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We live in an era in which image memes are lobbed as political salvos. In which security is theater and defining who controls the narrative in a world of facts and alternative facts is the daily bread of the hot-take class. In which words are bombs, delivered in 140-character installments in the new culture war a phrase that can and has referred to all manner of cultural conflicts: The face-off between elite versus populists, urban versus rural, Hollywood versus the heartland.

Culture is a weapon a pretty effective one at that. And its a topic that New York-based curator Nato Thompson takes on in his latest book, Culture as Weapon: The Art of Influence in Everyday Life, which explores the ways in which the tools of culture are deployed to do everything from sell iPhones to wage war.

As far as timing goes, the books landing during the early days of the Trump administration couldnt have been more impeccable. Culture as Weapon provides a broad overview on how individuals, corporations and governments employ design, storytelling, imagery and art to stir emotion and mold sentiment. The prominence of the Internet and social media, naturally, makes this all the more profound and far-reaching than in the past.

Thompsons book kicks off with an extensive historical primer. Over the course of the 20th century, the fields of public relations and advertising have created visually resonant cultural icons such as the Marlboro Man to move merchandise. Thompson shows how political figures have employed those same techniques to sway elections and stoke fear. For example: the 1988 presidential campaign ad for George H.W. Bush about Willie Horton, the Massachusetts convict who raped a woman while on furlough an ad that ignited anxiety about crime (and African American men) and likely cost Michael Dukakis the election.

Thompson also provides a backgrounder on how visual symbols have been historically wielded socially and politically. The Nazis, for example, were famously meticulous about their aesthetics. Adolf Hitler himself devoted great care and attention to the design and look of the Nazi flag.

The Nazis loved culture, notes Thompson. They used culture. They distributed culture. Cinema, music, flags, banners, book burnings, rallies, and holidays were all deployed in a phantasmagoria of stark blood red, swastikas, and blinding white.

Interestingly, political groups, such as the Nazis, have also been perfectly happy to co-opt the symbols of those they impugn. Hitlers propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, decried so-called degenerate art anything Modernist or made by Jews even as he put that art on view in an extraordinarily well-attended touring exhibition titled, naturally, Degenerate Art.

A similar phenomenon occurred during the U.S. culture wars of the 1980s and 90s, when Congress attacked some of the artists funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA hubbub, writes Thompson, was an opportunity to condemn luridness and bask in it in equal measure. An artists own work weaponized against him. (The Trump administrations proposed budget cuts are part of a long-running conservative animosity toward the NEA.)

The look back is interesting, and in the process Thompson delivers priceless instances of cultural manipulation, such as when the American Tobacco Co. used the trappings of womens liberation to encourage women to smoke in the late 1920s.

But far more vital are the chapters that the author devotes to the recent past and the present to the ways in which big business and government have liberally borrowed from culture for their purposes. (These are topics he comes at from the left, with a healthy skepticism of capitalism and its habit of turning everything into sellable merch.)

Thompson examines how art and architecture have been used as an implement of urban development, via so-called starchitectural development projects and family-friendly public art installations such as Cows on Parade. The commodification of bohemia, as he calls it, has led to art being viewed as an engine rather than the cultural mirror of a nation. The NEAs motto, for example, has gone from Because a great nation deserves great art to Art works a model that would no longer be focused on excellence based on taste, writes Thompson, but rather on the way that culture could make things happen.

This, interestingly, has led to an increasing mistrust toward the idea of culture itself. Los Angeles certainly offers a vivid case in point: The anti-gentrification efforts in Boyle Heights have specifically targeted art galleries (though, curiously, Thompson doesnt mention them).

Culture as Weapon covers myriad other topics: How the U.S. military employed cultural anthropologists during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, how staged social relationships are as intriguing to artists as they are to corporations, and how culture informs our everyday retail experiences. (The maze-like layout of Ikea is inspired, in part, by the disorienting ramps of Frank Lloyd Wrights Guggenheim Museum in New York.)

In taking on so much disparate material, Culture as Weapon can feel scattered and often delves into topics that the reader is likely already familiar with. (Do we really need another overview that covers the improbable rise of the personal computer from Steve Jobs garage to our back pocket?)

Instead Thompson is at his most effective when he is dissecting what it is about culture that makes it such a potent social tool.

Art, in its appeal to emotion, can override rationality, he notes. Fear, he writes, motivates faster than hope and appeals to emotion do not rely on the truth.

How the rational brain might counter the barrage of cultural string-pulling that we experience on a daily basis, and how the world of culture might save itself from becoming a mere tool, Thompson doesnt say. But Culture as Weapon provides a compelling manual for determining how the manipulation begins.

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Culture as Weapon: The Art of Influence in Everyday Life

by Nato Thompson

Melville House: 288 pp., $27

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Curator Nato Thompson shines a light on art and the culture wars in 'Culture as Weapon' - Los Angeles Times

President Donald Trump's proposed budget calls for the complete elimination of the National Endowment of the Arts, much to the delight of many conservatives, who will tell you, with anger unabated after nearly 30 years, about the "Mapplethorpe" exhibit and a photo called "Piss Christ."

The year was 1989. The right's effort to defund the NEA, founded as part of former president Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, was well underway, but mostly as a spending issue, something to be cut, disliked by the administration of Ronald Reagan but not necessarily loathed.

"In the 1980s," Reagan biographer Craig Shirley said, "the NEA was seen as little more than an irritant and not an agent for political or social change."

After all, Shirley said, Reagan was a "patron of the arts" and a former actor and president of the Screen Actors Guild. Eventually, he merely proposed cuts to its budget.

"The transition team really did want to defund it," W. Barnabas McHenry, former vice chairman of the Presidential Task Force on the Arts & Humanities under Reagan, told the New York Times in 1988. "So, we put a lot of people on the task force, like Charlton Heston and Adolph Coors, who were close to the President, and we all thought the task force did finally persuade him that it would be a terrible thing to stop the federal support."

