Jay-Z is 1%, Not Hiphop

[thekingsmen]

I diagree in my own view a few things but this article was brought to my attention from a friend of mine. You can disagree or agree.


Jay-Z is 1%, Not HipHop | Black Agenda Report




by Damon Sajnani

Jay-Z has earned mountains of money from HipHop, but “his politics are diametrically opposed to the interest of Black liberation at home and abroad.” The music mogul identifies with an oligarchy whose interests are antithetical to Black liberation. “If the balance of one’s material promotes the interest of the oppressor, that rapper is not HipHop.



Jay-Z is 1%, Not HipHop

by Damon Sajnani

“Black culture is a counter-culture to—not merely a sub-culture of—American culture.”

Jay-Z is a highly talented rapper—he has undeniable lyrical skill. Of course, so do tens of thousands of other rappers who you will never hear of. As we know, talent is far from the primary arbiter of success in industry. Something more explains his ascendance. He is also an adept businessman who organically understands the profitability of promoting the interests of oligarchy in such a way that the masses mistake those interests as their own. This process, whereby the ideas of the ruling class permeate society as the ruling ideas, is the exercise of hegemony. Hegemony—though often used interchangeably with imperialism—has a distinct meaning. It is the stage after imperialism, once imperialists have gained their dominance through violence and coercion, they move to consolidate their power by cultivating the consent of the colonized. This is the creation of what Malcolm X derogated as the mentality of the “house Negro,” by which the oppressed identify with the oppressor.

The dominant class must always perpetuate such a mentality among subordinates, and this manifests as official—or mainstream—culture. Culture is the framework by which distinct groups attribute meaning to the social and material world. It frames, explains, and justifies the operation of its social formation. As such, it is the deepest level of ideology. American culture frames, explains, and justifies what America is and does.

“Jay-Z is an adept businessman who organically understands the profitability of promoting the interests of oligarchy in such a way that the masses mistake those interests as their own.”

America is the reigning, though waning, seat of capitalist imperialism. Among other things, it is an enslaver of Africans, exterminator of aboriginals, environmental devastator, global terrorist, captain of neo-colonialism and chief beneficiary of these crimes. To be pro-American does not mean that you support Americans, but that you buy into the propaganda that allows the richest Americans to collude with the richest global elites elsewhere, to the detriment of the world’s people including the majority of Americans. American culture is the set of beliefs, practices and ways of living that support America as such.

Black culture is anti-American. To many, especially in the contemporary moment, this statement seems fallacious, even infuriating. But a clear understanding of culture as outlined above, and of Blackness as outlined below, makes the truth self-evident. As countless Black scholars at least since Du Bois have shown, race is a social construct not a biological fact. The context of this construction is European colonialism and trans-Atlantic African enslavement. This is the socio-politico-economic underpinning of the modern concept of race and the dominant racial groupings that exist today. This racial hierarchy created whiteness as the pinnacle group to justify the domination and exploitation of all other groups. Despite the formal abolition of slavery, colonization, and legally explicit racial segregation (except in places like Palestine-Israel), these institutions continue in modified forms and Whiteness continues to globally bestow privilege on whites as well as those of us who opt to collude with white supremacy. In every defensible sense—material, psychological—it is in the interests of Black people to oppose white supremacy. Of course, as we all know, this does not mean it is in the interests of every black person to oppose it—since collaboration is sometimes a question of personal survival and other times a lucrative prospect—but blackness is a collective identity, regardless of individual interests, the collectives interests are opposed to white supremacy by definition.

“In every defensible sense—material, psychological—it is in the interests of Black people to oppose white supremacy.”

Interests are the basis of ideology and, as mentioned above, culture is the most fundamental level of the ideological. This is the understanding from which all luminaries of Black consciousness have proceeded: Du Bois, Garvey, Fanon, Cabral, Malcolm X, Newton etc., all recognized that black liberation required the cultivation of Black culture. Black culture, in the context of the world we live in, is by definition a counterculture to white supremacy. Therefore it is necessarily a counter-hegemonic formation to the reigning beneficiary and enforcer of the new iterations of the old white supremacy—America.

