By shelz.

I’ve never been to jail except to bond lame asses out and I stopped the bail gravy train years ago.  I can’t speak on what the inside of a jail smells like, but I have heard stories, so you’ll be getting this info second hand. 

It stinks.  It’s a stench you have to be in the midst of to understand.  Inmates aren’t allowed to wash everyday in some facilities and when they do it’s probably not high on their priority list to hit all the nooks and crannies. The central air, if they have it, doesn’t always work properly. Ventilation is non-existent in the 10×12 cell shared by three dudes. There is one toilet and they probably don’t have wall air-freshener units.  Sounds pretty bad to me.

So with all of that understood, Akon decides that someone, somewhere wants to smell like jail.  His new fragrance (yes, him too) is called (what else) Konvict (seems like if he wanted you to think you would be smelling like someone who actually had been released, he would have called it ex-Konvict). To add to the glamorous mystique of being behind bars with stinky strangers and cheap soap that doesn’t lather, he packages said scent in two bottles that are shaped like handcuffs with a chain connecting the pair.

Of course, this is a direct result of Mr. Akon building the entirety of his brand around the fact that he ALLEGEDLY spent three years in the big house for being a part of a car theft ring, or something like that. However, this claim of incarceration was totally blown open by our favorite investigative website who reported he never needed anyone to let him out because he was never looooocked up in the first place.  This is obviously irrelevant though, as the jail bird brand still flourishes.

Most of the people I know who have been locked up don’t want to be reminded of it.  They claim the experience as a life changing, eye-opener that they want to distance themselves from forever.  So it must be the non-criminal, law-abiding types who want to live the penitentiary life vicariously that continue to feed into this marketing. I’m sure they don’t want to be locked up for real, but still day-dream about being the cool ex-con on the block who can’t vote or get a job because of that whole ridiculous background check nonsense.  Must be great, huh?

Well, in Akon’s defense, the marketing suggests the scent creates a desire to break free and smell like lemons and cedar (the two main ingredients.) It’s a bit literal but at least he’s recommending in his own special way that you shouldn’t want to stay in jail when you go.  Per the website, it’s a scent made especially for a night out on the town.  I haven’t smelled this concoction but I can’t imagine you getting molested by women like dude in the Axe commercial if you smell like a guy who just spent 10 hours in central booking. Outside of the jokes, this type of selling scheme speaks volumes to our community logic.

The successful promotion of criminal conduct as something attractive confirms that the priorities in the urban market are incredibly screwed up.   Akon and his crack staff of marketing gurus know that his audience thinks being a Konvict is cool, that the clinking of locking bars is a pleasant sound and that bad behavior is generally validated by a culture that worships street credibility. It is because our group psyche is stuck on stupid that folks can sell us stuff like this. Then when some neighborhood kid gets looooocked up, you shake your head at him, blissfully unaware that every co-sign of thug life he saw (including yours) helped lead him down that path.

So if you really think handcuffs and convicts are cool, why not live the real thing?  Instead of paying $45.00 for a bottle of jail eau de toilet, why not just go kick a cop in his shin.  That will net you a few shower-less days of metal beds and bologna sandwiches, smelly roommates and needlessly mean CO’s.  Then, instead of trusting Akon to tell you want a criminal smells like (because he doesn’t know), you can catch a whiff first hand. I’ll bet you a million dollars it doesn’t smell anything like lemons and cedar.

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