"In the 1980s, the economy is in bad shape, the military is in bad shape, the Soviet Union is looming," Shirley said. "So, when people wake up in the morning, they're not thinking of the NEA and art they think is obscene. They're thinking about getting a job; they're thinking about the potential of World War III."

The end of the '80s, however, was a "time of relative peace," which Shirley said is when "people turn their eyes to something like the NEA."

There long had been "a perception that a lot of liberal causes and a lot of liberal art was being promoted by the NEA," he said.

But the passion to do away with the organization had yet to become a fever.

Then came "Piss Christ" by Catholic artist Andres Serrano, a snapshot of Jesus Christ on the crucifix, soaking in the artist's urine. It debuted quietly in New York in 1987 but caused uproar two years later it was shown in Virginia on a tour partially funded by an NEA grant.

"The Virginia Museum should not be in the business of promoting and subsidizing hatred and intolerance. Would they pay the KKK to do a work defaming blacks?" one museum-goer wrote in a letter to the Richmond Free Press.

The Rev. Donald Wildmon, founder of what is now called the American Family Foundation, sent a letter to every member of Congress, according to "Censorship of the American Theatre in the Twentieth Century." "I would never, ever have dreamed that I would live to see such demeaning disrespect and desecration of Christ in our country that is present today," he wrote. "Maybe, before the physical persecution of Christians begins, we will gain the courage to stand against such bigotry."

Conservative Sens. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and Alphonse D'Amato, R-N.Y., took to the Senate floor in May 1989 "to question the NEA's funding procedures." Helms said Serrano is "not an artist, he is a jerk," and D'Amato theatrically tore a reproduction of the work to shreds, calling it a "deplorable, despicable display of vulgarity." Meanwhile, more than 50 senators and 150 representatives contacted the NEA to complain about the exhibits.

Serrano still remembers being "shocked" by the angry reaction and, he recently said, how suddenly the work became a "political football."

"I was born and raised a Catholic and have been a Christian all my life," he said. "My work is not meant to be blasphemous nor offensive. ... It was very surreal to see myself become the object of a controversy and national debate I did not intend."

Regardless of Serrano's intentions, the religious right's crusade against the NEA had begun.

But the exhibit that pushed Helms over the edge was a retrospective of work by late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who Andrew Hartman, author of "A War for the Soul Of America: A History of the Culture Wars," wrote "became the Christian Right's bte noire."

After being displayed with little fanfare in Chicago and Philadelphia, "The Perfect Moment" was set to arrive at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington on July 1, 1989, four months after Mapplethorpe died at 42 due to complications from HIV/AIDS.

Like the exhibit containing "Piss Christ," it was partially, indirectly funded by the NEA.

The exhibit featured 175 photographs. One hundred and sixty-eight were inoffensive, such as images of carefully arranged flowers. The seven from his "X-Portfolio," though, were intensely provocative. One presented a finger inserted into a penis. Another was as self-portrait showing Mapplethorpe graphically inserting a bullwhip into his anus. Two displayed nude children.

The exhibit so enraged Helms that he mailed reproductions of four offending images, including one of a prepubescent girl exposing herself and one of a naked boy, to several senators in what The Post called "Helm's 'Indecent Sampler.'" That outrage quickly spread.

"Mao is dead," as author Todd Gitlin described the moment. "Now Mapplethorpe is the devil king."

One person who viewed the exhibit wrote in a museum registry, "I've been here four times already and this show disgusts me more each time I see it."

Amid the outcry, the Corcoran canceled the exhibit to avoid being involved in the fight over the NEA's funding of the work, as Corcoran Director Christina Orr-Cahall said at the time.

Nearly 1,000 gathered outside the museum to protest the cancellation. They projected 50-foot enlargements of Mapplethorpe's work on the gallery wall from 17th Street. "We're giving him his show," artist Rockne Krebs said.

Meanwhile, as Hartman told The Post, "There were probably hundreds of thousands of phone calls and letters made about these issues to congressmen."

The House quickly cut $45,000 from the NEA's proposed budget, "the exact amount of the two grants that funded Mapplethorpe and Serrano," The Post reported in 1989.

Fueled by outrage, Helms sponsored a bill, which passed, to bar the NEA from using funds to "promote, disseminate or produce obscene or indecent materials, including but not limited to depictions of sadomasochism, homoeroticism, the exploitation of children, or individuals engaged in sex acts, or material which denigrates the objects or beliefs of the adherents of a particular religion or nonreligion."

This pair of controversies transformed the NEA into a political symbol and brought it front and center in "The Culture Wars," which Pat Buchanan called "as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself."

"We are not going to give the money to aging hippies anymore to desecrate the crucifix or do other strange things," stated Duncan D. Hunter, R-Calif., in 1997. Dick Armey , R-Texas, called the organization, "the single most visible and deplorable black mark on the arts in America that I have seen in my lifetime."

As then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., would say in that same year, calls to defund the organization weren't just about government spending but about fighting "an elite group who wants the Government to define that art is good." It was a common theme. Two years earlier, Gingrich said about the NEA on C-SPAN, "I'm against self-selected elites using your tax money and my tax money to pay off their friends."

Even the NEA in its own written history acknowledged that this was the point the anti-NEA sentiment became an issue of values. "To many the names Serrano and Mapplethorpe were now tokens of moral corruption inside the agency."

Conservatives found the exhibits so deplorable that they still talk about them decades later as among the reasons for abolishing the NEA.

In February, Frontpage magazine published a piece titled "Lefties freak out of over that Trump may cut funds for 'Piss Christ' agency." In an op-ed Wednesday, conservative columnist George F. Will invoked the photograph. It also appeared in an op-ed arguing against NEA funding, published Monday morning in the American Spectator. Both artists are mentioned several times in a Heritage Foundation article titled "Ten Good Reasons to Eliminate Funding for the National Endowment of the Arts." In a piece about the NEA's "top 10 crazy grants," the Washington Times sarcastically called "Piss Christ," "an oldie but goodie."

