Love this! You write like an MC. I also wonder who is attracted to hip hop as an art form or career path and why? I feel like it's people swayed by capitalism or patriarchy more so than seeing the potential of the art form to say "fuck the police." Or of course, those are probably the only rappers getting signed and paid. I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions.
Thanks Tess!!!! I be trying to put the pen to pad! I hate when people write about exciting topics in boring ways. Re: why ppl become rappers -- its such a good question. Idk. On my optimistic days Im so encourage that the genre is so popular, and every kid grows up wanting to becoming a poet. But there is so much money in it now, I know a lot of folks are probs more enticed what rap can bring than the art form itself.
Thanks!! I don’t know if you read Paul Beatty, but I’m inspired a lot by his style. My fav book of his is The Sellout, but I think you would like his other one Slumberland too, cuz it’s all about music, community, and freedom. Honestly I want to read, but I need to practice first. I don’t want to be stumbling. I thought about asking one of my friends who has a deeper voice to read for me, but that would be doing a lot 😂😂😂
Afeni Shakur, speaking of freedom, once illustrated how freedom is relative. That to a hungry man, freedom is a meal. To a homeless man freedom is a warm place to sleep, and that to a sick man freedom is medication.
The fact is, not everyone can be a rapper, and every business needs employees who make minimum wage to function. When the alternative to minimum wage is starvation and homelessness, that minimum wage job does, in fact, represent freedom.
People do not have the same talents, abilities, skillsets, and temperaments. Not everyone can run a company, not everyone can create one, not everyone can stomach the risk of not being paid some months, some people need the stability that comes with formal employment. Others, just need an income at all and would take it regardless of the form of labour it would take to get it.
J.Cole has a line in “See World” that goes:
“Either you play the game or watch the game play you/And be that broke motherfucker talkin’ bout ‘I stayed true’”
So even for rappers, at some point signing a contract, which can be considered “selling out”, would grant you the freedom to feed your family and pay your bills
In South Africa we have a rapper called Nasty C, he raps in English in 90%+ of his music so I highly recommend him, if you're going to listen to him start with his Price City mixtape, which he released as a teenager. Anyway on Price City he regularly makes lines about how he hates contracts and won't sign one. He then got offered over a million to sign to a record label, which he did. The next interview he got was from a veteran rapper on TV who wanted to clown him for signing, because he had been clowning them for signing all along. It was a very subtle moment where the veteran then welcomes him to manhood, showing him the difference between rapping as a young teenager, and rapping when there's bills to pay.
Like J.Cole says on Crunch Time, "shits real dawg, a nigga got bills”. Commercialisation of any craft is necessary for the artists to be able to live. Some, like Joey Bada$$, Kendrick, and Cole have managed to stay true to their art even when they made commercially viable music. Drake, the quintessential commercial rapper, is probably about to sign the largest deal of any artist in history. Kendrick and Cole were signed for most of their careers, thats allowed Cole to start his own label and be the boss in it. In one way or another, everyone sells out, in order to sell their product or skill
Thanks so much for reading and for the thoughtful comment! You provide a really good description of the economic status quo. The line of thinking I'm trying to highlight with this piece is rooted in Black intellectuals who question structural labor domination.
For example, do we have to live in an economy in which as you say “the alternative to minimum wage is starvation and homelessness”?
I don't think so.
I’m interested in the economic thinking that comes out of the experience of slavery, and one of the things that I've noticed is that they often put justice at the center of theories for organizing the economy. Through access to public lands, homesteads, universal basic income etc, it is possible to build a labor regime that does not use poverty and hunger to compel people into jobs that would not otherwise do.
It is one of the questions at the heart of mutualism and cooperative economics --how to structure an economy truly built on consensual and not coerced labor. Its a bigger question than I can get at in this one piece, but its a theme that I'm interested in exploring more broadly.
It was an interesting read, I can see where you're coming from. I personally think that everything is a trade, no one is going to give any value without something in exchange. Universal basic income is something multiple initiatives are working on and might be something we see in our lifetimes, but at what cost? I've read about an economic model where no one pays for housing and badic necessities, and most people would not be compelled to work because AI will have automated most functions. But even then, people will pay with invasions of privacy, lack of private property, and and enslavement to the oligarchs who own and control the AI that runs the world and provides these very conditions. Poverty will then be relative, and the Inequality gap between the haves and the UBS recipients will be astronomical. The prospects of catching up will be slim to none. There'll also be no democracy, because humans would be deemed too corruptible for government roles and AI will do it. That means people will lose the ability to participate in how their countries are run.
I don't think humans will be able to function if all their needs are simply handed to them, human nature makes us unsuitable for that level of comfort and inactivity. So economically it would be a win, but socially and psychologically it would be disastrous. We'd see a scourge in war and suicides, and virtually no innovation because the incentive would be taken away.
Have you heard of Henry George? He wrote this book called Progress and Poverty during the industrial revolution that kind of agrees with your first point and proposes an solution to the second. Basically, even in the 19th century, anti-capitalists like George began to argue that automation tended to worsen inequality, not ameliorate it. And George's proposed solution was basically that you can't charge for things like land and licenses, but you can charge for actual labor you've done.
afeni did not say that freedom is relative. she specifically said that “freedom is an abstract idea to the folk…” meaning that a person cannot realize the concept of freedom until their basic needs have been met. freedom is so much more complex, interconnected, and altruistic than what we have settled for. to quote fannie lou hamer, and other civil rights activists who have echoed similar sentiment, “nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”
everyone shouldn’t have to be a rapper or ceo in order to experience a life without poverty and strife. instead of simply accepting that the current socioeconomic alternative to minimum wage is starvation and homelessness, we should start asking why is that the case? what would a system that provides food, housing, and other resources look like? and not even completely free of cost, but for affordable prices. what would that require from us? what would that require from community? from the state? and why are people so against an equitable system in the first place?
