One of the most important aspects of this conversation is that we need to recognize what is being passed off as hip hop is definitely being used to serve power. Hip hop was conceived on the basis of challenging power, now power controls what we hear and see coming from hip hop artists. This same thing extends to all aspects of society including news, magazine, television programs etc.
Corporations create celebrity to serve a particular function in the political economy. As Akala states, anti-blackness has big currency in this political economy. There is no offense when Africans talk about killing each other left and right, in fact, that’s the best way to get a record deal. We need to understand that getting corporate sponsorship arrests our culture and places it at the disposal of the music industry to use it as weapons against us.
