I listen to probably a majority of communist songs though I really like Lyubeh (related to the soviet union but not communist), IU, Gfriend, TWICE, (don’t fucking judge me) miscellaneous klezmer bands, recently teresa teng, as well as various video game osts. (persona 4. yokai watch, etc.)
I would say 80% of music I listen to is American rap/hip-hop, a major chunk of which is some of the most pro-capitalist music I have ever heard. I love rap/hip-hop to death, if it’s good it’s good and honestly even the very pro-capitalist stuff is a really beautiful vignette into how fucked up life on this Earth can really get and is almost unintentionally anti-capitalist if you are willing to interpret art outside of the artist’s wishes.
That said there is also plenty that is what I would call “socialist without the vocabulary,” and plenty that has a variety of aspects (most people aren’t that political anyways and are contradictory and half-baked to a critical communist).
So in a way we are opposites, as I listen to next-to no socialist music, although I’m always glad to hear based themes in my favorite artists: I really think XXXTENTACION could have become a socialist and was already halfway there. Kendrick Lamar too if he could get away from all the hotep thought and stop talking to Obama. J. Cole if he could stop being a damn liberal. Kanye West of all people had a guest on his recent album that briefly shittalked capitalism and I mean hey, this was an album that Ye was very picky about repeatedly changing it last second and rererereleasing it later and later so I don’t think it was an accident, even if it’s just motivated by Donald Trump betraying him I’ll take it. Not a recognizable name to many here I’m sure but I still reserve hope for Lil Darkie and his entire wave he’s bringing into the alternative scene even if in his head he’s terminally addicted to IDGAF anarchy (as in “burn shit down” anarchy) as a worldview; I plan on reaching out to him several times at certain milestones of my career, I would love to change his mind as he holds a lot of clout with a lot of very apathetic and edgy teenagers (as a lot of alternative artists do). There’s a lot of other artists I also have my eyes on, politics-wise.
Idk, I think the rap/hip-hop world was duped hard into buying into Woke Capitalism, but a lot of them are reaching back to their anti-capitalist Black Panthers-esque roots and are starting to shake it off, slowly but surely, inshallah.
Other than that, I love electronic stuff, alternative rock, some metal, some classical, some blues, a shitload of OSTs (cheers) and a couple other miscellaneous or hard-to-define genres.
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YES YES YES I love Vince, Earl too and Earl was retweeting Black Socialists of America back years ago. I knew there was a load I was surely forgetting. Still haven’t listened to Vince’s newest album, but yeah Summertime 08 is one hell of a dark vignette.
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Oops! *'06 😂
Yes if it’s just straight up glorification it’s a hard sell for me, also just not realistic IMO. “Hide the fear behind this here bravado…” damn man. That stings.
The pain is so deep. It is sort of political in a way for me because it makes me want to fight for a world where people aren’t living in such a hell. The pain of living this sort of life expressed by people like Vince or Kendrick (“DAMN” really stung me for a long time) or X (I know he’s a controversial figure and honestly he’s not some masterwork lyricist but his emotion is deep and the pain explored over such a versatile catalog…) or the like really makes my heart hurt, it makes me see the people in the project housing across the street or in the crisis centers or tumbleweeding across the streets and it fills me with such anger and sadness and a desire to help everybody. There’s been moments of my life where I would directly relate to such dark places and I would never wish that upon another human being and I am eternally grateful that I managed to escape (for now) with a lot of myself still intact.
Sorry if I’m being extra I just really am really passionate about this stuff.
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Yes, yes, yes. It’s like, there’s absolutely nothing fun about any of this. And if I look like I’m having fun doing this? It’s literally just bullshit stunting to keep up an image, aka to keep safe. Or just a grim sort of acceptance and celebration of this hell (something I would attribute to X, a quote from an interview of him, very simply: “I realized it’s not fun to be the villain.”).
As far as hiphop goes I really like respiration by black star, and then some ice cube and biggie smalls stuff, as well Outkast is great
Ahh, Outkast, really takes me back.
hey yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
OH, OH!