Rappers and the Rich: Examining hip-hop's growing allegiance to the Right
With noticeable support from several black entertainers, it's time to examine how hip-hop got here.
I’m going to pinpoint this rapper-to-conservatism pipeline. Snoop Dogg quickly pivoted from scolding entertainers who performed for Donald Trump in 2020 to performing at a Crypto Ball alongside names like Soulja Boy and Rick Ross in his honor. The same Rick Ross that cast Drake aside for not being black enough, entertained a room full of tech giants who paid thousands of dollars to eat McDonald’s and hear “Nuthin’ But a G Thang”. Straight out of a Boondocks episode, we are facing the reality that a genre which once represented the overworked and underpaid has also pivoted.
Why Rappers Love Donald Trump
Access. The symbolism of wealth is wrapped in the image of a white man. In the third quarter of 2023, black Americans held $4.9 trillion in wealth in comparison to the $120.4 trillion held by white Americans, according to a compilation of data set forth by LendingTree researchers. It’s the room covered in diamonds that we can’t wait to walk into. The flash of the money doesn’t entice black entertainers, though. The power that white men appear to have when harnessing massive wealth is the golden goose. Donald Trump is the embodiment of that threshold of control.
Even before hundreds of executive orders that threaten to cripple America’s economy, Trump has always held a unique space in rappers’ hearts. At the peak of his popularity in the 90s, he had cameos on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Method Man’s “Tical”, followed up by a refreshed buzz with the release of The Apprentice. Raekwon was the “black Donald Trump”. Young Jeezy was “Donald Trump in a white tee.” Despite paying for several full-page advertisements that called for a reinstatement of the death penalty before any of “The Central Park Five”- who were subsequently cleared of all charges - had been tried, he was revered as an ally. And a pretty powerful one, too.
The current president has consistently been touted as a savvy businessman who made great decisions and worked his way to a fortune. What we didn’t realize was that most of Trump’s fortune came from his father and he participated in tax schemes and in some cases “outright fraud”, according to an expose published by the New York Times in 2018. The $25 million dollar settlement for ‘victims’ of Donald Trump’s fraudulent university is not what we think about. The president has been able to reframe any perceived failures as successes and is willing to bulldoze any door that does not unlock for him. The black entertainers who have idolized him, do so in hopes to have the ability to navigate the world with the same air of arrogance and unlawfulness he does.
In the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire talks about how in a quest to liberation, those who are oppressed often adopt the behaviors of their oppressors.
“The very structure of their thought has been conditioned by the contradictions of the concrete, existential situation by which they were shaped. Their ideal is to be men; but for them, to be men is to be oppressors,” he writes. He goes on to explain, “At this level, their perception of themselves as opposites of the oppressor does not yet signify engagement in a struggle to overcome the contradiction; the one pole aspires not to liberation, but to identification with its opposite pole.”
Some loyalties to Trump lie in his ability to use his presidency to pardon artists like Kodak Black. Just weeks after a lengthy sit down at the Doral Golf Club in Miami, Florida, Lil Wayne pled guilty to felony gun possession and awaited a formal sentence until his pardon made its way alongside 142 other pardons and commutations in the last moments of Trump’s previous presidency. Snoop Dogg’s change of heart could be in relation to a pardon for Michael Harris, a co-founder of Death Row Records who was serving time for attempted murder and cocaine trafficking. Since then, Snoop has had “nothing but love” for Donald Trump, because he’s “done nothing” to him.
His tendency to make individually significant gestures restore a faith in him that ripple throughout our community. Trump can make comments that disparage the city of Detroit such as, “Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she’s president” as he locks in endorsements from Detroit’s hip hop community like Icewear Vezzo, Trick Trick and Peezy. To properly examine this, we have to be honest about the conversations we hear or are a contributing part of. The weight of his felonies added a lure to his persona. This billionaire became more relatable through conviction. The privilege is astonishing to witness and amongst many black entertainers, hard to resist.
The Black Community’s Classism Problem
The black community has a classism “problem” that we dare not examine in the public eye. It’s the dirty secret that leaks into the songs we love. I cannot think of a more recent example than the online backlash Latto faced when users described the lyrics to “Brokey”, from her recently released album, Sugar Honey Iced Tea, as elitist. The bar goes, “Bitches gotta wait ‘til they birthday to go out of town, BROKEY!” The Atlanta rapper was able to generate better publicity with a social media competition and even spotlighted a young woman who was fired from her place of employment for her participation. It made for an admirable human-interest story, but the roots of dissemination were exposed, even if just for a moment.
The discourse wasn’t surprising to me. It was just late. I understand that more than a few people felt stung from those particular lyrics. In this economy, a lot of people in my community have to plan trips ahead, specifically because of finances. But haven’t rappers always flexed their wealth? By no means am I attempting to distance myself from enjoying songs heavy on capitalism. It just so happens that flaunting what you’ve earned to those who probably can’t afford your lifestyle is a formula that sticks.
Aspirational class identification plays a main character in that regard. It's a term I learned while doing research for this particular piece. It is when a member of a lower class identifies more with a higher class because they hope to be a part of it in the future. When the audience watches rappers draped in millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds, those viewers connect through a desire to belong one day. Let’s use the Bronx as an example.
