Culture Feature

Why Did Waka Flocka Flame Just Get an Award From Donald Trump?

The rapper thanked the former president...who wasn't really involved in the award.

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Over the weekend, Atlanta-based hip-hop artist Waka Flocka Flame received a lifetime achievement award for his charitable work from former President Donald J. Trump.

But while it's true that the Flockaveli rapper has done a lot to earn praise for his charitable efforts, the suggestion that Donald Trump was personally involved in granting him the award is misleading.

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Hip-Hop has always consisted of larger than life personalities. Rappers have unique backstories and ways of storytelling that essentially make them into characters, so the fact that many of them have made the transition from music to film and television is a no brainer.

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Culture News

Black Power, White Money: How Ice Cube and Lil Wayne's Wealth Insulates Them from Donald Trump

After four years of reversing Obama-era policies, empowering white supremacy, and allowing the coronavirus to kill more than 200,000 Americans—a disproportionate amount of them Black—Trump is finally attempting to reach out to Black voters weeks before the election.

Lil Wayne and Donald Trump

Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

Ice Cube and Lil Wayne's ability to ignore all of the damage the Trump administration has done is a sharp reminder of not only class solidarity among the super-wealthy, but also the power disparity between white and Black people.

During the last few weeks of the 2020 election, the Trump campaign spent over $20 million on a last-minute grasp for Black voters. Part of this effort involved reaching out to Black celebrities like Ice Cube and Lil Wayne and unveiling what the administration called "The Platinum Plan," a part of Trump's second term strategy that would empower Black Americans by increasing "access to capital in black communities by almost $500 billion."

The plan also lists "Access to better education and job training opportunities" and "Safe Urban Neighborhoods with Highest Policing Standards," both of which implies some acknowledgment of the issues Black Americans face every day. But given Trump's stance on the Black Lives Matter movement, these promises ring hollow.

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Is Hip-Hop Becoming Conservative?

News of Ice Cube's "collaboration" with the Trump administration is shocking and heartbreaking, but it's also part of a growing trend of rappers preaching semi-conservative rhetoric.

Ice Cube

Photo by Ann Johansson/ Shutterstock

Ice Cube, like many Americans, is looking at the upcoming presidential election as a battle of the lesser of two evils.

On Wednesday President Trump's Senior Advisor Katrina Peirson tweeted that rap legend Ice Cube is working with his administration to help develop The Platinum Plan. This proposal is a list of deliverables to the Black Community in the form of jobs, health care, and education.

Ice Cube soon put out a tweet of his own confirming that he had reached out to both the Democratic and Republican parties about discussing his Contract With Black America (CWBA). According to the 51-year-old rapper/actor/director, Democrats wanted to wait until after the election to talk about the CWBA. Trump's campaign, on the other hand, made adjustments to their plan, and is presumably using it as a method to gain the Black vote.

Many on social media were left speechless. Why would one of the most vocal Trump detractors and pioneers of gangsta rap align himself with the genre's biggest enemy?


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