Steve Yates at Prospect Magazine discusses that “the story of hip hop’s journey into the cultural mainstream is the story of its love affair with materialism, or, more accurately, capitalism. Its lead exponents, like Jay-Z and Kanye West, are brilliant entrepreneurs with vast fortunes.
…Hip hop’s rise has been, at root, a straightforward process of free-market enterprise: an excellent product has been pushed with great skill and new markets opened up with real dynamism and flair.
…The view of hip hop as a genre concerned only with the basest forms of materialism is a serious oversimplification. It misunderstands the way that rap’s relationship with capitalism has fed its creativity and led to both its commercial and artistic success.
…NWA embraced the American dream with relish. They set down the unapologetic “money-is-all” credo of the low-level street hustler, in which drug dealing, guns and the police swirl about in a ferocious urban storm. Like other popular representations of American gangsterism—The Godfather, Scarface—it was a vision of unfettered free market enterprise.
…So while hip hop started off as an underground, and often political movement, it has for many years pursued an increasingly intimate relationship with business. Hip hop now has a materialist, acquisitive streak hard-wired into its identity. It is this embrace of capitalism that has taken hip hop from outsider status right to America’s core.”
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Hip-hip is a mixed bag in my opinion. It’s true the top names talk about about the joys of wealth, but at the same time, many of them espouse near socialist clap trap in interviews. I think many of the larger stars are very confused on what actually made them rich and what constitutes an economic environment that creates more rich people.
Still, all in all, it’s a great style of music. It is the newest folk music. It is simple, to the point, and open to anyone. While it’s great at party music, it also seems tailor made to be a platform for getting out a message.
I’ll just leave this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO18F4aKGzQ
And I’ll leave this: W.A.R. (We Are Renegades) Pharoahe Monch featuring Immortal Technique and Vernon Reid
And this: Obama Nation Part 2 Lowkey featuring M1 and Black the Ripper
The Beck/Limbaugh sample is from Lupe Fiasco’s Words I Never Said (featuring Skylar Gray)
I met Flavor Flav earlier this year at his chicken restaurant (opened next to a KFC, so TMZ covered it). I waited in line a long time to see this rap icon, who I had seen on MTV years earlier. He was working hard to promote his chicken place, even calling out customer’s order numbers as he was rapping old classics. He even took time to get his picture taken with customers as they left. If you look at hip hop/rap classics like Flav’s and Public Enemy’s (his original group), they are quite libertarian in tone. “Fight the Power” is about fighting against authority, and “911 is a joke” (which I heard Flav do in his restaurant) is against inadequate public services in poor, government-created neighborhoods. Rappers and hip hop artists certainly do understand capitalism, and their gold chains are cool!
C.R.E.A.M. = Cash Rules Everything Around Me
Could be a Mises shirt.
For those of you who don’t know what he’s talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjZRAvsZf1g
I never understood those hip-hops where some dude just gloats about having money, bling, rims and bitches
Unless he was born to exceptionally rich parents, I don’t see how he could ever get ahead in the first place
Yeah, all hip-hop is just guys gloating about money, bling, rims and bitches.
Sorta like this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAedkNCjnOQ
Remember this guy?
“They killed several birds with one stone
While you’re at home with anti-terrorism up in your dome
But my eyes are wide open and my TV is off
Great, ’cause I save on my electricity cost
And you can wave that piece of shit flag if you dare
But they killed us because we’ve been killing them for years”
“Home of the Brave” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzvFYaWej0M
More a fan of metal/progressive rock myself.
And I’ll just leave this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tDmmwMnUYU
Good government music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oavMtUWDBTM&feature=player_embedded
…sorry Mel this is what we’ll all be listening to in few years the way things are going.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3tG1X5ewAg&NR=1
Check out Akala, anti-capitalist hip-hop which transcends the mainstream message.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEOKgjoxoto
Don’t forget about The Roots “Don’t Feel Right” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0ihRbPtfmA
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