Writers on Black culture have always acknowledged that Black culture is a counter-culture to—not merely a sub-culture of—American culture, but they rarely appreciate the import of the word “counter” in this context. It means that when we judge whether a cultural production is Black or not, we cannot determine this simply by considering the race of the creator. We have to consider the cultural values that are embedded in the production. Do they promote global Black solidarity and liberation or do they profess fidelity to America and perpetuate the myth of American nobility? In an America that jails more people than anyone in the world, where poverty and destitution is more widespread than under Jim Crow, and on a planet where Euro-America still helms a global economy that sucks the blood of two-thirds of the worlds people—mostly black and Brown—these options are mutually exclusive.

HipHop is not merely music, it is a culture—it is an explicit, powerful, confrontational iteration of Black culture. It arose among disenfranchised Black and Brown youth in the Bronx to manifest their freedom and voice their humanity, and has been taken up worldwide to combat oppression globally. Some argue that the political intentions of early HipHop—and by extension HipHop tout court—have been overstated. It is argued, for instance, that much HipHop has always been more about partying than politics. But a distaste for party politics should not elide the politics of partying. In other words, this misapprehension of HipHop’s inherent politics proceeds from a narrow understanding of politics, that fails to recognize the political significance of manifesting self-love and asserting one’s entitlement to joy under a system and amidst a culture that constructs love and happiness as the commodified preserve of the wealthy and (mostly) white.

A rapper is measured by lyrical skills—or at least used to be. An Emcee is measured by fidelity to HipHop culture, which entails solidarity with Black liberation. This does not mean an Emcee must be Black, nor that all their material most be expressly political, but it does mean that if the balance of one’s material promotes the interest of the oppressor, that rapper is not HipHop.

“Jay-Z is about the one percent and he is as pro-America as one can get.”

I opened by noting Jay-Z’s proficiency as a rapper and business savvy in terms of recognizing the profitability of collaboration with oligarchy. In his 2012 electoral campaign ad for Obama, the president says, “to me the idea of America is that no matter who you are, what you look like or where you come from you can make it if you try, Jay-Z did. He didn’t come from power or privilege; he got ahead because he worked hard.” Of course, this is not just Obama’s idea of America, this is the simplest and most familiar expression of the American ethos—a blatant disavowal of the factual reality of systemic socioeconomic stratification and the intersectional oppressions of race, class and gender.

When interviewed by CNN about the economic crisis, and the asymmetric recovery whereby rich people and corporations profit while “main street” does not, Jay-Z responded, “What we have to be really clear about is that America is built on free enterprise, so we don’t want to knock anyone for being successful in America[.]” Right, the “free enterprise” of slavery. Tellingly, his push back against any economic analysis of oppression is so sweeping that the interviewer interprets his comment as an endorsement of Romney over Obama. He promptly clarifies himself, however, making it clear that he supports Obama while admitting “I don’t know anything about… Mitt Romney.” Jay’s defense of “successful businessmen” is a rhetorical counterattack on the Occupy movement—which Jay pondered capitalizing upon by selling “Occupy T-Shirts” and keeping the profits but whose message he has no sympathy towards.

It is clear that Jay-Z is about the one percent and he is as pro-America as one can get. As Lowkey put it, “we have to question, when the US government loves the same rappers that you love, whose interests are those rappers serving?” Contrary to Jay’s ostensive HipHop swag, his politics are diametrically opposed to the interest of Black liberation at home and abroad. Like Obama, he is a mouthpiece for imperialism, corporate America’s best yet embodiment of the co-optation of HipHop and the reassertion of hegemony. Don’t get it twisted, the struggle continues.

 

[MikeBrownsJob]

I diagree in my own view a few things but this article was brought to my attention from a friend of mine. You can disagree or agree.


Jay-Z is 1%, Not HipHop | Black Agenda Report




by Damon Sajnani

Jay-Z has earned mountains of money from HipHop, but “his politics are diametrically opposed to the interest of Black liberation at home and abroad.” The music mogul identifies with an oligarchy whose interests are antithetical to Black liberation. “If the balance of one’s material promotes the interest of the oppressor, that rapper is not HipHop.



