No survey of flags in hip hop would be complete without acknowledging the controversial use by rappers, from time to time, of the Confederate flag. Two years ago this topic gained a great deal of attention when Kanye West put the flag on his clothing and merchandise while touring to promote his 2013 album Yeezus. […]
The Flags of the World database includes an entry under Hip Hop Unity flag (U.S.): In the summer of 1996, a flag symbolizing the values of the Hip Hop Nation was officially revealed in San Francisco. The Hip Hop Unity Flag is the brain child of community activist James P Queen who is the President […]
Brooklyn-based Afrocentric group X Clan released Return from Mecca in 2007. The music video for the single Weapon X features two flags: the green, gold, and red flag Ethiopian flag, and the red, black, and green Pan-African flag. X Clan: Weapon X. Directed by Dale “Rage” Resteghini. Uploaded to YouTube August 24, 2006, has 320,000 […]
OutKast are a celebrated hip hop duo from Atlanta. For their critically acclaimed 2000 album Stankonia, in what became an iconic image, they appear on the cover in front of a huge black and white variant of the US flag, with inverted stars. Paste magazine ranked it 21st in their list, The 25 Best Album Covers of […]
This video for the Grammy-nominated hip hop song Put On by Young Jeezy popularized the monochrome, “black and silver” adaptation of the US flag. The song was on an album entitled The Recession, and the flag was used in the video as a symbol of the Great Recession. For most of the US, the recession […]
Hip hop has a thing about flags. This week, we’ll look at some examples. Here is a music video by American rapper Richard Colson Baker, known as MGK (Machine Gun Kelly). The song is Raise the Flag (uncensored). Official video, directed by JR Saint. Published on Oct 14, 2014. Currently has over 3.8 million views. […]
