I was typing a long ass reply until realized you can literally google ‘music and politics’ on wikipedia and go to ‘by country’ on there
See for ya self

she said I choose me I'm sorry

Nnever disagreed with the message, only the way it it was communicated on twitter. It didn't bother me that it was appearing in her music (which can be great, Rainforest is one of my fav songs of the decade.) Regardless, a lot of younger people with radical beliefs can be obnoxious online so I don't blame her or other people who fall into that online war mindset.

Looking forward to whatever is next anyway

Ok but Stevie Wonder got us MLK Jr Day though fam

On the real though maybe you count Bob Marley

Seems like you have cause and effect mixed up
A truly revulotionairy artist could never have the reach of kendrick in 2025 america considering theres an entire industry in play to prevent that.
Same way there’s plenty of amazing community organizers in the world who can talk to the everyday people who are systematically excluded from true electoral succes.

Also kendrick has used plenty of complex and highminded language throughout his career lmao
He’s popular despite his intellectualism not because of it

And that's where a lot of musician "change" comes in the form of symbolic gestures, like a day.

meanwhile I'm from Atlanta and grew up reading the Kathryn Johnston case lol.

I'll give you Bob Marley though. I will.

But we don't talk about how musicians often times (which is also mentioned in the wikipedia article @Hefstan ) are used as pawns to push a government agenda.

Louis Armstrong (unknowingly, in his defense he thought he was doing a good thing) was literally a tool used by the CIA to pretty much keep close tabs on Lumumba while he was touring in Africa.

in the words of @Scratchin_Bandit 's thread about kendrick, "In reality it’s not the ideas of the people that need to be changed in order to prevent violence in impoverished communities, it’s the material conditions that need to change in order to take away the conditions that lead to that violence."

and I'm sorry dawg but it's only so much you can change with a mic. I'm saying this as a socially aware musician but Nina Simone said constantly if she really could've, she would've went down to Alabama and shot crackers.

I dont even think we disagree
It goes without saying that musicians have soft power at best and holding our politicians accountable is a million times more important
Im just saying that music can definitely be a soundtrack to a popular movement. Artists can be great politicians. Again im arguing from a non american standpoint so the US is totally different but that sounds like exceptialism to me

His verbiage and overall "intellectualism" (if you wanna call it that, I dont think his content is really THAT complex and highminded compared to a say Immortal Technique or a Coup or f*** political, or a Cannibal Ox) is still way easier for the average consumer to digest than a noname (hence why you had people dissing her "wokeness" even before she threw shots at him.

She said in her YNS interview she kinda played into it on room 25 to the point she aint know what she was talking about.

A truly revolutionary artist could never have the reach of Kendrick in America because a truly revolutionary artist would never make the compromises Kendrick would make to even have the reach in the first place.

I'm just saying when they did (my perspective is of the west), it amounted to short-lived gestures, Public Enemy for example.

Artists can be great politicians.

other than 2pac ehhhhhhhhhhhhh a lot of these artists in the west don't read enough books for me to be comfortable with this lol.

she’s glowing

she needs to not move to either Kenya or Nigeria, she’s not Kellis lmfao

Wym

she always came off like an internet-pilled leftist to me where having the "correct opinion" on certain issues was the end all be all vs. actual on the ground action

so this seems like a good development

Kellis bought a 300-acre farm lol

Kenya is a hard country to move to and assimilate within because of lack of opportunity right now. even diaspora are viewed as foreigners stealing opportunities (without the violence of xenophobia) or unwilling to be a part of the society (because you’re such a needle in a haystack).

assimilation is hard if you’re not already moving there with either a lot of money to invest into businesses/land there that the community can use and you be a part of (which I’m guessing she would want to do, but this can be hard without, again, having a lot of money and a local government representative to acquire land for you or someone there to watch your property/land while you’re away)

like rn we put 30 racks into 3 homes and it sits on our land, but the level of detail that went into getting the materials, men to work, logistics, and just time it takes to get something finished in Kenya plus having to have someone checking on it basically hourly while you stateside would be hard for her if she’s not just moving there to go live in the beach town, which is just old white people lmfao

Thanks for breaking it down

a lot of people need to realize this. social media forms you.

drifting in and out of consciousness like these rappers do. she a rapper too!

the way the twitter algorithm works it quite literally is all about dunking on ppl

Yeah there's precedent for it and there's nothing wrong with wanting more from the entertaining class.

I just think it becomes a problem, due to social media and the increase in idol worship and online virtue signaling, where there's people who pick a part artists more than they would politicians. Even taking it as far as getting on artist who are known for using their music as a platform.

Like Noname does a lot but there were still a lot of people that got on her for not posting anything after oct 7. Even though her stance on Palestine has been known for years by her fans, even in the album she dropped earlier that year.

It just comes to the point where it's not really productive

So J Cole won again

In a few years when we find out why he really backed out, yall gonna realize Cole is never wrong

Love her. Hope she still throws a couple leftist bars in there

They make me happy

She really got SilkMoney and Woods on a track together that’s crazy

her entire message was right, the only issue was signaling out j cole when it applies to the entire mainstream music industry

cole is never getting over that L man. best thing for him and his fans to do is move on and pretend that never happened. nigga spent a whole 15 years giving us “a rapper better not try me” bars just to b**** out when it mattered