"The Music Industry Funds Private Prisons": Analyzing Hip-Hop Urban Legend

Black love and hiphop brought Calvin Taylor Skinner and me together in 2018 as we nurtured a commuter relationship between Knoxville and Bloomington, Indiana. During our fiveto sixhour drives, I talked about my research on musical masculinity, while my theologianactivist guy shared provocative YouTube videos and podcasts facilitated by hiphop sages to stir conversation.1 The sages selfidentify variously as PanAfrican, American descendants of slaves (ADOS) or Foundational Black Americans (FBA), among other Blackcentered/Africancentered terms. The ADOS/FBA experts probed a constellation of obscure discourses: extraterrestrial encounters, Dr. Sebi, erased ancient African histories, reparations, Black love, and “conscious” hiphop.2 Discussing these topics with Calvin afforded me familiarity with Black men’s curation of complex creativeintellectual space irrespective of dominant culture’s understanding of their discourses. Central to this enigmatic genre of orality is speculation, inspecting structural barriers in an idiom their people recognize. From Tidal.com to BlackMagikUniversity.com to 4BiddenKnowledge.com, controlling one’s virtual presence is an essential facet of agency in the hiphop tradition. Our conversations inspired me to return to a juxtaposition I offered my students of esotericism performed in Bone ThugsNHarmony’s