You guys, listen, tonight,
I want to talk about my one true love...
Hip-hop. 
Now if you know anything about me,
then you know hip-hop is probably 65%
of my personality.
I'm not very interesting.
Now, here's how the other 35% breaks down:
17% is hair product,
12% is mid-90s basketball references,
and 6% is intense eye contact.
Add this all up and it's pretty much 
every immigrant kid you have ever met.
It is our thing.
Now, you know why we love it.
Hip-hop is about the struggle,
but it's also about the come-up.
It's aspirational. We've all put on 
headphones and thought to ourselves,
"I don't care what anyone says.
I'm not going to med school
in the Caribbean,
and I am trying contact lenses."
Everyone can tap into that.
And today, hip-hop is bigger than ever.
Nielsen, according to Forbes last year,
finally says that rap has overtaken rock 
as the most consumed music genre 
in the country.
I spoke with several experts
in the music industry.
They say they're really not surprised.
It's just fresher, hipper 
and more exciting than rock.
Of Nielsen's top ten albums for 2018,
eight of them were hip-hop.
This small thing that started in the Bronx
has touched every corner of the world.
Mexico, Brazil, England, Israel, Spain,
France, Nigeria, Japan.
It even reached the Upper East Side.
Isn't that mind-blowing?
Hip-hop had to go all the way
around the world
and get repackaged as a history lesson 
by a theater nerd...
just so it could be accepted.
That's what it took
for old white people to embrace rap.
They needed a concert where people 
would sit in complete silence.
Streaming has helped make hip-hop 
a global phenomenon.
But when most people talk about 
music streaming,
they're focusing on one thing.
The music industry has seen a resurgence 
in the last few years
thanks to the proliferation
of streaming music.
It looks as though music streaming
is starting to be a cash cow
for these music companies.
Yeah, Spotify and Apple Music
have revived an industry
that many had left for dead,
even just a year or two ago.
By focusing on the economics 
of streaming,
they're actually missing
the bigger picture.
Streaming has changed the sound,
the reach and the impact of hip-hop.
Now, when it comes to the sound,
these days,
I don't know 
what the fuck I'm listening to.
Have you guys heard "Gucci Gang"?
Okay, if you haven't,
I just gave away 90% of the song.
-[hip-hop music playing]
-♪ Gucci gang, Gucci gang, Gucci gang ♪
♪ Gucci gang, Gucci gang ♪
-♪ Gucci gang, Gucci gang, Gucci gang ♪
-[man] ♪ Gucci gang! ♪
♪ Gucci gang, Gucci gang, Gucci gang
Gucci gang, Gucci gang, Gucci gang ♪
-[man] ♪ Gucci gang! ♪
-♪ Gucci gang, Gucci gang, Gucci gang ♪
♪ Gucci gang, Gucci gang, Gucci gang... ♪
Okay, that guy,
who looks like Lenny Kravitz 
fucked a Christmas tree,
is Lil Pump, okay?
He is the current face of SoundCloud rap.
SoundCloud is a free streaming service,
where you can see hip-hop changing 
and mutating almost in real time.
Last year, only three recording artists
around the world 
had songs that got 
over one billion streams,
and two of them got their start
on SoundCloud.
And what's kind of amazing
is that SoundCloud,
a German company 
that's basically making no money,
has become a huge launching pad 
for new rappers.
The success of "Gucci Gang" got Lil Pump
a reported $8 million record deal.
Yeah, he embodies 
the SoundCloud Rapper Starter Kit.
Face tats, colorful dreads 
and rainbow grills.
Look at Post Malone,
he looks like the guy 
who's dating your drug dealer's mom.
Or Lil Xan, Lil Xan looks like the guy
who dating your drug dealer's daughter.
This is hip-hop today.
I'm only 33, but I feel so old.
Look, this is the XXL Freshman cover.
I don't know if these are rap names
or Wi-Fi networks.
Like, I'm walking into a Coffee Bean,
I'm like, "Hey,
what's the password for "Smokepurpp"?
It's with two P's.
How about Juice Wrld with no "O"?
This is the new era of rap,
and this is what we're dealing with now.