Still, the NEA has avoided defunding, in part because the right has never been ascendant in both the Congress and the White House and also because these controversies "really scared" the NEA, said Hartman, which he said has mostly avoided funding controversial art since.

It may survive this storm too.

The NEA, said Hartman, "has been so smart about the types of programs that they fund, because they placed them all over the country, so just about everyone in Congress has constituents who benefit" from the its largesse.

California State Poet Laureate and former chairman of the NEA Dana Gioia recently wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "The NEA Shakespeare program, for example, has helped bring professional stage productions to 3,900 towns, mostly small and midsize communities. ... It has provided millions of high school students with a chance to experience live theater, most of them for the first time."

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Behind NEA and the culture wars: A pair of 'despicable' exhibits ... - The Daily Progress

Quora Questions are part of a partnership between NewsweekandQuora, through which we'll be posting relevant and interesting answers from Quora contributors throughout the week. Read more about the partnershiphere.

Answer from Elliott Mason, trans man and gestational parent:

To an outsider, I imagine that this [transgender bathroom law issue]all looks like it blew up out of nowhere and caused a firestorm of a reaction.

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There is a thread of cultural reality in the U.S. that I think most Europeans dont see: the rural/urban split is not just about farmland and sidewalk, or even about the simple economic issues involved in the same split in, say, England.

When it comes to social issues, different parts of America are living at different points in history. You can almost literally engage in time travel by moving around the country.

Los Angeles clearly centers our most bleeding-edge area: things that are commonplace there right now still seem odd to the next-most areas, and are downright bizarre or science-fiction in some further-flung and less urbanized places. The big cities in general have accepted and internalized more of the 20th centurys social and economic changes.

Im not trying to say that small communities and rural areas havent moved on at all from their late-19th-century mores and customs. That would be nonsense, obviously. But in the 1970s there were definitely areas that accepted racial-equality laws more enthusiastically than other places did, and all social changes have a similar time-lag between legislation and acceptance, here. The lag varies based upon urbanization, in the main.

In some cases this has to do with how you were raised, but some of it happens just from going to college and living in urbanized areas. (See also: 6 Big Differences That Turn City Dwellers Into Liberals) When you are exposed to a diverse population of individuals and make social connections outside of your own background, you tend to move forward in time by the standards of the author of the first article I linked. Similarly, living in dense situations makes clear that certain customs that are perfectly functional in far-flung, car-dependent, low-living-cost rural places are utterly unhelpful for city living. A certain level of tolerance and acceptance of difference is vital in city settings.

Demonstrators hold signs during the "Stand Up for Transgender Rights" event to show their support for transgender equality in Chicago , Illinois, Feb. 25, 2017. Kamil Krzacznski/Reuters

There are also very strong foundational beliefs about the nature of humanity and how reality works, that differ between more urban and more rural Americans (Why Rural America Voted for Trump).

So how does this relate to transgender bathroom access?

There is a strand of American politics that aims to reach out to, and support the priorities of, that rural population that Im describing. These people often feel that they are not represented in the media (TV shows, big Hollywood movies), and that their own values and deep-held customs are made fun of, dismissed, or outright attacked. They have often experienced less economic disjunction in recessions than the cities have, but the 2008 crash hit them very hard, and sparked an even stronger sense of precarious economic realities, and a real fear of complete ruin.

Frightened people sent letters to their representatives. If I may be completely cynical, frightened voters are also attractive to some politicians. If you can set yourself and your policies up as stable, respectable, and safeand, above all, promise to return their lives to normal so they can be great again then you will secure their firm support.

The Republican party, in the early 1980s, decided to make common cause with the hardest-line Evangelical Protestant born again movement. (How The Christian Right Ended Up Transforming American Politics). Their platforms social policies fell into lockstep with what that constituency wanted, and it certainly got them votes. Right through to the present day, strongly Christian-law-inflected policy positions form the bedrock of the Republican platforms.

To American Protestants of the most evangelical denominations, wider-spread societal acceptance of LGBTQ Americans seems like pandering to perversion. They prefer the world where anybody not just like them would smile and agree and keep their heads down, letting them believe that their own private preferences in life and policy were universally treasured by all Americans.

The Republicans, and the hardline evangelicals, therefore fought tooth and nail against marriage equality, and any other policies aimed at full equality for gay Americans.

That fight was lost, effectively, with the recent Supreme Court ruling on marriage.

Instantly, however, the same people shifted their anger towardtransgender Americans. They dinned over and over that trans folks are freaks, sexual deviants, and probably all men in dresses who are trying to get into ladies rooms to commit rape and mayhem.

None of these things are true. But if you shout something loud enoughand if your voters have never knowingly met a trans person, to provide a counterpoint viewit starts to feel true.

If you are already predisposed to feel under attack, with everything you held dear crumbling around you as liberal urban elites grind their heel into your face, well, then, its understandable to lash out at anyone you come to view as perverted, dangerous, or otherwise utterly unacceptable (but being coddled by those in power).

All the arguments raised as reasons to keep trans people in the bathrooms that match their assigned gender at birth fall apart if you seek data or a factual basis. They have, however, nothing to do with facts.

It should also be mentioned that imagined, hyperbolic threats to the safety or sexual innocence of white women have been used to justify attacks on anyone outside the norm for literal centurieshere in the U.S. Thats why they always talk about trans women in the ladiess rooms, and not the safety of trans women in mens rooms (or, for that matter, any discomfort caused to cis men in their bathrooms, or safety issues for trans men forced into the ladies facilities).

There are political influencers playing upon and building fear, and social upheaval, and deliberately building of walls of distrust between Americans to build political division.

Its not about any actual trans people, or their safety. Its about fighting over whose vision of America should win: a remembered prosperity we must strain to reach anew, or a step forward from existing problems into an ever-more-just and ever-stronger future.

