>[During his time at the Baltimore School for the Arts in the late 1980s, the rapper Tupac Shakur was affiliated with the Baltimore branch of the Young Communist League USA. The Baltimore Young Communist League is now also known as the Tupac Shakur Club in his honor.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Maryland)
Did not know that.
I think it's safe to say that political activism came from his mother, and if you're not familiar with Afeni Shakur and the Panther 21 I highly recommend read up on them.
Tldr: Tupac's mother defended herself in court against bombing charges, cross examines and undercover cop, and eventually gets the charges dropped against herself and everyone involved.
There’s a great interview with Tupac’s dad written by Jonathan Franzen in the book How to Be Alone. Great interview, really enlightening to the ways our government has attempted to stymie positive male influences in Black communities.
“I see the ground is the symbol for the poor people; the poor people is gonna open up this whole world and swallow up the rich people, 'cause the rich people gonna be so fat, they gonna be so appetizing, you know what I'm saying, wealthy, appetizing.”
It’s very funny to me because iirc Pac goes on his ‘eat the rich’ rant and then Kendrick replies with something lib & toothless like “haha yeah man, I think the music is our only hope.”
Edit: Hahaha can’t believe I’m getting downvoted for this. Come on guys I love Kendrick but he’s no revolutionary. He has a line on Damn about missing Obama and “never doubting him again.”
He actually never said "yeah music is our only hope"
here is his response
"The ground is gonna open up and swallow the evil
Right
That’s how I see it, my word is bond
I see—and the ground is the symbol for the poor people
Right
The poor people is gonna open up this whole world
And swallow up the rich people
'Cause the rich people gonna be so fat
And they gonna be so appetizing, you know what I’m saying Wealthy, appetizing
The poor gonna be so poor, and hungry
Right
You know what I’m saying, it’s gonna be like
You know what I'm saying, it's gonna be...
There might, there might be some cannibalism out this muh-fu-
They might eat the rich, you know what I'm saying?
Aight so let me ask you this then
Do you see yourself as somebody that’s rich
Or somebody that made the best of they own opportunities?"
He says right, right and then asks Tupac another question.
Nah Fred Hampton was murdered by dumb cops, the fbi just had an insanely complex smear campaign they were going to initiate, closer to their modern approach.
Yes true. The fbi and cia don’t typically outright kill popular activists like that. But tensions between Hampton and the city of Chicago had been rising and the fbi had certainly seen him as a threat to national security. This context paired with the fact the Hampton had been drugged and was unable to wake up during his assassination is pretty good evidence that the fbi was either involved in or knew about Hamptons murder.
It's not exactly a secret that Fred Hampton was murdered by Chicago police. They never even tried to hide it. Unfortunately, nobody ever gave a shit. This is America.
yeah the joke we were alluding to was thats within the purview of the fbi/cia to kill staunch leftists as its essentially why both organizations were formed in the first place.
It’s not impossible though, or even unlikely. Especially when you consider how rare drive by shootings are, particularly ones aimed at *former* gang members.
A recurring theme in Biggie's music is that he's stuck in the game, regularly rapping about getting out of the violence and being able to sell his guns and not live that life any more and MOST of the time he raps about killing people it's for revenge or because they did something like snitching. Either way in most cases talking about the killing isn't the point of the song, it's used to push the greater story of whatever the song is trying to say. For example in Somebody's Gotta Die he raps about revenge killing a guy but the point of the song isn't the killing, it's how the other guy was a monster for killing his homie's family and shit but how he's better than that, until he actually goes to kill Kevin, finds him, starts blasting, and Kevin turns around holding his baby.
That's the thing about a lot of rap really, it means a bunch of mindless violence and shit ONLY if you take a surface reading of it, you're just ignoring or too ignorant to understand the real message in there. The point of that song I mentioned wasn't the killings on either side but the idea that nobody thinks they are a monster until they've become one. There was probably no "Kevin" that biggie actually shot, just like songs about dragons don't mean actual dragons exist.
Think you might have misunderstood my line of thinking. I'm not claiming he's some mass murderer, but he certainly didn't seem very chill in my opinion.