-♪ Versace, Versace, Versace ♪
-[man] ♪ Versace, Versace! ♪
-♪ Versace, Versace ♪
-[man] ♪ Versace! ♪
-♪ Versace, Versace, Versace ♪
-[man] ♪ Versace! ♪
-Whoo!
-♪ Versace, Versace ♪
-[man] ♪ Versace! Versace! ♪
-♪ Versace, Versace, Versace, Versace ♪
When do they start rapping?
It's like they were running out of time 
on a test,
and they just put "Versace"
all the way down the Scantron.
"Versace, Versace, Versace, Versace."
Pencils down, Migos. 
They're like, "Oh, one more Versace!"
And this new flow is upsetting experts.
That's what's wrong right now, 
everybody's trying to rap the same style.
I don't know who created it, 
if it was Future or Migos,
but all them niggas sound the same.
[imitating hip-hop rhythm]
[man] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[imitating hip-hop]
[laughing]
It's addictive. This shit, it get you.
You hear that shit everywhere, man.
Martha Stewart's best friend is right.
But the biggest change in the songs,
it's not the repetitiveness.
It's the length.
"Gucci Gang" is just two minutes
and four seconds long.
That's it, 124 seconds.
124 seconds into a Kendrick song,
he's still reading a haiku 
about the water crisis in Flint.
This is the shortest song to enter 
the Billboard Top 10 in over 40 years.
Now, one reason songs have gotten shorter
is because of the new incentive structure
of streaming.
Streaming platforms, like Spotify,
pay by the stream.
So shorter tracks mean more streams 
and more money.
It's why we're seeing a lot of albums
with a lot of tracks and short songs.
Lil Yachty's second album had 17 tracks,
nearly half of them 
are under three minutes.
The sound of hip-hop may be different,
but the most significant thing
streaming has changed is its reach,
and the streaming platform that reaches
the most people isn't SoundCloud, 
Spotify or Apple Music.
It's Tidal.
Just kidding. [laughs]
You guys were like, "What, it is?"
The way you were like... [stammers]
No, come on. Tidal is something Jay-Z's 
cousins pretend to use on Thanksgiving.
[woman] YouTube wasn't created 
as a streaming music service,
but it is the world's most used website 
to listen to music legally.
Around 1.3 billion people use the site 
just for music.
Wait, I don't use YouTube to stream music.
I use YouTube to convince myself 
that the Earth is flat.
YouTube has 1.9 billion users.
In 2018,
one survey found that YouTube accounted
for 47% of music streaming worldwide,
and hip-hop has been 
a huge beneficiary of this.
Now, look, everyone knows
that YouTube is huge,
but the spread of hip-hop on YouTube
is impacting geopolitics
in unexpected ways.
Dictators are getting in on the rap game.
I'm serious, last year the autocratic
leader of Turkmenistan,
Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow used
his country's YouTube channel
to spit hot fire.
[rock music playing]
[singing in foreign language]
♪ Wonderful Abaza is a beautiful place ♪
♪ Caspian waves have an exciting melody ♪
♪ Going towards a brighter future ♪
♪ Go ahead, go ahead
Beloved Turkmenistan ♪
♪ Turkmenistan, Turkmenistan ♪
I don't know exactly what that is,
but I'm pretty sure it's what 
the Black Eyed Peas are aiming for.
Somewhere will.i.am is like, "Dude, I need
to sign this dude in the red jumpsuit.
He's the next Fergie."
Now my question is, why is he rapping?
Dictators already live like rappers.
He doesn't need to get into the booth.
He races cars. He flexes with gold.
He's got guns. He even hoops.
[man speaking foreign language]
Wait! No, no, no. Play that back.
That shit was gonna hit the backboard. 
Look, that's how you know 
you're a dictator, when you're like,
"No, no, no, just fix it in post."
Hey, look,
I'm not trying to clown him, all right?
I know how that feels.
[man] Hasan Minhaj is gonna pull it back 
and fire a three.
Tell you what. I'd have taken my chances 
with Nicki Minaj on that one.
-[man] MVP!
-That's what I'm talking about.
