Black music has long been an important tool for soft power, manufacturing consent for the coups, occupations, and drone strikes that reproduce the image of American peace and prosperity. I’m not suggesting that the beef was meant to distract from political issues, or that both artists haven’t made institutional critiques on and off their records. But there’s a reason that this particular beef would attract this level of attention at this particular moment, and it goes beyond their respe...| Scalawag
There is a shifting that should happen within each of us in the belly of an apocalypse—and genocides are apocalyptic. There is nothing a billionaire can serenade to me to assuage me in metabolizing an apocalypse every structural element of this society is accountable for. Read more via Scalawag: Beyoncé, Cowboy Carter, and the Rodeo at the End of the World.| Scalawag