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The Manufacturing Of Gang Culture
I’ve recently written a couple of posts that dealt with the duality of technology and the manufacturing of mainstream culture. Today I’m going to discuss my belief that far from being a derivative of poverty or an organic growth that rose from despair, gang culture is itself manufactured. Indeed, anyone that has read my recent posts will know I've been exploring the manipulation of tribalism and from that perspective its very easy to see how gang culure has both taken hold and been emulated across the world. As the posts moves on, I will display my belief that the drug war and the gang culture that arose from it was an attempt to stifle the growth of a political cohesion that began to envelop the black communities of the 1960’s/70’s. Indeed despite it’s false premise of societal concern, Nixon’s drug war was to all intents and purposes invented to destroy his political and ideological opponents.
I would like to state that although I'm discussing gang culture, the vast majority of the tracks in this post are not gangsta rap. I'm using these tracks to display the raw talent and the early positive message of rap music, a message that was increasingly lost as hip hop was drawn into the record label control and societal manipulation structure.
Perceptual Manipulation
By first creating a perception in the minds of the public that black neighbourhoods were the progenitors of heroin and that the anti war left/protesters were all weed smoking hippies, the war on drugs was justified. It’s important to note, before they were splintered, disenfranchised, infiltrated and sidelined into the cult of identity politics, many on the left were a cohesive voice against the war. Equally, the increasing interconnectivity between the anti war ethos and black politics was a unification that would not be tolerated. But don’t take my word for it, below is an excert taken from the Journalist John Baum’s interview with John Ehrlichman. In fact alongside being (from 1969-1973) Nixon’s domestic policy advisor, Erlichman was also a Watergate co-conspirator that served 18 months in jail for his part in the scandal.
“You want to know what this was really all about?” [Ehrlichman] asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
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The Fall Of The Panthers
The first stage of this vilification and faux drug war involved utilising mafia contacts to facilitate flooding black communities with heroin and cocaine, alas many fell for the bait and the lure of easy money. By 1976 the Black Panther party were a largely spent force, destroyed by police shootouts, manipulated internal and external conflicts and assassinations. It’s important to note that far from being the progenitors of heroin and cocaine you would have had great difficulty finding these drugs in the blocks of the 60’s and early 70’s.
C.I.A Cointelpro document obtained via a freedom of information request.
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Once the government had either killed or imprisoned the black liberation elders they left behind a now heavily armed youth movement. A movement that lacked both political direction and indeed the wisdom required to understand the intricacies of a drug culture that was now growing up around them.
Hip Hop Truth
As the drug wars began to tug at the seams of fraying communities a new style of music began to rise. The birth of rap music and hip hop carried important cultural messages to the black youth, extolling the virtues of self education, black history and warning against the use of drugs.
The Birth Of Crack
Unknown to these new arbiters of truth, a new phase was about to begin and a new drug was about to be born. This time riding high on a nationwide advertising campaign, the message and the drug was carried right into the heart of the ghetto. That drug in question was crack and it emerged as a cancer that ate communities from the inside out. Whipped up by a media storm and multiplying like a pandemic, suddenly it was everywhere, on the news, in the papers and on talk shows .. hell even the president was on TV, broadcasting from the Whitehouse and holding up bags of crack for the world to see.
The mantra was the same and it was repeated incessantly, “addictive and dangerous, strong and cheap .. the dealers are making huge sums of money but don’t forget to stay away from it” wink wink. It’s my belief that this mantra had a dual purpose, a message that alternated between classes, communities and perceptions. Black communities were already increasingly debilitated and isolated from the myth of middle America and so the message they perceived was “it’s cheap to make and yields huge profits”. It was akin to a propagandic war on psychology, reverse psychology; a strategically placed viral advertising campaign to spread the virus of crack, sadly it worked.
