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HIP HOP AND THE PRISON SYSTEM

“With five percent of the world's population, the US incarcerates 25 percent of the world's prisoners” (Daisy Hudson, Noisey Magazine. 2014). That same year “African Americans constituted 2.3 million, or 34%, of the total 6.8 million correctional population, though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately 32% of the US
population, they comprised 56% of all incarcerated people in 2015 (NAACP).
The prison system in America serves not as a correctional facility, but a container for which black bodies are buried alive. The conditions of which inmates are kept, the disparity in numbers and portrayal of those incarcerated. There is no question that factors such as education, employment, mental and physical health; the lack of access to such resources targets and propels African Americans through the pipeline to prison. In our history, it seems that prison, or largely the criminalization of African Americans, Black men in particularly, has been used as a tactic of oppression and institutionalized exclusion.

What I find interesting is how even when the Black Man/Woman reaches a level of success that brings them celebrity, they are still subject to the disparities and injustices of the justice system.
We’ve seen it in our time from the stories of OJ, ODB, Bill Cosby, Michael Vick, Reggie Bush, Lil Wayne, Meek Mill, Jay Z, Kodak Black, Blueface and the list goes on. Black people in positions of power or fame sometimes carry an attitude of being invincible, but the system still finds ways to keep us trapped.

In the most recent case with Meek Mill, he was arrested on charges pertaining to a said “violation” from an incident nearly a decade before the arrest. Now, one would be quick to look at the character and actions in that situation, but I want to broaden the lens and acknowledge/reiterate the reality that the prison system is not for correction and once you do your time you’re done. Even after that, they keep records, and track activity, and the fact that for even 10 years after you may have done time you can still be held accountable for the most human activity like riding a motorbike. Seeing as celebrities are constantly in the center of attention, it seems that a Black man in those positions would be more susceptible to criminalization on top of irrationality of police, thus would carry themselves differently, but here's the catch: Hip Hop especially perpetuates an image that disables our entire culture from moving out of these stereotypes projected on us, which we gladly fulfil and play out in their favor. The promotion of drugs, disrespect of women, this attitude of “get mine, and get out”, but the ways of which we are taught to achieve are limited to means of entertainment. It is this idea that encourages the idea that there is indeed a connection to prison in the Hip Hop industry, seeing as these old, white male executives are sitting approving and pouring millions into the exploitation of a people, who are repeating the narrative that instills doubts, judgement, and fears into our society, therefore making it easy to swallow the idea that removing us, or the absence of us would bring benefits.




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