i would argue that it has something to do with the highly propagandized idea that at some point, everyone will have to compromise inter-personal or communal integrity for individual gain. but that fallacy is highlighted when those compromises turn out to be more extractive than lucrative. industries such as music are known for limiting artist’s rights to distribute their own product, without fair compensation. and to this point, a quick google search informed me that nasty c left def jam in 2020 in order to pioneer his own independent distribution label that offers artists control over their rights and 100% of their royalties. even nasty c came to understand that he didn’t need to sell out in order to sell his product or skill. he simply needed to organize.
to my knowledge, afeni did not publish any books herself. but i love her biography “afeni shakur: evolution of a revolutionary” by jasmine guy. its written in a series of conversations between the two of them that read as if you were a fly on the wall; excellently encapsulates the breadth of her story in many of her own words. i am also itching to get my hands on a copy of “look for me in the whirlwind: from the panther 21 to the 21st-century revolutions,” edited by déqui kioni-sadiki. it contains new commentary and unseen poetry by afeni and other surviving members of the 21.
I can't wait to check this out -- also I almost forgot you studied all that super complicated science stuff until you started talking about "poison distribution describing radioactive decay or binomial distribution describing genetic offspring." lolololol 🤯
lmao ive honestly tried my hardest to forget that i studied “that super complicated science stuff.” i hated engineering statistics (and most of my grad level courses for that matter). there are some strict constants in chemistry and biology, but things like models of distribution are quite relative. its still crazy to me that i got through all of my phd classes and qualifying exams before i realized that i would much rather be an artist than a biomedical engineer…
I also didn't say she “said” it's relative, I said she “illustrated” how it's relative. Those are not the same thing, my version is an indication of my interpretation of her words, I then proceeded to explain that interpretation. Your explanation too, is nothing more than your own interpretation. “Nothing's free until everybody's free” is not limited to the Civil Rights movement, it's an old Pan-African ideal which was echoed by Kwame Nkrumah after the liberation of Ghana, when he insisted that the liberation of Ghana was incomplete when other African nations remained under colonial rule.
Why that is the case is easily identifiable, it's capitalism and the hegemony of the wealthiest people over political, economic, and social conditions. It's a system that's been built over multiple centuries across the world, formed in blood, dispossessions, and control mechanisms. People are against equitable systems because the people with the power to enforce them have the most to lose. Also competition is a reailty in every system, humans are no different. The Pareto distribution explains it perfectly, an “equitable” system is always going to be relative, and wherever it is placed, there's always going to be winners and losers because that's just nature. There's never been an exception, anywhere, in history or in nature. So the real question isn't why do they exist, the answer's are evident. The real question is, how do we stop losing, and start becoming better at the game to start winning it. Even with access to education and resources, we are still being “out-organised”, that's the truth. I think it was Bobby Seale who said it in a speech, explaining it perfectly. (The speech in the beggining of Rick Ross's “Tears of Joy” on Teflon Don).
I agree with your argument about compromising communal integrity for individual gain, that’s how capitalism teaches people to think, it's also how Lynch taught slave owners to run plantations, and was also a key instrument of the Apartheid regimes tactics. We know all of this, yet we still fail to organise ourselves effectively to challenge the whole system as a collective.
The label I was referring to with Nasty C was Mabala Noise, not Def Jam. He only signed with Def Jam much later, after that original deal didn't work out. People at the bottom of the food chain in organisations are all exploited, all of them. Even lawyers in the beggining of their careers and interns in multinational corporations. But they're still needed, and those might be the stepping stones to eventual ownership
touché, and thank you for the clarification. you’ve made some very interesting points, but i dont want to stray so far away from the thesis of this essay so i will only speak to two of them.
“it's capitalism and the hegemony of the wealthiest people over political, economic, and social conditions. It's a system that's been built over multiple centuries across the world, formed in blood, dispossessions, and control mechanisms. People are against equitable systems because the people with the power to enforce them have the most to lose.” having said this, could you believe that these systems dont exist because the powers that be dont want them to? i think we are less out-organized and moreso out-violenced. whenever an attempt at a more equitable infrastructure is put in place, particularly in a black or brown country, it is met with a us (or other national power)-backed coup and militarized puppet regime. e.g. guatemala in 1954 when president jacobo árbenz guzmán’s expropriation and redistribution of unused farmland to the impoverished through local agrarian committees threatened the united fruit company’s monopoly. so the us wrigley company divested from guatemalan chicle, the us navy enforced an armed blockade, and the cia trained exiled military colonel castillo armas and his foot soldiers to launch a ground assault; thus forcing árbenz guzmán’s resignation and replacement by armas. there are various other examples across the globe that im sure youre aware of. not to say that any of these leaders were perfect, but they were all attempting something that is very much possible.
and the pareto distribution, like any other probability distribution, is merely a mathematical analysis of an observable phenomena. there are cases in nature that are better explained by other distributions e.g. poisson distribution describing radioactive decay or binomial distribution describing genetic offspring. but unlike the examples above, landownership and wealth are not chemically or biologically fixed. sure there may be winners and losers in nature (im assuming that youre speaking to “survival of the fittest” or a similar concept), but there is no scientific or mathematic principle that states that the “vital few” of the population must hoard wealth over the “useful many”. overall, i think we are in agreement that the system requires change, i just want to challenge us to push the boundaries of what that change could consist of.
“we are less out-organized and moreso out-violenced.” — hit me like a gut punch. I think about this a lot whenever I read about COINTELPRO or all the assassinations of the 60s. What movement could survive that?