Jay-Z is 1%, Not HipHop

by Damon Sajnani

“Black culture is a counter-culture to—not merely a sub-culture of—American culture.”

Jay-Z is a highly talented rapper—he has undeniable lyrical skill. Of course, so do tens of thousands of other rappers who you will never hear of. As we know, talent is far from the primary arbiter of success in industry. Something more explains his ascendance. He is also an adept businessman who organically understands the profitability of promoting the interests of oligarchy in such a way that the masses mistake those interests as their own. This process, whereby the ideas of the ruling class permeate society as the ruling ideas, is the exercise of hegemony. Hegemony—though often used interchangeably with imperialism—has a distinct meaning. It is the stage after imperialism, once imperialists have gained their dominance through violence and coercion, they move to consolidate their power by cultivating the consent of the colonized. This is the creation of what Malcolm X derogated as the mentality of the “house Negro,” by which the oppressed identify with the oppressor.

The dominant class must always perpetuate such a mentality among subordinates, and this manifests as official—or mainstream—culture. Culture is the framework by which distinct groups attribute meaning to the social and material world. It frames, explains, and justifies the operation of its social formation. As such, it is the deepest level of ideology. American culture frames, explains, and justifies what America is and does.

“Jay-Z is an adept businessman who organically understands the profitability of promoting the interests of oligarchy in such a way that the masses mistake those interests as their own.”

America is the reigning, though waning, seat of capitalist imperialism. Among other things, it is an enslaver of Africans, exterminator of aboriginals, environmental devastator, global terrorist, captain of neo-colonialism and chief beneficiary of these crimes. To be pro-American does not mean that you support Americans, but that you buy into the propaganda that allows the richest Americans to collude with the richest global elites elsewhere, to the detriment of the world’s people including the majority of Americans. American culture is the set of beliefs, practices and ways of living that support America as such.

Black culture is anti-American. To many, especially in the contemporary moment, this statement seems fallacious, even infuriating. But a clear understanding of culture as outlined above, and of Blackness as outlined below, makes the truth self-evident. As countless Black scholars at least since Du Bois have shown, race is a social construct not a biological fact. The context of this construction is European colonialism and trans-Atlantic African enslavement. This is the socio-politico-economic underpinning of the modern concept of race and the dominant racial groupings that exist today. This racial hierarchy created whiteness as the pinnacle group to justify the domination and exploitation of all other groups. Despite the formal abolition of slavery, colonization, and legally explicit racial segregation (except in places like Palestine-Israel), these institutions continue in modified forms and Whiteness continues to globally bestow privilege on whites as well as those of us who opt to collude with white supremacy. In every defensible sense—material, psychological—it is in the interests of Black people to oppose white supremacy. Of course, as we all know, this does not mean it is in the interests of every black person to oppose it—since collaboration is sometimes a question of personal survival and other times a lucrative prospect—but blackness is a collective identity, regardless of individual interests, the collectives interests are opposed to white supremacy by definition.

“In every defensible sense—material, psychological—it is in the interests of Black people to oppose white supremacy.”

Interests are the basis of ideology and, as mentioned above, culture is the most fundamental level of the ideological. This is the understanding from which all luminaries of Black consciousness have proceeded: Du Bois, Garvey, Fanon, Cabral, Malcolm X, Newton etc., all recognized that black liberation required the cultivation of Black culture. Black culture, in the context of the world we live in, is by definition a counterculture to white supremacy. Therefore it is necessarily a counter-hegemonic formation to the reigning beneficiary and enforcer of the new iterations of the old white supremacy—America.

