Atlanta’s Indictment on The Music Business
Robbin’ Season was the closest depiction of the modern Rap world that I’ve seen on screen
I know I’m not alone in this:
I watched that Kanye movie. You know the one — the one where it was a hour and a half of interview, fifteen minutes of advertisement. The 8M beneath the YouTube video shows me I wasn’t alone.
The interview was whatever, ca ca, ‘poopity scoop’, but the ad…there was a lot in that.
Charlemagne and Kanye finally leave over-the-shoulder, close-up, close-up land and head into what we’re to believe is Kanye’s Design Studio (which I’m also not interested in).
And it’s there where I got my takeaway. Like the proverbial cliche that Kanye can be, and also not dissimilar to a broken clock, Yeezy does piece together an occasional gem from time to time. So at about the 1hr 34min mark, he drops this Reality Gem:
The music industry is set up for you to have just enough money to afford a car, pay for your kids, a house, and be on tour for the rest of your life til you die. It ain’t set up for you to literally go buy an island like Phil Knight. It ain’t set up for the artist to win, it’s like boxing; more people end up retarded (sic) than rich.
Out of all the think pieces, and all the commentary that found its way into my social media feed, not once did I see that quote. And, had it not been for my brother Alaor Khadir, I think I would be safe to say that few talked about all them damn acres Kanye owns.
Kanye’s made other comments about the record industry, most notably in his ‘You Don’t Have The Answers Sway’ meltdown interview where he said this:
It’s maybe like twenty hot celebrities a year. It’s fourteen hundred seventy billionaires. Those twenty celebrities if they were billionaires they could make sure they were celebrities forever…but they be outta there. They get the wrong hit, they get in trouble, they do this, they loose this contract…they are controlled by that.
After the now infamous meltdown Kanye gave up this jewel:
At the end of the day, Lucian Grainge still cuts my music checks. As powerful as my voice is Lucian still runs 50% of the music industry.
The reason that most people never mention that quote from five years ago, and few if any mentioned the above quote from a few weeks back is because most people rather live in the fantasy of what they believe the Rap industry is.
And that’s what struck me about this season of Atlanta. Yes, there’s the surreal, Twins Peak-like feel, it’s absolutely funny, there’s a romantic/relationship component, it’s sho nuff Black, but the plot-line has been about the rise of Paper Boi and how that affects his relationships.
You shouldn’t have even clicked on this if you ain’t want spoilers, but I promise you, it ain’t that kind of party. You won’t lose any enjoyment from watching the show for the first time if you read this jawn; Atlanta is hardly a plot-driven show.
But it’s definitely an accurate depiction of what the Rap industry is. So let’s talk about that shit.
If you missed Season One, shame on you, but I still plan on helping you out.
Here’s the quickest synopsis you’re ever gonna read. Earn is working a bullshit job when he hears that his cousin, Paper Boi, is about to blow. Earn’s co-worker, Justin, tells him, “you gonna wanna get in there before he gets signed.” Earn convinces Paper Boi to let him be his manager by getting his song on the radio. That puts Paper Boi on the map.
That’s Season One. You’re welcome.
Here’s the thing, and it’s important to this season as well. Despite knowing someone at the Radio Station (a white dude named Dave), it’s still not enough. Earn has to befriend a maintenance man (Prince) to get in the building and also leave a lil sumn sumn for the Station Manager, KP, just to get the song played.
Gatekeepers have always existed and it’s never been easy to get radio play. The difference between now and then is those gatekeepers used to be Black folk, many of whom became the best allies to the artists, acting as mentors, and more often than not, teaching the artists the business.
Since the early 2000s, most radio stations have become corporate entities and that previous model no longer exists. Without that, most Black acts have to start a few steps further back than those who came before them.
Sure artists make more money, but there are less of them (that are successful) and that is the point that Kanye was illustrating. While he opined that it’s a class issue, I’ll explain later why I disagree. That glass ceiling that Ye was talking about is sho nuff a Black thang.
Perfect example — despite all the success that Donald Glover’s been having, even he experienced his Kanye/Glass Ceiling moment.
Back in May of 2017 it was reported that FXX had greenlit a 10 episode animated Deadpool series to be written by Donald Glover and his brother, Stephen.
