Taking after their favorite artist I see

lool stop tryna clown me bro

"people in control" "people making decisions" it's literally in the statement.

hip-hop nowadays is defined by label execs, the a&r teams, the dsps, the advertising partners, you know the people with money? when i said #they i literally mean what i defined. the people IN CONTROL, MAKING DECISIONS.
the guys who green-light budgets and projects, decide what gets promo, what gets pushed, the final say on "oh this isn't brand friendly"... it's not a conspiracy & I GET MY FIRST STATEMENT WAS VAGUE but i tried to clarify the second time!

i've even mentioned capitalism which should kinda echo further the idea that i think it's because of money and keeping your average listener distracted because if they were thinking about other things it hurts the bottom line.

It’s tied to gang culture but also hip hop and basketball have a long history, specifically with urban youth culture sports r a big deal. Rappers prolly reference football and basketball players the most out of anything that you could make a bar about. I knew mad players when I wasn’t even tapped in just because of bars.

And like yea as a result of being tied to gang culture and impoverished religious communities exactly there tends to be a lot of what we now see as conservative ideas baked in

Respond to other guy cuz he basically said everything id say to this but one thing..

There’s way too many moving parts to labels and the music industry for there to be a concerted effort by all these huge web systems of people and processes to silence artists talking about politics and issues. Controversy sells they don’t care about that. If that was a thing we’d have a lot more leaks, we live in an era with smartphones. Kendrick Lamar is the biggest artist in the world and he got up talking about s*** like this, j cole too, as long as ur not threatening public officials I don’t think the label gives af

What's ironic is that Kanye of all people was "close but no cigar" regarding his point about how music labels were complicit in promoting violence, degeneracy, and ignorance to Black people while antisemitism will get your ass blackballed in a heartbeat.

But Kanye actually being antisemitic ruined his entire point.

Had a more normal-minded rapper made the same point, it would've been made people more aware of the double standard.

thanks for pushing back on Number 2... I get parts of how you're right, i'm thinking more from the whole angle of certain things are censored and can't be said, like Palestine content IS censored on some platforms algos more than others. but yeah I guess on that I'm going about it wrong.

3. i'm not saying it's right i'm just saying that's kinda just how i feel the audience is at the moment.

4. i mean political controversy specifically, because it alienates one side. if that helps you understand me more... obviously drake/kendrick beef shows us controversy sells

5. i never wanted to signify that i think this was agreed by a small group of people a long time ago, i completely agree that things are more fragmented and subtle.

i do still believe in a narrative of a "they" that i explained a bit more in a diff post.. idk if i've done a good job of explaining that to you guys but I understand what u mean about how saying it specifically confuses the issue.

I think the modern conservatism within Hip Hop comes from the total gentrification and dumbing down of the genre, and the fact that there's no real indie labels within Hip Hop now, that reach their community/know what's going on. A&R's know what they want out of artist, and what they don't want out of artist. No ones pulling a Curren$y nowadays and doing a one album contract with a major just to promote their actual label.

These new dudes have 0 business savvy and don't care about s*** except their image/popularity online. Being a rapper is assembly line work at this point.

I think the public would actually appreciate a rapper going down that lane and using their music to push a message tho

Niggas remember when Lil Baby dropped that song during the George Floyd aftermath? Nita’s was actin like he was the second coming of Pac fr

yeah my points have kinda been scattered around the two replies

I get what you're saying about moving parts to labels, but those moving parts to me are just how a business is structured. The whole wider music industry just relates to what I'm saying about money being their main goal. I also don't think political controversy sells because it alienates a large amount of people, on either side of any specific political opinion.

but yeah i still stand by like the idea that hip-hop isn't political about america rn because theres a "they" that controls the release / promotion of music and it benefits them if the audience is distracted and not rebelling about the state of america / politics. I apologise if you felt like me saying "they" was just feeding into conspiracies with no thought put into it.

I'm sure I haven't explained my views very well as theres a bit of confusion on your side, but I hope you kinda get what I mean from all that random bits I've written.

