The hip-hop world is a less than sensible place - lots of times, you're even required to clarify when bad means bad and when bad means good - so once a week we're going to get with a rapper and ask them to explain things. Have something you always wanted to ask a rapper? Email it to [email protected].

This Week's Rapper: Thugz of Normandy

This Week's Subject(s): Straight thuggin'

Ask A Rapper: So, it's immediately clear that you all are the thugginest rappers to ever participate in the Ask A Rapper segment. We mean, you all spell "thugs" with a Z instead of an S. That's pretty insane. Let's talk a bit about that. Cool?

Thugz of Normandy: Yeah, that's chill. You know it's nothing really too significant as to why we drop the "s" for a "z" other than the fact that we just got it. There's a lot of people running around these days with their mouths open and hands up like they're trying to say something important, but you can just see the chump in their eyes. These people speak chump, breathe chump, eat chump. Then they make chump babies who chump even more.

But a "z" can say one of two things: First, "we tryin' to be Thugz of Normandy," or much less commonly, "we are the Thugz of Normandy." You can always know a chump if they're sporting a "z" but they ain't the Thugz.

Also, back in the day the Semitic symbol for "Z" was "Zayin," which meant "weapon." So essentially, everyone has to know that we are weapons. People may not get that right away, but sooner or later they inevitably realize the unmistakable evidence of our destruction. Everything we touch could turn to gold if we really wanted it to, but that's not what defines us.

Heartless, raw brutality doesn't always appear as golden bricks. In fact, it looks more like a pitbull. That's something we want to help people understand for themselves. It's never been about the music for us. Music is just one avenue to show what is ultimately harvesting in us and around us everywhere we choose to go.

AAR: What was it like growing up in the harrowing streets of suburban Magnolia?

TON: Yeah, I don't know. I wouldn't say you could truly portray it in its rawest sense by comparing it to anything minus itself in other eras. People don't know much about Magnolia and there is undoubtedly good reason why: It's on another plane.

People are looking where they have been taught to look. They wouldn't even know how to see the truth of what's going down in the Mag if they tried. Think of the people of Magnolian society as dogs, whose natural instincts to kill and survive at any cost are revived if they're isolated or abandoned.

We were born and raised with these instincts playing a huge role in our everyday lives. Accordingly, I have been known as Thorn-dawg ever since I can remember. But that's just what we've always known as real.

Where we come from, things happen daily that the world could never handle. That's why there is no media coverage of this place. That's why I can't throw you any words to make you understand. That's why a GPS will take you on an hour detour to avoid these death-stricken streets. You just can't know if you don't already know.