Hip Hop and Conspiracy Theory

[JackRiddler]

Eh, so so. Everyone's done a Jesus, loads of Virgin Marys too. If not for you, I would have missed it altogether. Cos I don't and never watched the grammys and hear little of it. So really it's your fault, ha!

[RocketMan]

Eh, so so. Everyone's done a Jesus, loads of Virgin Marys too. If not for you, I would have missed it altogether. Cos I don't and never watched the grammys and hear little of it. So really it's your fault, ha!

Yeah, we all have our obsessions I guess... Guess I also don't like this "money/Crowley/übermensch figures = black empowerment" thing.

[JackRiddler]

Just some tropes. Also, marketing. Obvious marketing. And I guess you're not the target demographic.

Christianity, "the West," the whole accumulated heterogeneous canon of civilizations and religions and myths and lores and literatures and symbol systems esoteric and otherwise (or invented yesterday) and just plain decorative elements... all available to us to mix and play with. None of it has to mean anything, and it's serious self-deception to assume it always does, or that when it means anything the meaning stays static and that the cigar always signifies the same thing no matter the time place or performer. This is why you have all this extremely naive stuff oft-posted on this forum about supposed world-moving rituals or fatal followings of Crowley or Marina Abramovic or whatever the fuck the illuminati symbology of the week is supposed to be. (Lady Gaga at the Super Bowl, how the hell have we not gotten a flood of this bullshit? Must be in decline!) Contra Freud, not only is a cigar usually just a cigar, but also a geometric shape is usually just a geometric shape, especially outside the context of political rallies and formal religious observances; and a mystic-looking costume may involve a lot of intricate detail but is still 99% designed for a look and a feel rather than some decipherable content. It's affective sculpting, not messaging among the secret cognoscenti (though no matter how secret it always turns out decipherable to vigilant citizen and that lot).

So yeah, here's a pop celeb playing uebermensch symbology to make logically unsustainable claims, but really so as to sell. And the latter works. Again, doesn't have to sell to everyone or even a very large proportion of everyone to be a craaazy big success.

.

[RocketMan]

Just some tropes. Also, marketing. Obvious marketing. And I guess you're not the target demographic.

Christianity, "the West," the whole accumulated heterogeneous canon of civilizations and religions and myths and lores and literatures and symbol systems esoteric and otherwise (or invented yesterday) and just plain decorative elements... all available to us to mix and play with. None of it has to mean anything, and it's serious self-deception to assume it always does, or that when it means anything the meaning stays static and that the cigar always signifies the same thing no matter the time place or performer. This is why you have all this extremely naive stuff oft-posted on this forum about supposed world-moving rituals or fatal followings of Crowley or Marina Abramovic or whatever the fuck the illuminati symbology of the week is supposed to be. (Lady Gaga at the Super Bowl, how the hell have we not gotten a flood of this bullshit? Must be in decline!) Contra Freud, not only is a cigar usually just a cigar, but also a geometric shape is usually just a geometric shape, especially outside the context of political rallies and formal religious observances; and a mystic-looking costume may involve a lot of intricate detail but is still 99% designed for a look and a feel rather than some decipherable content. It's affective sculpting, not messaging among the secret cognoscenti (though no matter how secret it always turns out decipherable to vigilant citizen and that lot).

So yeah, here's a pop celeb playing uebermensch symbology to make logically unsustainable claims, but really so as to sell. And the latter works. Again, doesn't have to sell to everyone or even a very large proportion of everyone to be a craaazy big success.

.

Yeah. Guess I got lost myself at some point in the promiscuously used religious/occult symbols back when I was tumbling down the rabbit hole. It's true that it's probably mostly for that otherwordly, god-like ambiance and the selling, of course. Aesthetics and money. And narcissism. Perhaps it's really the selling part that really irks me. How it's mainly for the moolah, and still there come the inevitable think pieces on how Beyoncé is making a profound statement on Motherhood and the Divine Feminine.

And she's a Queen, y'all, bow down.

She came from nothing but now she's the Queen, give us your money, proles. Your daughters can be like Bey, too. Now give us your money.

[RocketMan]

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/ ... ?CMP=fb_gu

Inside the Illuminati with Rosie Kay and Adam Curtis

Rosie Kay has trained with the army and delved into tribal rituals for her bold dance shows. In her latest, MK Ultra, she’s investigating the secret society believed to be brainwashing Beyoncé and Bieber

...