Yes, that's true, same thing happened with illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe by the West after Mugabe expropriated land from white former colonists. I mention a few others in my article where I discussed Kendrick Lamar’s “How Much A Dollar Cost” somewhere on Substack. There are many examples from the Spanish, Portuguese, and French also. Basically the former colonial powers all replayed the same tactics of neo-colonialism.
What that change could consist of subject to ideological differences which people are always going to have. I don't believe that there's a blanket solution that's applicable to every country on earth. Every country has a unique history and context within which equitable solutions must be found, so I think every country has to factor theirs in before coming with solutions to such problems. Realistically though, that type of change will need a very well resourced military victory, because “the powers that be” will never suddenly grow a conscience and seek fairness and equality. The predators, as they always have, will always feed on the prey.
Very important work here Aaron nice job. These are themes and ideas that I wrestled with a lot and it’s greatly appreciated to see you as reflected, and taken seriously. To unpack the irony? Not sure what you would call this sort of thing. I listening to college dropout working at Burger King writing rhymes on recept paper listing to Nas instrumentals. That job opened my eyes to the need for adequate pay … i can go on and on, thank you for your work in words. Very brave converstions we are having and it makes me hopful for the collective.
Thanks for reading bro! I’m right there with you. Something I was thinking about when I was working on this was the similarities between rappers first albums and slave narratives — I feel like they are in the same genre, like they use gritty imagery to shock the audience into political consciousness and illuminate the horrors of racial capitalism.
Like emotionally I got the same feeling listening to Nas Illmatatic the first time as I did reading the autobiography of Fredrick Douglass.
Rap can radicalizing when it’s raw, i remember listening to J Cole mixtapes while working at QT like this ain’t it lol — but yeah irony is the word. Capitalism is full of contradictions and I think one of it tricks is to turn icons of rebellion into walking contradictions
I love that connection that you made with Frederick Douglas. I definitely think that that sort of structure exist in hip-hop. I love Frederick Douglas‘s in the life and times and ironically, he was the most photographed individual during this time and then you have Jay-Z dropping the in the life and times album. So much to be impacted. I draw on Douglas in my writing too, especially around the notion of stealing oneself or stealing time to write while having to work a 9 to 5. That scene in 12 years a slave (the movie) when he finally gets a pencil and a paper to write. Such a powerful scene and always comes to mind in these sort of conversation.
Seeing quotes out of "From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth" in a hip hop piece is the kind of storytelling I didn't even know our movements need. As a solidarity economy guy who appreciates the music but not what capitalism's turned it into, you've given us a gift here. I've been excited for you to start dropping stuff for a while now. But this is next level man! NBA players next lol??
I believe once they started giving artists their own record label imprints it was the beginning of the end for being anti the system. These artists are the system, exploiting labor and signing people to the same deals they complain about (Ye & GOOD Music)
Beyond the obvious product placement and promotion the system has put black people in positions to take advantage of each other
It’s just one of those things that I started noticing as more imprints started popping up from rappers with not many success stories
Damn bruh, I mourned the good old days of hip hop while simultaneously “joining your fight” in keeping hip hop alive. It’s so funny I am aware of these things, but how you arranged your words and your feelings just gave me a fresh perspective. I feel exposed and questioning how I could carry the exact feelings about the industry, but I’ve also been naive. A capitalistic slave even, buying into the same nonsense. I knew, but also didn’t know how deep I was in too. Bravo! Beautiful written. And thanks, I’m up!
Thanks for reading! Yeah, you know it’s hard to critique something you love, but at the same time you critique it because you love it. Hip-hop has got us all caught up honestly lol — but I think the art form still has a lot of radical potential too
This is so smart and so insightful, probably the best thing I've ever read on this app. My spidey sense says this shift in Black music - because the decimation of R&B is VERY noticeable to me - was intentional. It's giving policing of drums. So excited to read what you write next.
Aaron, this is truly a brilliant piece. I'm teaching a course this fall called,"Discourse on Hip Hop: Social Contexts & Commodification". I think this article would fit brilliantly in one of the modules. Would you mind if I add this to my syllabus? Also, let me know if you'd be interested in speaking to my undergraduate students via a guest lecture via Zoom as well.
Great work on this, Aaron! This piece reminds me of Ol ‘Ye on Spaceship from TCD. “I been working this grave shift, and I ain’t made s***, I wish I could, buy me a spaceship and fly…”. The precarious, extractive pinch of wage labor is, at times, quite well captured on that song.
I see you came out swinging with this first article of "Freedom Studies". Okay, let's argue. capitalism, as we've come to know of in the Western hemisphere is a
dominant, exploitation of means where privately owned corporations and systems drive production and income. The illusion that we're all benefiting from rapid increases in economic inequality, while most of us are beholden in a capitalist economy where we're systematically paid less than the value of our work including artists. The only individuals that "win" within this system are those supplying the things that others are willing to pay for. It's this coercive language in music and outside of the industry reinforcing conformity and obedience leading people to believe this will solve their economic problems. I guess the question one must ask is, how do we mobilize resources and labour in ways far beyond the reach of a system so deeply entrenched into the fabric of an individuals lives? Also, are there examples of revolutionary, and disruptive movements that not only challenged capitalism, and the systems that uphold its structure, but enabled people to create something different?
Shavaughn you getting into the nitty gritty, I love it! These are all questions I’m still exploring. In terms of what a different world could look like, one book I come back to is The Practical Utopians: American Workers and the Cooperative Movement in the Gilded Age — it looks how America has created in the past, cooperative towns. Where the banks, housing, shops, and grocers were all owned by workers/villagers. Not bosses/ investors /monopolist.
