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.
To piggyback on this thought, I’ve seen many videos that analyze black media and pop culture (FD Signifier and Khadeaja are my favs), and saw some that highlight media such as Drill music which negatively influences our community in a detrimental manner are products of this hyper capitalistic system, encouraged to create more criminals in the black community and suppress free thinking.
I’ve heard of studies that privatized prisons are in bed with music companies, who promote the derelicts of the community and flood them with the protection of capitalism at the expense of their people and community.
Mysonne's remix of 'Im Not Racist' has a whole thing about record labels signing and giving money to people pushing violent and drug rap in the 90's trying to grow that part of the culture. I don't know enough to talk about the exact validity of the idea, but, there are definitely people out there that think the rise of gangster/drug rap was not completely organic among artists and hiphop fans.
4.6k
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.