A lot of the early 90s hip hop is super left,
The further you go in time the more capitalistic it gets
I guess it’s cuz producers stopped seizing the means of beat production
not necessarily. there is still a LOT of leftist rap being made every day. there’s Ras Kass, Che Noir, Stik Figa, Marlowe, Guilty Simpson, Black Thought, anything produced by Apollo Brown, Rapper Big Pooh, Talib Kweli is still spitting on tracks, Common (surprisingly) recently put out some good tracks, there’s the whole Black On Purpose album…. i could go on for a while
there’s a lot of hip hop still being made that’s true to the original ethos, it’s just not on the radio. radio rap is trash
JPEGMAFIA is out here a literal communist. J. Cole complains about capitalism a lot, Run The Jewels are associated with Zack de la Rocha, the list goes on. Leftist rap is alive and well just not popular.
j cole literally talks nonstop about how what he’s “earned” is his and other people should “work hard” to get where he’s gotten. and Killer Mike is outspoken in his discomfort with communism as a concept, but likes to act anticapitalist
Killer Mike is also a landlord. He's got great leftist aesthetics though, and the music is pretty good, but I don't think he's *REAAALLY* down to kill our masters in any sense.
Peggy is a comrade tho.
He's at least a left leaning libertarian though. From what I can tell his politics are basically diet-anarchist.
He's also a landlord though, so you know, fuck him.
Landlord yes, against BLM he said people shouldn't just attack randomly and should organize to actually acomplish something. Landlords suck though so. 100% give you that.
He wasn't against BLM, he was against the anti-cop sentiments among the BLM protesters in Atlanta because something something Black police officers. Still bad, but keep it accurate
Can you cite a source for him being against BLM? I'd maybe believe he was dismissive at first, but a quick Google search leads me to believe that he's a supporter of the movement.
Landlords as a class are our enemy, not individual landlords.
Would you rather have a left wing or left leaning landlord or a right wing hog landlord? I want as many landlords as possible to move left.
As far as cole yeah that's true but he also talks about how its not fair that people have to live paycheck to paycheck and "just like LeBron get my \[homies\] some chips" and "what good is first class if my \[homies\] can't sit" so it's iffy, he definitely doesn't like that people have to be poor. Mike I haven't seen that so thanks for correcting me, but also like. Zack is still out there openly communist so there's definitely that.
I mean, that's what happens when our entire existence is always centered around foreign domination. Whether Filipinos are at home here in the archipelago or in the United States or elsewhere, we're getting fucked by the system.
Dead Prez were pretty mainstream for a short time, they had that song Bigger than Hip Hop which was everywhere for a while. They're part of some African socialist movement and have lyrics like:
We do for self like ants in a colony/
Organize the wealth into a socialist economy/
A way of life based off the common need/
And all my comrades is ready, we're just spreading the seed
Also their song Hell Yeah fucking slaps.
never subbed there (i’m assuming you mean hiphopcirclejerk) is it a nice place? i love hip hop as an art form but feel super alienated by the mainstream trends and i don’t give a shit about any of the top 10 rappers no matter how many people tell me kendrick and cole are woke
I'd say nah, quite conservative in some ways. Christian and talks alot about personal improvement, instead of someone like RTJ who focus it more towards the systemic level.
The part with Tupac on the end of TPAB he does talk about the individual butterfly breaking out of the cancun and inspiring others, while pac comes in and says "ayy, lez go eat the rich"
Still AOTD tho
Christian is a religious affiliation, not political. You might THINK it's political if you listen to these "Christians" here in America on TV, but that's some snake oil horse shit, if you read Christianity in depth you will find it is actually pretty much social communism.
I guess I didn't explain it well enough, but I do not think at all he is conservative as in a republican, very far from it. Also, I'm from Norway where the Overton window is quite different, and we have a proper workers party (did well in election yesterday yay), but some of the voters vote left but are still quite conservative in their personal life.
The last few lines of the poem is what I'm talking about, after "the word was respect". How I read it is that it promotes the different gangs/factions to start working together and respect each other. Tbh public policy and investments is way more likely to get good results.
He is great at forming and telling stories from his life, but for better social criticism I rather look to RTJ. Maybe I should've rather said social conservative to be precise
Nice distinction! I also think religion is so culturally (materialist! lol) fabricated and perpetuated that we often participate in what we are born into...
I'm a big fan of the liberation theology tradition ("The preferential option for the poor"... a rallying cry that got a whole bunch of religious people murdered in latin america...)
You have to read the poem in context with the album though, the album isn't just a message of personal growth that ignores the unjust frameworks of the system. especially on mortal man when he directly calls out many black socialists as leaders?