And in terms of more contemporary examples, most people point to Mondragon in Spain as the gold standard. I want to go one day so I can see what it’s like in person. But it’s a federation of worker co-ops, over 70,000 worker owners. It’s worth tens of billions in revenue. And the workers basically own the lil region they live in and operate the co-ops for collective and communal benefit.
It’s supposed to be the model Cooperate Jackson is using for a blueprint in Mississippi. But I often dream of what type of luxurious public goods American workers could endow upon ourselves if we were in control of our multitrillion economy.
For a lot of ppl Mondragon is proof that you can have advanced manufacturing and other profitable, heavy industries cooperatively owned.
In terms of this hip-hop piece, idk if it’s too much to ask, but I wonder what it would look like if rappers acted on their anti-wage sentiments. Like what if instead of Rick Ross buying Wing Stops where he violated child labor laws and minimum wage laws, what if he partnered with the US Federation of Workers co-ops where everyone could be the boss? I think there is an opportunity to create political symmetry between rappers art and their business, if they support worker co-ops.
I just looked up Mondragon and holy shxt! One of the largest corporations in Spain. It operates throughout the world, with 104 production plants in 37 countries, commercial business in 53, and sales in more than 150?!
I'm definitely going to look into this further. I wrote about cooperative structures awhile back for the purpose of examining ways to build banks, financing solutions to grow and scale emerging companies, even investment models.
In relation to hip hop, I believe we can do a better job discussing entrepreneurship and investing from a non capitalistic lens of "getting the bag" and here's a short cut to get there. Rarely is group economics and cooperative infrastructures included in these conversations.
If, R.R had access to that knowledge, would he explore a cooperative model or would the wing stop franchise not allow it?
I still believe we need more think tanks, rather than conferences. Not saying we should totally do away with conferences but with a focus on research organizations comprised of everyone from experts to scholars, scientists, and former policymakers, to everyday people. We can bridge the gap between academic research and real-world solutions, government and business decisions.
Hard agree!! Mondragon seems so dope. Idk if it’s all hype, but they say they don’t have poverty and homeless over there like that — so it’s exciting think about what life could be like if we all had a fair share of wealth and power. Also I love your think tank idea! Maybe we can combine them with the conferences, where like the conferences are only to present what the think tanks have been working on or something 😂
1) I’d recommend the books “Socialist Reconstruction: A Better Future for the United States” by Party for Socialism and Liberation, also “Mutual Aid” by Dean Spade, and “Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care” by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba. The 1st two are along your question of building alternatives in capitalist space. Especially for current times. The latter is not a to-do per se, but I found valuable in the reality of organizing work. It’s called struggle for a reason. Difficult to carry out this work even WITH 100% committed people and resources; which is rarely the case. The book was a good reminder of why it’s imperative to do it in community.
2) There are many examples of revolutionary, and disruptive movements that not only challenged capitalism, and the systems that uphold its structure, but enabled people to create something different
…..2) there are many examples of “revolutionary, and disruptive movements that not only challenged capitalism, and the systems that uphold its structure, but enabled people to create something different”
The Zapatistas in Mexico, the Bolshevik revolution, the Cuban revolution, the Haitian revolution, and to some extent even the Black Panthers Survival Programs pending Revolution. A big problem is the violence unleashed by the state that makes it difficult to maintain. The monopolized state violence and all of the other resources marshaled against revolutionary organizing (legal, political, media, cultural, etc.) (1) make it challenging to sustain and (2) serves as a deterrent against future organizing and recruiting. “Y’all seen what they did to Malcolm or Martin, or so and so” or the incarceration of political revolutionaries. In light of these realities, for many of us, it’s easier to “get the bag” or go along to get along. If I can get my time off or chill on the weekends, not so bad, right? And tactics like consumerism mentioned by the author further serve to quell radical political organizing.
There's a quote in Leroy's book, from the 1869 Colored National Labor Convention, "It should be the aim of every man to become a capitalist; that is, every man should try to receive an exchange for this labor, which.... will, in the future, place him in the position of those he is now dependent for a living."
I feel like whichever way you paint it, that's a strain of thought within hip hop that's been commercialized most, and it is certainly at play here.
Thank god I missed that Busta Rhymes Wal Mart commercial somehow. I'm sure it was as terrible as I imagine it....
Please watch the Busta Rhymes commercial— it’s so bad it’s good. They shoot it like a music video and have Walmart employees dancing like they in a Black fraternity lmaoooo
Also, I love Leroy’s book so much. It feels like divine intervention that it came out as I started this blog. I hope he or other writers continue his project of documenting Black intellectuals’ economic philosophy of freedom.
I kind of long for a book that is like Eric Foner’s The Story of American Freedom, which looks at the idea and definition of liberty from colonialism to today. But I feel like if we had a book like that for black thinkers, like with Leroy’s focus on economic freedom, I think we’d a comprehensive vision of something like Abolition Democracy across the decades.
Love this! You write like an MC. I also wonder who is attracted to hip hop as an art form or career path and why? I feel like it's people swayed by capitalism or patriarchy more so than seeing the potential of the art form to say "fuck the police." Or of course, those are probably the only rappers getting signed and paid. I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions.
Thanks Tess!!!! I be trying to put the pen to pad! I hate when people write about exciting topics in boring ways. Re: why ppl become rappers -- its such a good question. Idk. On my optimistic days Im so encourage that the genre is so popular, and every kid grows up wanting to becoming a poet. But there is so much money in it now, I know a lot of folks are probs more enticed what rap can bring than the art form itself.
Aaron, no pressure, but when we getting the public reading?! Love the musicallity of the words on this joint. Solid work!