Imagine 2011 Curren$y walking in an A&R's office with his lawyer, team and everything, reading over fine print and being self aware about everything, making sure the deal is right. Labels don't want that at now

I think there's room to be hopeful and adding confusing quantifiers about nameless "theys" and "them" (and not the good kind) is inherently defeatist

A part of what made Zohran Mamdani work is that his platform isn't built on conspiracy theory language about they or them it's about real things we can really change that positively impact peoples lives in real time

I read a lot and I know I still don't have all the answers, so I don't find value in performing authority or expertise

Peace

Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist
Gaza Strip was getting bombed, Obama didn't say s***

Label execs were popping bottles the moment they saw this tweet

they were popping bottles when the "Harriet Tubman freeing the slaves music" made them millions too

All of the biggest artists rn of the previous gen for labels are ones that touched on political issues. The most big albums are the ones surrounded by controversy, look at MMLP. Yea that is the structure that’s the thing there’s dif departments that do dif things with dif people that have dif ideas and motives with checks and balances and laws. And everyone have a phone and millions of artists are signed. It’s impossible to have one ideological or political goal or to collectively have them all say ok no more conscious rap yknow like I don’t think that’s a universally agreed upon thing in labels, we would know by now.

I just feel like ur claim about the control thing is just baseless I think artists just aren’t interested in making it and audiences aren’t that interested in hearing it in the same way as before. I get what ur saying now tho I just disagree

And nothing in her music political, they won

Sadly, Lil Baby ruined his own momentum by saying that he wasn't going to make anymore political music after that.

What a way to f*** up the hype lol.

Ayup. God bless.

Lupe was lowkey bold af for calling out Obama when we was still in the honeymoon phase.

I get what you're saying too! I get why you think it's baseless, but the comparison of what you're saying about all the biggest artists of the previous gen touching on political issues is from a different time though. I don't think labels agree with one ideological goal, they just see what's "popular" / "in favour" and follow that because that gets them money.

the world now is just different and idk just the way people were connected and saw/experience the world was different then, those views just aren't like i said "in favour" with the mainstream rn. maybe things are cyclical and it'll come back round.

think we're just in a agree to disagree state

I don’t think recognising the way these patterns in business / industry comes together is defeatist. although you're partly right maybe the way i see things at the moment is from a place of we're f***ed.

ANYWAYS I've always believed the idea of the whole "they" in my head is just how power operates in the modern day, not like a shadow council of people, just the real group of decision makers in charge of companies / businesses that decide what gets seen, supported or suppressed.

I get what you're saying about Mamdani, the whole grounded real approach. but idk to me hiphop / music doesn't have that openness/fairness of a political vote, sure the people can always decide what they listen to, but go ask, the average guy isn't digging through soundcloud or indie tapes, they listen to what's commericial and those things to me are decided by the labels / dsps and advertising brands. i think the culture we talk about right now is defined at that major level. and that major level only cares about money.

it's not the artists or the culture it's the system that won't let people get political. the whole system/industry doesn't reward that political expression the same way safe profitable music is rewarded.

thanks for the convo @Andre_Mackonen @yesac hope i made my self a lil clearer to u guys

Cardi B is by far the most political big rapper of this gen

It's defeatist when you propose it as an unnamed force, if its unnamed then you can't change it and it's untouchable

"the whole system/industry doesn't reward that political expression the same way safe profitable music is rewarded."

I disagree with this sentiment actually, a book that helped me re-frame this thought is Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher

It makes no difference to rich people in positions of power if the music that makes them money is political or not, in fact it's a positive thing to create the illusion of change through music while doing nothing in the real world for real people, so while bitter losers online complain about Doechii, the things they're saying she's doing or changing are not actually leading to quantifiable change in policy or material living conditions

There's hugely successful and popular leftist entertainers like Hasan Piker, I think a decent amount of what he says is true but his position and messaging is often unhelpful and reactionary, it needs to be backed by proactive thoughtful campaigns like Mamadani's that appeal to real people and not reactionary sentiments that can mask as being progressive while ultimately seeking to divide people

Had to think about this thread when I saw this. Shout out Chance for actually standing for something

31 followers, how do you know this person exactly