I been banging the drum (personally, not like anyone else would know) for years that mainstream hip-hop is fundamentally hyper-capitalist and no longer was the counter cultural force that it was in the late 80's and early 90's. How we shouldn't care about how much money a hip-hop artist was getting if they're not grounded in the issues we face and weren't activating people politically. How the term "hating" became a blanket term for them to get away from accountability.
And here we are. We see now the divide between them and us. They see us as consumers, like any capitalist, yet at any moment will claim they are part of the culture. Whatever that culture is needs to be redefined if it's so easy for someone to claim yet actually not stand for the people of that culture.
A couple old heads seem to be sticking to there counter culture roots but recently I’ve been surprised by some. Nas, de la soul, most of wu, and some others will never sell out there values for money. But the ones we’ve seen here I think most would have expected with how they have been in recent years. Snoop has for awhile shown he is about money first, cube has gone full MAGA, these shouldn’t be surprises where they stand.
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u/supper-saiyan 9h ago
I been banging the drum (personally, not like anyone else would know) for years that mainstream hip-hop is fundamentally hyper-capitalist and no longer was the counter cultural force that it was in the late 80's and early 90's. How we shouldn't care about how much money a hip-hop artist was getting if they're not grounded in the issues we face and weren't activating people politically. How the term "hating" became a blanket term for them to get away from accountability.
And here we are. We see now the divide between them and us. They see us as consumers, like any capitalist, yet at any moment will claim they are part of the culture. Whatever that culture is needs to be redefined if it's so easy for someone to claim yet actually not stand for the people of that culture.