Thanks!! I don’t know if you read Paul Beatty, but I’m inspired a lot by his style. My fav book of his is The Sellout, but I think you would like his other one Slumberland too, cuz it’s all about music, community, and freedom. Honestly I want to read, but I need to practice first. I don’t want to be stumbling. I thought about asking one of my friends who has a deeper voice to read for me, but that would be doing a lot 😂😂😂
I need to check out Beatty’s work. The great thing about this is you can always return back to it and record it in the future. Nice work. 🙌🏽
Afeni Shakur, speaking of freedom, once illustrated how freedom is relative. That to a hungry man, freedom is a meal. To a homeless man freedom is a warm place to sleep, and that to a sick man freedom is medication.
The fact is, not everyone can be a rapper, and every business needs employees who make minimum wage to function. When the alternative to minimum wage is starvation and homelessness, that minimum wage job does, in fact, represent freedom.
People do not have the same talents, abilities, skillsets, and temperaments. Not everyone can run a company, not everyone can create one, not everyone can stomach the risk of not being paid some months, some people need the stability that comes with formal employment. Others, just need an income at all and would take it regardless of the form of labour it would take to get it.
J.Cole has a line in “See World” that goes:
“Either you play the game or watch the game play you/And be that broke motherfucker talkin’ bout ‘I stayed true’”
So even for rappers, at some point signing a contract, which can be considered “selling out”, would grant you the freedom to feed your family and pay your bills
In South Africa we have a rapper called Nasty C, he raps in English in 90%+ of his music so I highly recommend him, if you're going to listen to him start with his Price City mixtape, which he released as a teenager. Anyway on Price City he regularly makes lines about how he hates contracts and won't sign one. He then got offered over a million to sign to a record label, which he did. The next interview he got was from a veteran rapper on TV who wanted to clown him for signing, because he had been clowning them for signing all along. It was a very subtle moment where the veteran then welcomes him to manhood, showing him the difference between rapping as a young teenager, and rapping when there's bills to pay.
Like J.Cole says on Crunch Time, "shits real dawg, a nigga got bills”. Commercialisation of any craft is necessary for the artists to be able to live. Some, like Joey Bada$$, Kendrick, and Cole have managed to stay true to their art even when they made commercially viable music. Drake, the quintessential commercial rapper, is probably about to sign the largest deal of any artist in history. Kendrick and Cole were signed for most of their careers, thats allowed Cole to start his own label and be the boss in it. In one way or another, everyone sells out, in order to sell their product or skill
Thanks so much for reading and for the thoughtful comment! You provide a really good description of the economic status quo. The line of thinking I'm trying to highlight with this piece is rooted in Black intellectuals who question structural labor domination.
For example, do we have to live in an economy in which as you say “the alternative to minimum wage is starvation and homelessness”?
I don't think so.
I’m interested in the economic thinking that comes out of the experience of slavery, and one of the things that I've noticed is that they often put justice at the center of theories for organizing the economy. Through access to public lands, homesteads, universal basic income etc, it is possible to build a labor regime that does not use poverty and hunger to compel people into jobs that would not otherwise do.
It is one of the questions at the heart of mutualism and cooperative economics --how to structure an economy truly built on consensual and not coerced labor. Its a bigger question than I can get at in this one piece, but its a theme that I'm interested in exploring more broadly.
It was an interesting read, I can see where you're coming from. I personally think that everything is a trade, no one is going to give any value without something in exchange. Universal basic income is something multiple initiatives are working on and might be something we see in our lifetimes, but at what cost? I've read about an economic model where no one pays for housing and badic necessities, and most people would not be compelled to work because AI will have automated most functions. But even then, people will pay with invasions of privacy, lack of private property, and and enslavement to the oligarchs who own and control the AI that runs the world and provides these very conditions. Poverty will then be relative, and the Inequality gap between the haves and the UBS recipients will be astronomical. The prospects of catching up will be slim to none. There'll also be no democracy, because humans would be deemed too corruptible for government roles and AI will do it. That means people will lose the ability to participate in how their countries are run.
I don't think humans will be able to function if all their needs are simply handed to them, human nature makes us unsuitable for that level of comfort and inactivity. So economically it would be a win, but socially and psychologically it would be disastrous. We'd see a scourge in war and suicides, and virtually no innovation because the incentive would be taken away.
Have you heard of Henry George? He wrote this book called Progress and Poverty during the industrial revolution that kind of agrees with your first point and proposes an solution to the second. Basically, even in the 19th century, anti-capitalists like George began to argue that automation tended to worsen inequality, not ameliorate it. And George's proposed solution was basically that you can't charge for things like land and licenses, but you can charge for actual labor you've done.
It's just one of many alternatives to both capitalism and Marxism, and it's fun to think about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
I’ve heard of him in passing, but I need to check him out more deeply!
afeni did not say that freedom is relative. she specifically said that “freedom is an abstract idea to the folk…” meaning that a person cannot realize the concept of freedom until their basic needs have been met. freedom is so much more complex, interconnected, and altruistic than what we have settled for. to quote fannie lou hamer, and other civil rights activists who have echoed similar sentiment, “nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”
everyone shouldn’t have to be a rapper or ceo in order to experience a life without poverty and strife. instead of simply accepting that the current socioeconomic alternative to minimum wage is starvation and homelessness, we should start asking why is that the case? what would a system that provides food, housing, and other resources look like? and not even completely free of cost, but for affordable prices. what would that require from us? what would that require from community? from the state? and why are people so against an equitable system in the first place?
i would argue that it has something to do with the highly propagandized idea that at some point, everyone will have to compromise inter-personal or communal integrity for individual gain. but that fallacy is highlighted when those compromises turn out to be more extractive than lucrative. industries such as music are known for limiting artist’s rights to distribute their own product, without fair compensation. and to this point, a quick google search informed me that nasty c left def jam in 2020 in order to pioneer his own independent distribution label that offers artists control over their rights and 100% of their royalties. even nasty c came to understand that he didn’t need to sell out in order to sell his product or skill. he simply needed to organize.
