User:Wesmac19/sandbox

As hip-hop is a music genre dominated by African-Americans, political rappers often reference and discuss black liberation. In particular, the Five-Percent Nation, an Islamic group that focuses on black liberation theology, has a high membership of popular rappers and has had an integral influence on hip hop culture. There are numerous hip hop songs expressing anti-racist views, such as the popular The Black Eyed Peas song "Where Is the Love?", however, artists advocating more for radical black liberation have remained controversial. Artists such as Public Enemy, Tupac Shakur, Ice Cube, Game, and Kendrick Lamar have advocated black liberation in their lyrics and poetry. Many refer to these artists as black nationalists. Tupac Shakur's poem, "How Can We Be Free" Tupac prose acknowledgement the inferiority of the African American People and the sacrifices of Black political prisoners and rejects patriotic symbols. In recent years, Killer Mike and Kendrick Lamar have released songs criticizing the War on Drugs and perceived prison industrial complex from an anti-racist perspective. Hip hop music continues to draw attention to and support of the struggles of minority groups in a modernist method of communication that attracts a young crowd of activists. Kendrick Lamar has also been credited with creating discussions regarding "blackness" through his music.

Particularly with the advent of gangsta rap, many hip hop artists happen to come from underclass backgrounds. Aforementioned artists such as Tupac Shakur, Ice Cube, and Killer Mike have made just as much reference to class oppression as racial oppression. Tupac Shakur used his lyrics incorporated Revolutionary Nationalism. In "Words of Wisdom" from the album 2Pacalypse, Shakur's lyrics underscore the refusal to accept economic inequality and inadequate employment opportunities. Other political rappers, such as Public Enemy, The Dope Poet Society, Dead Prez, The Coup, Paris and Immortal Technique, have advocated explicitly communist views —mostly leaning to Maoism—, whereas some rappers such as Lupe Fiasco and the lesser-known Emcee Lynx, P.O.S, and Sole have advocated anarchist positions. Political references have long been made in hip hop culture; some proving to be effective in spurring constructive discussion and others, such as The Coup's originally planned album cover for Party Music—which depicted the destruction of The World Trade Center to signify the fall of capitalism—receiving negative criticisms (although the album art was designed before the September 11 attacks and was changed prior to its November 2001 release).