Layers

It is sublimely bizarre to watch Big Boi play a stereotype of a jackass gangsta rapper on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.  I have no idea how I missed this, but in the 2008 episode "Wildlife," he plays a rapper who goes by the moniker "Gots Money," has Scarface posters all over the place, and keeps a tiger in his apartment.  He spends time pretending he's a drug dealer from Brooklyn, and gets busted by Fin (played, in a role that's always been meta, but is particularly meta here, by Ice-T.  The episode also has Reg Cathey, the fixer Norman Wilson from The Wire.  There's a lot of cross-referentiality.), who worked narcotics in the area and knew he wasn't for real.  Before he gets eaten by a pack of hyenas (Law & Order means never having to say it's implausible), it becomes clear that the role is at least in part about the performative nature of hip-hop.  "I'm just a black guy from Westchester," Big Boi says.  "I got two options.  Get an office job, or play the role."  It's a lot of levels to digest, and there's not a ton there (he gets eaten before the 30-minute mark), but it's fascinating all the same.