He went on to say some of the lyrics in his song “New Slaves” were inspired by the frustration he has felt attempting to use his gifts and talents to improve conditions.
“I want to tell people, ‘I can create more for this world, and I’ve hit the glass ceiling.’ If I don’t scream, if I don’t say something, then no one’s going to say anything, you know?”
Narubi Selah
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Educator and lyricist Narubi Selah said the term “New Slaves” is a misnomer, because it implies that there was a time artists were not slaves within the industry.
“Slavery begins first of all in your mind,” said Ms. Selah. “So media moguls, corporations, their aim is to enslave you mentally first…we think we’re so free, but we’re not,” she added.
Ms. Selah said the slave master has “stepped it up” so now even when artists speak out, they are still constrained, victims of a deceitful game of control and used to keep the masses of the people managed through pacification.
“He’s definitely stepped it up in terms of pacifying us now with things. When they put Obama in office that was a form of pacification. When they gave us charter schools in the ‘90’s that was a form of pacification because we were fed up with the educational system. And now they take our music,” said Ms. Selah. “Proof that we are slaves is that a slave can create but he cannot own that which he creates. Does that not go back to the plantation when Black women would bear babies and the babies would be taken from them with the umbilical cord still attached and they never saw that child again unless they ran into them on somebody else’s plantation? So now we create music and we don’t own it. They own what we create and they own us.”
Ms. Selah says recent photos of Jay Z wearing a necklace emblazoned with the flag of the Five Percenters (also called Nation of Gods and Earths), Kanye’s new content as well as J. Cole’s could have the effect of weakening strong messages and creating confusion.
“They’re changing the conscious Hip-Hop into a fad so that it loses its spice, it loses its grip, its teeth, its relevance and it becomes an outfit,” she said. “So now conscious is ‘cool’ and this is what I’m afraid is happening.”