Writers on Black culture have always acknowledged that Black culture is a counter-culture to—not merely a sub-culture of—American culture, but they rarely appreciate the import of the word “counter” in this context. It means that when we judge whether a cultural production is Black or not, we cannot determine this simply by considering the race of the creator. We have to consider the cultural values that are embedded in the production. Do they promote global Black solidarity and liberation or do they profess fidelity to America and perpetuate the myth of American nobility? In an America that jails more people than anyone in the world, where poverty and destitution is more widespread than under Jim Crow, and on a planet where Euro-America still helms a global economy that sucks the blood of two-thirds of the worlds people—mostly black and Brown—these options are mutually exclusive.

HipHop is not merely music, it is a culture—it is an explicit, powerful, confrontational iteration of Black culture. It arose among disenfranchised Black and Brown youth in the Bronx to manifest their freedom and voice their humanity, and has been taken up worldwide to combat oppression globally. Some argue that the political intentions of early HipHop—and by extension HipHop tout court—have been overstated. It is argued, for instance, that much HipHop has always been more about partying than politics. But a distaste for party politics should not elide the politics of partying. In other words, this misapprehension of HipHop’s inherent politics proceeds from a narrow understanding of politics, that fails to recognize the political significance of manifesting self-love and asserting one’s entitlement to joy under a system and amidst a culture that constructs love and happiness as the commodified preserve of the wealthy and (mostly) white.

A rapper is measured by lyrical skills—or at least used to be. An Emcee is measured by fidelity to HipHop culture, which entails solidarity with Black liberation. This does not mean an Emcee must be Black, nor that all their material most be expressly political, but it does mean that if the balance of one’s material promotes the interest of the oppressor, that rapper is not HipHop.

“Jay-Z is about the one percent and he is as pro-America as one can get.”

I opened by noting Jay-Z’s proficiency as a rapper and business savvy in terms of recognizing the profitability of collaboration with oligarchy. In his 2012 electoral campaign ad for Obama, the president says, “to me the idea of America is that no matter who you are, what you look like or where you come from you can make it if you try, Jay-Z did. He didn’t come from power or privilege; he got ahead because he worked hard.” Of course, this is not just Obama’s idea of America, this is the simplest and most familiar expression of the American ethos—a blatant disavowal of the factual reality of systemic socioeconomic stratification and the intersectional oppressions of race, class and gender.

When interviewed by CNN about the economic crisis, and the asymmetric recovery whereby rich people and corporations profit while “main street” does not, Jay-Z responded, “What we have to be really clear about is that America is built on free enterprise, so we don’t want to knock anyone for being successful in America[.]” Right, the “free enterprise” of slavery. Tellingly, his push back against any economic analysis of oppression is so sweeping that the interviewer interprets his comment as an endorsement of Romney over Obama. He promptly clarifies himself, however, making it clear that he supports Obama while admitting “I don’t know anything about… Mitt Romney.” Jay’s defense of “successful businessmen” is a rhetorical counterattack on the Occupy movement—which Jay pondered capitalizing upon by selling “Occupy T-Shirts” and keeping the profits but whose message he has no sympathy towards.

It is clear that Jay-Z is about the one percent and he is as pro-America as one can get. As Lowkey put it, “we have to question, when the US government loves the same rappers that you love, whose interests are those rappers serving?” Contrary to Jay’s ostensive HipHop swag, his politics are diametrically opposed to the interest of Black liberation at home and abroad. Like Obama, he is a mouthpiece for imperialism, corporate America’s best yet embodiment of the co-optation of HipHop and the reassertion of hegemony. Don’t get it twisted, the struggle continues.

Oh another puff piece to put black people back in their place.

In his 2012 electoral campaign ad for Obama, the president says, “to me the idea of America is that no matter who you are, what you look like or where you come from you can make it if you try, Jay-Z did. He didn’t come from power or privilege; he got ahead because he worked hard.”

President Obama does believe these things as all Americans do. To ignore his stance on having a social safety net for those who find themselves on the out is dishonest. The 1 percent do not believe that. The 1 percent do not believe in economic equality and having the opportunity to achieve economic success.

we have to question, when the US government loves the same rappers that you love, whose interests are those rappers serving?”