Thanks for reading!! You know I have never read any Afeni Shakur, and now I feel like I really need to lol — any recommendations for where to start?
to my knowledge, afeni did not publish any books herself. but i love her biography “afeni shakur: evolution of a revolutionary” by jasmine guy. its written in a series of conversations between the two of them that read as if you were a fly on the wall; excellently encapsulates the breadth of her story in many of her own words. i am also itching to get my hands on a copy of “look for me in the whirlwind: from the panther 21 to the 21st-century revolutions,” edited by déqui kioni-sadiki. it contains new commentary and unseen poetry by afeni and other surviving members of the 21.
I can't wait to check this out -- also I almost forgot you studied all that super complicated science stuff until you started talking about "poison distribution describing radioactive decay or binomial distribution describing genetic offspring." lolololol 🤯
lmao ive honestly tried my hardest to forget that i studied “that super complicated science stuff.” i hated engineering statistics (and most of my grad level courses for that matter). there are some strict constants in chemistry and biology, but things like models of distribution are quite relative. its still crazy to me that i got through all of my phd classes and qualifying exams before i realized that i would much rather be an artist than a biomedical engineer…
I also didn't say she “said” it's relative, I said she “illustrated” how it's relative. Those are not the same thing, my version is an indication of my interpretation of her words, I then proceeded to explain that interpretation. Your explanation too, is nothing more than your own interpretation. “Nothing's free until everybody's free” is not limited to the Civil Rights movement, it's an old Pan-African ideal which was echoed by Kwame Nkrumah after the liberation of Ghana, when he insisted that the liberation of Ghana was incomplete when other African nations remained under colonial rule.
Why that is the case is easily identifiable, it's capitalism and the hegemony of the wealthiest people over political, economic, and social conditions. It's a system that's been built over multiple centuries across the world, formed in blood, dispossessions, and control mechanisms. People are against equitable systems because the people with the power to enforce them have the most to lose. Also competition is a reailty in every system, humans are no different. The Pareto distribution explains it perfectly, an “equitable” system is always going to be relative, and wherever it is placed, there's always going to be winners and losers because that's just nature. There's never been an exception, anywhere, in history or in nature. So the real question isn't why do they exist, the answer's are evident. The real question is, how do we stop losing, and start becoming better at the game to start winning it. Even with access to education and resources, we are still being “out-organised”, that's the truth. I think it was Bobby Seale who said it in a speech, explaining it perfectly. (The speech in the beggining of Rick Ross's “Tears of Joy” on Teflon Don).
I agree with your argument about compromising communal integrity for individual gain, that’s how capitalism teaches people to think, it's also how Lynch taught slave owners to run plantations, and was also a key instrument of the Apartheid regimes tactics. We know all of this, yet we still fail to organise ourselves effectively to challenge the whole system as a collective.
The label I was referring to with Nasty C was Mabala Noise, not Def Jam. He only signed with Def Jam much later, after that original deal didn't work out. People at the bottom of the food chain in organisations are all exploited, all of them. Even lawyers in the beggining of their careers and interns in multinational corporations. But they're still needed, and those might be the stepping stones to eventual ownership
touché, and thank you for the clarification. you’ve made some very interesting points, but i dont want to stray so far away from the thesis of this essay so i will only speak to two of them.
“it's capitalism and the hegemony of the wealthiest people over political, economic, and social conditions. It's a system that's been built over multiple centuries across the world, formed in blood, dispossessions, and control mechanisms. People are against equitable systems because the people with the power to enforce them have the most to lose.” having said this, could you believe that these systems dont exist because the powers that be dont want them to? i think we are less out-organized and moreso out-violenced. whenever an attempt at a more equitable infrastructure is put in place, particularly in a black or brown country, it is met with a us (or other national power)-backed coup and militarized puppet regime. e.g. guatemala in 1954 when president jacobo árbenz guzmán’s expropriation and redistribution of unused farmland to the impoverished through local agrarian committees threatened the united fruit company’s monopoly. so the us wrigley company divested from guatemalan chicle, the us navy enforced an armed blockade, and the cia trained exiled military colonel castillo armas and his foot soldiers to launch a ground assault; thus forcing árbenz guzmán’s resignation and replacement by armas. there are various other examples across the globe that im sure youre aware of. not to say that any of these leaders were perfect, but they were all attempting something that is very much possible.
and the pareto distribution, like any other probability distribution, is merely a mathematical analysis of an observable phenomena. there are cases in nature that are better explained by other distributions e.g. poisson distribution describing radioactive decay or binomial distribution describing genetic offspring. but unlike the examples above, landownership and wealth are not chemically or biologically fixed. sure there may be winners and losers in nature (im assuming that youre speaking to “survival of the fittest” or a similar concept), but there is no scientific or mathematic principle that states that the “vital few” of the population must hoard wealth over the “useful many”. overall, i think we are in agreement that the system requires change, i just want to challenge us to push the boundaries of what that change could consist of.
“we are less out-organized and moreso out-violenced.” — hit me like a gut punch. I think about this a lot whenever I read about COINTELPRO or all the assassinations of the 60s. What movement could survive that?
Yes, that's true, same thing happened with illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe by the West after Mugabe expropriated land from white former colonists. I mention a few others in my article where I discussed Kendrick Lamar’s “How Much A Dollar Cost” somewhere on Substack. There are many examples from the Spanish, Portuguese, and French also. Basically the former colonial powers all replayed the same tactics of neo-colonialism.