What kind of issues did the transgender bathroom policy raise in the US? originally appeared on Quorathe place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions:

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How Trans Bathroom Access is the Latest Front of the Culture Wars - Newsweek

Migos performs at a nightclub in Las Vegas in February, following the release of its album C U L T U R E, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart. David Becker/Getty Images hide caption

Migos performs at a nightclub in Las Vegas in February, following the release of its album C U L T U R E, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart.

Atlanta eats its young.

That might be a cold-blooded accusation to level at a town dripping with so much black cultural currency. But the hip-hop capital has gained more than it's ever contributed to its greatest export.

Welcome to the city too player to hate. Where a handful of Dungeon dragons gave birth to an extended Family from Goodie Mob and OutKast to Killer Mike and Future that permanently shifted hip-hop's center of gravity. Where the trap transformed from literal dead-end to hypothetical escape route for the discarded and forgotten. Where a generation left to its own digital devices created a content craze by teaching the world to Dab, Whip, Drop that Nae Nae, Hit Them Folks and Whoop Rico.

Like music to capitalism's ears, these are the signs of a sonic identity 20 years in the making. Meanwhile, the city continues to reinvent itself for the sake of outward appearances. Now it's the Hollywood of the South. Next it's the Silicon Valley of the South. But the one thing Atlanta has consistently been, the hip-hop pedigree that's kept its international flame perennially lit, still gets the shaft on the low.

Consider this irony: Donald Glover's celebrated FX show Atlanta, which earned record ratings and Golden Globe statues following its debut season, received Georgia film tax incentives legislated within the last decade to lure film and TV production to the Peach State. Yet the twice-as-old, homegrown music industry, on which the show's plot is centered, still runs off an ecosystem largely unsupported by state funding or investment from the city's civic and corporate communities. The resulting failure to leverage this global cultural cachet suggests too many people in high places don't fully understand, appreciate or respect the value of hip-hop as an economic growth engine. While local politicos and power brokers look outside the city for world-class inspiration, they often overlook the one thing the rest of the world looks to Atlanta for.

In the last two months alone, a steady stream of mainstream dominance has kept all eyes on the ATL: Migos popped the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with "Bad and Boujee" and the group's album, C U L T U R E, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Future became the first solo artist in history to release two albums that debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in back-to-back weeks. Lil Yachty added a major Target endorsement and the longest commercial aired during the Grammy Awards' February broadcast to his portfolio. 21 Savage signed a deal with Epic Records, where CEO L.A. Reid continues to corral talent fresh from the southern city where he co-founded the now-defunct LaFace Records a quarter century ago. And the latest virtual unknown to continue Atlanta's streak of seemingly overnight phenoms is newcomer SahBabii, who spits melodies so tender they belie the explicit reality he represents.

His seductive street anthem "Pull Up Wit Ah Stick" slang for a semi-automatic weapon serves as a subtle reminder of Atlanta's national ranking as the city with the highest gap between the rich and poor. Like the rose that grew from concrete, it's the shameful little secret buried in Georgia's red clay. And the resulting divide is the basis of a culture war being waged over the city's most fetishized and stigmatized commodity.

The rise of Traplanta is the untold story of a city split in half by historic income inequality, shifting racial demographics, and an equally enigmatic identity crisis. The irony, of course, is how that inequity has helped to cultivate a trap-rap innovation economy from which Atlanta perpetually feeds.

"Young rich n*****, you know we ain't really never had no old money. We got a whole lotta new money, though." Migos, "Bad and Boujee"

One month after Donald Glover made Migos a household name, two of the trio's members Quavo and Takeoff found themselves receiving another honorable distinction. A flier circulating on the web suggested the rappers were scheduled to school New York University on the subject of culture. The ratchet Dab daddies who made the dance they created so ubiquitous it earned copycats Cam Newton and Hillary Clinton equal amounts of contempt were set to take on the halls of the academy. It sounded too good to miss.

Hip-hop in 2017 is certainly no stranger to academia. This semester alone has already seen the introduction of popular new courses on Georgia college campuses covering the trap and OutKast, alike. But Migos' members didn't subject themselves to two hours of Q&A at NYU to earn the academy's praise. They did it for the C U L T U R E LP. A twist on the typical release party, the event was part of the rollout campaign, produced by New York-based music marketing firm NUE Agency, that helped them achieve their first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200.

It only took ten minutes for Migos' CULTURECLASS at NYU's Cantor Center to morph into laugh-out-loud absurdity. Curious about Migos' effortless ability to stride the line between culture and commerce, Julie Anne Quay the stylish founder of fashion-forward social media hub VFiles asked: "How is cash a fashion statement, and is there a duffle bag full of cash nearby right now?"

Taking it as a cue to turn up, Quavo responded in kind: "There's a pocket nearby," he said, pulling out an obscene stash of stacks like a magician retrieving a rabbit from his hat.

"Yo," a guy in third row laughed as cheers erupted from the capacity-crowd of 315 students and press, "pass some this way!"

If OutKast represents the hope of Atlantis, a destination equal parts real and fantasmic, the music fertilized by Atlanta drug traps signifies the forgotten stepchild complicating the city's purported legacy of black wealth and equal opportunity. Borne of a turn-of-the-millennium wave that shot T.I. to superstardom, trap music's original incarnation crested with the likes of Jeezy and Gucci Mane. Today the subgenre barely resembles the dope-boy struggles of its predecessors. New age flavors range from 21 Savage's morose flows to Rae Sremmurd's pop-trap anthems to the trippy psychedelia of Young Thug. The main difference: Trappers today are as likely to rap about using drugs as they are selling them. Still, trap largely reflects the other extreme within Atlanta's hip-hop binary and, by extension, solidifies the long-told tale of two citiesone prosperous, the other impoverished. Yet it's trap that has succeeded in creating an ecosystem that makes the world turn up.

Even in a city like Atlanta where black cool is a proven commodity, leveraging hip-hop's hustle has been a trying proposition. ChooseATL, the branding campaign launched by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, uses the city's hip-hop swag to market Atlanta as a premier destination for tech-savvy millennials and entrepreneurs. But the well-heeled corporate community it represents maintains an arm's-length distance from many of the culture's most marketable artists.

