Kill Whitey: Top 10 Corporate Greed Rap Lyrics
The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It's bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you're not naive enough to think we're living in a democracy, are you buddy? It's the free market. And you're a part of it. - Gordon Gekko, Wall Street (1987)
The age-old battle of The Haves vs The Have-Nots; those that make the rules and those forced to obey them. The 99% vs the 1%. The current Occupy Wall Street movement seeks to curtail the rampant corporate greed that dominates our nation. In fact, parallels in the Rap (Glorifying Extravagance/Materialism) vs Hip Hop (Power To The People) debate can even be seen here. (But we’ll save that for another blog). As the Occupy protests gain support and spread to various cities across the country, we decided to compile a list, in no particular order, of the top references to corporate greed.
Author’s Note: The post’s title comes from this classic scene in the movie Black Sheep, and is not a call-to-action to commit genocide against white people.
10. GZA – Knock, Knock
The percentage of the truth in the rhyme is one tenth
A solid mass of minerals, easily broke down
Hard rock MC's ya nothin but compound
Sparked by the endless greed of CEO's
In the videos, with those questionable flows
GZA pontificates on how greedy executives have bastardized hip-hop, promoting ignorance and fantasies to reap the monetary rewards.
9. Lil B – I'm The Devil
But it's Hell on Earth with these presidents and new bombs
War every day, Wall Street scams
Say what you want about Lil B’s absurd Based Freestyles, but if that’s the only thing you are familiar with then you don’t get to have an opinion on him. Lil B consistently spits some of the most raw verses about what’s going on in the hood and the world.
Read Related: Hella Based: The Many Faces Of Lil B
8. Immortal Technique – The Cause of Death
Colonialism is sponsored by corporations
That's why Halliburton gets paid to rebuild nations
Leave it to Immortal Technique to tell us about what’s really going on. Essentially, big business gets behind wars and expansion because they can then exploit the land/people for their own benefit.
LOOMANOTTY
7. Saigon – Drugs
That coke on my street and weed on your street
Is only there because they eat off it on Wall Street
Saigon continues the trend of believing that the only reason drugs are kept in circulation in neighborhoods is because rich businessman somewhere are making a percentage off of it.
6. The Coup – 5 Million Ways to Kill a CEO
We've got 5 million ways to kill a CEO
Slap him up and shake him up and then you know
Let him off the flo' then bait him with the dough
You can do it funk or do it disco, y'know how this go
I’ve selected the chorus, but pretty much every lyric in this song lambastes the greed of big business CEO’s. One of the better suggested ways to kill a CEO is “You could throw a twenty in a vat of hot oil/When he jump in after it watch him boil.”
5. Lupe Fiasco – Words I Never Said
Crooked banks around the world would gladly give a loan today
So if you ever miss a payment, they can take your home away
Lupe referencing the banking industries prevalent predatory lending tactics, the root cause of the recession.
4. DMX – 24 Hours To Live
C-4 up under the coat, snatch up my dog
Turn like three buildings on Wall Street, into a fog
Out with a bang, you will remember my name
I don’t know exactly why DMX would want to blow up buildings on Wall Street as his last act on earth… I mean… DMX doesn’t quite strike me as a gentleman who has an investment portfolio, but who knows? It is interesting to note that Styles P (whose verse is right before Dark Man X’s) actually endorses investing in his last four bars.
I would school my little brother that niggas mean him harm
He should learn to tell the future without readin' palms
When they come in with the bullets, you prepared with the bomb
So fuck bein' violent get stocks and bonds
3. De La Soul – I Am I Be
I be the new generation of slaves
Here to make papes to buy a record exec rakes
The pile of revenue I create
Posdnous reiterates what many rappers and musicians have said for decades: Labels sacrifice artistic integrity for profits.
2. Mos Def – Mathematics
It's a number game, but shit don't add up somehow
Like I got, 16 to 32 bars to rock it
But only 15% of profits ever see my pockets
Mos Def expounds upon Posdnous’s musings by giving us an exact figure. Every one gets their cut, and they aren’t the ones actually doing the work (writing rhymes). If Mos Def charges $10,000 for a verse, he’ll only make $1,500 at the end of the day. :( . As a bonus, here’s another Mos Def quotable from The Rape Over:
MTV, is runnin this rap shit
Viacom is runnin this rap shit
AOL and Time Warner runnin this rap shit
1. Talib Kweli – Distraction (Occupy Wall Street Freestyle)
The captains of industry and the leaders of status quo
Have a deep-seeded fear of change
For them it's strange -- they wanna go
Back to the 50's, they asking for a return
But them days is much blacker, for lack of a better term
50 years ago, Cigarette companies could market to kids and didn’t need health warnings on their packages. You could also legally prescribe heroin. Corporations profiteered by being able to get away with questionable business practices like not having to dispose of hazardous materials properly, etc. They don’t want stricter legislation. It’s up to us to demand it.
