Generational Divide In Hip Hop

Damien50

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@DesertRose mentioned this topic and I thought I'd make the thread. I have been watching interviews recently; XXL magazine, Ebro in the morning, The breakfast club, Fayguylovers etc.

Now my favorite rapper happens to be Tech N9ne and I was watching an interview he had with Ebro and they mentioned Lil Yachty and his general lack of education regarding music. They brought up that the parents, the new ones responsible for education didn't teach these new rappers these themes and concepts that people like ice cube knew.

Then while I was cutting grass I listened to the re release of Ice cube's album and honestly it was racist, violent, angry, lyrically sound, musically appealing, discriminatory, hateful and above all else an echo of the times that he lived in. My initial thought was how angry and wrong it all sounded but taking in perspective that this was Los Angeles and the Rodney King/OJ Simpson things were going on at this time.

This topic can be flashed out more but there since the early 2000's has been a musical and lyrical shift in the content of the younger generation and has been, in my opinion, an echo ringing in unison with the decline in education, responsibility, and ironically morality.
 

DesertRose

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Hey Damien thanks for picking up that suggestion!
I think Ice Cube was discussing the issues that were not addressed by the civil rights movement! However I do not personally care for that style.
I would suggest that artists from the older generation were addressing these issues through their rap and the younger ones as a whole not individually are just promoting the gangster lifestyle.
In addition they seem highly miseducated.
Correct me if I am wrong, please.
However, Immortal Technique is my favorite he actually opened an orphanage in Afghanistan!
 
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Damien50

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I gave up on rap a long time ago. These newer rappers coming out care more for the vain lifestyle than they do for making actual good music. But what do I know, Im just a hater

The crazy thing is that the 2011 freshman with Kendrick and Yelawolf were so incredibly lyrical and after that it was blah.
The early 2000's were dominated by southern rap which, in my opinion, ruined rap and forced the underground into the spotlight. We got some decent artist from the south like; T. I., Ludacris, Wayne, OutKast that made it big and had an influence but to me they were unique lyricist that unlike Soulja boy and that ring tone rap generation they could not be emulated.

JayZ had an impact on the late nineties and early 2000's due to The Blueprint was largely not a prominent influence to the mainstream for a decade. You had Mike Jones, D4L, Young Joc and a score of other rappers that dominated bringing chopped and screwed, TWERKING, auto tune and many other gimmicks.

Not until somewhere around 2010 did the landscape start to change for the better. Lil Wayne had reached the pinnacle of his career bringing Young Money and notably Drake into stardom with Nicki Minaj bringing lyricism that female rap had seemed to be missing. Rappers started being lyrical and substance seemed to be coming back.

That's my opinion btw. I'll that while the mainstream was going through various changes the underground had someone who seemed like an overnight success forging a path and getting noticed by XXL Magazine and Forbes. Tech N9ne had been since 2001 running his own independent label, similar to Psychopathic Records by Insane Clown Posse, but had achieved monetary success through constant touring(6 months and over 100 shows) and had reached Jay Z and Kanye status while being largely irrelevant to the mainstream. Forward to the present and now everyone wants to start their own labels or claim independent, Macklemore and Kendrick, and artist have been mimicking his model and touring heavily.

More later
 

Etagloc

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The crazy thing is that the 2011 freshman with Kendrick and Yelawolf were so incredibly lyrical and after that it was blah.
The early 2000's were dominated by southern rap which, in my opinion, ruined rap and forced the underground into the spotlight. We got some decent artist from the south like; T. I., Ludacris, Wayne, OutKast that made it big and had an influence but to me they were unique lyricist that unlike Soulja boy and that ring tone rap generation they could not be emulated.

JayZ had an impact on the late nineties and early 2000's due to The Blueprint was largely not a prominent influence to the mainstream for a decade. You had Mike Jones, D4L, Young Joc and a score of other rappers that dominated bringing chopped and screwed, TWERKING, auto tune and many other gimmicks.

Not until somewhere around 2010 did the landscape start to change for the better. Lil Wayne had reached the pinnacle of his career bringing Young Money and notably Drake into stardom with Nicki Minaj bringing lyricism that female rap had seemed to be missing. Rappers started being lyrical and substance seemed to be coming back.

