Rap music depends upon the capitalist framework to succeed

Within hip-hop culture, rap music is the most popular vehicle of freedom of expression for black African Americans to project their voices; artists such as Kendrick Lamar, Childish Gambino and Jay-Z dominate popular culture as some of the top rap artists, utilising their music to incorporate subliminal messages regarding black oppression as a liberating and politically progressive form of popular culture. However, the issue of rap music as an oppositional phenomenon lies within the relationship between rap artists and patriarchal capitalist structures. Hip-hop may be considered counteractive by utilising rap music to oppose the hegemonic frameworks of white America, yet it is simultaneously dependent on this very framework that it resists in order to reach success.

Rap music has become a primary distributor in capitalist production and consumption. Contemporary discourse on rap recognizes rap’s dependence on dominant culture of capitalist production and consumerism. African Americans constitute the majority of hip-hop culture such as rap artists, dancers, producers and DJ’s, and have become dependent on white dominated America as its primary distributor and consumer. This dependency raises several issues: firstly, dominate groups of hegemonic structures have control of hip-hop’s production and distribution. The corporate control over hip-hop translates to controlling hip-hop’s image and voice through dictating its production, marketing and distribution. The social hierarchy and structure that produced the oppression of black and minorities (the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy) seem to have control over minorities with white dominated mainstream media being its primary market and consumer. It is the white supremacist institutes that are profiting off of rap artists as chief controllers.