I cannot ignore the blatant haterism with this piece. Who should be up their campaigning? Who can get young voters like Jay-Z? The U.S. government has no reason to fear "hip-hop" anymore because the government has legitimate threats globally. The hip-hop community is the majority and trying to salvage it at this point is a lost cause. Whatever anti-establishment rhetoric hip hop once expressed has been killed off.

I believe any criticism of hip-hop losing "its way" is just frustration in the potential of revenue not being circulated back through the community. The amount of money made by rappers, the production facilities, record labels, dance studios, patenting equipment(Beats By Dre) etc, should have funded the revitalization of inner cities in the U.S. Hip-Hop could have went further than it did.

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

Hip-hop isn't equatable to black liberation or any strict political movement. It's a form of music and expression. Jay-Z is hip-hop and so is Public Enemy. So is Leaders of the New School, and like them, this thread only has one star.

 

[Slaimon Khan Shah]

What exactly is hip hop though?

 

[TrueEpic08]

President Obama does believe these things as all Americans do. To ignore his stance on having a social safety net for those who find themselves on the out is dishonest. The 1 percent do not believe that. The 1 percent do not believe in economic equality and having the opportunity to achieve economic success.

You're missing the point of that part of the article by attempting to just counter it with his promotion of a liberalist social safety net (one which, if you really, really look at it, rewards insurance companies and drug makers much more than they do us). When you look at his stances on government secrecy, "terrorism," his actions in the Middle East through military surrogates, his IP policy, well fukk, just about anything else up to the way in which this recovery has proceeded through these last 4 years, it's blatantly obvious that this is correct, and to attempt to counter that with his meager, Romney-cribbed health care law implemented when everyone wanted some type of socialized medicine (single payer or otherwise) is to severely miss the forest for the trees.

I cannot ignore the blatant haterism with this piece. Who should be up their campaigning? Who can get young voters like Jay-Z? The U.S. government has no reason to fear "hip-hop" anymore because the government has legitimate threats globally. The hip-hop community is the majority and trying to salvage it at this point is a lost cause. Whatever anti-establishment rhetoric hip hop once expressed has been killed off.

I believe any criticism of hip-hop losing "its way" is just frustration in the potential of revenue not being circulated back through the community. The amount of money made by rappers, the production facilities, record labels, dance studios, patenting equipment(Beats By Dre) etc, should have funded the revitalization of inner cities in the U.S. Hip-Hop could have went further than it did.

So we shouldn't salvage a method of cultural expression for peoples in alterity and in lower classes just because those original messages have been subverted for years now? Ridiculous. And then to say he's hating when he's using Jay-Z's own messages and Obama's own actions to show their genuflection to the dominant mythologies of this country, ideologies that have done nothing for peoples of color or their subcultures? Are we not allowed to critique capitalist ideologues in the "Black" community anymore, or is that just hating on people getting money?

Ultimately, this article IS lacking, but it's actually because it doesn't go nearly far enough. Any number of Jay-Z's actions and quotes could be used to demonstrate his genuflection to power. And as a matter of fact, this could be extended to the subversion of the ideology of Hip-Hop as a whole, where resistance and usage of spaces on our own terms has been replaced with (as much as everyone who wants to shyt on "CACs" on here wouldn't like to admit) integrationist rhetoric in which we allow ourselves to fit right into their racist, classist narratives for different peoples while portraying Blacks successful in the captialist system as vanguards to stem and mitigate resistance against dominant narratives and their spatial implementation.

 

[TrueEpic08]

Hip-hop isn't equatable to black liberation or any strict political movement. It's a form of music and expression. Jay-Z is hip-hop and so is Public Enemy. So is Leaders of the New School, and like them, this thread only has one star.

You know what, I'll actually agree with this. But the fact that this is true speaks more to how Hip-Hop has changed from genuine subculutral expression that contains the seeds of resistance, if not a method of resistance itself, to a pacifying, capitalist spectacle of denigrating garbage perpetuated endlessly (Note: Huge, massive generalization. Just-Ice existed damn near alongside Public Enemy and there are any number of rappers whose work, either in its form or content, contain subversions of orthodoxy).