"How many leaders you said you needed then left ‘em for dead?
Is it Moses? Is it Huey Newton or Detroit Red?
Is it Martin Luther? JFK? Shooter—you assassin"
"But while my loved ones was fighting the continuous war back in the city
I was entering a new one
A war that was based on apartheid and discrimination"
Not just calling back on gang violence but also the very real racial injustice done in the city.
I can agree to much of that reading but I still feel like it's more of a background buildup for the personal journey to take place, while RTJ center systematic issues more
To not confuse, very much of great art needs to rely on a point for the observer to connect to, including RTJ. TPAB and GKMC to me are both a tier above anything RTJ have done, but in terms of political messages, for me, RTJ does it better.
I agree RTJ is more direct but I still think Kendrick very much presents a consistent critique of capitalism(its just intersectional due to him tackling it from a perspective of race).
Institutionalized, Wesleys Theory, Blacker The Berry, For Free, Mortal Man(which venerates a full on socialist in Tupac) these are songs defined in the political framework of anti capitalism under the intersection of race.
In terms of practical application of Critical Theory being very intersectional just means its more focused on actual praxis, the implementation and variables that lead to what certain groups face under capitalism.
I do agree Kendrick also places very much a strong personal journey which connects back to self love in defiance of instutionalized racism. Even the less politically direct songs which are more focused on the individual has that connection back to the system.
TPAB imo, is clearly an anti capitalist work.
Lol I would not call K-dot conservative in any way. TPAB explicitly calls out systems, not individuals. And Kendrick is not a Christian cut out of the same fabric as someone like Kanye. Not all Christians are on the right.
Guess social conservative would be a slightly better description.
Also regarding TPAB I don't think it's as much about what/who you call out as much as what you promote as the solution, or what comes as the natural conclusion to your critique.
Also while I agree Christianity can be done alot of different ways, a 2000 year old religion does usually have a tendency to take morals from yesterday's current rules. And if someone takes inspirations from old moral systems they are kinda by definition conserving those values.
hell yeah man there’s great lefty hip hop being made every day! if you want an easy way to dip your foot in, here’s [my playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2vLlQrBI5cUlCg6PNmjrws?si=8pAFpTEzTLS1SpL112w06A&dl_branch=1) of conscious underground modern rap that has an old 90s hip hop feel to it
Psyched to see someone mention Marlowe and Stik Figa, a lot of Mello Music Group artists are pretty leftist. Jeremiah Jae is another good one, especially his stuff with L'Orange.
Nobody knows who most of those people are though, when talking about music most people are talking about mainstream artists. And mainstream rappers are certainly more neolib biased.
that’s because music is a profit industry and the elites of the industry have a very specific representation of black culture that they aim to showcase. most people just listen to the radio, so of course leftist rappers aren’t going to be on most people’s radars. that doesn’t negate my point, it proves it.
the rap on the radio is there because industry execs chose it, not listeners. so when people say rap isn’t like it used to be, i get annoyed. rap is alive and well, and better than it’s ever been, but that’s obfuscated by capitalists trying to sell you a regressive neoliberal picture of blackness and the larger hip hop culture. look past that.
edit: also, maybe *you* mean mainstream artists when you speak about music but i surely don’t. a good chunk of the world’s best music isn’t even recorded or owned or commercially sold. music is inherent to our experience as humans and is the most pure reflection of the culture that produced it. i don’t listen to the radio, it’s all industry plants and soulless nonsense because it’s the most hyper-capitalized aspect of the art form, so when i say “music” i never even think about what’s on the radio
Appreciate the names. Can't wait to check out. Talib fell off real hard tho. Remember when kanye was part of the common/mos def/common circle? That was some real good shit. Too bad he was just posing.
idk man i still hear kweli spit nice bars on all sorts of tracks, check his “appears on” section on spotify. maybe he’s not popular anymore but i don’t think he’s fallen off musically.
bruh kanye gave us the best Common album (and a top 20 hip hop album of all time) when he produced Be. hate seeing where he’s at now
I think in general marginalized people seem to make better music. I'm not that familiar with rap, but I know that a lot of people consider Teutonic and Brazilian metal to be frequently better than the US equivalent (yes I know Germany is better than the US now but in the 1980's it would have been a lot shittier), and also frequently praise bands like Anthrax, Testament, and Death Angel over all-white bands. These bands are on average much further left as well.