That's my opinion btw. I'll that while the mainstream was going through various changes the underground had someone who seemed like an overnight success forging a path and getting noticed by XXL Magazine and Forbes. Tech N9ne had been since 2001 running his own independent label, similar to Psychopathic Records by Insane Clown Posse, but had achieved monetary success through constant touring(6 months and over 100 shows) and had reached Jay Z and Kanye status while being largely irrelevant to the mainstream. Forward to the present and now everyone wants to start their own labels or claim independent, Macklemore and Kendrick, and artist have been mimicking his model and touring heavily.

More later
Pimp C got a message for ya!


Quit hatin' the South! :p
 

Etagloc

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The crazy thing is that the 2011 freshman with Kendrick and Yelawolf were so incredibly lyrical and after that it was blah.
The early 2000's were dominated by southern rap which, in my opinion, ruined rap and forced the underground into the spotlight. We got some decent artist from the south like; T. I., Ludacris, Wayne, OutKast that made it big and had an influence but to me they were unique lyricist that unlike Soulja boy and that ring tone rap generation they could not be emulated.

JayZ had an impact on the late nineties and early 2000's due to The Blueprint was largely not a prominent influence to the mainstream for a decade. You had Mike Jones, D4L, Young Joc and a score of other rappers that dominated bringing chopped and screwed, TWERKING, auto tune and many other gimmicks.

Not until somewhere around 2010 did the landscape start to change for the better. Lil Wayne had reached the pinnacle of his career bringing Young Money and notably Drake into stardom with Nicki Minaj bringing lyricism that female rap had seemed to be missing. Rappers started being lyrical and substance seemed to be coming back.

That's my opinion btw. I'll that while the mainstream was going through various changes the underground had someone who seemed like an overnight success forging a path and getting noticed by XXL Magazine and Forbes. Tech N9ne had been since 2001 running his own independent label, similar to Psychopathic Records by Insane Clown Posse, but had achieved monetary success through constant touring(6 months and over 100 shows) and had reached Jay Z and Kanye status while being largely irrelevant to the mainstream. Forward to the present and now everyone wants to start their own labels or claim independent, Macklemore and Kendrick, and artist have been mimicking his model and touring heavily.

More later
On a more serious tip, though.... I don't know what region you're from but I do think your post is sorta slanted against the South... I mean for example, you mention Mike Jones. Mike Jones was part of that wave when H-Town rappers were suddenly hot and mainstream for like two seconds... you coulda mentioned Slim Thug, Chamillionaire, Lil Flip, or Pimp C or Bun B for that matter but of all the Houston rappers (UGK moved to Houston so Pimp and Bun can also be considered Houston) you could have mentioned you mentioned one of the worst possible examples...

you like Jay-Z and you feel like rap got better once Wayne's style took over.... but Wayne's style was more like an East Coast type style

so basically you want East Coast style hip-hop

I do think a lot of bad music from Atlanta (Young Thug, for example) has been bad for hip-hop but Houston has put out a lot of super-soulful rap that was never really appreciated... when I was in high school, I didn't even really wanna listen to rap unless it was from Houston and there was so much good rap from Houston that this was actually somewhat normal and you could get away with it because there was so much good Houston rap to listen to

for example, I doubt anyone posting here has heard this song but this is an unappreciated gem... check it out

 
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Damien50

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On a more serious tip, though.... I don't know what region you're from but I do think your post is sorta slanted against the South... I mean for example, you mention Mike Jones. Mike Jones was part of that wave when H-Town rappers were suddenly hot and mainstream for like two seconds... you coulda mentioned Slim Thug, Chamillionaire, Lil Flip, or Pimp C or Bun B for that matter but of all the Houston rappers (UGK moved to Houston so Pimp and Bun can also be considered Houston) you could have mentioned you mentioned one of the worst possible examples...

you like Jay-Z and you feel like rap got better once Wayne's style took over.... but Wayne's style was more like an East Coast type style

so basically you want East Coast style hip-hop

I do think a lot of bad music from Atlanta (Young Thug, for example) has been bad for hip-hop but Houston has put out a lot of super-soulful rap that was never really appreciated... when I was in high school, I didn't even really wanna listen to rap unless it was from Houston and there was so much good rap from Houston that this was actually somewhat normal and you could get away with it because there was so much good Houston rap to listen to

for example, I doubt anyone posting here has heard this song but this is an unappreciated gem... check it out

It's was for the sake of brevity because just discussing the mainstream is a lot of name dropping and this is just one person's perspective being from the mid west. I don't think all southern rap was bad but I don't think it was 90's west coast good either.
 