If this is true, then honestly, those attempting to resist through subcultural forms need to either permanently change the context in which Hip-Hop in seen and formulated in, or abandon it entirely.

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

You know what, I'll actually agree with this. But the fact that this is true speaks more to how Hip-Hop has changed from genuine subculutral expression that contains the seeds of resistance, if not a method of resistance itself, to a pacifying, capitalist spectacle of denigrating garbage perpetuated endlessly (Note: Huge, massive generalization. Just-Ice existed damn near alongside Public Enemy and there are any number of rappers whose work, either in its form or content, contain subversions of orthodoxy).

If this is true, then honestly, those attempting to resist through subcultural forms need to either permanently change the context in which Hip-Hop in seen and formulated in, or abandon it entirely.

Hip-hop isn't a subculture anymore. I'm not really sure what you mean in your last sentence though. There's still a lane for non-junk food rap in hip-hop. Nas, Lupe, and Kendrick Lamar all sold well this year.

Hip-hop was never some kind of movement of political resistance. It was at its most political during the late 80' Self Destruction was the peak of that. But even then, most rappers weren't political or about any unified resistance movement.

 

[No1]

You know what, I'll actually agree with this. But the fact that this is true speaks more to how Hip-Hop has changed from genuine subculutral expression that contains the seeds of resistance, if not a method of resistance itself, to a pacifying, capitalist spectacle of denigrating garbage perpetuated endlessly (Note: Huge, massive generalization. Just-Ice existed damn near alongside Public Enemy and there are any number of rappers whose work, either in its form or content, contain subversions of orthodoxy).

If this is true, then honestly, those attempting to resist through subcultural forms need to either permanently change the context in which Hip-Hop in seen and formulated in, or abandon it entirely.

Listen breh, I would argue with you right now, but I've done this 80 times in the Booth. People who dislike Jay-Z because they feel that somehow Hip Hop is going to spark some type of movement or that it still has that power are sadly mistaken. Nothing in recent history shows that it has that power. This argument equates to "hip-hop is supposed to be the voice of the underdog" and if it's not then it's not hip-hop and I don't like it.

I'm sorry but this preachy high-horse nonsense does nothing for me. I've reached a point of utter annoyance with the sit on the sidelines and whine about what everyone else is doing while being completed disconnected from reality crowd. There are problems with mainstream hip hop, but it was never going to be and never was what you thought it was. At a moment in it's history it represented a certain emotion within poor Latin and African-American communities, that's all it ever was, a reflection. That entire ethos is gone and the music reflects something else. It is very annoying when people try to pretend that Hip Hop music was the vanguard of the struggle and overstate what it's potential is and was and subsequently define music based on how it relates to their ideal.

It's either good music or it's not. If you prefer music with some type of message then that's fine. Everyone does if it's done well. But all that stuff you're talking about was just a trend. It was trendy to be conscious, afrocentric, etc. That trend is over. Hip-Hop has always existed in bubbles of different trends. It's just that the conscious aspect of it was the initial trend and because of that people believe that those are central tenets of hip hop and that deviation from it is b*stardizing the culture.

Hip-Hop didn't even know what it was yet at that time. The only legitimate criticism is that Hip Hop can be used as a heuristic by the ignorant through which they may understand people of color. Otherwise, people are complaining about nothing. Hip-Hop can still be used to critique mainstream culture, but people would always rather dance then listen. It's just more easily accessible. That's true of music period. Use Hip-Hop to express yourself because you want to, not because it has some inherent ability to promote the struggle and effectuate the change necessary in poor communities. No music can do that, at least not in Western society. Anyone advocating that has mistaken making things that are sustainable.

 

[Boolean]

so is Nas > Jay-Z cause he's broke

 

[dennis roadman]

so is Nas > Jay-Z cause he's broke

nas' chess game

 

[daze23]

hip-hop is mos def not some 'liberal' movement

 

[MikeBrownsJob]

You're missing the point of that part of the article by attempting to just counter it with his promotion of a liberalist social safety net (one which, if you really, really look at it, rewards insurance companies and drug makers much more than they do us). When you look at his stances on government secrecy, "terrorism," his actions in the Middle East through military surrogates, his IP policy, well fukk, just about anything else up to the way in which this recovery has proceeded through these last 4 years, it's blatantly obvious that this is correct, and to attempt to counter that with his meager, Romney-cribbed health care law implemented when everyone wanted some type of socialized medicine (single payer or otherwise) is to severely miss the forest for the trees.



