If you remember, rap replaced hair bands. Not overnight, the initial hits were nearly a decade before. But when MTV saw the rap ratings, they switched videos, guys from the ghetto became millionaires. And the white people who thought they ran this country, controlled people's hearts and minds, found out they didn't.
Like Escobar, the newly-minted rap impresarios lived large. They weren't saving for retirement, they weren't even planning to get to retirement. Money can't buy you love, but it can buy you a boat, some sex and a big 'ol house and a Maybach. Which everybody can view. A college degree sits on the wall, but clothes and babes and parties and jets are for all to see.
Now eventually the rappers got co-opted by the money. That's what happens with anti-establishment figures, once they have something to protect, they want to. And the public...it's left out, withering on the vine, kind of like today.
We've got a great unwashed underclass with no opportunity. We've got a failing middle class that just can't believe the jobs are gone. And a horrified upper middle class, that believed its Ivy League degrees were a Get Out of Jail Free card, that they could survive on their education, when the truth is we live in the land of money, and unless you've got it, you're screwed.
Oh, you can be a techie. And what's most interesting about the techies is like Escobar and rappers they see no rules, and those that are in their way are broken. It's what happened with Napster, and if you think the music industry won there, you're probably still buying CDs. Because once the flower of justice blooms, life is never the same.
Fifteen dollar CDs with one overpriced track were too much. People poured through the hole Napster provided. To bitch about Spotify and Apple Music is to misunderstand history, they're just trying to put a wall around the chaos. The people want all the music for a very low price, and that ain't gonna change. And then there are the bankers. Who skim in ways not only the government can't understand, but neither can most of Wall Street's workers. As for the hedge funders, they've rigged the tax system to their advantage, the government can't get them, because they're paying elected officials off. If you think this is any different from how Pablo Escobar reigned, you think bankers don't snort cocaine. But they do. And the leader of the rap cartel was Jay Z. Who escaped the streets with the most money and the best babe and got cash from major corporations to boot. But then he made a mistake, he forgot his roots, he bought Tidal, not realizing that once you've left your audience's side, once you're no longer doing it for them, you're screwed.
So Jay Z has been replaced by Donald Trump. Who was born on third base, maybe second, and is far from home, he lies about his success, but he's a beacon to the underclass...that someone at the top is on their team, someone at the top is telling the truth.
Did you see Trump came down on Karl Rove?
"Why does @oreillyfactor and @FoxNews always have Karl Rove on. He spent $430 million and lost ALL races. A dope who said Romney won election"
Who says this stuff? Who speaks the truth?
Once upon a time Pablo Escobar did. And then the rappers. And now Trump.
Illustrating that he who ties in with the underprivileged ultimately wins. Not only do politicians no longer get it, that the public is fed-up with D.C., but it's musicians too. Musicians haven't been in bed with their audience for such a long time. They scalp their own tickets and rake in money from endorsements and keep bitching that's someone's screwing THEM without realizing that the system is screwing their audience every damn day, and unless you're humble and know which side your toast is buttered on, your piece of bread is going to be burned.
Out of fear our whole nation has been running for safety, in a game of musical chairs where most are left out. Not realizing there will be a price to pay.
We're looking for leaders.
Don't like today's music? Just wait a while, the slate's gonna be wiped clean. Just like the gays killed corporate rock with disco and the rappers killed hair bands, something is gonna come along and knock vapid pop off its perch. Could take years, but it's coming.
As for politicians and the rich... Let this be the great awakening, you can't leave the rest of us this far behind for this long. Rules, schmules. Laws, schlaws. Did laws stop the internet? Where the revolutionaries spread their gospel? Hell, even Muslim terrorists employ the internet for propaganda today. There's less control than ever before. And what side you're on counts. In Colombia, they shot the rich, those who got in their way. Because the truth is nobody is protected. How it goes down in America..? We'll see. But one thing we know is what's happening today ain't gonna last.
Never does.
The oligarchs and their sycophants, everybody worshipping cash and believing they're immune, they've got another thing coming. Because human nature trumps money. And those who help their brother ultimately succeed.
Fight abortion and unions and taxes and then find out...
The public isn't with you. Isn't that the essence of Trump? Read Paul Krugman's piece for insight ("Trump Is Right On Economics": http://nyti.ms/1NkPeik). Everything you thought you knew was wrong. And the control the media thinks it has is nonexistent.
This is when people fight for their rights. When their backs are up against the wall and they see no options.
That's how we got Pablo Escobar. And that's how we got rap.
What's next?
Thanks to Bob Lefsetz.