What that change could consist of subject to ideological differences which people are always going to have. I don't believe that there's a blanket solution that's applicable to every country on earth. Every country has a unique history and context within which equitable solutions must be found, so I think every country has to factor theirs in before coming with solutions to such problems. Realistically though, that type of change will need a very well resourced military victory, because “the powers that be” will never suddenly grow a conscience and seek fairness and equality. The predators, as they always have, will always feed on the prey.
Very important work here Aaron nice job. These are themes and ideas that I wrestled with a lot and it’s greatly appreciated to see you as reflected, and taken seriously. To unpack the irony? Not sure what you would call this sort of thing. I listening to college dropout working at Burger King writing rhymes on recept paper listing to Nas instrumentals. That job opened my eyes to the need for adequate pay … i can go on and on, thank you for your work in words. Very brave converstions we are having and it makes me hopful for the collective.
Thanks for reading bro! I’m right there with you. Something I was thinking about when I was working on this was the similarities between rappers first albums and slave narratives — I feel like they are in the same genre, like they use gritty imagery to shock the audience into political consciousness and illuminate the horrors of racial capitalism.
Like emotionally I got the same feeling listening to Nas Illmatatic the first time as I did reading the autobiography of Fredrick Douglass.
Rap can radicalizing when it’s raw, i remember listening to J Cole mixtapes while working at QT like this ain’t it lol — but yeah irony is the word. Capitalism is full of contradictions and I think one of it tricks is to turn icons of rebellion into walking contradictions
I love that connection that you made with Frederick Douglas. I definitely think that that sort of structure exist in hip-hop. I love Frederick Douglas‘s in the life and times and ironically, he was the most photographed individual during this time and then you have Jay-Z dropping the in the life and times album. So much to be impacted. I draw on Douglas in my writing too, especially around the notion of stealing oneself or stealing time to write while having to work a 9 to 5. That scene in 12 years a slave (the movie) when he finally gets a pencil and a paper to write. Such a powerful scene and always comes to mind in these sort of conversation.
Seeing quotes out of "From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth" in a hip hop piece is the kind of storytelling I didn't even know our movements need. As a solidarity economy guy who appreciates the music but not what capitalism's turned it into, you've given us a gift here. I've been excited for you to start dropping stuff for a while now. But this is next level man! NBA players next lol??
That book is so good, I wish it were more popular, I quote it every opportunity I get
Saw you mention Co-op Jackson below. They put out a dope crowdsourced book a couple years ago if you haven't seen it already https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1188
I have the original, but I need to get the redux!
You know I have a line I wanna write about nba players super max contracts vs super max prisons but I can never figure out the right context 😂
Ohhhhh shit 😳
I believe once they started giving artists their own record label imprints it was the beginning of the end for being anti the system. These artists are the system, exploiting labor and signing people to the same deals they complain about (Ye & GOOD Music)
Beyond the obvious product placement and promotion the system has put black people in positions to take advantage of each other
It’s just one of those things that I started noticing as more imprints started popping up from rappers with not many success stories
loved this, thank you
Thanks for taking the time to read it! And for the comment!
Damn bruh, I mourned the good old days of hip hop while simultaneously “joining your fight” in keeping hip hop alive. It’s so funny I am aware of these things, but how you arranged your words and your feelings just gave me a fresh perspective. I feel exposed and questioning how I could carry the exact feelings about the industry, but I’ve also been naive. A capitalistic slave even, buying into the same nonsense. I knew, but also didn’t know how deep I was in too. Bravo! Beautiful written. And thanks, I’m up!
Thanks for reading! Yeah, you know it’s hard to critique something you love, but at the same time you critique it because you love it. Hip-hop has got us all caught up honestly lol — but I think the art form still has a lot of radical potential too
This is so smart and so insightful, probably the best thing I've ever read on this app. My spidey sense says this shift in Black music - because the decimation of R&B is VERY noticeable to me - was intentional. It's giving policing of drums. So excited to read what you write next.
Policing of the drums is exactly it! Thanks so much for reading, and for the kind words, it means A LOT! 🤓😁
On point critique.
Thanks for reading 😁!
Aaron, this is truly a brilliant piece. I'm teaching a course this fall called,"Discourse on Hip Hop: Social Contexts & Commodification". I think this article would fit brilliantly in one of the modules. Would you mind if I add this to my syllabus? Also, let me know if you'd be interested in speaking to my undergraduate students via a guest lecture via Zoom as well.
Hey Kevin, thanks for reading! Yeah, that sounds dope. Would love to be on your syllabus & talk to your students!
Excellent, I'll direct message you now.
Excellent, I'll message you now.
golly, what a read. thank you for your work; this was an incredible read.
Thanks for reading 😁!
This is good shit. I started writing a more substantive comment then thought it better as a restack.
Thanks for reading and sharing! 😎😁
Great work on this, Aaron! This piece reminds me of Ol ‘Ye on Spaceship from TCD. “I been working this grave shift, and I ain’t made s***, I wish I could, buy me a spaceship and fly…”. The precarious, extractive pinch of wage labor is, at times, quite well captured on that song.
Thanks!! That song is a classic, might have to add it to the list of secular hymns lolololol
I see you came out swinging with this first article of "Freedom Studies". Okay, let's argue. capitalism, as we've come to know of in the Western hemisphere is a
dominant, exploitation of means where privately owned corporations and systems drive production and income. The illusion that we're all benefiting from rapid increases in economic inequality, while most of us are beholden in a capitalist economy where we're systematically paid less than the value of our work including artists. The only individuals that "win" within this system are those supplying the things that others are willing to pay for. It's this coercive language in music and outside of the industry reinforcing conformity and obedience leading people to believe this will solve their economic problems. I guess the question one must ask is, how do we mobilize resources and labour in ways far beyond the reach of a system so deeply entrenched into the fabric of an individuals lives? Also, are there examples of revolutionary, and disruptive movements that not only challenged capitalism, and the systems that uphold its structure, but enabled people to create something different?
