“I don’t think you should voice your opinion… I only follow you for the music; stop posting this stuff… Stick to talking about movies or video games.” 

I am here to inform you - Pop Culture is and has always been political. Hip-Hop is just one of the farthest-reaching & most potent forms of cultural and political impact within entertainment, but all popular culture facets contain some rumination.

And pop culture is a useful way to spread a message.

With the riot at the Capitol last week, the protests during the Summer of 2020, and the increase (or just increase in exposure) of polarizing content on the internet, this topic has been weighing on my mind.

I often see outrage online from faceless antagonists who appear to dislike the discussion or even mention anything they deem as ‘political’ from various media or pop culture outlets. Some fans look to their favorite videogames, movies, television shows, or pop stars as a form of escapism, rather than education. Movie after movie, song after song, we’ve entered an era of almost unlimited media at our fingertips at all times, where people have no fear of being stuck in a cycle of constant inundation.

And while consumption for the sake of consumption is difficult to avoid these days - one must understand that most creators and artists in the world do not just make art for the sake of creation.

What’s the connection between art & politics, you might ask? Well, first, let’s take a step back from American politics, your local politics, or whatever it is you probably consider political daily. When I think ‘politics,’ I like to examine the phrase American political psychologist Harold Lasswell coined for his book, “Who gets what, when how.” Politics revolves around the debate or conflict of power and status in society. Whether or not you are aware of it, your participation in society each day is inherently political, contributing to the development of said society and the distribution of its wealth, status & power.

Artists create based on their inspiration & experiences in this world. Their life is a direct result of whatever political system they reside in and neighboring structures. Artists are creating something out of nothing. But that nothing is the grey area between spoken word and traditional thought. Artists are expressing themselves because of their place in society, and this reflects in their music.

In music, this is on constant display. There are examples of overt & masterful politicization, such as Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly.” This project works to educate or remind the listener of all of the systems in the United States that work against African Americans. Lamar even goes as far as imitating an “Uncle Sam” character who represents these policies upholding this flawed status quo in America.

Meanwhile, Kendrick’s earlier project, “Good Kid M.A.A.D. City,” is a much subtler examination of status and societal structures in Compton, Lamar’s hometown. Kendrick paints a dark picture of his adolescence, and the reality is, the majority of his listeners will never experience anything like these stories in their lives. And that’s due to a combination of federal, state & local politics in the nineteenth & twentieth centuries that created today’s Compton and the distribution of status and wealth throughout Southern California.

Both are effective routes of communicating political thoughts, even if one project doesn’t directly reference politics at any point.

Detractors on the internet are always happy to point out that ‘street’ or ‘trap’ hip-hop is devoid of intelligent messaging or meaning. Well, think again. 

Even ILOVEMAKONNENs “Club Going Up on a Tuesday” manages to communicate an interesting point about his status at the time. Have you ever thought about why he’s partying on a Tuesday?

“I've been working graveyard, shifts every other weekend

Ain't got no fucking time to party on the weekend”

Just because everyone around you might work white-collar careers, with a 9-5, doesn’t mean that this song means a lot more to someone else (although a cross-section of people clubbing on Tuesdays is pretty ironically college students). Thousands of working-class Americans can relate to this song in a more meaningful way, beyond college students who don’t have early morning classes on Wednesday. And the reality of why he even feels the need to go to the club is political - they’re manufactured spaces to try and flaunt one’s power and status.

On the flip side, maybe your favorite country, rock & roll, or even hip-hop artists uses their lyrics to reflect on “better times” or “simpler times.” This is the same rhetoric we’ve seen in political campaigns across the spectrum. Don’t forget that ‘Make America Great Again’ harps on the fallacy that the past was somehow better than the present. One reason we see voters shift towards conservatism later in age is based on fear of change and a loss of values, topics often covered in popular country songs. While these artists are rarely overtly political in their music (“Accidental Racist,” I’m looking at you), they still achieve their goal of creating this sense of nostalgia in a listener and perhaps reminding of a time when the listener had a greater sense of worth or status in the world.

Politics are not confined to music nor traditionally liberal causes. Political thought & ideologies also pervade every major movie, videogame, etc.

Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” is a direct examination of classism in South Korea and capitalist systems in general. It’s undeniable. Simultaneously, Marvel movies, which many consider ‘popcorn entertainment’ or examples of media with no politics, grapple with similar conversations. “Captain America: Civil War” is the most obvious of these debates around individuality, surveillance & censorship. But even the first “Iron Man” is notoriously anti-government anti-war - painting the US Department of Defense as incompetent. Meanwhile, Michael Bay’s “Transformer” films work hard to demonstrate the effectiveness and difficult sacrifices the US Military takes to keep the general populace safe and unaware.

Would you call being in support or against the US Military complex apolitical? These films that are painted as escapism are still somewhat political, even if they’re not always taking a “red vs. blue” side.

And even if you’re attending Marvel films and choosing to ignore these conflicts, think about whose pocket you’re putting money in. Disney. Even beyond any direct lobbying efforts, their overwhelming market share works to every smaller filmmaker’s disadvantage - making distribution an increasingly difficult task. Those are stories that could bring empathy or awareness to a cause being silenced before ever reaching an audience.

I’m not saying we stop consuming for fun or stop having fun while we consume. But there’s a reason that every major dictatorship in the world has limited the creation of artwork, kept everything for themselves, or destroyed what existed. Be smart and make time to have thoughts to yourself and to educate yourself.

And please, stop trying to force our viewpoints, or lack thereof, on artists. Seeing artists like Lil Baby get discouraged from creating powerful songs like “The Bigger Picture” is a bummer, especially with the available platform. At the same time, he doesn’t owe it to anyone to make overtly political songs. I believe anything from his perspective will ultimately be a powerful representation of his upbringing, current situation & future.