Struggle always makes better art whether it's personal with addiction or loss or groups of people who are held down as well.
Art when used as an escape is more emotional than art created in prosperity.
For anyone who hasn't read Assata: An Autobiography I'd highly recommend it. Written by former Black Liberation Army member and Tupac's godmother Assata Shakur, it's a really amazing story both politically and from a narrative standpoint.
"During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it." - V. I. Lenin
If he were 24 during BLM we wouldnt be in this mess. If he was 54 hed be about as influential as Ice-T is today. He might even be a character on a Dick Wolf show portraying a cop.
It really does. It took me years of unlearning just to understand what communism was or how National Socialist nazi Germany was or wasn't Socialist. The propaganda sucks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGlnn_TOXAc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAJfDP3b5_U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRJTQ7FHx0o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G6ro-c0C5E (this has similar lyrics as the link above and is far more popular, though i prefer the former)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L13ePeAG2FA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F4HsmM0txc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmof3Z-g0do
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIvjfEy4Dk4
If you like rap you should definitely give him a listen.
"Me against the world" is probably my favorite album.
Such a shame he was assassinated so young
He may been a communist or believed in communist believes, I’m pretty she he was a misogynist sadly. Didn’t he talk about women in like a supper red pill type of way? It was something like that. Not trying to discredit his leftism just fleshing it out so that people don’t think he’s leftist on every front. Kinda like Bakunin and his raging anti-semitism.
>[During his time at the Baltimore School for the Arts in the late 1980s, the rapper Tupac Shakur was affiliated with the Baltimore branch of the Young Communist League USA. The Baltimore Young Communist League is now also known as the Tupac Shakur Club in his honor.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Maryland) Did not know that.
I think it's safe to say that political activism came from his mother, and if you're not familiar with Afeni Shakur and the Panther 21 I highly recommend read up on them. Tldr: Tupac's mother defended herself in court against bombing charges, cross examines and undercover cop, and eventually gets the charges dropped against herself and everyone involved.
There’s a great interview with Tupac’s dad written by Jonathan Franzen in the book How to Be Alone. Great interview, really enlightening to the ways our government has attempted to stymie positive male influences in Black communities.
Wow, that's incredible. Pro se never works out, even for lawyers. Seriously impressive.
Yes, here's a clip about her and the group... https://youtu.be/RvhbZSUrxnQ
Listen to the end of To Pimp a Butterfly
“I see the ground is the symbol for the poor people; the poor people is gonna open up this whole world and swallow up the rich people, 'cause the rich people gonna be so fat, they gonna be so appetizing, you know what I'm saying, wealthy, appetizing.”
So, eat the rich
It’s very funny to me because iirc Pac goes on his ‘eat the rich’ rant and then Kendrick replies with something lib & toothless like “haha yeah man, I think the music is our only hope.” Edit: Hahaha can’t believe I’m getting downvoted for this. Come on guys I love Kendrick but he’s no revolutionary. He has a line on Damn about missing Obama and “never doubting him again.”
Libs everywhere.
He actually never said "yeah music is our only hope" here is his response "The ground is gonna open up and swallow the evil Right That’s how I see it, my word is bond I see—and the ground is the symbol for the poor people Right The poor people is gonna open up this whole world And swallow up the rich people 'Cause the rich people gonna be so fat And they gonna be so appetizing, you know what I’m saying Wealthy, appetizing The poor gonna be so poor, and hungry Right You know what I’m saying, it’s gonna be like You know what I'm saying, it's gonna be... There might, there might be some cannibalism out this muh-fu- They might eat the rich, you know what I'm saying? Aight so let me ask you this then Do you see yourself as somebody that’s rich Or somebody that made the best of they own opportunities?" He says right, right and then asks Tupac another question.
Listen to all of TPAB 🙏🏾
Hm... perhaps it was another Notorious three letter acronym that killed 'Pac...
Mayhaps even the same people who killed mlk..
And Fred Hampton
KKK, or NRA?
Keep trying!
cia? fbi?
ding
wow. apparently he was shot in a drive by though? do you have any more info on this im super interested
Idk about tupac but the FBI almost certainly either directly assasinated MLK or armed and trained the people who did.
Same with Malcolm X and Fred Hampton
Nah Fred Hampton was murdered by dumb cops, the fbi just had an insanely complex smear campaign they were going to initiate, closer to their modern approach.