The foundation of hip-hop has been traced back to the 70s in DJ Kool Herc's basement on Sedgwick Ave in the West Bronx. His sister, Cindy Campbell, had the biggest party thus far and Herc’s break-beat technique was on the loudest system he had ever performed on. That was August 11, 1973. There was much more going on in the Bronx. Neighborhoods with a certain percentage of minorities were redlined which labeled them high-risk, leading directly to the withdrawal of any political or corporate investment into the communities.
Political divestment led to a lack of infrastructure and protection for the residents. There was no one to battle the eradication of firehouses in these neighborhoods. In turn, whether the fires were caused purposefully, for financial reasons, or accidentally, there were far less resources to fight the flames which displaced thousands. A lack of professional opportunities and an erasure of security for minorities cultivated a frustration and a will to carve out a safe space to express themselves creatively and more importantly, freely.
Yet, we find ourselves in a bit of a conundrum. With such a lack of resources in the community, a rat race for material gain is set in place. The objective of “Keeping Up with The Joneses” encourages us to set ourselves apart when we catch lightning in a bottle and achieve even a fraction of the freedom capitalism promises. In actuality, this growing separation is how capitalism continues to fester. It quickly converts the have and have nots into the want nots. Now, it's not just the opportunity and the cars and the money that separates us. It’s the idea that somehow the people who have are innately better and want it more. This is where support for a conservative movement that directly threatens your own community comes into play.
Commerce vs. Culture
Which melts into the next concept that if you stand on something more than your pockets, there is a ceiling to your worth in the industry. We live in a time, and have for a while now, where the artists who are trying to correct cultural behaviors, educate the community or even tell their story in a cautionary way, are essentially muted. Drake said that Kendrick Lamar was rapping like he was “tryna to get the slaves freed.” As if that were an insult. As if someone trying to relinquish people from the chains that bind them is the problem. It’s a perplexing statement to say out loud, but it didn’t stop a lot of hip-hop fans from agreeing with it.
Initially, I was confused as to why so many people started to feel like double entendres and messages with meaning were a nuisance instead of an experience. I remember when I read lyrics from the inside of CD covers to make sure I caught the true essence of what the artist tried to communicate. I deciphered the meanings of lyrics as a teenager and had conversations amongst friends once we figured out what a rapper really said after months of mis-quotes. There was an excitement in how the song made me feel, but a large part of that had to do with what was communicated to me. A lot of hip-hop fans don’t share those memories.
Conversations that surround the quality of music rarely ever involve the actual listening quality of the music. It’s become a numbers game. Billboard position. Streaming numbers. Social media follower counts. These numbers dictate the way current-day hip-hop fans listen to music, or if the music deserves to be heard at all. Rappers have caught on quickly, too. Songs and albums are getting shorter. There’s rarely shit to dissect.
Artists recycle vibes constantly and the audience has grown to adore and even admire it. The industry of it all has taken center stage and whereas the community once fought to dismantle the disproportionate system, we have found that some of our most successful have chosen to operate within and benefit from processes that blatantly attack the well-being of their communities. Snoop Dogg included.
The Snoop Dogg Effect
Just last year, there was an ongoing debate of the crown that Snoop wears as the biggest rapper in the world. The conclusion was supported by the Snoop Dogg effect we saw take flight at last year’s Olympic Games. Everyone loves him. So, MAGA marketing demands that a black figure so highly respected seemingly in all corners of society be front and center during such a demonstrative transfer of power that has A LOT of black Americans feeling displaced and confused. To Snoop, to Nelly, to Rick Ross, it may very well be just supporting the new Commander-in-Chief and getting to the bag. It’s just disappointing that the bag in question is attached to an administration equipped with Nazi salutes and mass deportation deeply ingrained in their policies.
It’s also a 180-degree rotation from who Snoop has presented himself as for so long. A rapper that was once “so inspired” by the work Mothers Against Police Brutality was doing he donated $25,000 to the community organization in support of Colin Kaepernick’s million-dollar pledge. Trump’s slew of executive acts included full pardons for two police officers convicted in the death of a man riding a moped during a pursuit for a minor traffic offense as they attempted to pull him over in an unmarked vehicle.
Snoop’s Youth Football Club is a community-first strategy that presented him as an OG in search of organic ways to enhance the lives of the children who grew up in similar struggles. How are fans expected to reconcile his assumed allegiance to a president who looks to gut funding for federal programs and services that help those same children survive?
Who is community?
America is an individualistic society. Every man for himself. It may not matter to them that their support gives a younger audience the nod to further normalize this man’s presence and those that represent the values that his term will uphold.
It may not matter to them that he pardoned roughly 1,500 people who were charged for their participation in the events of Jan.6 at The Capitol. Who gives a shit about his plans to end birthright citizenship, which was ratified in 1868 to give citizenship to former slaves and is enshrined into the Constitution? Did they anticipate a trade war where the very community that supports them is engulfed in overwhelming daily expenses?
The answer is likely no. The marginalized population has become a blind spot to an industry squarely focused on the bag while figures like Donald Trump continue to hold space in many black entertainers’ picture of freedom. A freedom that will cost the rest of us a hip-hop culture that promised true liberation.