Why Won’t More Rappers Stand For Something?
Hip-hop's silence on Palestine is disappointing, but unsurprising.
Photo by Ahmed Abu Hameeda on Unsplash
In September, the decentralized movement No Music For Genocide went live, with artists protesting Israel’s genocide of Palestinians by voluntarily geo-blocking their music from the country. Hip-Hop artists like redveil, Aminé, and MIKE’s 10k Records are participating. Confidentially, I’m aware of at least one other rap act whose label denied their request to block their music. That said, in over 1,000+ acts that’ve signed on, the number of prominent rappers is dishearteningly low. I’m disappointed, yet unsurprised, by NMFG’s dearth of hip-hop presence.
A friend recently showed me a TikTok clip of someone highlighting how, for years, rap songs have explained the socioeconomics of criminality. I’ve said the same thing before: all rap is political. If a song horrifies you, consider how to deter the circumstances that created it. I told her, “Hip-hop is a mirror to society in many ways.” I’ve been pondering those “many ways,” though. Obviously, hip-hop has long held a mirror to the world, serving as our most resonant record of the plight, concerns, and aspirations of Black and Brown people. But more recently, the hip-hop industry (which feigns hip-hop culture) has revealed how the capitalistic pursuit silences people.
A cursory glance at the (increasingly MAGA-controlled) news cycle demonstrates that we’re in a bad time. Alongside the military assault in Palestine (that’s hopefully ended), people in Sudan are facing a famine and genocide, and Congo is systematically being exploited for minerals for us to make gadgets. Stateside, Black men are still being lynched, and ICE is kidnapping people off the streets. But if you paid attention to rap music in the major label sphere, you’d think everything was a 24/7 party. I know that dynamic is evident throughout American music, but I love hip-hop, so I’m specifically talking about hip-hop. It’s not unreasonable for me to wonder why a genre that once proudly spoke truth to power seems so detached from the plight of its consumers.
Even the recent mainstream rap that’s considered substantive tends to be more introspective and observational than overtly antiestablishment. Artists talk about the toll of the drug trade and the streets in general, but I rarely see a diagnosis of why things are the way they are, and who benefits from the inequity, or suggestions on how to reverse the circumstance. I see calls to free artists in prison, but minimal support for Black political prisoners. The prison abolition and defund the police movements also have little intersection with hip-hop, despite so much rap music about the carceral state’s harm.
Artists now have more platforms than ever to speak up beyond music. They all have social media accounts where they take time out to insult each other’s kids and otherwise seek attention. We see artists sitting on new podcast couches every day, standing for nothing.
Because hip-hop artists receive a bad rap from people who don’t see their humanity, I’m inclined to want to meet artists where they are intellectually, to a fault. I understand that many artists come from environments with faltering school systems, where critical race theory is being challenged in red states, and political education is often deprioritized within communities. Black people also have a propensity to ignore issues that we feel don’t directly affect our community. There are many reasons why the average artist isn’t abreast of what’s going on in the world. But when it came to Palestine, there are no excuses at this point. The last round of IDF assault has been up and down social media feeds for several years. And there’s also a long history of Black and Palestinian solidarity.
Last year, on the heels of hip-hop’s so-called 50th birthday, journalist Timmhotep Aku and I reported on the genre losing its radical edge. To be clear, the idea that hip-hop was ever a strictly anti-establishment movement is a romantic farce. Dr. Jared Ball, Ph.D., Professor of Communication and Africana Studies at Morgan State University, told us that, “the condition that [Black and Brown people] find themselves in, capitalism or colonialism or whichever…doesn’t automatically go away because some kids started plugging into streetlights and creating a new art form.” And the piece explains that hip-hop’s first hit, “Rapper’s Delight,” was “born not of some pro-Black altruism but of [singer and record producer] Sylvia Robinson’s impulse to capitalize on a sound from the streets to save her label from bankruptcy.”
From day one, hip-hop’s first benefactors sought to capitalize on the burgeoning culture by funding artists’ studio time and selling light, partygoing music. But those lighter songs were matched by a political consciousness that’s now missing from the mainstream. The industry’s devolved into a cadre of well-off artists who have no problem being corporate mascots for companies seeking to draw in hip-hop consumers; it’s all packaged as Black excellence that every young person should aspire to (and contribute to, lest they’re not pro-Black). And to maintain their opportunity and be privy to that next brand deal, many artists refuse to put anything on the line by challenging the violent power structure.