Kay is bemused by the bizarre extravagance of this conspiracy theory. “There’s no actual evidence for any of it,” she says briskly. “A cult called the Illuminati did exist in Bavaria in the 17th century, but no one really knows why so many young people believe they’re around today.” What fascinates her are the reasons why belief in the Illuminati has taken so powerful a hold today. She attributes it partly to the unfettered scope of celebrity culture, and the levels of fantasy it has disseminated, and partly to the paranoia and uncertainty that has been generated by our current era of fake news: “So much doubt is now being cast on mainstream media, so many people are taking their information from alternative sources, and it’s having such a dangerous effect on politics.” As one of Kay’s teenage sources said to her: “We used to be told what was real by our leaders, but since recent events we’ve been let down. Now we fend for ourselves.”

Oh, so THAT's the takeaway.



And there's more! Of course there is, there always is.

There have certainly been moments during the making of MK Ultra when Kay has felt overwhelmed by the “bonkers” nature of the world she’s entered. Its dangerous levels of credulity and fantasy have also been underlined for her by the fact that, during this same period, she and her company have been touring 5 Soldiers and have been dealing with issues that are far starker. 5 Soldiers is a subtle and humane portrait of army life in which Kay tells the stories of five men and women who have experienced different forms of trauma while serving on the front line. The work has proved a revelation to its civilian audiences, but in the last 18 months it has also toured to several army bases, and in the process it has brought Kay into movingly intimate contact with individual soldiers.
...
Touring 5 Soldiers has also put Kay into unexpectedly close contact with top-level military personnel. When she first began to research the work, the army gave her only “grudging” access, but once they recognised the cathartic effect that it was having on the soldiers who saw it, as well as the valuable insights it offered to civilian audiences, they were very keen to offer funding and support. As Kay says: “Nick Carter, the head of the British army, has been pushing to make it more representative. He’s been pushing for more women and BAME [recruits], and he sees the arts as a good way to present a more complex portrait of the army to the wider community.”

Yes indeedy, ladies and germs, "ART" in itself will not save us.

[brekin]

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/mar/13/illuminati-rosie-kay-adam-curtis-cult-dance-mk-ultra?CMP=fb_gu

Inside the Illuminati with Rosie Kay and Adam Curtis
Rosie Kay has trained with the army and delved into tribal rituals for her bold dance shows. In her latest, MK Ultra, she’s investigating the secret society believed to be brainwashing Beyoncé and Bieber
...
Kay is bemused by the bizarre extravagance of this conspiracy theory. “There’s no actual evidence for any of it,” she says briskly. “A cult called the Illuminati did exist in Bavaria in the 17th century, but no one really knows why so many young people believe they’re around today.” What fascinates her are the reasons why belief in the Illuminati has taken so powerful a hold today. She attributes it partly to the unfettered scope of celebrity culture, and the levels of fantasy it has disseminated, and partly to the paranoia and uncertainty that has been generated by our current era of fake news: “So much doubt is now being cast on mainstream media, so many people are taking their information from alternative sources, and it’s having such a dangerous effect on politics.” As one of Kay’s teenage sources said to her: “We used to be told what was real by our leaders, but since recent events we’ve been let down. Now we fend for ourselves.”

Oh, so THAT's the takeaway.

And there's more! Of course there is, there always is.

There have certainly been moments during the making of MK Ultra when Kay has felt overwhelmed by the “bonkers” nature of the world she’s entered. Its dangerous levels of credulity and fantasy have also been underlined for her by the fact that, during this same period, she and her company have been touring 5 Soldiers and have been dealing with issues that are far starker. 5 Soldiers is a subtle and humane portrait of army life in which Kay tells the stories of five men and women who have experienced different forms of trauma while serving on the front line. The work has proved a revelation to its civilian audiences, but in the last 18 months it has also toured to several army bases, and in the process it has brought Kay into movingly intimate contact with individual soldiers.
...
Touring 5 Soldiers has also put Kay into unexpectedly close contact with top-level military personnel. When she first began to research the work, the army gave her only “grudging” access, but once they recognised the cathartic effect that it was having on the soldiers who saw it, as well as the valuable insights it offered to civilian audiences, they were very keen to offer funding and support. As Kay says: “Nick Carter, the head of the British army, has been pushing to make it more representative. He’s been pushing for more women and BAME [recruits], and he sees the arts as a good way to present a more complex portrait of the army to the wider community.”

Yes indeedy, ladies and germs, "ART" in itself will not save us.

Well, this is just the life cycle of a conspiracy really. And most fads/tropes/styles as well. Once the youth get a hold of it, then the older generation feels it has to be documented somehow and the back forth bastardizes most of it and makes its more undigestable components digestable. Seems like the artist is just picking up things in the contemporary culture and throwing it back, but the unfortunate issue is the piece is titled MKultra and judging from the clip is mostly focusing on that programs brainwashing attributes which we know has much documentary evidence, but is tying it to the Illuminati, the catch all for dismissive crackpot conspiracy theories. So basically saying MKultra = Illuminati, which is bunk, but probably is how the young people coming to her dance workshops see it. So instead of some HMW's keyword hijacking this is probably just a contemporary folk belief becoming a contemporary folk dance (albeit for a arty niche and for a few folk seeing it).