Ten months later, social media is buzzing. Donald Glover is spazzing out online. A statement was released by Marvel saying that due to “creative differences FX, Donald Glover, Stephen Glover and Marvel Television have agreed to part ways on Marvel’s Deadpool animated series.”
Obviously Glover didn’t get the memo that he “agreed.” Which had him taking the piss on this faux script that he posted (then pulled) where he has Deadpool saying:
Do you think they canceled the show… cause of racism?! … Yeah, but all the writers were black. And the references were pretty black too. … Maybe we were alienating our white audience? No. We did a whole goat yoga episode. Damn.
Had he been on Sway, Glover may have been asked why he couldn’t just put the show out himself…and that…that speaks into the dilemma that Paper Boi is experiencing in ‘Robbin Season.’
I know you heard the saying, “it’s all about who you know” but have you ever thought about how you go about meeting these people?
Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, UPenn and Princeton are THE Ivy League schools but out West you have Stanford (which could easily fit into the fray). These schools are highly competitive and incredibly difficult to get into.
Parents start planning as early as nursery school to get their children in the top universities. “Schools” like 92Y have had admission scandals and the Episcopal School in City of New York gets up to 350 applications for 35 to 60 spots. Episcopal’s parents list reads like a who’s who of New York’s Power Brokers. 92Y, Brick Church, 520 Park Ave…same.
Which means, if your children go to “school” there, you rub shoulders with these people and your children and their children grow up together. Why? Because they go from places like Episcopal and 92 Y on to Dalton, Collegiate, Trinity, Spence, Chapin, Brearley, Horace Mann, etc.
From there they head to Stuyvesant, Bronx High School of Science, you get the picture. Each of these schools feeds into the next and most of these children have spent the majority of their lives together. When they go off to these Ivy Leagues, they connect with the top students from all over the world who went through similar experiences.
These are the people that end up running businesses. Either they take over their parents’ positions or they start companies on their own. They have connections with people in every industry because they’ve grown up with those people. Deals are made over dinners or on the course. Places that most of us never make it to.
This is what Earn is up against.
In Season Two there’s the reoccurring character, Clark County, and he’s everything that Paper Boi is not: he’s popular, sober, seems to be making the right moves, and is connected — all of which appears to be due to his white manager, Lucas.
As a result, Clark County has the best endorsements (Yoo Hoo), he’s landing Fast and the Furious soundtracks, getting paid gigs (while Paper Boi is performing for free), and is receiving the perks of being a recording artist.
Earn is unable to provide any of that. Like in Season One, where Earn knew Dave who worked at the Radio Station, he also knows Lucas, but despite that, Earn is an outsider (to the best of my knowledge, it’s never mentioned how Earn knows them but it would be safe to say he met them at Princeton).
Earn’s inability to provide “the simple things” for Paper Boi slowly begins to grate on their relationship as seen in Episode 8, “Woods,” where Paper Boi’s “Instagram famous,” wig selling, former stripper friend, Sierra laughs at Earn being unable to get free shoes or manage Paper Boi’s social media.
It comes to a head in Episode 9, “North of the Border,” after a series of bad decisions lands Paper Boi, Earn, Darius, and parolee, Tracy (definitely one of my fav characters) in a white frat house smoking weed in front of pledges that look like they’re fresh out of Guantanamo Bay.
In a three minute speech, Paper Boi eviscerates Earn, his decision making, his inability to secure the simplest things, and he drops two final bombs on Earn telling him that, a) He doesn’t feel that Earn is cut out to do the job and b) that he’s been talking to Lucas — essentially firing Earn.
One can’t fault Paper Boi either — as we’ll discuss later — all the pressure is on him, but in the modern world of Rap, Earn never stood a chance from the beginning. He may have “made it” it to Princeton but he ain’t come from the same (feeder) schools that everyone else went to…and he ain’t finish at that.
Lucas can secure deals and work connections because the people he’s dealing with, he likely grew up with and if he didn’t, he’s been socialized from nursery school on how to be a ruler — educated amongst rulers, with the privilege of the best of all possible things.
None of this is said and some would argue that Lucas may have had to work just as hard as Earn did — that he may have grew up in a Trailer Park, that he could have possibly come from nothing as well.
And, while that may be the case, at the end of the day if Lucas walked in the door of music execs, in the modern world, it’s likely they will be white…and if they aren’t the same age, an older white man still will be more familiar with a young white man than he will be with a young Black one. Black people in these environments are seen performing on tables or rapping to a silent, distracted, banana eating audience of white faces.