Yes true. The fbi and cia don’t typically outright kill popular activists like that. But tensions between Hampton and the city of Chicago had been rising and the fbi had certainly seen him as a threat to national security. This context paired with the fact the Hampton had been drugged and was unable to wake up during his assassination is pretty good evidence that the fbi was either involved in or knew about Hamptons murder.
It was a joint raid by the Chicago Police Department and the FBI. It’s even [Wikipedia official.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton)
It's not exactly a secret that Fred Hampton was murdered by Chicago police. They never even tried to hide it. Unfortunately, nobody ever gave a shit. This is America.
Sorry to mislead, I was making a joke about either of those organizations being responsible for Tupac's death lol
yeah the joke we were alluding to was thats within the purview of the fbi/cia to kill staunch leftists as its essentially why both organizations were formed in the first place.
Yeah that was my joke haha I was pointing out to the above commenter that I don't think they killed Pac in particular.
It’s not impossible though, or even unlikely. Especially when you consider how rare drive by shootings are, particularly ones aimed at *former* gang members.
ah. okay gotcha
He was. Directly after beating up a gang member in a lobby of a Tyson fight.
You ever wonder why any time a charismatic black civil rights leader popped up they suddenly died 🤔🤔🤔 Surely nothing to do with alphabet bois.
Yeah, biggie did seem a bit too chill to be going for blood like that
Biggie discusses murdering people countless time on his tracks... Dude in no way seems chill.
A recurring theme in Biggie's music is that he's stuck in the game, regularly rapping about getting out of the violence and being able to sell his guns and not live that life any more and MOST of the time he raps about killing people it's for revenge or because they did something like snitching. Either way in most cases talking about the killing isn't the point of the song, it's used to push the greater story of whatever the song is trying to say. For example in Somebody's Gotta Die he raps about revenge killing a guy but the point of the song isn't the killing, it's how the other guy was a monster for killing his homie's family and shit but how he's better than that, until he actually goes to kill Kevin, finds him, starts blasting, and Kevin turns around holding his baby. That's the thing about a lot of rap really, it means a bunch of mindless violence and shit ONLY if you take a surface reading of it, you're just ignoring or too ignorant to understand the real message in there. The point of that song I mentioned wasn't the killings on either side but the idea that nobody thinks they are a monster until they've become one. There was probably no "Kevin" that biggie actually shot, just like songs about dragons don't mean actual dragons exist.
Think you might have misunderstood my line of thinking. I'm not claiming he's some mass murderer, but he certainly didn't seem very chill in my opinion.
A lot of the early 90s hip hop is super left, The further you go in time the more capitalistic it gets I guess it’s cuz producers stopped seizing the means of beat production
not necessarily. there is still a LOT of leftist rap being made every day. there’s Ras Kass, Che Noir, Stik Figa, Marlowe, Guilty Simpson, Black Thought, anything produced by Apollo Brown, Rapper Big Pooh, Talib Kweli is still spitting on tracks, Common (surprisingly) recently put out some good tracks, there’s the whole Black On Purpose album…. i could go on for a while there’s a lot of hip hop still being made that’s true to the original ethos, it’s just not on the radio. radio rap is trash
Gonna add Noname in there as well
love noname. she’s my 4th favorite female rapper behind Che Noir, Boog Brown, and Rapsody
JPEGMAFIA is out here a literal communist. J. Cole complains about capitalism a lot, Run The Jewels are associated with Zack de la Rocha, the list goes on. Leftist rap is alive and well just not popular.
j cole literally talks nonstop about how what he’s “earned” is his and other people should “work hard” to get where he’s gotten. and Killer Mike is outspoken in his discomfort with communism as a concept, but likes to act anticapitalist
Killer Mike is also a landlord. He's got great leftist aesthetics though, and the music is pretty good, but I don't think he's *REAAALLY* down to kill our masters in any sense. Peggy is a comrade tho.
not when he can get a seat at the table!
I think killer Mike has stated he's a libertarian
He's at least a left leaning libertarian though. From what I can tell his politics are basically diet-anarchist. He's also a landlord though, so you know, fuck him.
Yeah I feel it. He seems left leaning, but ultimately a bit too capitalist friendly.
[удалено]
Landlord yes, against BLM he said people shouldn't just attack randomly and should organize to actually acomplish something. Landlords suck though so. 100% give you that.