Etagloc

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It's was for the sake of brevity because just discussing the mainstream is a lot of name dropping and this is just one person's perspective being from the mid west. I don't think all southern rap was bad but I don't think it was 90's west coast good either.
I'm not tryna hate on your perspective or anything like that. Everyone is entitled to their point of view.

I look at it a little different- because I was born right outside of Houston in a smaller city in Harris County that's considered part of Greater Houston. I've lived in Houston but I don't say I'm from Houston because I don't want to disrespect the people that were born inside the city.

If we're looking at mid-West hip-hop, you're probably going to look at it very differently than how I look at it. I know hardly anything about the mid-West.

But if we look at Houston hip-hop, naturally I'm going to see it very differently. I think Houston rap is better than West Coast, to be honest.

I say this because Houston rap has been more spiritual and more soulful. You look at Z-Ro, for example. That dude will sing about Jesus in his raps and a lot of his stuff is actually very religious. Not only that but... and a lot of people don't really understand what chopped-and-screwed is.

Chopped-and-Screwed music comes from DJ Screw. It's part of the DNA of Houston rap. I used to smoke weed and chop and screw music. You slow down the music and do the chop effect... you can do other stuff if you want but that's basically chopped and screwed. I guess you could call it a form of remix. It slows down the music and makes the music more calming and basically it's for when you smoke weed. You smoke weed and your whole world slows down and then you listened to slowed-down hip-hop. The stuff sounds deeper in pitch and then there's the chop thing altering how time works and you get sort of a slowed-down psychedelic effect. Also I wanna mention that a lot of people think chopped and screwed is supposed to go with sipping syrup and that's not true... it's supposed to be weed, not syrup. The syrup is a separate thing. Also I wanna mention that Robitussin is not no syrup. You have to put codeine in it for it to be syrup.

But I mean... if a person doesn't really know about the music of Fat Pat, DJ Screw, Z-Ro.... I don't think they can really talk about Houston rap. I mean they can talk about it but they can't really talk about it in the same way a person from Houston can talk about it. Because you talk about Houston rap to someone from Houston... they're gonna think of Fat Pat, DJ Screw, Z-Ro or Lil Keke, for example. I live outside of Texas now and you can't really talk about Houston rap to someone from outside from Texas because, for example, they won't even know who Lil Keke or Z-Ro are. When I was a teenager, I saw someone get made fun of because they didn't know who Z-Ro was and then people kinda backed off a little because someone explained "it's not their fault, they're not from Texas". If you come to Texas- at least around Houston- and you don't know who Z-Ro is... then people know you're not from Texas. There's people in Texas who think Z-Ro is better than Tupac. And Z-Ro doesn't just have a few hits... that dude has been putting out albums since the 90's and has had hella albums and hella Houston classics. When I turned 19 me and my girlfriend went to a Z-Ro concert in Houston and you couldn't even hear Z-Ro when he did his Mo City Don song because people were chanting every single word to his song and you couldn't hear him.... pretty much the entire audience knew every single word. He's as big as Lil Wayne to people in Houston. But then you go outside Houston and no one has ever heard of him.

When I think about it, it makes sense that you mentioned Mike Jones. Because like I said Mike Jones was part of that wave around 2005 when Houston rap became mainstream for like two seconds. But the people not from Houston... they saw the stuff that went mainstream and was big outside of Houston.... but what the person outside of Houston saw of Houston rap was totally different than what the person in that area saw of Houston rap. I mean, you're entitled to your opinion but I don't think you can really seriously evaluate Houston rap unless you really know about Fat Pat, DJ Screw, Big Moe, Lil Keke, Z-Ro, etc.... because that's part of the basics of Houston rap is that stuff. If a person doesn't know about them, they don't know about Houston rap. And if people don't know about them, they're probably not gonna know about rappers like K-Rino, Big Mello, Street Military, E.S.G., etc.