You know what, Mark Jones,
it was the Ruffles Celebrity All-Star game
at Bojangles Coliseum.
What do you expect?
You know what, man?
I'm not above pulling a Gurbanguly.
[Mark Jones] Hasan Minhaj is gonna
pull it back and fire a three.
It's a two-point game, with 10.6 to go.
That's what I'm talking about.
After the game ,
people were coming up to me.
They were like, "Hasan, 
who taught you to shoot?"
And I was like,
"The president of Turkmenistan."
Unfortunately, not every strongman 
is as down with hip-hop as Gurbanguly.
All around the world, rap is becoming
a dominant form of dissent
against repressive regimes.
And those regimes have responded 
by arresting rappers.
In Turkey,
Tanzania, Angola, Iran, 
Malaysia, Morocco and even Spain.
Yes, you heard me. Spain.
[man] Rights groups, like Amnesty 
International say freedom of expression
is under attack in Spain.
Even tweets and jokes posted online
could get you arrested.
It seems any form of dissent 
can be treated as a criminal activity.
In Spain, joking about terrorism 
can land you in prison.
Just ask some of the country's musicians,
artists and journalists
who have been sentenced
under Article 578.
What are you doing, Spain?
You can't be arresting musicians.
You're a study abroad destination.
Half of your population is NYU sophomores.
Your GDP is measured in transfer credits.
You can't be fucking around 
with the money.
Now, Amnesty International says that
since 2016 Spain has convicted
74 people under this vague law,
Article 578.
In 2017, Spain arrested 12 rappers 
for their lyrics.
[man] The rapper Joseph Miguel Arenas,
better known as Valtònyc,
has taken refuge in Belgium.
In Spain, he's been sentenced 
to three and a half years in prison
for threats, glorification of terrorism 
and insults to the crown.
Threats, glorification of terrorism 
and insults to the crown?
That sounds like every review 
this show gets on Reddit.
Look, the Spanish rappers
say that the issue isn't terrorism,
it's free speech.
[rapping in Spanish]
As artists, our only weapon is our words.
Eminem, the most famous rapper
in the world,
has a song called "We As Americans,"
where he says 
that he wants to see the president dead. 
Snoop Dogg has a music video 
where he shoots at Trump.
Ice-T has a song called cop killer.
In Spain today, they would be convicted 
for these songs.
For much less, we are going to jail.
Did you see that? They're pulling up
American rap on YouTube.
They're getting inspiration from Eminem,
Snoop Dogg and Ice-T.
The Spanish government
is arresting rappers to send a message.
The objective of repression in any field
is to take a scapegoat 
and make others be afraid.
So they stop mobilizing,
stop going to demonstrations,
stop striking, stop singing.
That's the real objective.
More than attack against me,
it's an attack against 
the whole population.
But the crackdown only made rap bigger.
After the first 12 rappers were arrested,
other rappers uploaded a new protest song
on YouTube in solidarity,
and it went viral.
In it's first 24 hours, 
it got a million views.
Trying to suppress rap
is obviously oppression 1.0.
Co-opting rap is oppression 2.0.
[man] At a meeting of cultural advisers,
he said, "Rap music should be controlled
instead of banned."
If it is impossible to stop,
then we must lead it 
and direct it properly.
It's insane to me that Putin, 
a man who gets off on poisoning dissidents
and invading Ukraine, 
heard rap and was like,"Fuck,
I cannot destroy this.
It's not an American election."
No, Putin sees the power of rap,
and he plans to use it to his advantage.
[woman] That's Putin attempting 
to wave his hand around
at a rap and hip-hop contest.
Putin's approval ratings
have dropped recently,
so he's been making a lot of appearances.
-[man] Wow! Reaching out.
-There you go.
That ought to get him re-elect--
Wait he doesn't run for office anymore.
[laughs] So what does he need 
a popularity contest for?
I guess he wants to reach out
to his people.
That's right, his peeps.
-His peeps--
-That's the Russian word for it.
[laughs] I'm just saying that.
[laughs]
"Yay! We have fun here on Eyewitness News,
don't we?
Word play, cool. Slang, tan suits.
The peeps in the streets would say,
"We're lit. Let's go to weather."
