Spoiler Alert! This article contains spoilers for the second half of Season 4 ofOzark.
In Season 4, Episode 8 ofOzark, rapperKiller Mikemakes a cameo as himself. Ruth (Julia Garner) is biding her time in a diner before going to shoot Javi (Alfonso Herrera) for killing Wyatt (Charlie Tahan) when she recognizes the rapper and tells him that she “loves [his] shit.” The two then have a conversation about rapperNas, and Killer Mike says, “It always feels to me like he hates it and misses it all at once.” But this isn’t the first episode where Ruth listens to rap as a coping mechanism. Throughout the series she’s also listened to songs byThe Notorious B.I.G.,Wu-Tang Clan, andGang Starr. It seems strange at first that a tiny blonde from Arkansas is always bumping to hip-hop, but when you think about the struggles of the artists who wrote the songs and compare them with Ruth’s struggles growing up, it starts to make a little more sense.
If it is true that Nas “hates and misses” his hometown in New York, then it’s probably because, despite the violence and constant danger, it’s what made him who he is. Ruth seems touched by Killer Mike’s observation, probably because she has happy memories from the Ozarks even though it’s also where she’s experienced all her pain. Some of the lyrics in the song that Killer Mike listens to from Ruth’s headphones are “The city never sleeps, full of villains and creeps / That’s where I learned to do my hustle, had to scuffle with freaks.” Ruth listening to this song as she waits to kill Javi might represent what she’s gone through not just as a child surrounded by addiction and violence, but as a young adult working for the Mexican drug cartel and constantly in danger of “villains and creeps.”
Growing up as a Langmore, Ruth experienced a certain level of ostracism from her community, as her family has a reputation for being lowlifes. That means that she was probably never given the chance to prove herself worthy of respect and kindness, which led her to give in to her reputation. Though Ruth’s situation isn’t entirely comparable to that of the rappers who grew up in the projects, the feeling of hopelessness in a world that is always going against you is true for all of them. This likely plays a large role in Ruth feeling connected to the lyrics and emotions of the rappers, especially with words like, “It’s been 22 long, hard years, I’m still strugglin' / Survival got me buggin', but I’m alive on arrival” from “C.R.E.A.M.” by Wu-Tang Clan.
A consistent aspect of Ruth’s personality is her unrelenting anger. Ruth is the type of person who will never back down in front of anybody, and who is extremely defensive. Hip-hop music contains similar themes, as rappers often came from neighborhoods where they were forced to become tough at very young ages or face ridicule, violence, or even death. Similarly, Ruth had to be tough to be treated with any kind of respect by the misogynistic men in her family, especially after her mom died. Ruth also had to act like she didn’t care that the entire town saw the Langmores, and therefore her, as less than. A lot of rap is about putting on a strong front, which Gang Starr demonstrates when he sings in “Full Clip,” “I’ve suffered, just so I could return harder.”
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Another similarity between artists like The Notorious B.I.G. and Ruth are their experiences of loss. Young men in the projects are killed by police officers and gang violence all the time, and many of those living in poverty in Arkansas have succumbed to the heroin epidemic. Especially by Part 2 ofOzark, Ruth has lost her whole family and Ben, and lyrics like, “I’m destined to live the dream for all my peeps who never made it” from “Life’s a Bitch” by Nas might remind her why it’s so important to her to build a life for herself that they were never able to have. The reason Ruth meets Marty in the first place is because she steals his money in order to provide for her family, especially to pay for Wyatt’s college.
It’s also significant that Ruth most often listens to rap in her car. Ruth’s truck is the one place where she can truly be alone, and the sounds of rap music seem to help her shut off from the world. When she is feeling alone and like nobody understands her, she can get in her car and turn on music made by people who do. When she is on a mission to fix something or put someone straight, rap music empowers her to be bold and to not give in when she feels in her bones that she’s doing what she needs to, like killing Javi.
Ruth is a person who has felt very alone in the world for most of her life, and she had to learn from a very young age to protect herself both physically and mentally. Because hip-hop contains themes that were born out of similar struggles – loss, danger, poverty, and ostracism – Ruth finds solace in rappers’ stories. Because at the end of the day, the old school rap that Ruth listens to throughoutOzarkis a genre of storytelling through music, and those stories often mirror what Ruth has felt or is feeling, allowing her to find connection to something greater than her life in Arkansas. And perhaps what the musicians – and ultimately the Black community as a whole – have gone through help Ruth to put things into perspective.