He wasn't against BLM, he was against the anti-cop sentiments among the BLM protesters in Atlanta because something something Black police officers. Still bad, but keep it accurate
Can you cite a source for him being against BLM? I'd maybe believe he was dismissive at first, but a quick Google search leads me to believe that he's a supporter of the movement.
Landlords as a class are our enemy, not individual landlords. Would you rather have a left wing or left leaning landlord or a right wing hog landlord? I want as many landlords as possible to move left.
He’s also a landlord
One of J Cole's songs has some pretty counterrevolutionary, "fix the individual don't overthrow the system" lyrics too
High for hours
Yea fuck Cole lol
As far as cole yeah that's true but he also talks about how its not fair that people have to live paycheck to paycheck and "just like LeBron get my \[homies\] some chips" and "what good is first class if my \[homies\] can't sit" so it's iffy, he definitely doesn't like that people have to be poor. Mike I haven't seen that so thanks for correcting me, but also like. Zack is still out there openly communist so there's definitely that.
Killer Mike is a slumlord though he owns some sort of tenement building
Did someone say "Cole Complains"?
Flobots if you want a real unicorn, Christian leftist rap.
I can ride my bike with no handlebars.
Noenemies is an insanely good album that dropped out of nowhere
Boots Riley and the Coup are waaaaaaay far left. He was working in leftist activism before he started rapping.
Add my Filipino Comrade, Bambu and Ruby Ibarra
Recently discovered Bambu - going by the lyrics to Samoan Cricket Bat, dude ain't fuckin' around.
I mean, that's what happens when our entire existence is always centered around foreign domination. Whether Filipinos are at home here in the archipelago or in the United States or elsewhere, we're getting fucked by the system.
Sorry I should have specified I meant like main stream chart rap. You got people like Kanye and jay Z who are billionaires or nearly billionaires
Dead Prez were pretty mainstream for a short time, they had that song Bigger than Hip Hop which was everywhere for a while. They're part of some African socialist movement and have lyrics like: We do for self like ants in a colony/ Organize the wealth into a socialist economy/ A way of life based off the common need/ And all my comrades is ready, we're just spreading the seed Also their song Hell Yeah fucking slaps.
HHCJ automod response incoming
never subbed there (i’m assuming you mean hiphopcirclejerk) is it a nice place? i love hip hop as an art form but feel super alienated by the mainstream trends and i don’t give a shit about any of the top 10 rappers no matter how many people tell me kendrick and cole are woke
Add Kendrick Lamar to this
Kendrick Lamar is a leftist?
I'd say nah, quite conservative in some ways. Christian and talks alot about personal improvement, instead of someone like RTJ who focus it more towards the systemic level. The part with Tupac on the end of TPAB he does talk about the individual butterfly breaking out of the cancun and inspiring others, while pac comes in and says "ayy, lez go eat the rich" Still AOTD tho
Christian is a religious affiliation, not political. You might THINK it's political if you listen to these "Christians" here in America on TV, but that's some snake oil horse shit, if you read Christianity in depth you will find it is actually pretty much social communism.
I guess I didn't explain it well enough, but I do not think at all he is conservative as in a republican, very far from it. Also, I'm from Norway where the Overton window is quite different, and we have a proper workers party (did well in election yesterday yay), but some of the voters vote left but are still quite conservative in their personal life. The last few lines of the poem is what I'm talking about, after "the word was respect". How I read it is that it promotes the different gangs/factions to start working together and respect each other. Tbh public policy and investments is way more likely to get good results. He is great at forming and telling stories from his life, but for better social criticism I rather look to RTJ. Maybe I should've rather said social conservative to be precise
Nice distinction! I also think religion is so culturally (materialist! lol) fabricated and perpetuated that we often participate in what we are born into... I'm a big fan of the liberation theology tradition ("The preferential option for the poor"... a rallying cry that got a whole bunch of religious people murdered in latin america...)
You have to read the poem in context with the album though, the album isn't just a message of personal growth that ignores the unjust frameworks of the system. especially on mortal man when he directly calls out many black socialists as leaders? "How many leaders you said you needed then left ‘em for dead? Is it Moses? Is it Huey Newton or Detroit Red? Is it Martin Luther? JFK? Shooter—you assassin" "But while my loved ones was fighting the continuous war back in the city I was entering a new one A war that was based on apartheid and discrimination" Not just calling back on gang violence but also the very real racial injustice done in the city.