In the last episode of the Season, the aptly titled, “Crabs in a Barrel,” Earn begins to see that the game is fixed but it also appears that he still hasn’t learned his lesson.
When he goes to an Orthodox Jewish business to renew Darius’ passport, he asks the clerk if he feels that a Black lawyer could do the same job as a Jewish one to which the clerk replies, “part of being good at your job is your connections and Black people don’t have the connections that my cousin has…for systemic reasons.”
In an earlier scene, Earn and Van are at their daughter Lottie’s school where the administrator is upfront with them and tells them that Lottie is smart and can do better than the school they have her enrolled in…but Earn is concerned about the money that a good school will cost.
If Earn is unable to pay for a better school, Lottie will repeat the same cycle.
Sadly, Earn is unable to do anything about it. He’s relying on the grace of Paper Boi. And as Paper Boi pointed out in his three minute butcher job of Earn, he knows it. All of the weight is on Paper Boi.
Which is another aspect of the modern Rap game —most of us average citizens equate fame with riches, but as Kanye’s pointed out in that quote above, that’s far from the case, and Paper Boi is quickly learning that reality.
I have a constant refrain when I see athletes and rappers, “I hope they’re saving their money.”
Much of what I’ve written has focused on the parasitic nature of the music industry so I won’t go into great detail about it here but suffice it to say it comes as no surprise that there are so many flash in the pan artists.
The industry churns and burns em. When they have that hit record, you see that rapper ICED OUT, finest cars, making it monsoon rain in the strip clubs, bigger entourages than an NBA roster.
Then they’re gone.
But what’s it like for that one moment?
I worked in television for 18 years, give or take a year, and my family had no idea what I did. In fact, they may have thought I was the janitor or some shit in a tv station…until they saw my name in some credits…on the Judge Hatchett show of all places — that changed everything.
Next time I was at a cookout, family members were asking if I could “get them in” to the show. If you know anything about TV tapings, you know that they rely on tourists because no one else has time to sit on a set — in the same damn place (for continuity) — for what could be eight to ten hours.
But I digress.
If we can see you on TV, if we can hear you on the radio, immediately we assume that you “made it.” “Made it” translates into money. Money translates into opportunity.
The dude driving the Ford Explorer in sweats, adidas with no laces, and a dashiki could be in a better financial position but because that man doesn’t have a million IG followers and his face ain’t plastered all over the city, don’t no one think to ask him for shit. No one looks at that man and sees opportunity.
Any rapper that’s had any level of success will tell you, the minute that they make a ripple in the music industry waves, the sharks smell blood.
Paper Boi isn’t learning that reality fast enough.
But as the season progresses we see that people either want to rob him or they want him to hook them up. In “Sportin’ Waves” (Episode 2) Paper Boi is excited to be getting some weed (preferably the lemon and lime) and some molly from his dealer for a decade…instead he gets a gun pulled on him and politely robbed.
Ay, my fault bra…I’m sorry about that shit bra. I mean, you’ll be alright tho, know what I’m sayin’. Song is hot bra, probably go platinum or some shit. I need this shit bra, real talk, man.
Not only did Paper Boi not get his weed and molly, he gets robbed AND his dealer takes his car keys. This, despite the fact that Paper Boi told his dealer that he wasn’t making money off his song (Later he gets robbed by three teens as well).
The perception is that artists have money…that somehow a hit immediately translates into bank but without publishing deals or a label advance, more often than not, it’s totally not true. In order to make money, as Kanye pointed out, most artists have to “be on tour til they die.”
The perception is also that somehow the artist has the ability to provide opportunities for each and everyone that they meet.
In “Money Bag Shawty” (Episode 3) the gang (Boi, Earn, and Darius) are hanging out, celebrating at the 656 (sports bar) when the waiter buys them (and drinks with em) shots. Next thing you know…
Man, see listen. I was trying to see if I can kick some business with you brother. Put me on. Put — me — on. I’m trying to get like you.
When he meets his barber’s son in Episode 5 (“Barbershop”), the son is selling himself to Paper Boi, telling him “he got a fire mixtape” and that he’s like “Lonzo Ball,” asking to get ‘put on.’