Psychology
Let’s pause for a moment a ponder the psychology behind the presidents anti drug message. Aside from any historical context black communities had been bullied, manipulated and abused by a government that had instigated a drug war against them. When black youth saw the president saw the president on TV holding up a bag of crack do you really think they would have listened to his health warning? If I’m aware of the reverse psychology at play here, do you think the propagandists and societal engineers weren’t? Indeed from the youth’s perspective this was an opportunity to stick two fingers up to a system that they believed hated them. Alas little did they realise that they were walking into a carefully laid trap. For neighbourhoods increasingly blighted by poverty crack offered a way out, unfortunately it was a way out that burned communities and destroyed families.
It’s The F.B.I
In the face of such odds many hip hop elders remained resolute; yes there was anger and sex rhymes, but interspersed were messages of positivity, education, black history, pride and rebellion against the system. In many ways the earlier hip hop artists were the first truthers, firing lyrical truth bombs that verbally destroyed the targets of their rage. This occurred before the birth of the internet and many of these hip hop artists were instrumental (pun intended) in helping me understand the harsh realities of this world.
Back To The Streets
Back on the streets one of the most recognisable street faces of the era was freeway Ricky Ross, a man whom judges would later refer to as the “Walmart of crack”. His coast to coast empire frequently grossed 2-3 million dollars per day and on the street his black market enterprise reached legendary status. A young savvy streetwise entrepreneur that was given an opportunity and decided to grasp the hand that fate had dealt him. Obviously I’m not extolling the virtues of selling crack!! It’s a despicable scourge upon society; but in order to understand the machinations behind it’s roll out, I believe we must at least attempt to intellectually walk a mile in the shoes of those that sold it. Different time, different place and life could have been very different for these street hustlers.
Coming from a life of poverty Rick was initially a street dealer that in dealing terms had a lucky break. His lucky break came in the shape of being approached by high level distributors that made him an offer he simply couldn’t refuse. From then on Ross gravitated to become the biggest supplier of crack in America, his network comprised of crack houses, cash counting houses, drive through crack houses, decoy houses and a vast number of employees. In many ways Rick was living the American dream; he was a consummate business man and his was a highly organised and efficient business network, alas his skewed version of this dream increasingly turned the inner cities into the stuff of nightmares.
Hard Time
After being set up by his contact Danilo Blandone, Ross was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. After his arrest and whilst languishing in jail, Ricky was contacted by the journalist Gary Webb who had uncovered a link that connected him with the Nicaraguan Contra movement. The link involved Blandone who was buying (and selling to Ross) cocaine that was being shipped into the states by C.I.A drug planes. The money was then being used to fund the purchase of weaponry for Contra army. It is said that this C.I.A network opened the first pipelines (pun intended) between Columbia’s cocaine cartels and the black neighbourhoods of Compton etc etc.
Indeed former DEA agent Celerino Castillo 3rd has made numerous statements to that effect. Testifying to his role in refuelling cocaine filled C.I.A planes in South America, cocaine that was destined for black neighbourhoods and by proxy Ricky Ross.
As the gun culture began to increasingly take hold, the angry voice of hip hop directed their fury towards the establishment
Fallout
As Gary Webb’s Dark Justice series exploded into the public consciousness previously silent voices began to speak out, including former DEA administrator Robert Bonner.
And former LAPD narcotics officer Mike Rupert whom can be seen confronting C.I.A director John Deutch in the video below.
And this interview with Pablo Escobar's accountant.
Following the Iran Contra and Dark Justice fallout Webb was found dead in 2004, he died from two gunshot wounds to the head with his death being ruled as suicide. The prosecution against Ross became increasingly untenable, his prison sentence was reduced and he was released in 2009. Since his release Ross has been a reformed character, a youth worker and a successful author.
Gangsta Rap
With voices of rage, the first generation of gangsta rap had an important story to tell and they simply told it how it was. By verbalising the negativity in their lives they began to awaken the wider collective to their plight. As dark as many of these tracks were the focus of their wrath remained predominantly focused towards the establishment. I’m certainly not suggesting that until this point all rap artists had existed as peace loving paragons of virtue, but a wind of change was about to blow through the industry and I believe it was carried upon a set of increasingly controlled agendas.