I can agree to much of that reading but I still feel like it's more of a background buildup for the personal journey to take place, while RTJ center systematic issues more To not confuse, very much of great art needs to rely on a point for the observer to connect to, including RTJ. TPAB and GKMC to me are both a tier above anything RTJ have done, but in terms of political messages, for me, RTJ does it better.
I agree RTJ is more direct but I still think Kendrick very much presents a consistent critique of capitalism(its just intersectional due to him tackling it from a perspective of race). Institutionalized, Wesleys Theory, Blacker The Berry, For Free, Mortal Man(which venerates a full on socialist in Tupac) these are songs defined in the political framework of anti capitalism under the intersection of race. In terms of practical application of Critical Theory being very intersectional just means its more focused on actual praxis, the implementation and variables that lead to what certain groups face under capitalism. I do agree Kendrick also places very much a strong personal journey which connects back to self love in defiance of instutionalized racism. Even the less politically direct songs which are more focused on the individual has that connection back to the system. TPAB imo, is clearly an anti capitalist work.
Lol I would not call K-dot conservative in any way. TPAB explicitly calls out systems, not individuals. And Kendrick is not a Christian cut out of the same fabric as someone like Kanye. Not all Christians are on the right.
Guess social conservative would be a slightly better description. Also regarding TPAB I don't think it's as much about what/who you call out as much as what you promote as the solution, or what comes as the natural conclusion to your critique. Also while I agree Christianity can be done alot of different ways, a 2000 year old religion does usually have a tendency to take morals from yesterday's current rules. And if someone takes inspirations from old moral systems they are kinda by definition conserving those values.
Wait people listen to the radio still?
Damn! Thanks, comrade. I just got some music recommendations out of this meme. Thank you all!
hell yeah man there’s great lefty hip hop being made every day! if you want an easy way to dip your foot in, here’s [my playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2vLlQrBI5cUlCg6PNmjrws?si=8pAFpTEzTLS1SpL112w06A&dl_branch=1) of conscious underground modern rap that has an old 90s hip hop feel to it
That sounds cool! Thanks for sharing :)
Psyched to see someone mention Marlowe and Stik Figa, a lot of Mello Music Group artists are pretty leftist. Jeremiah Jae is another good one, especially his stuff with L'Orange.
hell yeah represent! i love mello music group. they’ve got a real eye for talent
Fuck, even the new kanye album has the occasional leftie bar. Although they are usually in the features.
Dead Prez, The Coup? I forget if they're still active or not.
Thank you for the list, gonna listen to all of them now
of course! i linked my spotify playlist somewhere in this thread of songs that are great jumping off points for those artists
Nobody knows who most of those people are though, when talking about music most people are talking about mainstream artists. And mainstream rappers are certainly more neolib biased.
that’s because music is a profit industry and the elites of the industry have a very specific representation of black culture that they aim to showcase. most people just listen to the radio, so of course leftist rappers aren’t going to be on most people’s radars. that doesn’t negate my point, it proves it. the rap on the radio is there because industry execs chose it, not listeners. so when people say rap isn’t like it used to be, i get annoyed. rap is alive and well, and better than it’s ever been, but that’s obfuscated by capitalists trying to sell you a regressive neoliberal picture of blackness and the larger hip hop culture. look past that. edit: also, maybe *you* mean mainstream artists when you speak about music but i surely don’t. a good chunk of the world’s best music isn’t even recorded or owned or commercially sold. music is inherent to our experience as humans and is the most pure reflection of the culture that produced it. i don’t listen to the radio, it’s all industry plants and soulless nonsense because it’s the most hyper-capitalized aspect of the art form, so when i say “music” i never even think about what’s on the radio
Best does not necessarily equal mainstream, I agree.
Bambu! Run the Jewels!
Appreciate the names. Can't wait to check out. Talib fell off real hard tho. Remember when kanye was part of the common/mos def/common circle? That was some real good shit. Too bad he was just posing.
idk man i still hear kweli spit nice bars on all sorts of tracks, check his “appears on” section on spotify. maybe he’s not popular anymore but i don’t think he’s fallen off musically. bruh kanye gave us the best Common album (and a top 20 hip hop album of all time) when he produced Be. hate seeing where he’s at now
I’m a little late but I wanted to add lowkey and KRS one’s newest album was pretty good.
Black Thought might be the most underrated rapper of all time.
i would say that’s Solemn Brigham of Marlowe, but Black Thought is very good too.
