The Subtle Conspiracies in Music

Lyrics can be loaded.

The anti-vax/wellness influencer crossover defines the roots of Conspirituality, a beat we’ve relentlessly covered for 18 months. In many ways, aspirational yogis form a niche group compared to the larger anti-vax sentiment fueling GOP rage. That said, these figures, especially cohorts like the Disinformation Dozen, have more influence over societal sentiment than sometimes given credit. They’re certainly effective at adding to the noise.

Conspiratorial thinking has other entry points into public sentiment, however. Two musicians come to mind that slip such messaging into their music—an especially challenging reality, an I’m a big fan of both artists.

Discussing nuance is nearly impossible in the social media age. At what point do you “cut off” someone in your life? For me, it’s not being vaccine-hesitant (though that does influence who I spend physical time with these days). The purposeful spreading of disinformation makes it harder. Blatant racism, misogyny, xenophobia—if someone shares these beliefs, I cannot take anything they say seriously, even when our beliefs cross in other domains.

Science and medicine are (and always have been) fluid and dynamic topics. Unlike many belief systems, good science evolves with evidence. Being wrong is not a weakness but a feature of a system designed with guardrails. At our best, we can aspire to such goals, though in everyday life that’s a challenging task.

Sadly, science and society are often at odds. The slow negotiation of evolving evidence is no match for the quick verification of vibes. Humans are, first and foremost, emotional animals, and what hits us in the heart is generally more impactful than what’s processed in the head.

The following examples are minor instances in large catalogs of music. I point them out because they represent the ways that conspiracies slip into everyday mindsets, often undetected by the casual listener.

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Vaccines Don’t Cause Autism

But if you’re Detroit rapper, Royce da 5’9”, they do.

The fabricated link between autism and vaccines is thanks to the discredited and disbarred Andrew Wakefield, the former doctor who used a fake study to grift from anti-vaxxers (and continues to do so today).

One of Royce’s children has autism. It makes sense that he would demand answers. Since the origins of this spectrum remain unclear, it’s easy for conspiratorial thinking to seduce the uncertain parent, especially in a song that addresses monied interests tricking the less powerful.

The song is “Tricked,” in which Royce drops these lines:

From day one at the hospital they target our children / Say they gonna immunize 'em they somehow get autism.

That’s not the only track on The Allegory that this sentiment appears on. In “FUBU,” he raps,

You sure got 'em questioning how you meant it / I transcend, forever monumented / Not even Netflix could document it / My son got autism from injections by syringes

In an interview with Complex, Royce explains his position.

You got the regular facts that get presented to you, and then you have the other facts that you got to go research. Well, I found that I was able to draw a correlation between autism and vaccination. I found vaccinations link back to autism in many ways. And my wife is not anti-vaxx. So if I was ever going to have any more kids, we'd probably have to figure out a way to meet halfway. So I'm not in any way trying to encourage people to not get their kids vaccinated. I encourage you to believe what you want to believe.

Royce grows increasingly impatient with the journalist as he cites CDC data, shooting back that “no one” has the facts about vaccines and autism. This claim isn’t true—we have decades of research—but the dialogue swells in intensity until the rapper demands the next question, leaving the conversation in a supposed stalemate when in reality, as so often happens in such cases, he dug his heels in and refused to look at the evidence. His “research” was enough to inform his beliefs, which he effectively admits to in the last sentence of the above graph.

These are only two lines in two songs—and to be honest, they’re rapped in manner that’s catchy as hell. The Allegory was my favorite hip-hop album of 2020 by an artist I’ve been tracking for two decades. I won’t abandon his career, or this exceptional album, due to few disagreeable lines.

The situation highlights the conflation of forces that lead to conspiratorial thinking: the government and pharmaceutical companies often don’t act in the best interests of citizens (true) so therefore nothing they provide is of value (untrue). Royce takes it a step further by claiming their products are designed to harm you. Some certainly are; vaccines do not fall into this category.

Royce calls America “guilty until proven innocent,” and indeed, this also holds upin a number of cases.

Just not vaccines.

Fluoridation Blues

Unlike Royce, UK-born Arab-African singer Greentea Peng offers a bit of humility during her appearance on Nightmares On Wax’s exceptional new record, dedicating the dubby “Wikid Satellites” to “all my tin foil hat madmen.”

A fitting statement, especially if you’re carrying forward the John Birch Society Communist trope about the dangers of water fluoridation. Pre-1975 studies on fluoride in drinking water were “deeply flawed.” To this day, public health experts recommend continued study regarding appropriate levels.

The initiative, dating back to the forties (with recommend levels instituted in 1962), was put into place to help curb a proliferation of cavities. The project likely worked, though it’s hard to tell given the fact that toothpaste started to include fluoride around this time as well. Since some foods are now processed with fluoridated water, concerns about ingesting too much are certainly valid.

“Wikid Satellites” is not a song about nuance, however. After calling 5G dutty (West Indian slang for dirty), Greentea, who has often expressed disdain for power structures in her EPs and debut album, waves her anti-power structure cred with these lines:

Who decided to put fluoride in our water?
It's bad for you, go tell your sons and daughters

Many points in “Wikid Satellites” are valuable: calling out dirty politicians; concerns about water (beyond fluoride), air quality, and food safety. And it’s a dope song on Nightmares on Wax’s best album to date.

Royce and Greentea share a paranoid mindset, however. Just because there are real conspiracies, not everything is a conspiracy. This is where all theories get muddled. Our communications systems are not equipped for detailed conversations, and art is tracking and influencing how we talk to one another about topics that deserve much more consideration than two bars surrounded by deep bass and drums.

Then again, a four-minute song cannot convey what a 400-page book can, and we all have limits. Both have places in our lives. It’s too bad we spend far more time consuming then scrolling past tweet-sized transmissions than doing the contemplative work of actual research.