So we shouldn't salvage a method of cultural expression for peoples in alterity and in lower classes just because those original messages have been subverted for years now? Ridiculous. And then to say he's hating when he's using Jay-Z's own messages and Obama's own actions to show their genuflection to the dominant mythologies of this country, ideologies that have done nothing for peoples of color or their subcultures? Are we not allowed to critique capitalist ideologues in the "Black" community anymore, or is that just hating on people getting money?

Ultimately, this article IS lacking, but it's actually because it doesn't go nearly far enough. Any number of Jay-Z's actions and quotes could be used to demonstrate his genuflection to power. And as a matter of fact, this could be extended to the subversion of the ideology of Hip-Hop as a whole, where resistance and usage of spaces on our own terms has been replaced with (as much as everyone who wants to shyt on "CACs" on here wouldn't like to admit) integrationist rhetoric in which we allow ourselves to fit right into their racist, classist narratives for different peoples while portraying Blacks successful in the captialist system as vanguards to stem and mitigate resistance against dominant narratives and their spatial implementation.

I agree but maybe that is because Hip-Hop was not defined from the beginning. Even when Pac was alive and mainstream there was no effort to address these issues.

You took me to church with the bolded. But my point was this integrationist rhetoric would have been okay if the dollar recirculated through the communities these brothas came from. This point is bigger than hip-hop but my gripe and the underlying criticism I believe the article is making is that hip-hop could have went further. The economic power could have built "Atlanta's" in Detroit, St. Louis, etc if their was a collective agenda.

 

[TrueEpic08]

Hip-hop isn't a subculture anymore. I'm not really sure what you mean in your last sentence though. There's still a lane for non-junk food rap in hip-hop. Nas, Lupe, and Kendrick Lamar all sold well this year.

Hip-hop was never some kind of movement of political resistance. It was at its most political during the late 80' Self Destruction was the peak of that. But even then, most rappers weren't political or about any unified resistance movement.

I agree in general with the first bolded (if you separate the genres and analyze them separately, then yes, you could still find some subcultural forms. But in general? No) and completely with the second. I never said it was a method of resistance, I said it had the seeds of resistance, in that it took the lived hybrid history of (initially American) Blacks (as descended Africans, as Americans, as urban underclass, as code for religious evil ("Curse of Ham" and the like), and so on) and congealed it into a method of expression that flew in the face of dominant narratives. As actual resistance, it was about equal to the Harlem Renaissance, and not really close to, say, Negritude or the music of South Africans during apartheid (Utterly unfair comparisons, but I'm making a point. Both of those had a type of revolutionary praxis behind them, which is necessary for material or even ideological resistance. Hip-Hop didn't have that, which is why I wrote seeds).

This is why I wrote that last sentence. Because Hip-Hop both never had that practice, and has long since been subverted, those looking to it for its resistance potential either need to find a way to radically change the context in which its perceived, or give up and focus on other things. People who say Jay-Z isn't Hip-Hop miss this point entirely, and its a point that a child could understand if they spent 5 minutes in any Hip-Hop themed forum.

Listen breh, I would argue with you right now, but I've done this 80 times in the Booth. People who dislike Jay-Z because they feel that somehow Hip Hop is going to spark some type of movement or that it still has that power are sadly mistaken. Nothing in recent history shows that it has that power. This argument equates to "hip-hop is supposed to be the voice of the underdog" and if it's not then it's not hip-hop and I don't like it.