I don't know what you know... if you know about the people I mentioned, I think you're entitled to talk about Houston rap... but if you're not familiar with them I don't think you really know Houston rap.

I don't really know about Atlanta rap but I think most of the Southern rappers you mentioned were from Atlanta... at first, rap was dominated by NYC, then California, and then I think Atlanta.... I think right now it's Atlanta... I dislike a lot of the music from Atlanta but I can't say anything about Atlanta as a whole because the mainstream acts that get famous outside of Atlanta.... it could be that there's better underground rap acts that don't get famous outside of Atlanta because they don't sell out and the best ones don't actually become mainstream famous... that's how it is with a lot of Houston rap... for example, that's why Slim Thug went back to being underground and left the mainstream. He's still making hits in Texas but he quit being mainstream because he felt like he was having to give up his integrity. And I really respect what he did because I think it was right. He needed to stick with making Houston music and keeping true to his style... Slim Thug didn't sound right on Pharrell beats.
 

Damien50

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I'm not tryna hate on your perspective or anything like that. Everyone is entitled to their point of view.

I look at it a little different- because I was born right outside of Houston in a smaller city in Harris County that's considered part of Greater Houston. I've lived in Houston but I don't say I'm from Houston because I don't want to disrespect the people that were born inside the city.

If we're looking at mid-West hip-hop, you're probably going to look at it very differently than how I look at it. I know hardly anything about the mid-West.

But if we look at Houston hip-hop, naturally I'm going to see it very differently. I think Houston rap is better than West Coast, to be honest.

I say this because Houston rap has been more spiritual and more soulful. You look at Z-Ro, for example. That dude will sing about Jesus in his raps and a lot of his stuff is actually very religious. Not only that but... and a lot of people don't really understand what chopped-and-screwed is.

Chopped-and-Screwed music comes from DJ Screw. It's part of the DNA of Houston rap. I used to smoke weed and chop and screw music. You slow down the music and do the chop effect... you can do other stuff if you want but that's basically chopped and screwed. I guess you could call it a form of remix. It slows down the music and makes the music more calming and basically it's for when you smoke weed. You smoke weed and your whole world slows down and then you listened to slowed-down hip-hop. The stuff sounds deeper in pitch and then there's the chop thing altering how time works and you get sort of a slowed-down psychedelic effect. Also I wanna mention that a lot of people think chopped and screwed is supposed to go with sipping syrup and that's not true... it's supposed to be weed, not syrup. The syrup is a separate thing. Also I wanna mention that Robitussin is not no syrup. You have to put codeine in it for it to be syrup.

But I mean... if a person doesn't really know about the music of Fat Pat, DJ Screw, Z-Ro.... I don't think they can really talk about Houston rap. I mean they can talk about it but they can't really talk about it in the same way a person from Houston can talk about it. Because you talk about Houston rap to someone from Houston... they're gonna think of Fat Pat, DJ Screw, Z-Ro or Lil Keke, for example. I live outside of Texas now and you can't really talk about Houston rap to someone from outside from Texas because, for example, they won't even know who Lil Keke or Z-Ro are. When I was a teenager, I saw someone get made fun of because they didn't know who Z-Ro was and then people kinda backed off a little because someone explained "it's not their fault, they're not from Texas". If you come to Texas- at least around Houston- and you don't know who Z-Ro is... then people know you're not from Texas. There's people in Texas who think Z-Ro is better than Tupac. And Z-Ro doesn't just have a few hits... that dude has been putting out albums since the 90's and has had hella albums and hella Houston classics. When I turned 19 me and my girlfriend went to a Z-Ro concert in Houston and you couldn't even hear Z-Ro when he did his Mo City Don song because people were chanting every single word to his song and you couldn't hear him.... pretty much the entire audience knew every single word. He's as big as Lil Wayne to people in Houston. But then you go outside Houston and no one has ever heard of him.