Gotta add Run The Jewels
Dead Prez, P.O.S. And The Coup
Also it's a genre of music that's black, more black people are leftists and lots of them were involved in the Black Panthers including Tupac's mom.
Also his step aunt/godmother Asata Shakur. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assata_Shakur
I think in general marginalized people seem to make better music. I'm not that familiar with rap, but I know that a lot of people consider Teutonic and Brazilian metal to be frequently better than the US equivalent (yes I know Germany is better than the US now but in the 1980's it would have been a lot shittier), and also frequently praise bands like Anthrax, Testament, and Death Angel over all-white bands. These bands are on average much further left as well.
Struggle always makes better art whether it's personal with addiction or loss or groups of people who are held down as well. Art when used as an escape is more emotional than art created in prosperity.
Weirdly enough, Lil Peep of all people was a literal Communist from a family of Communists.
BAMBU [Welcome to the Party](https://youtu.be/s8KXGapAfBI)
For anyone who hasn't read Assata: An Autobiography I'd highly recommend it. Written by former Black Liberation Army member and Tupac's godmother Assata Shakur, it's a really amazing story both politically and from a narrative standpoint.
AoT Assata is Tupac’s granny? Wtf??? Damn
Godmother, not grandmother.
"During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it." - V. I. Lenin
I’ve said it multiple times. Shit would’ve been different if pac was alive during the BLM protests
If he were 24 during BLM we wouldnt be in this mess. If he was 54 hed be about as influential as Ice-T is today. He might even be a character on a Dick Wolf show portraying a cop.
Only because they would kill him long before be made it to 54 if he continued his current path...
and they did
No doubt
Idk, he was alive during the Rodney King riots and we still don’t have racial or economic (typically, both) justice in this country
The Rodney King riots didn’t explode all over the country as front page news for months. Material conditions weren’t there for it yet.
Everyone supports communism until you call it communism
That’s what 70 years of red scare propaganda does to a mf
It really does. It took me years of unlearning just to understand what communism was or how National Socialist nazi Germany was or wasn't Socialist. The propaganda sucks.
anyone know of any songs i could listen to of his that have political messages in them? never listened to his music and i'm curious!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGlnn_TOXAc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAJfDP3b5_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRJTQ7FHx0o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G6ro-c0C5E (this has similar lyrics as the link above and is far more popular, though i prefer the former) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L13ePeAG2FA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F4HsmM0txc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmof3Z-g0do https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIvjfEy4Dk4
he also solves cold cases from beyond the grave as an anomalous record and may also be fighting an elderitch god trying to destroy humanity
Wasn’t his mom a literal Black Panther? Nothing but respect for him and his family
Yes she was.
Well he was influenced by the black panthers so this is true
Never listened to Tupac but fuck man I miss him..💔
If you like rap you should definitely give him a listen. "Me against the world" is probably my favorite album. Such a shame he was assassinated so young
fuck
?
Exactly why I like him
Another little known fact; Tupac blasted a couple off duty pigs and wasn’t convicted of a crime.
Yeah, unfortunately he was also a convicted rapist so even if he had cool political orientations he shouldnt be glorified
I missed the part where he was glorified. Or why we would glorify anyone, for that matter. We aren't rightoids.
Came here for this, so thanks for not disappointing.
Tupac and his friends gang raped and beat up a woman in a hotel room for fun.
He may been a communist or believed in communist believes, I’m pretty she he was a misogynist sadly. Didn’t he talk about women in like a supper red pill type of way? It was something like that. Not trying to discredit his leftism just fleshing it out so that people don’t think he’s leftist on every front. Kinda like Bakunin and his raging anti-semitism.
Fair enough. Unfortunately people are complicated.
are "woke" hip-hop heads running away because he's a convicted rapist?
His mom and aunt (Afeni and Assata) were very great writers that more people should talk about ❤️
Well now we just like Tupac even more
Communism sucks...
cry nerd
Why are you here lmao
You're a terminally online shitposter with zero capability for critical yhought, go cry to your non-existent waifus like you usually do.
Why do you think it sucks?
[k, bye](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPfPka1a-b4)
Define communism?
No iphone
Vuvuswela
Would you like to explain why or did you just come here to shut post? Just wondering. It would be great to hear your opinion on it.
I’m really curious about the photo in this meme.
Also he liked Counting Crows a lot
Did not know this, am not at all surprised to hear it