"People are scared of the young black creative," says Wil May, the founder of Atlanta-based lifestyle, media, and hospitality company #COOL. "That's really frightening to America's way of doing business."

An Emory University alum who once was roommates with Justin Bieber's manager Scooter Braun, May's own evolution from rapper/producer to creative entrepreneur has given him the advantage of both angles. "It's obvious that people don't want to empower hip-hop on a civic or global level because they feel like it's too dirty or too street or uplifts criminal activity," May says. "And while that may be true in a lot of places, in Atlanta black people have done a good job at making this a constructive movement as well."

Rapper 21 Savage attends a screening of Noisey: Atlanta 2 at The Plaza Theatre in Atlanta in January. Paras Griffin/Getty Images hide caption

Rapper 21 Savage attends a screening of Noisey: Atlanta 2 at The Plaza Theatre in Atlanta in January.

To understand how broad trap's fascination has traveled one need only watch the 2015 web-series Noisey: Atlanta. The 10-part doc racked up tens of millions of views and boatloads of controversy for its safari-like expose of Traplanta. Even Waka Flocka Flame took to Twitter to voice criticism: "Noisey I really feel like y'all exploitin the bad and the good in Atlanta #NotF******Kool #atall!!!!!!"

In the series, Noisey offered unprecedented access to the zones of the city that people all over the world celebrate without ever grappling with the reality. (That's true of many who call Atlanta home.) The episode featuring Migos turned the trappings of the group's success semi-automatic weapons and Ziploc bags of weed in a suburban Stockbridge mini-mansion into something resembling a theater of the absurd.

It wound up having real-life consequences. Footage from the Migos episode was used to deny group member Offset's bond after the trio was arrested on gun and drug charges following a performance at Georgia Southern University. In a call-in interview from jail to a local radio show, he called Noisey "the police" while insinuating the creators of the documentary tricked them into playing themselves on camera.

This January, the week after Atlanta lost Super Bowl LI, Noisey: Atlanta 2 premiered. The 44-minute episode was a follow-up to the original, and a chance to counterbalance the sensationalistic depiction. "We really wanted to go back and make amends for how people took our documentary and used it against people," Andy Capper, who produced both series, says. "We were mad about that [and] we got some criticism and flack, too."

To return they sought the approval of Migos and the trio's managers Kevin "Coach K" Lee and Pierre "Pee" Thomas. The two men behind the indie label Quality Control, home to both Migos and Lil Yachty, are the main conduits between Atlanta trap and the bi-coastal music industry. Coach K's industry influence includes formerly managing both Jeezy and Gucci Mane at different times in their careers.

"The most significant permit we got from the city was the blessing of Coach K and Pee," Capper says. This time Noisey traded the shock-and-awe imagery of guns and drugs for sincere depictions of the violence and despair that undergirds the music. A kitchen scene in which 21 Savage pulls out a collection of funeral programs and begins counting off all the friends he's tragically lost feels more climactic than anything in the first series. But Noisey also understands why trap's subversive elements are so compelling to commercial audiences.

"The music sounds so dangerous and allows them to live vicariously through [acts like] the Migos," Capper says. "The Rolling Stones and Robert Johnson would sing about the devil. It's in the tradition of all the best R&B, blues and rock and roll music. That's why it's so successful."

Noisey: Atlanta 2 host Zach Goldbaum, who does a solid job addressing the roots of the subculture without shying away from all the vice, agrees. "Since the early '90s people have been obsessed with street culture," he says. "Trap music is a brand and [Atlanta's] able to own that so exquisitely. That's why we love Atlanta so much. That independent spirit of Atlanta is what we wanted to come through in the documentary. The level of influence is crazy .... The entire coast from Miami to New York sounds like Atlanta, so we wanted to make something that really celebrates the effect the city's had on the music industry and the sound of popular music."

But you can't talk about the popularity of Traplanta without dredging up the socioeconomic mess that undergirds it. Not even Noisey's daring brand of cultural tourism delves deep enough to reckon with such systemic failures as an Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal that's left behind a whole generation of students; an income inequality gap ranked No. 1 in the nation by the Brookings Institute two years in a row (2014-2015); and an upward mobility deficit that determines metro Atlanta children have a smaller chance of moving out of poverty than those born on the bottom rungs of any other major urban region in the country, according to the Harvard University-backed Equality of Opportunity Project.

"Many of the young people who grow up in the margins of our society in a city like Atlanta are becoming extremely successful by creating something that the whole world is acclaiming," says Atlanta City Councilman Kwanza Hall, who is among the dozen-plus candidates in the city's upcoming mayoral election. "It's a direct reflection of the inequality that we keep hearing everybody harp about in our city: the lack of equity, the lack of inclusion, the income differential that we see between those who have and those who have not."

Raised on the black and bougie side of southwest Atlanta, the local politician's late father served as one of Martin Luther King's youngest staff members. Hall's three terms on city council, representing the same Old Fourth Ward neighborhood Dr. King grew up in, have been marked by attempts to reach across broad cultural lines. Though he isn't considered a forerunner at this early stage in the race, he probably bears more genuine ties to Atlanta's hip-hop community than any other candidate. He presented the most vocal opposition on city council to a controversial local ordinance proposed last December that would have severely tightened restrictions on music recording studios in a city whose cultural lifeblood flows from them.

But Hall also acknowledges the concerns that inspired the ordinance due to the number of recording studios located in residential areas where they tend to blend in with the surrounding neighborhood. Last March, popular local rapper Bankroll Fresh died violently during a shootout outside of northwest Atlanta's Street Execs Studio the same recording home of Billboard chart-topper 2 Chainz. The ordinance would have banned studios within 500 feet of residential areas. "This is an environment that is constantly evolving," Hall says. "It has an impact on the expectations of quality of life that new residents, and sometimes longtime residents, feel they deserve because they've invested as well."