I'm sorry but this preachy high-horse nonsense does nothing for me. I've reached a point of utter annoyance with the sit on the sidelines and whine about what everyone else is doing while being completed disconnected from reality crowd. There are problems with mainstream hip hop, but it was never going to be and never was what you thought it was. At a moment in it's history it represented a certain emotion within poor Latin and African-American communities, that's all it ever was, a reflection. That entire ethos is gone and the music reflects something else. It is very annoying when people try to pretend that Hip Hop music was the vanguard of the struggle and overstate what it's potential is and was and subsequently define music based on how it relates to their ideal.

It's either good music or it's not. If you prefer music with some type of message then that's fine. Everyone does if it's done well. But all that stuff you're talking about was just a trend. It was trendy to be conscious, afrocentric, etc. That trend is over. Hip-Hop has always existed in bubbles of different trends. It's just that the conscience aspect of it was the initial trend and because of that people believe that those are central tenets of hip hop and that deviation from it is b*stardizing the culture.

Hip-Hop didn't even know what it was yet at that time. The only legitimate criticism is that Hip Hop can be used as a heuristic by the ignorant through which they may understand people of color. Otherwise, people are complaining about nothing. Hip-Hop can still be used to critique mainstream culture, but people would always rather dance then listen. It's just more easily accessible. That's true of music period. Use Hip-Hop to express yourself because you want to, not because it has some inherent ability to promote the struggle and effectuate the change necessary in poor communities. No music can do that, at least not in Western society. Anyone advocating that has mistaken making things that are sustainable.

Man, I hope you're arguing past me and not at me, because you missed the point of what I wrote. Which I clarified above. Hell, you missed the fact that I actually agree with a lot of this.

But I will say this: Good and Bad music is not the be all and end all of anything, and to think so is ridiculously reductionist. In making certain types of music, however you judge it qualitatively, those songs (and its the same for any type of artform) contain within them certain types of ideologies that accord to the form you give it and the language that you use, among other traits. To deny this in relation to Hip-Hop and to say that Hip-Hop can't be criticized beyond what people ignorant of the culture think of it is mere apologetics. To just shove it off by saying that people would rather dance than listen is a denial of critical responsibility (admittedly, one that goes quite beyond just Hip-Hop).

(Oh, and no one make this into a Nas/Jay-Z thing. Their music is more equal when analyzed in this context than you'd think.)

 

[MooseMouthMthafuga]

You're missing the point of that part of the article by attempting to just counter it with his promotion of a liberalist social safety net (one which, if you really, really look at it, rewards insurance companies and drug makers much more than they do us). When you look at his stances on government secrecy, "terrorism," his actions in the Middle East through military surrogates, his IP policy, well fukk, just about anything else up to the way in which this recovery has proceeded through these last 4 years, it's blatantly obvious that this is correct, and to attempt to counter that with his meager, Romney-cribbed health care law implemented when everyone wanted some type of socialized medicine (single payer or otherwise) is to severely miss the forest for the trees.



So we shouldn't salvage a method of cultural expression for peoples in alterity and in lower classes just because those original messages have been subverted for years now? Ridiculous. And then to say he's hating when he's using Jay-Z's own messages and Obama's own actions to show their genuflection to the dominant mythologies of this country, ideologies that have done nothing for peoples of color or their subcultures? Are we not allowed to critique capitalist ideologues in the "Black" community anymore, or is that just hating on people getting money?

Ultimately, this article IS lacking, but it's actually because it doesn't go nearly far enough. Any number of Jay-Z's actions and quotes could be used to demonstrate his genuflection to power. And as a matter of fact, this could be extended to the subversion of the ideology of Hip-Hop as a whole, where resistance and usage of spaces on our own terms has been replaced with (as much as everyone who wants to shyt on "CACs" on here wouldn't like to admit) integrationist rhetoric in which we allow ourselves to fit right into their racist, classist narratives for different peoples while portraying Blacks successful in the captialist system as vanguards to stem and mitigate resistance against dominant narratives and their spatial implementation.

 

[Type Username Here]

Hip Hop, especially mainstream, is the closest entertainment equivalent to Rand's views. Made a thread about on the other site. It's usually a strict Libertarian, strictly capitalist mentality, except the investment phase is usually not implemented (aside from Jay-Z and a few others).