Shavaughn you getting into the nitty gritty, I love it! These are all questions I’m still exploring. In terms of what a different world could look like, one book I come back to is The Practical Utopians: American Workers and the Cooperative Movement in the Gilded Age — it looks how America has created in the past, cooperative towns. Where the banks, housing, shops, and grocers were all owned by workers/villagers. Not bosses/ investors /monopolist.
And in terms of more contemporary examples, most people point to Mondragon in Spain as the gold standard. I want to go one day so I can see what it’s like in person. But it’s a federation of worker co-ops, over 70,000 worker owners. It’s worth tens of billions in revenue. And the workers basically own the lil region they live in and operate the co-ops for collective and communal benefit.
It’s supposed to be the model Cooperate Jackson is using for a blueprint in Mississippi. But I often dream of what type of luxurious public goods American workers could endow upon ourselves if we were in control of our multitrillion economy.
For a lot of ppl Mondragon is proof that you can have advanced manufacturing and other profitable, heavy industries cooperatively owned.
In terms of this hip-hop piece, idk if it’s too much to ask, but I wonder what it would look like if rappers acted on their anti-wage sentiments. Like what if instead of Rick Ross buying Wing Stops where he violated child labor laws and minimum wage laws, what if he partnered with the US Federation of Workers co-ops where everyone could be the boss? I think there is an opportunity to create political symmetry between rappers art and their business, if they support worker co-ops.
I just looked up Mondragon and holy shxt! One of the largest corporations in Spain. It operates throughout the world, with 104 production plants in 37 countries, commercial business in 53, and sales in more than 150?!
I'm definitely going to look into this further. I wrote about cooperative structures awhile back for the purpose of examining ways to build banks, financing solutions to grow and scale emerging companies, even investment models.
In relation to hip hop, I believe we can do a better job discussing entrepreneurship and investing from a non capitalistic lens of "getting the bag" and here's a short cut to get there. Rarely is group economics and cooperative infrastructures included in these conversations.
If, R.R had access to that knowledge, would he explore a cooperative model or would the wing stop franchise not allow it?
I still believe we need more think tanks, rather than conferences. Not saying we should totally do away with conferences but with a focus on research organizations comprised of everyone from experts to scholars, scientists, and former policymakers, to everyday people. We can bridge the gap between academic research and real-world solutions, government and business decisions.
Hard agree!! Mondragon seems so dope. Idk if it’s all hype, but they say they don’t have poverty and homeless over there like that — so it’s exciting think about what life could be like if we all had a fair share of wealth and power. Also I love your think tank idea! Maybe we can combine them with the conferences, where like the conferences are only to present what the think tanks have been working on or something 😂
I definitely would love to explore the options of incorporating think tanks with conferences covering different pillars of research and ideas.
@Shavaughn -
1) I’d recommend the books “Socialist Reconstruction: A Better Future for the United States” by Party for Socialism and Liberation, also “Mutual Aid” by Dean Spade, and “Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care” by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba. The 1st two are along your question of building alternatives in capitalist space. Especially for current times. The latter is not a to-do per se, but I found valuable in the reality of organizing work. It’s called struggle for a reason. Difficult to carry out this work even WITH 100% committed people and resources; which is rarely the case. The book was a good reminder of why it’s imperative to do it in community.
2) There are many examples of revolutionary, and disruptive movements that not only challenged capitalism, and the systems that uphold its structure, but enabled people to create something different
Thank you for the book recommendations
Adding all these to my library reading list!
…..2) there are many examples of “revolutionary, and disruptive movements that not only challenged capitalism, and the systems that uphold its structure, but enabled people to create something different”
The Zapatistas in Mexico, the Bolshevik revolution, the Cuban revolution, the Haitian revolution, and to some extent even the Black Panthers Survival Programs pending Revolution. A big problem is the violence unleashed by the state that makes it difficult to maintain. The monopolized state violence and all of the other resources marshaled against revolutionary organizing (legal, political, media, cultural, etc.) (1) make it challenging to sustain and (2) serves as a deterrent against future organizing and recruiting. “Y’all seen what they did to Malcolm or Martin, or so and so” or the incarceration of political revolutionaries. In light of these realities, for many of us, it’s easier to “get the bag” or go along to get along. If I can get my time off or chill on the weekends, not so bad, right? And tactics like consumerism mentioned by the author further serve to quell radical political organizing.
There's a quote in Leroy's book, from the 1869 Colored National Labor Convention, "It should be the aim of every man to become a capitalist; that is, every man should try to receive an exchange for this labor, which.... will, in the future, place him in the position of those he is now dependent for a living."
I feel like whichever way you paint it, that's a strain of thought within hip hop that's been commercialized most, and it is certainly at play here.
Thank god I missed that Busta Rhymes Wal Mart commercial somehow. I'm sure it was as terrible as I imagine it....
Please watch the Busta Rhymes commercial— it’s so bad it’s good. They shoot it like a music video and have Walmart employees dancing like they in a Black fraternity lmaoooo
Also, I love Leroy’s book so much. It feels like divine intervention that it came out as I started this blog. I hope he or other writers continue his project of documenting Black intellectuals’ economic philosophy of freedom.
I kind of long for a book that is like Eric Foner’s The Story of American Freedom, which looks at the idea and definition of liberty from colonialism to today. But I feel like if we had a book like that for black thinkers, like with Leroy’s focus on economic freedom, I think we’d a comprehensive vision of something like Abolition Democracy across the decades.