While Russia is trying to figure out how 
to co-opt rap,
China is one step ahead of them.
[man rapping in Chinese] ♪ Take a look 
At the deepening reform group ♪
♪ In the year 2015 ♪
♪ Building the economy, creating wealth
Optimizing services... ♪
[woman]
This isn't just any Chinese rap song,
it's from the Communist Party's
propaganda machine.
It has lyrics that tackle air pollution,
remind people to trust the government 
and has voice clips from Xi Jinping,
saying punish every corrupt official.
[man] ♪ Punish every corrupt official 
And fight every corrupt phenomenon ♪
Yeah, we all know those 
iconic pro-government rap anthems. Right?
Remember when DMX rapped about 
reporting for jury duty?
He's like, "Hey! Yo, dawg. 
Show up at nine." [barks]
That doesn't happen.
Just a week ago,
at the prominent "two sessions"
conference, the regime went CCP 2 Chainz
and dropped a new track.
Now, brace yourselves,
this shit gets intense.
♪ I got elation from inspiration 
Writing a compliment song for the nation ♪
♪ While I'm talking about "two sessions" ♪
♪ Development ♪
♪ Science! 
The air bears the weight of desire ♪
♪ You see we've attained landing 
On the dark side of the moon ♪
♪ Fastest supercomputer in the world ♪
♪ I guess nobody might deny ♪
[rapping in Chinese] ♪ Cloned macaques
 Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua ♪
♪ New life is demonstrating 
It's cute and congruous ♪
[in English] ♪ Monkey King to the west
Legendary dragon to the sky ♪
♪ Y'all know it's time
For a Chinese miracle ♪
Now,
I know some of you are watching this like,
"Co-opting hip-hop for power?
I thought that
was Ariana Grande's move." It is.
Now look, I get why 
totalitarian governments are trying
to harness the power of hip-hop.
Hip-hop is direct. It's got battles, 
punch lines, diss records.
It was made for confrontation.
When the Sex Pistols 
went after Queen Elizabeth,
she didn't start a punk band, okay?
You know what's weird?
She kind of looks like 
what Ozzy Osbourne does now.
Rap just gets the job done.
Remember "Hit 'Em Up" by Tupac?
Tupac's last verse was, "Fuck Mobb Deep,
fuck Biggie, fuck Bad Boy as a staff,
record label and as a motherfucking crew."
Tupac gets right to the thesis statement.
Right? He does not like Mobb Deep.
He doesn't appreciate Bad Boy,
and it's safe to say
he does not care for Biggie.
One of the best examples of rap
directly going at an autocratic regime 
is happening in Thailand,
where a military junta has been in power
since 2014.
[man] It's hugely popular on YouTube,
and the Thai military government
doesn't want anyone to see it.
[man rapping in foreign language]
[man] The video condemning 
the nation's leadership,
made by a group called
Rap Against Dictatorship,
has had more than 20 million views
in just two weeks.
[rapping]
This video by Rap Against Dictatorship
was a huge deal.
In just a few weeks,
Thailand is going to have 
their first democratic election
since the coup in 2014.
The government doesn't want millennials 
seeing this right before the vote. 
A lot of younger people now 
will be voting for the first time,
they'll be eligible. 
Close to 10% of the electorate,
and this is the new voices
that I think that I've been activated,
socialized through 
the new media technology.
Now, I'll be honest, you guys,
I had no idea
Thailand was having an election.
The Thai election isn't getting 
that much coverage.
If they want to get coverage,
you know what they gotta do?
They gotta form a soccer team,
get stranded in a Thai cave,
and then get Elon Musk to send a submarine
to save the election.
It's the only way to save democracy.
Since taking power,
the military has enforced
some very strict censorship laws
and made speaking out
against the government very dangerous.
[man] The military leaders have imposed 
strict laws over political gatherings 
and muzzled dissent.
[woman] Beatings, arbitrary detentions,
all accusations that Amnesty International
and Human Rights Watch
have made against the government.
Even when people protest
in some pretty tame ways,
the government cracks down.
Thai citizens have been locked up 
for using the three-finger 
Hunger Games salute,
reading the book 1984 in public 
and eating sandwiches.