As displayed in this post, the first generations of hip hop (and even gangsta rap) followed a more organic growth structure. Equally as the appeal of the genre began to grow, so did the ability of the labels and the moguls to control the narrative. I was listening to a lot of hip hop around this time and it was as if someone had flicked a cultural switch. One aspect that became increasingly obvious was the redirection of anger away from the system and towards each other. The gang platitudes and arguments crept ever closer to the forefront and sadly this began to play out in real life. Where there had previously been musical unity and a message there was an ever increasing division.
The misogyny and denigration of femininity became ever more visceral and the tension more palpable. feeding into the feminine suppression thesis that I will elucidate at a later date. In terms of misogyny I feel this message was disastrous to community and family cohesion, indeed it’s sobering to note that the gang culture is fed by the breakdown of the family unit and the lack of strong male role models. The gang capitalises upon this breakdown and in essence becomes representative of the missing father figure. Absent fathers exasperate the communities fall into gang warfare and where hip hop had previously been an outlet for frustration and anger it now began to add fuel to a fire that was increasingly burning out of control.
In light of the above observations, I feel the below statement (which is taken from the Black lives matter website) speaks volumes. In many ways it appears to utilise aspects of the aforementioned gang psychology.
We are committed to disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, and especially “our” children to the degree that mothers, parents and children are comfortable.
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The Mogul
It’s my profound belief that every facet of our mainstream culture is controlled and manipulated to suit a set narrative and direction, from this perspective music is both a powerful and effective tool of propaganda. Like every aspect of our society the music industry is increasingly garnering ever greater power into ever fewer hands, but who’s hands and to what ends?
One person that has been at the forefront of hip hop since the late eighties is Lyor Cohen, the one time banker who would go on to become one of the most powerful if hidden hands behind rap music. Before positioning himself atop of the rap pyramid, Cohen briefly worked for Bank Leumi. When looking into Cohen’s banking dalliances it’s interesting to note that with him at it’s helm, hip hop has been increasingly absorbed into the mainstream and whilst the message has been watered down; the obsession with pharmaceutical, money and superficiality has exponentially grown, money is god and the modern rapper is big pharma's best friend.
Bank Leumi (Hebrew: בנק לאומי, lit. National Bank) is an Israeli bank. It was founded on February 27, 1902, in Jaffa as the Anglo Palestine Company as subsidiary of the Jewish Colonial Trust (Jüdische Kolonialbank) Limited[2]:p.19 formed before in London by members of the Zionist movement to promote the industry, construction, agriculture, and infrastructure of the land hoped to ultimately become Israel. Today, Bank Leumi is Israel's largest bank (by total assets as of 2015), with overseas offices in Luxembourg,[3] US, Switzerland, the UK, Mexico, Uruguay, Romania, Jersey, and China. Source
Before we go any further I would like to state that I’m not connecting Cohen with any aspect of the drug war or Contra fallout, I’m simply showing that the accumulation of power creates the opportunity to control the narrative of the music. Equally there are many hip hop pioneers that stayed outside the control mechanisms of the industry, albeit often at the cost of fame and monetary gain.
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Kick Back
Alongside monetary obsession Cohens latest rap label increasingly promotes a vacuous drug culture, narcissim, celebrity and with artists such as Young Thug (above) the blurring of gender roles. I've said it before and I'll say it again; I neither care nor judge who you are, but the drive to feminise men has zero to do with gender equality or putting men in touch with their feminine side. Indeed whilst this is happening there is an increased drive for masculine female artists that espouse the worst virtues of man! Like a pendulum they engineer society to swing between the extremes of every ideology, one thing they never do is allow it to find it's natural balance. Black & white and masculine and feminine are served as black vs white or men vs women!