And remember that “Instagram famous,” wig selling, former stripper, Sierra? Even she has an angle that she’s trying to sell Paper Boi.
Look, I just think we could be good together. We can get that money. We can attach our brands. Boost each other…look, we don’t even have to fuck all the time. We just gotta give em something to talk about.
And the character Tracy…outside of a place to sleep, he doesn’t ask Paper Boi for anything (he does act as security in “North of the Border”), but Tracy is a poster boy of recidivism and a liability to Paper Boi.
All of this is a weight on the shoulders of Paper Boi.
Show me a rapper that grew up in the hood and I can promise you, this is his reality. Maybe not so much in the earlier days of Rap. The Rap world then was a self-contained industry of our invention and, while the stakes were lower then, at least we owned what we made.
Because of that, there was more opportunities. One could rise from being a part of a street team to being an A&R, to being an exec. Those positions either don’t exist (who needs a street team) or no longer are coveted (A&R). And even if they were still in existence and viable, it’s highly unlikely that a person could rise from that to CEO of a major record label.
Like Kanye said:
At the end of the day, Lucian Grainge still cuts my music checks. As powerful as my voice is Lucian still runs 50% of the music industry.
Throughout Robbin Season I told whoever would listen that I felt Paper Boi’s pain.
Lil Wayne expressed it best:
I used to rock hand-me-downs and now I rock standing crowds
But it’s hard when you only got fans around and no fam around
And if they are, then their hands are out and they pointing fingers
When I wear this fucking burden on my back
Like a motherfucking cap and gown (Seat at the Table, Mad, 2017)
We ask a lot of these artists that we claim to love. If we know them personally, we tend to have expectations of them. If we meet them on the streets, many of us view them as the ‘way out.’ And if they do anything that we don’t approve of — lawd have mercy.
But like I said, the game is rigged. Now that Rap is corporate, it’s just a segment on the pie of revenue. Record labels care about artists only so long as they grow that pie.
And the Earn’s of the world? There’s no place for them. They don’t have the “connections…it’s systemic.” They haven’t gone to the best schools, don’t go to the right dinners, likely don’t have a golf handicap, and thus don’t know how to play the game.
Instead, they become the responsibility of their friends or family, the rapper…who can’t afford to have them learning on the fly. Again, Kanye:
They get the wrong hit, they get in trouble, they do this, they loose this contract…
Any of those things happen, “they be outta there.” So it’s not easy for the Paper Boi’s of the world, especially when they are put up next to industry plants like Darius believes that Clark County is (c’mon, dude said his mom worked for the government and he had a stack of Harriet Tubman bills); people whom everything seems to come easy and seemingly appear out of no where…instantly winning.
Four episodes into Season One I wrote about how Atlanta was one of the best depictions of Black life that I had seen on television in a long time.
That’s still true.
Episode 10 (“FUBU”) could be a stand alone, ABC Afterschool Special unto itself, illustrating the levels of stress we deal with on a day to day basis in middle school around something as simple as a shirt.
But what stood out the most to me was the life or death seriousness, the high stakes, have-to-make-the-right-decisioness of having a hit song and the weight of that on the artist who made that hit.
I breezed by some criticisms of Earn here and there (can’t avoid em on Twitter), how he couldn’t do anything right, etc etc. Everyone thinks that they’re Tom Cruise and can make All The Right Moves…until they have to.
Which is why I feel these words from Paper Boi:
Look you family man, and I’m trying to ride witchu but sometimes that shit ain’t enough, bra. Cuz money is important. ‘See exactly what’s happening out here. It’s getting colder, it’s getting harder to eat. I need shit. Lottie need shit. You need shit. I gotta make my next moves my best moves, man. So…something gotta shake.
Those are words that you’ll never hear coming out of the mouth of Sir Lucian Grainge (that you see up there). I don’t care if he pulled himself up from his Oxfords, his whole family isn’t dependent on his success.
There are whole studies on this reality. The Black man or woman that suddenly reaches any level of success not only suffers from survivor’s guilt they bear a certain burden that most whites can’t relate to.
That’s what I saw watching ‘Robbin’ Season’ and, if Brian Tyree Henry don’t win every award imaginable for this season, then my hypothesis will be fact. Most white folk can’t relate.
Thanks for reading, feel free to click on them clapping hands, and remember…hyperlinks are your friends.