When I think about it, it makes sense that you mentioned Mike Jones. Because like I said Mike Jones was part of that wave around 2005 when Houston rap became mainstream for like two seconds. But the people not from Houston... they saw the stuff that went mainstream and was big outside of Houston.... but what the person outside of Houston saw of Houston rap was totally different than what the person in that area saw of Houston rap. I mean, you're entitled to your opinion but I don't think you can really seriously evaluate Houston rap unless you really know about Fat Pat, DJ Screw, Big Moe, Lil Keke, Z-Ro, etc.... because that's part of the basics of Houston rap is that stuff. If a person doesn't know about them, they don't know about Houston rap. And if people don't know about them, they're probably not gonna know about rappers like K-Rino, Big Mello, Street Military, E.S.G., etc.

I don't know what you know... if you know about the people I mentioned, I think you're entitled to talk about Houston rap... but if you're not familiar with them I don't think you really know Houston rap.

I don't really know about Atlanta rap but I think most of the Southern rappers you mentioned were from Atlanta... at first, rap was dominated by NYC, then California, and then I think Atlanta.... I think right now it's Atlanta... I dislike a lot of the music from Atlanta but I can't say anything about Atlanta as a whole because the mainstream acts that get famous outside of Atlanta.... it could be that there's better underground rap acts that don't get famous outside of Atlanta because they don't sell out and the best ones don't actually become mainstream famous... that's how it is with a lot of Houston rap... for example, that's why Slim Thug went back to being underground and left the mainstream. He's still making hits in Texas but he quit being mainstream because he felt like he was having to give up his integrity. And I really respect what he did because I think it was right. He needed to stick with making Houston music and keeping true to his style... Slim Thug didn't sound right on Pharrell beats.
It wasn't wholly a Texas or Georgia dominated time period but you didn't find people imitating Twista or Eminem. The south and many styles from the south had a major impact through much of the 2000's was my entire point because this thread is about the generational divides more than singling out anyone's preference for rap music.
 

Etagloc

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It wasn't wholly a Texas or Georgia dominated time period but you didn't find people imitating Twista or Eminem. The south and many styles from the south had a major impact through much of the 2000's was my entire point because this thread is about the generational divides more than singling out anyone's preference for rap music.
I mean... I have a Houstoncentric view of rap music, simply because of how I grew up. I can't really look at rap from outside that perspective because that's simply my perspective. Houston rap was mainstream for like two seconds in the mid-2000's. I think that Atlanta has way more influence over the mainstream of hip-hop than Houston or anywhere else in the South. I think most rap fans from Houston would agree with what I'm saying. I mean if we made a list of mainstream Texas rappers..... it would be very small. But we could make a giant list of all the ATL rappers that are mainstream right now... Gucci Mane, TI, Ludacris, Young Thug, Jeezy, 21 Savage, Lil Yachty, Waka Flocka... Houston is not on Atlanta's level if we are looking at it in terms of mainstream influence.

So Eminem and Twista are mid West rappers. Plus Bone Thugs, right? Who else do you like from the mid West? I would like to know more about mid West hip hop. Is the fast paced flow a mid West thing?
 

Etagloc

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As far as people's belief that the South ruined hip-hop (which apparently has been widespread enough that UGK even made that song I posted specifically in response to that belief), in defense of the South I would have to say that I think the mainstream is NOT the heart of hip-hop and that I think people have been given a distorted view of Southern rappers.

Because, for example, Mike Jones is very famous. But Mike Jones... his stuff wasn't all that. Meanwhile K-Rino is one of the best rappers of all time yet hardly anyone has even heard of him.

I think if you're into Houston rap and you love Houston's culture, I think you have somewhat of a right to be disgruntled...

Houston has not had the influence and domination that Atlanta has had and the reason... is that Atlanta's rappers have been willing to go along with external control and serving elite agendas. Young Thug is the poster child of this. Houston's rappers, on the other hand, have been fiercely independent and Pimp C, who was basically like a king of that scene, was murdered because he was so outspoken and openly went against the Illuminati. The Houston rappers are fiercely independent and opposed to the Illuminati.

