family structure within the past fifty years. In the song’s intro Twilight puts his own spin on the now famous opening scene to the 2001 film, ‘Baby Boy’, starring Tyrese Gibson. In a purposely ironic way this song, as well as the movie being referenced revolve around the concept of how many Black men are impelled to act like a baby and are dominated within the confines of White Supremacy, suppressing their true potential. 

In the intro of the song, Twilight shares a similar story of how fathers in the Black community are disconnected from their children to purposely fulfill the agenda of what Twilight calls the ‘dominant society’ obstruct the Black man’s role as the head of household. Is it an excuse? Possibly, but the artist made it work within the confines of this song.

Carrying on, Twilight shares the hardship of being a Black child in Detroit, without his father. The artist expresses how shadow of a father is the most assuring thing for a child and how the absence of it can be traumatizing in several ways. As Twilight purposely sings off-key: 

‘When your Father.. Father is missing

Trouble follows you wherever you go.’

The first verse of the song is mostly centered around Twilight talking about his childhood, specifically, the absence of his dad and where he comes from. The combination of the melodic beat and Twilight’s laidback voice makes the harsh experiences of the artists bearable. The artist talks about the difficult times in his life and how he has gone through all that he went through to gain ‘stripes’ and even calls his father out by first middle and last name. Accompanying and attributing who he was then as a child and who he has become now as a man to the hardships of living in a violent area which was then occupied by the notorious ‘Young Boys Inc.’ and ‘Pony Down Crew’, two of the most violent drug gangs in Detroit’s bloody history. Twilight expresses how, after a lifetime of hopelessness, he has now reach the point where he’s being looked up to by many of the kids in his old neighborhood. The rapper then acknowledges that this admiration from youngsters may be for the wrong reasons with the line: 

“..but I’m just overcompensating cause my father wasn’t there 

I’m old enough to know better, but I just don’t care.”

In the final verse of the song, Twilight shares the time he began to realize the reason behind the absence of his father and the effect it has had on his life. What is inferred is that he never truly gave it much thought, until he was approximately fifteen-years-old, that his father just didn’t want to be bothered with him and that the rapper possibly begin to give it some thought after interacting with his peers and learning that they had similar stories. Many others, that he has interacted with in his lifetime, have fathers that may have either died violently, struggled with drug addiction, or were mass incarcerated by local or federal authorities during the C.I.A. sponsored crack epidemic. He was able to collectivize the truth within those brief interactions and became overwhelmed. The rapper then links his experience with that of legendary urban street lit author ‘Iceberg Slim’ with the line:

‘Chapter fourteen of Iceberg Slim’s first book? I felt that sh*t

Rocks, blows, weed, pills? I dealt that sh*t’

With true artistry he then further expounds upon the link between his own criminal actions, as well as that of his peer group, i.e. ‘plugs’ or ‘goons’ as he puts it, with fatherless and the shame, guilt, pain, and anger that it has caused them all. 

Finally, in the outro of the song, Twilight closes it out with some facts regarding the absence of a father figure that has become the norm of many Black families by saying:

‘The statistical data shows that a one percent increase of single parent families in that neighborhood.. is associated with a three percent increase in the amount of violence in that neighborhood.’

Overall, the song is not just about G. Twilight’s experiences during his childhood, rather, it’s about the struggle of any kid who has no father figure in his or her life. Though the rapper used some harsh words in his song, the motive behind those lyrics is a misguided attempt to encourage kids without fathers to overcome their hardships and live through them. This blend of auto-tune with the gangsta rap flow of the 1990’s has a life of its own and is the embodiment of what psychologist, sociologist, and anthropologist have been telling us for years.

This is a certified banger that’s already in our rotation and should definitely be in yours. Though the song is expected to be on his upcoming “TrapStar Diaries” album, you can stream it individually right now on Spotify and BandCamp, or participate in the open verse challenge of this song on G. Twilight’s SoundCloud.