That last one is true.
The Thai military started locking up 
people for staging pro-democracy picnics.
Picnics. Do the juntas show up 
and they're like, "Hands up,
step away from the PB and J sandwich,
otherwise I'm taking you
and that seven-layer dip downtown."
That's why I dropping this rap video 
was such a ballsy move.
Rap Against Dictatorship
held nothing back.
This song absolutely blasted
the government with lyrics
that are Pusha T level savage.
The lyrics go, "This is a country whose 
minister's watch belongs to a corpse,
whose parliament is the playground 
of its soldiers,
in which a gun is pointed at your throat
in which you are told that you are free, 
even though you're deprived 
of your right to vote."
Remember, Thailand is a country
that banned picnics.
We haven't even gotten 
to my favorite line.
"This is a country whose prime minister 
is kinda annoying."
Kinda annoying!
You dropped the whole song.
We checked two different translations,
and they both say,
"Kinda annoying."
That last part is so petty.
The entire song is like,
"Yo, fuck you, you're war criminals,
you're corrupt thugs.
You ruined our country 
and one more thing,
you'll never get a date to prom."
This video is so powerful because 
of its symbolism.
This video is shot in one take, 
and it recreates an infamous 1976 photo.
We're not showing the photo 
because it's really graphic, but in it,
a pro-government mob attacks the body 
of a student protester
hanging from a tree.
It was part 
of the Thammasat military massacre,
where government forces killed 
at least 46 students.
It was basically Thailand's 
Tiananmen Square.
The government doesn't want you
to remember it,
and they've even erased it 
from schoolbooks.
And if you're seeing all of this,
and you're thinking, "Okay, 
a rap video critical the country,
shot in one take,
that uses a lot of symbolic imagery
from massacres.
Where have I seen that?"
-[hip-hop music playing]
-♪ This is America ♪
♪ Don't catch you slippin' up ♪
♪ Don't catch you slippin' up ♪
♪ Look what I'm whippin' up ♪
♪ This is America ♪
That's "This is America"
by Childish Gambino, 
which came out in spring of 2018
and according to members 
of Rap Against Dictatorship,
their video, which now has almost 
60 million views on YouTube,
was heavily inspired by "This is America."
This video got so big, so fast,
the government just gave up trying 
to censor it.
And much like Russia and China, 
the Thai government is now co-opting rap.
Not the kind of thing 
we've ever reported on before.
The government 
and some of its critics online 
are now slugging it out in,
have I got this right,
a rap battle?
Has he never heard of a rap battle?
He's like, "A dual of rhymes 
between lyrical poets.
Is that right?
Rap battle?"
That guy's name is Richard Gizbert, 
which sounds like the active ingredient 
in "lean."
So how did the Thai government respond 
to the video?
Initially, there was some tough talk
from police
and Thailand's computer crime unit, 
but then the unit changed tack
and released its own rap, "Thailand 4.0."
♪ One, two, three, let's go ♪
[rapping in foreign language]
[woman] The online blowback 
has not been kind.
About a thousand likes
to 20,000 dislikes.
Here's one comment.
"So lame, the beats are so out-of-date. 
Don't make more songs like this."
You know what? I really respect 
that YouTube comment.
They left the racism at home
and just came straight 
with the constructive criticism.
They're like, "Stop rapping."
It's impossible to know
if this will change the election,
but the fact that the government has
to address this movement shows the power 
of hip-hop and streaming.
We think that anyone can use the phrase 
"what my country's got,"
the title of the song to speak out 
about whatever's on their mind,
what they think is the matter
with our country.
We hope that people will start being 
more critical when it comes to politics.
It's sort of a voice for teenagers,
for young adults 
who can think but can't act.
That's insane to me.
A genre invented at house parties 
in the Bronx 
is affecting political sentiment
internationally.
Because of streaming, hip-hop is helping 
to galvanize movements around the world.
The same music
that gave me the confidence
to get contact lenses
and gave birth to Lil Pump 
is now helping people 
call brutal dictators "kinda annoying."
And if you're a brutal dictator,
that must be kinda annoying.