Hall believes the solution lies in fostering ties that reach beyond the typical distinctions of race and class. "There's an opportunity for a cultural connection," he says, "but right now we have some[thing] of a disconnect."

Yet the Street Execs shooting also represents an outgrowth of the same failed socioeconomic policies that have turned trap into a more viable career path out of the hood. For those whose realities contradict Atlanta's black mecca mythology, rap is often seen as a way out of no way.

It's no coincidence, then, that the most neglected and historically deprived parts of town have produced the city's most treasured assets. "We're creating a culture that's going all around the world," Hall says. "So consequently, we have influence. How we leverage that influence could mean economic opportunity or it could mean strife and civil war. It's that powerful."

Lakeith Stanfield (left), Donald Glover (center) and Brian Tyree Henry in a still from Glover's series Atlanta, which depicts the life of a trap rapper and his cousin, an Ivy League dropout. Guy D'Alema/FX hide caption

A quarter-century after Atlanta began its emergence as a music powerhouse, local and peach state politicians are finally arriving late to the party. After decades spent reaping the economic impact of Atlanta rap's local boosterism, there's a concerted push to invest in Georgia's music industry, which generates $3.7 billion annually largely driven by Atlanta's hip-hop bona fides. New legislation introduced under the gold dome in Atlanta in January could offer a 20-25 percent tax credit to projects recorded or scored in-state that meet a $70,000 threshold. If passed, the Georgia Music Investment Act will put music production on par with the state tax credit offered for the last decade to film and TV productions like Donald Glover's Atlanta.

When the plans for Glover's show initially began to circulate, the city responded with a collective side eye. Residents questioned whether he was authentic enough, black enough, Atlanta enough to do the city justice. By the time the premiere rolled around last September, it drew the largest 18-49 demo audience of a basic cable or primetime scripted comedy series in the last three years. The season would go on to disprove all the doubts surrounding its star and creator. By shaping the plot of Atlanta around an average trapper-turned-rapper and his exceptional Ivy League dropout cousin-turned-manager, Glover accomplished something equally profound by humanizing the trap.

"Donald Glover's doing a tremendous service by being honest about certain parts of Atlanta," Andrew Aydin, an Atlanta native and congressional staffer for Congressman John Lewis tells me. But Atlanta alone is not at fault for its failure to embrace its hip-hop identity. As a blue city surrounded by purple 'burbs in a blood red state, racial politics throughout the region have long kept the black mecca from attaining its vision. The decades-late push for a music tax credit is coming at the same time that MARTA, the city's rapid transit system, is on the cusp of a partial expansion denied it for more than 40 years. Atlanta's legacy of racialized transportation policies is symptomatic of a larger disease.

"How many statewide politicians have won elections by running against Atlanta?" Aydin asks. "And yet, those same campaigns are financed by some of the same corporations that exist in Atlanta." The music tax credit will require statewide politicians to buy into a predominantly black music industry, just as MARTA's economic stability and growth has always been dependent on white suburbanites and state regulators opposed to supporting mass transit purportedly used for Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta. Even the bigoted old nickname coined for MARTA still speaks volumes.

"When your state government is telling the rest of the state that Atlanta is the problem not the answer, it breeds that strife. It breeds that conflict," Aydin continues. "And eventually I think everybody, the state and city folks, are going to have to realize you have to embrace Atlanta you have to embrace the weird; you have to embrace the different because that's our best product. That's our best potential for future growth."

Nayvadius Wilburn is the present embodiment of that future. Quite literally. The rapper Future got his stage name from his older cousin Rico Wade, co-founder of the legendary Dungeon Family and Organized Noize. As the story goes, Wade would tell his younger cousin, then an aspiring emcee known as Meathead, that he was indeed the future, the one to carry on the Dungeon Family legacy and, in turn, Atlanta hip-hop.

The same year Future launched the first in a trio of career-defining mixtapes (Monster, Beast Mode, 56 Nights) that set him up for his first No. 1 album, DS2, Phil W. Hudson began covering music, sports and finance at the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Hudson quickly recognized the huge chasm that existed between the city's hip-hop culture and its business community.

While hanging out with one of his finance sources, who worked for a multinational accounting firm that was soliciting a new pro athlete as a client, Hudson asked him, "'Do you guys have any rappers on your roster?'" The answer surprised him. "I asked why the hell not," Hudson says. "And he said, 'We just never really thought about that.' I said, 'Well that's ridiculous because I'm sure Jermaine Dupri, at the height of his career, was worth more money than some of these major executives in town.'"

The more Hudson interviewed Atlanta-based hip-hop talent and executives, the clearer the issue became: Black music's worldwide marketing power was being slept on by some of Atlanta's biggest global brands.

"One of the best points that was ever made about the disconnect in Atlanta came from Jermaine Dupri," Hudson says. "He told me he was really shocked that Usher was signed with Pepsi. He was like, 'How can Coca-Cola, the world's biggest behemoth in the soft drink industry, let their fierce rival come into their own backyard and take what is potentially one of our biggest music brands in Usher?"

The missed opportunity is even clearer in rap, where artists derive their clout from bragging about lifestyle and luxury brands in songs and videos that often double as major commercial endorsements. It's a simple equation, according to Hudson: "Rappers make things cool. What's cool becomes pop culture. What becomes pop culture sells."

Of course, there are exceptions to this alienation.

Lil Yachty may not have gotten any stage time at the Grammys this year, despite his first-time nomination, but he still managed to bumrush the show. The Atlanta bubblegum trap act starred alongside pop star Carly Rae Jepsen in an epic Target commercial, the longest of the night at three minutes. Atlanta superproducer Mike Will Made-It was also featured.

