What if rap music is just a tool to turn impressionable listeners into prison-bound degenerates?
That's what one man claiming to be a former music executive said in an anonymous letter published today by the blog hiphopisread.com.
According to the mystery man's letter, gangster rap is a product designed to benefit private prison systems.
The man writes that he went to a Los Angeles meeting in 1991 and immediately signed a confidentiality agreement. What followed shocked him and the other people at the meeting.
[Note: Hip Hop Is Read uses anonymous sources, which we can't verify.]
The industry executives were asked to promote gangster rap in order to drive up the number of inmates and profits for the private prison systems, which funded the business.
Here's part of the man's account of the meeting:
Quickly after the meeting began, one of my industry colleagues (who shall remain nameless like everyone else) thanked us for attending. He then gave the floor to a man who only introduced himself by first name and gave no further details about his personal background. I think he was the owner of the residence but it was never confirmed. He briefly praised all of us for the success we had achieved in our industry and congratulated us for being selected as part of this small group of "decision makers". At this point I begin to feel slightly uncomfortable at the strangeness of this gathering.
The subject quickly changed as the speaker went on to tell us that the respective companies we represented had invested in a very profitable industry which could become even more rewarding with our active involvement.
He explained that the companies we work for had invested millions into the building of privately owned prisons and that our positions of influence in the music industry would actually impact the profitability of these investments.
I remember many of us in the group immediately looking at each other in confusion. At the time, I didn't know what a private prison was but I wasn't the only one. Sure enough, someone asked what these prisons were and what any of this had to do with us. We were told that these prisons were built by privately owned companies who received funding from the government based on the number of inmates. The more inmates, the more money the government would pay these prisons.
You can read the whole letter here.