The success of our species does not depend upon the outcome of a fake and manipulated war on race, sexuality and gender; it comes from using our differences and duality to create a cohesive whole, but of course they will never tell you that. Anyway lets get back to the point in hand; It's my belief that we are now entering the next stage of a deeper and longer term agenda and and as music is a powerful and seductive driver for societal change the opening lines to Cohen’s 2016 interview with complex.com certainly raised my eyebrow, it begins.
If there were a shadowy Illuminati controlling the world of rap, Lyor Cohen would be its all-seeing eye, the man behind the scenes, pulling the strings of the most powerful players and reaping the benefits”.
Indeed Cohen has certainly worked himself into numerous and increasingly powerful positions. Management at Rush records, leading Def Jam, head of Warner music group, he’s worked directly with Google and he now heads Youtube’s music division as well as running his own record label! Equally as the lyrics below from Mos Def’s “rape over” track display that not everyone appears to be happy with this sequence of events. Interestingly the track was originally included on his 2004 album “The new danger” but when it shipped the label had removed the song from the majority of the presses. Although they gave no initial reason for it’s removal they later clarified it as an “uncleared sample issue” see what you think.
“Old white men is runnin this rap shit,
Corporate force is runnin this rap shit,
a tall Israeli is runnin this rap shit,
Quasi-homosexuals is runnin this rap shit”
Indeed Dame Dash can also be heard discussing Cohen in the video below.
As I have stated on numerous occasions our minds and neural pathways are in a constant state of flux and reformation. Whilst many view our msm culture as innocuous it's important to note that young peoples minds are being moulded by it, the innocence of childhood perception is being manipulated by it. I can't say this clearer or emphatically enough, mainstream culture has been weaponised and it is increasingly leading us into a blind alley. We must become wise custodians of the information we allow our minds to absorb and equally aware of the subconscious messages the youth are absording, for these messages are increasingly controlling the narrative.
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Follow The Money
As entire communities fell to gang warfare and gangsta rap fueled the fire, liquor stores and gun shops began to appear on every hood street corner. Was this change part of an interconnected long term agenda, or simply different aspects of the system capitalising upon the fall of the black neighbourhood? I don't know, but what I do know is that the gang culture became so bad that vast swathes of black communities/families left their neighbourhoods and were moved to the outer reaches of their cities, sometimes fifty miles out. Equally worthy of note is that once the community left, developers began buying up the old neighbourhoods for literal chicken feed. Indeed the houses that a generation ago couldn't be given away are now selling for vast sums of money, the gentrification of the inner city is both ongoing and worldwide!
Final Thoughts
Do you know what I think? I think that as with all genre's of music, the mainstream ate hip hops soul and spat it back out at the world. I saw how they chewed up black anger, frustration and the never ending quest for liberation, and spat Obama and Black lives matter back out at you. I observed how before Obama took office, black/white relations (although certainly not perfect) were in general terms at a fairly high point. I observed how he then manipulated a strength of feeling to suit his own agenda and create a false perception and I observed how a highly organised and very well funded BLM were there to fill the void. Many won't agree with that statement, but I've spent a great deal of time thinking about it and I know a controlled narrative and a perceptual manipulation when I see it. My rule of thumb is simple; if the mainstream is promoting it, run a million miles away from it. Ultimately on this subject what I think doesn't really matter, so today I 'm going to give the final world to Chuck & Flav (above).
Thank you for reading.
References
1)https://themindunleashed.com/2017/04/tall-israeli-runs-hip-hop-investigation-engineered-culture-bankers.html
2)https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/gary-webb-dark-alliance_n_5961748
3)http://inthesetimes.com/article/15949/how_the_fbi_conspired_to_destroy_the_black_panther_party
4)http://peopleslawoffice.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Hampton.Cointelpro-Booklet.pdf
5)https://www.eastbayexpress.com/LegalizationNation/archives/2016/03/24/harpers-magazine-war-on-drugs-invented-to-destroy-blacks-anti-vietnam-left
6)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb
7)http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,157496,00.html
Written by perceptualflaws
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