With his red-beaded braids and a drug-free persona as playful as his music, Yachty's become a brand unto himself. His endorsements include Nautica, the apparel brand he's reviving as its newly-named creative designer, and hometown beverage Sprite. Coke's cooler decaffeinated cousin has actually enjoyed a long relationship with hip-hop. It dates as far back as 1986, when Kurtis Blow appeared in an early commercial rapping the tagline "Now More Than Ever It's Sprite." Along with a host of East Coast legends, other Sprite endorsers over the years have included such foundational Atlanta acts as Kris Kross and Goodie Mob. But most of Atlanta's genre-defining artists over the past couple of decades have remained noticeably absent from the soft drink's hip-hop-themed campaigns.

Trap rap, in particular, has its own cross to bear. When Future released DS2, the name was abbreviated from Dirty Sprite 2 for obvious legal reasons. There's no way Coca-Cola would've given Epic Records permission to associate its brand with the promethazine-syrup laced "Dirty Sprite" that Future references in his signature codeine flows. Sex, drugs and rock and roll may be as American as cherry pie, but hip-hop has always faced greater persecution over its illicit content than whiter music genres.

"It's definitely a complex scenario," Hudson says. "There's racial elements, there's business elements, there's marketing elements."

But there's also "a lot of missed opportunity," he acknowledges, recalling the widespread response he got while traveling abroad to China. "When I'd say I'm from Atlanta, it wasn't Coca-Cola that the Chinese knew us by. It was the Olympics and OutKast. We have this incredible brand, so how can we capitalize on this?

That's partly the job of Christopher Hicks, a former music industry exec who wants to help connect the dots as the new director of the Mayor's Office of Film and Entertainment. "We have a plethora of large brands here [that] exist in the city and have not necessarily leveraged the musical stakeholders in the city, so I want to create relationships there," he told Billboard last March.

But Hicks' position in an office originally created to exploit opportunities within the nascent film industry speaks directly to the disconnect. "The music industry was really put off at how hard the state worked to recruit film, an industry from out of state that really doesn't have any loyalty to Georgia other than our tax incentive," Hudson says. "So why do we have this homegrown industry that we're not helping? L.A. Reid doesn't live in Atlanta anymore. He should. And if we catered to our music industry better and incentivized it more we might be able to get more record labels to come here and stay here and leave their offices here. It creates jobs and brings revenue to the state. It's the whole economic impact. I feel like we're missing out on a lot by not embracing it."

The onus is on the city of Atlanta to figure out how to harness hip-hop's hustle. Because the culture doesn't need Atlanta to succeed; Atlanta needs the culture. The question is whether an independent ecosystem that has turned Atlanta's underserved music community into a global beacon would be helped or hampered by the city's interference?

Kwanza Hall wants to find ways to create infrastructure around what has essentially been a cottage industry. "I want to industrialize it and formalize it," says Hall, who considers the city's wealth of home recording studios greater innovation zones than Georgia Tech, the only university to make Fast Company's recent list of the World's Most Innovative Companies. "People are working with far less and making a whole lot more out of nothing. They're taking thin air and turning it into something that is of value in this society," Hall says.

But true investment in the culture has to dive much deeper than industry infrastructure, according to one of the most devout advocates of Atlanta's creative economy, Bem Joiner. "The lack of affordable housing, gentrification, piss-poor public schools, those are key cogs in the wheel," he says. "That's like the secret sauce to how the culture is made."

Secret sauce, indeed. Meanwhile, Atlanta's next ingenious reincarnation could ironically mimic the birthplace of hip-hop. A new proposal to loosen downtown signage restrictions could result in a district full of bright, oversized LED-display ads just like Times Square. Hudson, for one, thinks ATL should seek inspiration a tad closer to home. "Nashville did such a good job embracing country music that it turned Nashville into Music City," he says. "Well, Nashville didn't really invent country music, it came there. We didn't really invent hip-hop, it kinda came here. They created this culture around country and it's put the city on the international music map. Atlanta needs to do that with hip-hop."

Sounds like a bright idea. But what would it look like if Atlanta and the state of Georgia were to truly leverage its biggest cultural export and invest in its success? Might we see an Atlanta Hip-Hop Hall of Fame located on Peachtree Street? Or maybe a Music Row district could set up shop in south Downtown for hundreds of hip-hop related businesses major and independent labels, recording studios and publishing houses, consumer tech startups and media outlets to flourish within an economic incubator driven by the culture? Perhaps a Grand Ole Opry-style performance hall for rap would serve as a major tourist attraction and cultural nexus for the economically-deprived creatives and the city's wealthy elite to meet?

Not even in the last black mecca is that a likely scenario. Outsiders may have zero qualms with embracing the culture. But closer to home, Traplanta is saddled with too much of the same racial baggage and class exclusion that criminalizes the music in the eyes and ears of many in power. The same pols who disgrace their districts by failing to advocate for economic equity find themselves more offended by crass lyrical content than the crass conditions that inspire it. Meanwhile, systemic ills continue to fester at will. It's enough to make you wonder who the real trappers are in this town.

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Culture Wars - NPR

Gov. Eric Holcomb has kept a low-profile as bills on hot-button social issues have been moving through the Indiana General Assembly. That could end soon if bills on abortion and school prayer land on his desk.(Photo: Robert Scheer)Buy Photo

One of the key questions about Gov. Eric Holcomb when he emerged as a candidate for governor and after he was elected was which of his two immediate predecessors would he most resemble when it comes to hot-button social issues.

Mitch Daniels is largely remembered for attempting to call a truce in the culture wars, although late in his term he signed a bill blocking Medicaid funding to groups that perform abortions. The legacy of Mike Pence, meanwhile, was colored by controversial eruptions over same-sex marriage and religious freedom and the court challenge to block an abortion bill he signed.

Holcomb worked for both governors. Hemade it clear during his campaign he is allied with social conservatives on issues such as abortion. But he also signaled a more nuanced approach. In his State of the State address, he made no mention of cultural warfare, focusing instead on meat-and-potatoes issues such as roads and bridges, workforce development and the states economy.

Soon, though, he could be confronted with a trio of bills that have been moving steadily through the Indiana General Assembly that deal with the kinds of culture wars issues that wind up on voter scorecards.