Belief in the cult is particularly strong among young people, and when Kay first began hearing about it from the teenagers who came to her dance workshops, she discovered that pop stars are considered to be the Illuminati’s most targeted “recruits”. Groomed from a young age, singers like Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Lindsay Lohan and Kanye West have supposedly been made agents of the Illuminati’s New World Order, their songs and videos carrying messages designed to subtly alter the public’s consciousness. According to Kay, “the under-25s now have a whole system for decoding the imagery of music videos, looking for symbols like thrones, butterflies, checkered floors and bird cages, to see if they’re carrying the cult’s message and to see which celebrities have been programmed”.

The actual performance seems kind of tame.



Compared to the original teaser trailer.



Send me to Birmingham and I'll get the full scoop.
I'm your man.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Not seeing what Beyonce or Beebz have to do with hip hop, but I like the fact this thread is still going.

Here's something rare: rappers making money.

Via: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/ ... fer-913684

* Stop The Steal paid Alejandro Vidal $5000 for “fundraising expenses.” Vidal, a 31-year-old Floridian, is the founder of Freenauts, a hip-hop group whose catalog consists of raps about the “Clinton Crime Cartel,” the “Bush Crime Family,” and Williams’s plight. The group’s video for “Justice for Danney Williams” was released two days before the final Clinton-Trump debate and was heavily promoted by Stone, Jones, and their cohorts. Vidal’s web site reports that he helps produce Stone’s weekly “Stone Cold Truth” radio show.

This reminds me of the DOD Islamic rap groups that got founded to reel in some of that Countering Violent Extremism money.

[RocketMan]

Not seeing what Beyonce or Beebz have to do with hip hop, but I like the fact this thread is still going.

THREADS. MUST. CONSOLIDATED.

[SonicG]

Ha well...it does say Hip Hop so...

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... dressed-as

I agree though, Snoop Dogg is pretty desperate with this move...He gave up the Rasta schtick? "Kill whitey, but buy my records first...

[brekin]

Ha well...it does say Hip Hop so...
http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... dressed-as
I agree though, Snoop Dogg is pretty desperate with this move...He gave up the Rasta schtick? "Kill whitey, but buy my records first...

Context: Above music video has Snoop shooting Donald Trump clown lookalike in the video.

President Trump early Wednesday speculated that Snoop Dogg would face jail time if the rapper shot a clown dressed as former President Obama in a video instead of one dressed as Trump."Can you imagine what the outcry would be if @SnoopDogg, failing career and all, had aimed and fired the gun at President Obama? Jail time!" Trump tweeted.

Snoop Dogg in a new music video shoots a clown dressed as Trump with a toy gun.
“This is the final call,” Snoop Dogg says before pointing a gun at the head of a cigarette-puffing clown dressed as Trump.
A “bang” flag shoots out from the music star's gun after he pulls the trigger.
“We’ve had presidents assassinated before in this country, so anything like that, people should really be careful about that kind of thing,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told TMZ after news of the music video broke. "He should think about that a little bit.” “If the wrong person sees that and gets the wrong idea, you could have a real problem. I think people can disagree on policy, but we’ve got to be very careful about that kind of thing.”

Kinda like, "If the wrong person [in the CIA] sees that and get the wrong idea, you could have a real problem. Just ask my old man." Ha, ha. Sigh.

[seemslikeadream]

trump....
ENTCOM put an operational plan for the conquest of Raqqa on your desk two weeks ago. Surely you don't have time to Tweet about Snoop Dog.

[Iamwhomiam]

President Trump early Wednesday speculated that Snoop Dogg would face jail time if the rapper shot a clown dressed as former President Obama in a video instead of one dressed as Trump.

As if there's a fucking difference! This, from the greatest Juggalo of all times, complete with his insane clown posse of a cabinet; just terrifying.

[SonicG]

Not a video, and definitely not rap but...

Renegade right-winger Ted Nugent recently went on a vicious onstage rant in which he threatened the lives of Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Decked out in full-on camouflage hunting gear, Nugent wielded two machine guns while raging, "Obama, he's a piece of shit. I told him to suck on my machine gun. Hey Hillary," he continued. "You might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch." Nugent summed up his eloquent speech by screaming "freedom!"

If you want a good laugh, check out Snoop's rasta-conversion at the hands of white producers documentary from a few years ago...