So much of Hip-Hop is centered around money. There are songs about how much money MCs are making through illicit means, whether it be through the sale of drugs, stick ups or pandering. Others flaunt how much money they have through boasts about their cars, homes, fine art and ability to “make it rain.” It’s created a culture where lust for the paper is more the rule than the exception.

Like many others, Talib Kweli is fed up and he’s made a song with explicit words about money and its ills. After a salient verse by South African MC Cassper Nyovest, Kweli takes the adage “money is the root of all evil” one step further and says “Fuck The Money.” While the title of the song is simple and blunt, Kweli’s thoughts are typically complex. He talks about the power of money to negatively transform people, “Money make niggas break promises, Money turn niggas into pharmacists.” He goes on to dig deeper, speaking specifically about rappers’ thirst for dollars and the effect that has on them and their listeners, particularly youths who aspire to follow in their footsteps, “Now our greed dangerous as a heart condition, Rap niggas lie like politicians” and “But when the pursuit of money is your only goal, Then when you lose your goal, then you lose your soul, Dollars and cents to rob our children of their innocence.”

Toward the end of his verse, the biggest irony Kweli points out is that even those who believe themselves to be at the top of the food chain are often just pawns in a capitalist system that is much bigger than they, “We built the pyramids, they built a pyramid scheme.”

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