In 2018, I wrote an honours dissertation about algorithmic gatekeeping in the music industry, about how data-driven, automated branded playlists had become the new tastemakers. Some real nerd shit nobody cared about. I should’ve studied welding instead.

Now it’s 2025, and here I am with a playlist for your perusal. If you can’t beat them, join them. Maybe just to prove you could have. The soundtrack for every hypocrite who ever tweeted “Free Palestine” on Starbucks Wi-Fi. Everyone’s a revolutionary until the royalties clear. This playlist isn’t for the politically pure, it’s for those who’ve already sinned, streamed, and still hit repeat.

So I made peace with my hypocrisy. I made a playlist. If you can’t beat them, score the surrender.

1. Boz Scaggs – “Lowdown”

“Got to have a Jones for this, Jones for that… You gonna come back around to the sad sad truth — the dirty lowdown.”

Soft funk for quiet betrayals. The sound of compromise poured over ice.

2. J-Zone – “Bum Bitch Ballad”

“To the fake-ass activist head wrap chicks on the low kidnappin’ dicks... Fuck you, I want a Caddy with some dice in the mirror.”

Disillusionment set to drums. Everyone wants to stay underground until rent is due.

3. Merle Haggard – “Okie from Muskogee” (Live)

“Leather boots are still in style for manly footwear; Beads and Roman sandals won’t be seen…”

Patriotism, parody, or both. A protest song wearing a sheriff’s badge.

4. Clipse – “Mr. Me Too”

“I know what you thinkin’, why I call you ‘Me Too?’ ’Cause everythin’ I say, I got you sayin’, ‘Me too.’”

The echo chamber before the algorithm. Authenticity as contagion.

5. El-P – “Jukie Skate Rock”

“My country’s crazy baby, Your country’s crazy too…”

Rebellion humming through static. A prophecy of outrage optimized for ad placement.

6. Dead Kennedys – “Holiday in Cambodia”

“Playing ethnicky jazz to parade your snazz on your five-grand stereo…”

A punk relic that aged like prophecy. Irony before irony went corporate.

7. MC Paul Barman – “Salvation Barmy”

“My name is Jane Pratt, before you jerk off on my head please pass me that rainhat…”

Self-awareness as confession. A hymn for the overeducated and underbelieving.

8. Company Flow feat. Ill Bill & Simian D – “Simian D”

“If it wasn’t for Microsoft, you faggots wouldn’t have no fans…”

Unfiltered, unmarketable, and precisely the point. Nihilism before it had PR.

9. Johnny Wright – “Hello Vietnam”

“America has heard the bugle call… I don’t suppose that war will ever end.”

Once patriotic, now tragic. The sound of sincerity expiring on vinyl.

10. Prodigy – “Serious”

“They got good talk, but that's about as far as it go
When it's time for that murder...they don't show
When it's time for that fighting niggas is ghost
All you hear is straight crickets, niggas is bitches”

Self explanatory. Rest in Peace Prodigy.

11. Ice Cube – “True to the Game”

“They just sent they boss over, put a bug in your ear and now you crossed over…”

The gospel according to independence. Before “DIY” became a hashtag.

I wrote the thesis, burned the bridge, made the playlist anyway. Turns out selling out just means buying in with better taste. If you can’t beat them, monetize the irony. Every rebellion becomes an interface. Every protest, a feature update. UHURU!

Maybe the only honest act left is to admit you’re complicit, and press play anyway. Now that is something a 2nd class citizen such as myself can fully respect.