Solidarity abounds from actors and musicians from Canada, Britain, and unions across the United States as Writers Guild of America West members enter a second week of an industry-wide strike, crafting the clever slogans we expect from creatives, as David Pescovitz highlights in this post.
Long Beach native HipHop icon Snoop Dog offered his solidarity and some powerful question-statements about the music industry, AI, and capitalism writ large.
As reported by Ngozi Nwanji at AfroTech, "During his appearance as a panelist at the 2023 Milken Institute Global Conference, the Hip-Hop legend took a moment to divert attention and talk about the state of streaming. Snoop Dogg recalled that when he was coming up in the music industry in the '90s, he and his peers sold hard copies. Now, artists are fending for themselves with streams when it comes to getting adequately paid."
Linking labor organizing with the redistribution of profits, Snoop Dogg might invite Bernie Sanders to meet with him and Martha Stewart.
"We need to figure that out the same way the writers are figuring out… The writers are striking because streaming, they can't get paid. Because, when it's on the platform, it's not like in the box office. In the box office, if it does all these numbers, you may get an up — 'Oh, it did this many, here's another check.' But on streaming you got 300,000 hours that somebody watched your movie. Where's the money?"
Check out the full video here, posted by Ahmed/The Ears/IG: BigBizTheGod 🇸🇴
@big_business. The "George Costanza of Hip Hop and Lakers fan."
