Snow Crash is a strange novel in a lot of ways but one of the most surreal passages of the story revolves around the scene in which Sushi K is rapping in an attempt to appeal to West Coast street kids. Stephenson spits out a lot of cultural signifiers, slangs, and symbols over the course of this chapter: huge Harley motorcycles, Crips, BMWs, Afros, “Nipponese”, Bruce Lee, COPS-like reality TV, Hollywood slang, grunge, homeboys, ghetto, thrashers, heavy metal, etc. This barrage of very culturally charged language almost disoriented me, and this chapter made clear how jumbled up everything is in Snow Crash’s world. Everything has blended and capitalistic concern rubs up against street scenes and gang life in a way that’s highly uncanny. The weird rapping of Sushi K further adds to the unsettling atmosphere. His lyrics repeatedly reference economic terms and corporate backroom lingo amongst classic rap threats and bragging. Even his cadence is strange, he sounds like a classic 70s-80s NYC old-school MC.
The inherent absurdness continues into the next chapter, which makes evident the idea of Crips and other gangs being made into capitalist ventures: “Mr. Caruso, like any other franchisee, had access to Turfnet, the multiple listing service that Nova Sicilia used to keep track of what it called “opportunity zones” (Stephenson 141-142). Chapters 16 and 17 do a great job of setting up the eerie world where everything is commoditized and overseen under the eye of free market anarchism and business.