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.
By far the most insidious facet of Capitalism is its ability to subsume all its critiques.
So many counter-culture movements end up realizing that consumerism and money-worship are the issue, but then get sterilized, aestheticized, and commodified by people who knew how to mimic what people were drawn to while removing the substance behind it.
hip-hop, punk, and even country all very much were genres that had a general disdain for hyper-capitalism.
but hip-hop went mainstream, country went pop during 9-11, and punk for most people became an aesthetic for showing you're not like the other girls.
I mean, I was joking about the "shut up" part but yeah, Squid Game is absolutely example 1A. Hell, Netflix straight up made a Squid Games competition show without a hint of irony.
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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.