So in terms of scenes and individuals, only those who go along with the elite agendas are those who receive the exposure. That's why I think the argument that the South ruined hip-hop is based on a distorted view of what the South has really had to offer. And the South is diverse. It's a gigantic region and what goes on in Atlanta does not necessarily reflect on Houston. Everyone who keeps up with Houston rap knows that Atlanta has had way more influence and that Houston has mostly been marginalized outside of a brief moment around 2005 when some Swishahouse rappers went mainstream for a second.
 

Aero

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A lot of flawed theories floating around in this thread. But that's ok because this is a complex discussion. I think that it's mostly true that the industry is heavily controlled, and the first rapper mentioned is a perfect example. Tech N9ne? His entire discography is homage to the Illuminati and Mk Ultra. However he doesn't get a lot of mainstream exposure, he's like a ghost. And it's not because he or any of these rappers are from Kansas City or Houston. The Agenda takes precedence.

The agenda in the 90s was simple. Fear and violence. Get people to fight each other over stupid shit. That's why the mainstream loved gangster rappers. They could influence all of us as young kids, and make the industry millions. We all wanted to be a rapper or just be a straight up thug. And I think the question should be, where did all of that influence go? Like if you think many young kids out there are being influenced by Ice Cube you are crazy. It leads me to believe the influence was given to them, by people at the top.

And the line about Drake bringing substance back to rap made me laugh. He's following the current agenda perfectly. Right now if you aren't rapping or singing about egotistical things. Like vanity, greed, and sex. Than you wont get exposure. If your art has real depth and makes people ask questions, you wont get exposure. Once you understand how the music industry is connected to so many other industries it all makes sense. It's all part of the plan to turn American into a corporation. I think we are slowly turning into Russia.
 

Damien50

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A lot of flawed theories floating around in this thread. But that's ok because this is a complex discussion. I think that it's mostly true that the industry is heavily controlled, and the first rapper mentioned is a perfect example. Tech N9ne? His entire discography is homage to the Illuminati and Mk Ultra. However he doesn't get a lot of mainstream exposure, he's like a ghost. And it's not because he or any of these rappers are from Kansas City or Houston. The Agenda takes precedence.

The agenda in the 90s was simple. Fear and violence. Get people to fight each other over stupid shit. That's why the mainstream loved gangster rappers. They could influence all of us as young kids, and make the industry millions. We all wanted to be a rapper or just be a straight up thug. And I think the question should be, where did all of that influence go? Like if you think many young kids out there are being influenced by Ice Cube you are crazy. It leads me to believe the influence was given to them, by people at the top.

And the line about Drake bringing substance back to rap made me laugh. He's following the current agenda perfectly. Right now if you aren't rapping or singing about egotistical things. Like vanity, greed, and sex. Than you wont get exposure. If your art has real depth and makes people ask questions, you wont get exposure. Once you understand how the music industry is connected to so many other industries it all makes sense. It's all part of the plan to turn American into a corporation. I think we are slowly turning into Russia.
It's quite the complex discussion without getting into the quality of the artist themselves like my comment about Drake. To me or seemed that with his mixtape and subsequent signing to Young Money there was a turning point in the mainstream. I'm open to criticism though because I am no historian and this is a vast topic that starts before NWA and involved many many individuals. Those were my thoughts and perceptions of the last 20ish years and I had to set context for any future comments I might make lol
 

DesertRose

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He's following the current agenda perfectly. Right now if you aren't rapping or singing about egotistical things. Like vanity, greed, and sex. Than you wont get exposure. If your art has real depth and makes people ask questions, you wont get exposure. Once you understand how the music industry is connected to so many other industries it all makes sense. It's all part of the plan to turn American into a corporation. I think we are slowly turning into Russia.
Very interesting point Aero.
The leadership is collectivist and immoral.
There is a collectivist influence to the negative regarding influence in media and specifically music.
He also discusses schooling here and other government institutions.

Also bringing this book here for anyone to see how miseducation has taken off in the States:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2010/08/john-taylor-gatto/bianca-you-animal-shut-up/
 
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