Who Stole the Soul? - The Weaponization of Hip Hop - A Historical & Sociological Perspective

Book excerpt. .

". .The weaponization of Hip Hop was America's answer to a Hip-Hop culture that was fortifying and cultivating the minds of young Black people.  In the beginning, Hip Hop was a tool Black kids utilized to edify one another. It was eventually co-opted, controlled, and commercialized to be used as a weapon to debase those it initially helped to empower. What was thought to be a fad at first by record companies became a major platform used ingeniously by those who gave birth to it. Those who control the reigns to American society recognized Hip Hop's power and sought ways to not only douse its positive social potential, they also sought ways to profit from what those clever Black youth had created. The paradigm began to shift. Hip Hop gradually went from a meal that featured a main course of conscious songs and culturally grounded artists, to offerings that mostly promoted the glamorization of everything negative. Positive and conscious artists were relegated to an underground while those who promoted Black death, misogyny, materialism, criminal behavior, and irresponsible drug and alcohol use were paid well and heavily promoted by record companies. Hip Hop was corporatized and consolidated to become an industry that cared little about Black people or Black culture; the priority was profits. It is difficult to profit from, exploit, and manipulate a group of people who are both astute and culturally aware, so rampant ignorance was infused into what Black youth consumed musically to make the artists easier to use. Eventually, Hip Hop no longer belonged to Black people. It was owned by Jews/Europeans who decided what would be supplied, while at the same time, contriving a demand for what toxifies.  The culture was devalued while huge record companies profited mightily from what remained. The shift that began in the late 80s has regressed into what presents itself today as Hip Hop, while retaining none of the components that served as its pillars at inception.."