Hi, everyone. Rethany Tracktano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for me to come on and apologize and admit that it's true: I'm wrong.

I had no idea what I was talking about when I said that hip-hop, that rap music, despite the fact that it's not currently in the top 10 on the charts at the moment, as far as the singles, Drake's Iceman is still at number nine on the Billboard 200, and Pooh Shiesty just debuted at number seven. But yeah, what I want to say, and what I want to take back, is that it's true: hip-hop and rap are dead.

They're gone. They're done. Nobody is listening to them anymore. Not a single rap song is being purchased or streamed as we speak. And "why is this happening", you may ask? Why? Because USAID was defunded, of course! Yeah. What is my source on this?

It's Joe Rogan. Let's cut to what has sort of initiated this conversation recently, and that would be a recent clip from Joe's podcast where him and guest Shane Gillis are, interestingly enough, talking about the band Turnstile.

What is Turnstile? It's new. Explain to me, please, Jimmy. They're a newer, young, hardcore band, you know? Oh, nice. Is it Cumcore?

Turnstile– successful band, having a really neat cultural moment right now; they put out great records recently and in the past, too. Some nice roots in the punk and hardcore scene. Getting a rare bit of platforming, a shout-out on what is the biggest podcast out there today, that's a cool thing.

But the clip that I'm referencing here goes south pretty quickly with this portion here at the very end:

Kids are doing band. Rock is back. They're from Baltimore. Nice.

The weird thing is how rap is falling off the charts. I was gonna say that. It's cause Drizzy Drake was gone. No, it's cause USAID got defunded. The Agency for International Development is well known to have been funding a bunch of radical, anti-government rappers overseas. Funding a ton of them. Like, a ton. It was basically all about regime change. That was a big part of what USAID was about.

No, USAID didn't fund rap music, despite with this viral right-wing theory claims. There you go. Yeah, but this is Yahoo News. And that's owned by Ari's family. Joe, it's literally your claims. Well, if you Google something, it's directly against you. But this one is not mine. I read this online and I read this from people, like, one of them was Mike Benz. And Mike Benz is very credible and was talking about it. So it's not my idea at all. Mike Benz, isn't he a CIA disinformation agent?

Believe it or not, this is actually a narrative he has been pushing on his podcast, which, again, is the biggest podcast for weeks, if not even months at this point. Cut back to this interview clip with Tony Hinchcliffe, another moron, where he's going a lot deeper into this theory.

But there's some people that believe that gangsta rap in particular, when it came about in the 1980s, was a part of the push to popularize it and produce it, was a part of the government, some faction of the government, some intelligence agencies wanting to create more crime. Wanting to fill more private prisons, wanting to erode the fabric of society, so they could push for more laws to keep you safer. This is like one of the most tinfoil-hat conspiracies. But people are pointing out that right now, it's like one of the rare times where no rap music is on the charts. And they're saying, well, how does this coincide with USAID? Was USAID actively promoting rap music? Was that one of the reasons why rap music was so popular? Is that real? That can't be real.

Maybe back in the day. It seems like that would be more manipulative. I believed that until I heard mumble rap. This is trying to make people stupid.

Where do I even begin with this? First, let me address the irony that Turnstile, and this is no shade to them, currently have no albums in the Billboard 200 right now. Meanwhile, there are numerous rap albums in the Billboard 200 currently.

So the idea that rock bands like Turnstile exist and are thriving culturally is not because rap is having a down moment right now or is struggling to find listeners. But that leaves the question: why was gangster rap so popular? How did something so vile and morally reprehensible gain so much of a cultural foothold? And if you want it, here's the real answer: white people loved the shit out of it.

For an audience that watches this channel, I don't know if the context of that really needs to be further explained. You, yourselves, are probably fans of a lot of the rap music that's dropped over the past 10 years and don't need to be told why it was good or why it was popular. But what I will say is that it's becoming very clear that Joe didn't come up with this theory on his own, as there seem to be multiple right-wing outlets that have been pushing this very narrative in recent weeks. Especially with artists like Ella Langley doing so well on the charts right now.

Because if country music is doing so well, as well as it is currently, that must mean that white America is back.

Libtards have no response to this, its Ella Langley.

And this narrative has trickled down so far now that even bottom-feeding, right-wing TikTok slop merchant boomers are repeating it too.

Hey, did you know that the CIA funded the rap music explosion? And now that the USAID funds got cut for the first time in 30 years, not a single rap song has made it to the top 40? Wow. Two years in a row. Think about that for a second.

Also, I love how this dude favors hard rock, hair metal, and glam rock as being really quality, and I don't know, way more morally admirable than rap music. Meanwhile, how many of these dudes couldn't even keep their hands out of the pants of teenage girls? Just like a certain president who's in office...

But yeah, I'm sorry to any conspiracy nuts that just so happened to stumble upon this video. Because no, there is no truth to the idea that the CIA is what has made hip-hop and gangster rap popular. And honestly, if that is the narrative that we are running with, we could just so easily say that Joe Rogan is popular because of the same exact mechanisms in the entertainment industry.

After all, Spotify being the biggest music streaming platform in the world is essentially a major label pay pig, and the major labels are actually even invested in the platform and helped ensure its success as we transitioned into the streaming age. And Joe Rogan has received multiple contracts from Spotify to continue to host his podcast there, upwards of a hundred million dollars and even more.

And that's far more money than even the highest-grossing artists on the Spotify platform are making off of their streams any given year. Do you think Drake is making a hundred million dollars off of his Spotify streams? No. That's why that man takes Stake sponsorships.

So if the major labels are a tool of the CIA, and Spotify is a tool of the major labels, and they then turn around and fund the artists, the music trends, and the entertainment platforms that they want to be popular in order to keep people stupid and uneducated, ignorant and even divided– I think you could make a far more compelling case that Joe Rogan is popular because maybe the CIA wants him to be. I mean, after all, there's been numerous instances of open disinformation being spouted from Joe Rogan's stupid-ass mouth about vaccines, trans people, and even kitty litter boxes in kids' schools.

I mean, this guy seems to believe just about anything he sees on the internet. That's probably why he likes AI so much. Because if there's anything Joe Rogan believes or wants to see in the world and it doesn't actually exist, he can just have AI generate it in a matter of moments.

But yeah, there you go. Joe Rogan. Fucking idiot. Per uge.

Now remember, when you click off this video to go listen to your CIA-funded and mandated hip-hop music, I'm gonna go listen to A Tribe Called Quest because the FBI wants me to.