Obviously, the community hasn’t been completely silent. As I said, some rappers have joined NMFG. At Camp Flog Gnaw 2023, redveil amplified the babies whom the IDF murdered. When I spoke to Icewear Vezzo in January of 2024, he noted, “[if] somebody’s saying, ‘Stop killing civilians,’ they immediately say, ‘You’re antisemitic, and you’re pro-Hamas.’ What the fuck does Hamas got to do with me not wanting to see babies die?” And throughout the indie rap scene, artists have called out Israel and been staunch advocates for Palestine. But the genre’s biggest artists, who have the power to speak to millions of people, have been largely silent. As we see with victims of state-sanctioned violence, entertainers worldwide love hashtags and symbolism, but there have been surprisingly few who’ve simply stated “Free Palestine.” I attempted to write a similar piece to this elsewhere in October 2023, and I received feedback that no one should be compelled to speak; in some ways, mainstream America’s reluctance to talk about Palestine feels like a concerted effort to remain silent and be silent about the silence.
Too many artists are scared to upset the Zionists who afford them their luxuries. The pro-Israel lobby is well-connected and working with billions. In 2023, at the outset of the latest round of IDF assaults, Al-Jazeera reported on the media campaign Facts For Peace, which they deemed “a high-dollar media crusade to boost Israel’s image and demonise the Hamas armed group amid global pro-Palestinian solidarity protests.” AIPAC successfully flexed its financial muscle to fund opposition to pro-Palestine congresspeople like Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Cori Bush (D-MO), contributing to both of their election defeats. Israel advocate Jacki Karsh recently founded a Journalism fellowship aimed at “[shifting] some of the narrative” on Israel with the help of 16 prominent journalists and scholars. Zionists are running concentrated propaganda campaigns and using their resources to punish any prominent person. Entertainers undoubtedly run the risk of having deals and partnerships terminated if they have Zionists (or their friends) cutting their checks.
But that’s not the end of the world, especially compared to generations of Palestinians being systematically decimated. There’s precedent for major entertainers to speak up. Actress Hannah Einbinder, a co-star of the Emmy-nominated series Hacks, said “Free Palestine” during her Emmy acceptance speech, and recently revealed that she self-examined that her former “Zionism was connected to a sense of denial, but it also…demanded that I keep a distance between myself and the very tangible, real world pain of Palestinians.” And Björk, who’s long been a critic of Imperialism, supported her friend, singer Magga Stína, who was in a flotilla that was captured by Israel while attempting to bring aid to Gaza (she’s since been freed from Israeli detention). She called on her native Iceland “to stop all business interactions with israel until the genocide in gaza stops.” There’s precedent for public figures to speak up.
If everyday people are willing to call a genocide what it is, then why should a millionaire with hordes of fans be silent? Even if someone hinders their future earning potential, they’re still way better off than most Americans; performing in halls instead of arenas is still quite a life. But unfortunately, success in a capitalist system isn’t about having enough; it’s about chasing it all. And that journey inevitably proposes alliances with amoral entities — including Zionists. Over time, an uber-capitalistic ethos has permeated mainstream hip-hop and dissolved almost all inherent sense of advocacy for fellow humans. What we have now is a group of geniuses who are adept at capturing so many different elements of humanity, but won’t advocate for humans.
what ive been up to
this week, my conversation with Nas went viral, and it will be in an upcoming Rolling Stone print issue. there’s a certain utility to interviewing entertainers; you’re obligated to ask about what they’re working on &whatever they’ve been in the news cycle for. but i find that the questions i’m genuinely curious about as a fan tend to elicit the best answers. that was the case when i asked him about the similarity between Hip-Hop Is Dead and Kendrick’s “Watch the Party Die” &his answer got aggregated everywhere. shoutout to Justin Hunte, who shouted me out in his youtube recap of the interview. elsewhere, i had a really cool conversation with producer Mike Dean about his recent music with the Weeknd &a variety of other things. i also spoke with Gabe ‘Nandez &Preservation for my no filler indie rap column, also highlighting a trio of dope projects. finally, after attorney (and former NYC mayoral candidate) Jim Walden challenged me on twitter to investigate a song claiming to feature Zohran Mamdani, i reached out to his team and realized the artist was trolling us all.
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