One of the bills wouldensure parents have a seatin the courtroom if their minor daughterapproaches a judge seeking permission for an abortion without parental approval. A second requires abortion providers to give women seeking a medically-induced abortion information about an unproven method to stop andreverse the abortion pill. Finally, a school prayer billwould essentially write into law the types of religious expression courts have said are allowable in public schools.

All three bills have passed one legislative chamber, raising the prospect that they could soon land on Holcomb's desk andprompt the revival of a question that has been circulating since last summer.

Ive been asked on numerous occasions, Is he Mike Pence or is he Mitch Daniels? said House Speaker Brian Bosma. And I would say, He is Eric Holcomb. He was part of both administrations and seen leadership qualities and characteristics of each, and will chart his own course.

Bosma and GOP Senate leader David Long say they have discussed the abortion and prayer bills in Holcombs presence during their regular meetings with the governor. But they say Holcomb has offered almost no input on them.

As a candidate, Holcomb said he "supports measures that protect the unborn" and would have signed a bill Pence approved thatcreatedabortion restrictions dealing with fetal gender and disabilities a lawlater blocked infederal court. ButHolcomb's spokeswoman said he has not yet taken positions on the pending legislation. And lobbyists and advocacy groups say Holcomb has kept such a low profile on these bills as to be nearly invisible.

These issues are not a priority for the governor this session," spokeswoman Stephanie Wilson said. At this stage, hes only weighing in on bills that reflect his legislative priorities

The abortion and school prayer bills now advancing through the legislature have captured the attention of activists and lobbyists, but they mostly nibble around the edges of those issues. There are only about 20 instances a year in Indiana where minors seek court approval for abortions without a parent's permission. Drug-induced abortions are, by some estimates, only 15 percent of all abortions. Many people on both sides of the school prayer bill say it doesn't break much new ground, but instead puts existing case rulings into Indiana law.

Long said he expects Holcomb to adhere to his stated opposition to abortion, but he acknowledges the issues present an early indicator of Holcombs approach. Its all brand new; its only a month and a half in, Long said. He hadnt had a chance to show his hand on exactly where he stands.

Rep. Terri Austin, D-Anderson, who has argued vehemently against the abortion pill proposal and is skeptical of the need for the school prayer bill, hopes Holcomb will take a measured approach.

So far, shes been impressed by Holcombs focus on issues such as roads, preschool funding and drug abuse prevention and on his decisions to pardon a wrongfully-convicted felon and to address lead contamination problems in East Chicago. She says Holcomb appears to have a strong moral compass.

As a new administration and a new chief executive, you get one opportunity to come out of the gate and define your leadership style, Austin said. Especially on issues like this.

The most sweeping bill introduced this year on the culture wars front one that would essentially outlaw abortion died in committee after House Republican leaders decided it had no chance to withstand a court challenge. Theres a difference of opinion on how well the remaining menu of issues will serve as an indicator of Holcombs approach on such thorny matters.

Patti Stauffer, a vice president for public policy for Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, has concerns about both abortion bills. She says Holcomb has an opportunity to set the tone for his tenure in office by opposing them. It is an opportunity for him to be able to set a path for us that will be productive, constructive and farsighted, she said.

Micah Clark, executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana, said the advancing bills dont greatly stretch the boundaries of social policyand thus arent much of a test for the depth of Holcombs convictions. He expects the governor to support thembut acknowledges theres been no indication hes been closely engaged with them. That fog may be about to lift, Clark said.

I guess well see if they get to his desk."

Call IndyStar reporter Robert King at (317) 444-6089. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

These measures have cleared one chamber of Indiana General Assembly. If they reach Gov. Eric Holcomb's desk, they could provide more insight on where he stands on hot-button social issues.

House Bill 1128 Author: Rep. Ronald Bacon, R-Chandler.

Whats in the bill:It requires abortion providersto give a woman seeking a drug-induced abortion a state-created information sheet about medical professionals who can aid in the possible reversal of the abortion pill process. The information would include a disclaimer that: No scientifically validated medical study confirms that an abortion may be reversed after taking abortion inducing drugs. Listed also would be information to the website of an Ob-Gyn association thats highly skeptical of the process. It also requires abortion clinics to provide the state with additional information about patients, including the number of her previous children, miscarriages and date of last menses.

Status: Passed the House by a vote of 54-41, with 17 Republicans joining all but two Democrats in opposing it. Assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Senate Bill 404 Author: Sen. Erin Houchin, R-Salem.

What it does: Gives the parent or guardian of a pregnant minor the right to attend and testify at hearings where the minor is seeking court permission for an abortion without parental consent. (Currently, parents are excluded.)Requires the parent be served with a court summons. Requires minor to seek waiver of parental consent by 16 weeks into the pregnancy. When a parent consents to the abortion, that consent must be provided through a notarized, written form; the parent must provide a government identificationand some evidence that proves the person is the parent or guardian. Enables parents to sue those who help a pregnant minor obtain an abortion without parental consent or a court waiver.

Status: Passed the Senate by a vote of 36-13, with four Republicans joining all the Democrats in opposition. Assigned to House Committee on Public Policy.

Senate Bill 1024 Author: Rep. John Bartlett, D-Indianapolis.

What it does: Establishes in state law that public schools shall not discriminate against a student or parent based on religion, that students can express their beliefs in schoolwork and their clothing, that students can pray or engage in religious expression before, during and after school, organize prayer groups and religious clubs, use school facilities to the same extent as students with secular views do. Requires schools to establish a limited public forum at all school events. Requires schools to accommodate students who wish to be excluded from religious activities.

Status: Passed the House 83-12, with 15 Democrats joining most Republicans in support. Assigned to Senate Education and Career Development.

More on Holcomb:

With Pence gone, fellow Republicans undo his work in Indiana

Gov. Holcomb pardons Keith Cooper

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Soon? Holcomb's first tests on culture wars - Indianapolis Star