{"id":138799,"date":"2014-09-03T16:10:45","date_gmt":"2014-09-03T16:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=138799"},"modified":"2014-09-03T16:10:45","modified_gmt":"2014-09-03T16:10:45","slug":"hip-hop-monsanto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/hip-hop-monsanto\/","title":{"rendered":"Hip Hop is not down with Monsanto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"color: #222222;\"><em>Brentin Mock<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">And you thought rap was all\u00a0<a style=\"color: #bf7340;\" href=\"http:\/\/grist.org\/business-technology\/hip-hop-curbs-suvs-takes-tesla-for-a-spin\/\">cars<\/a>, Riff Raff, and Gucci Mane. Yeah, there\u2019s plenty of that, but there are also plenty of rappers still dropping knowledge, as was ubiquitous during Hip Hop\u2019s Golden Age \u2013 \u201988 \u00a0to \u201995 \u2013 and without a hint of irony or romantic nostalgia. I\u2019m thinking Common, Talib Kweli, who was out there arguing with cops and CNN in Ferguson, and the homey Jasiri X. Despite rap\u2019s reputation for worst behavior, it\u2019s still one of the last, if only, musical genres that counts social studies, history, and science as subjects, even if only as electives.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">Hip Hop\u2019s latest course offering: genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. There are plenty of controversial and conspiratorial seeds to spread around with this issue.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">Indeed, for some rappers, GMOs are part of the larger New World Order agenda for global domination by the deity represented on the back of your dollar bill \u2013 Behold Some Pale White Pork. Others have approached\u00a0the debate with gravitas. I\u2019ll let Grist\u2019s Nathanael Johnson (who I\u2019ve asked to comment on the songs, below) school you on the\u00a0<a style=\"color: #bf7340;\" href=\"http:\/\/grist.org\/author\/nathanael-johnson\/\">real science<\/a>\u00a0behind GMOs. Or, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who\u2019s\u00a0<a style=\"color: #bf7340;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.vox.com\/2014\/8\/1\/5954701\/neil-degrasse-tyson-gmos-dangerous-safe\">picked it apart<\/a>\u00a0between\u00a0<a style=\"color: #bf7340;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.okayplayer.com\/news\/gza-neil-degrasse-tyson-astrophysics-hip-hop.html\">chessboxin\u2019 matches<\/a>\u00a0with GZA. I\u2019m personally GMO agnostic. But some of these rappers have given me some food for thought:<span id=\"more-255317\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\">Wise Intelligent of the Golden Age group Poor Righteous Teachers released the song \u201cIlluminati,\u201d in 2011, which was a critique of masonic\u00a0conspiracy theories. He unpacks a lot in this song, but the third verse is where he hammers away at the issue:<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #222222;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/grist.org\/food\/hip-hop-is-not-down-with-monsanto\/?\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Brentin Mock And you thought rap was all\u00a0cars, Riff Raff, and Gucci Mane. Yeah, there\u2019s plenty of that, but there are also plenty of rappers still dropping knowledge, as was ubiquitous during Hip Hop\u2019s Golden Age \u2013 \u201988 \u00a0to \u201995 \u2013 and without a hint of irony or romantic nostalgia. I\u2019m thinking Common, Talib Kweli, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":138800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,955],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-138799","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-health"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}