Center

• Rappers and rap fans can’t help but take notice that their peers and favorite rappers are dying young.
• Trugoy the Dove of De La Soul, 53, passed away in February 2023 after a battle with congestive heart failure.
• Rapper Jim Jones has claimed that rap is the most dangerous profession due to rappers being violently killed so frequently.

The (un)exceptional spectacle of American gun violence

• News media are quick to report on violence in hip-hop to support their view that the music and the people who make it are exceptionally violent.
• Violence, death and conflict attract attention.
• Though they were all taken by the very American plague of gun violence, news and historical accounts often amplify the spectacle of violent Black death, even when they claim to honor those who are killed.
• It is also the topic addressed in the song “ANKH” from my forthcoming mixtap/e/ssay, “V: ILLICIT”: “He died by the gun but they blamed the music.
• Another heartbreaking consequence is that some rappers only gain wide popularity and realize financial success after they’ve died.

Deadly diseases

While violence brings about headlines, guns are not the only cause for concern. Diseases – many of them preventable – are also a factor. Heart disease, lung disease, cancer, diabetes, strokes and renal disease are among the top 10 causes of death among Black men and Hispanic men, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It makes sense that these causes also prominently figure in the deaths of hip-hop artists.

Gone before retirement

• Heavy D (44) experienced a pulmonary embolism that led to his death.
• Prince Markie Dee (52) of the Fat Boys passed away from congestive heart failure.
• Phife Dawg (45) of A Tribe Called Quest, Tim Dog (46) and Biz Markie (57) all passed away from complications related to diabetes.
• Guru (48) of Gangstarr, Bushwick Bill (52) of the Geto Boys, Hurricane G (52) and Kangol Kid (55) died from cancer.

A renewed focus on health

• The occasion of celebrating 50 years of hip-hop provides a moment to reflect and honor some of the artists who contributed to the culture and are not here to celebrate this golden anniversary.
• It’s also, perhaps, an opportunity to consider some of the outcomes of systemic barriers to health and wellness, such as access to affordable health care, varied dietary options and mental wellness resources.

• While the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency over in May 2023, Canada’s health workforce crisis has no end in sight.
• As researchers with the Canadian Health Workforce Network, we see the roots of this crisis in poor workforce planning and the inadequate integration of immigrant health workers.

Canada’s health workforce crisis is more than a national issue

• This voluntary code was agreed to by all member states in 2010.
• Its key principles are ethical recruitment, a commitment to planning and international co-operation.

Why is the WHO Code important to reflect upon now?

Recent Canadian health workforce reports identify the recruitment and integration of internationally educated health personnel (IEHPs) as part of the solution to the health worker crisis. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health held hearings on addressing Canada’s health workforce crisis, and the top four recommendations from its March 2023 report all referenced IEHPs:
The Canadian Academy of Health Sciences report also offers “pathways forward to ease the health workforce crisis,” including improving the integration of IEHPs.

Provincial recruiting strategies

• Saskatchewan launched an international health worker pool for Provincial Nominee Program candidates.
• Manitoba started recruiting health-care workers directly from the Philippines.
• Nova Scotia has recruited 65 refugees from Kenyan refugee camps who will be employed in the continuing care sector.

How compatible are these practices with the WHO Code?

• However, recruiting health workers from countries on the WHO’s safeguard list without robust and reciprocal benefits for the countries sending them fails the ethical test.
• Merging employment and refugee selection channels also suggests ethical concerns beyond health workforce issues, since refugee systems are based on the vulnerability individuals face, not their occupational compatibility.
• Canada’s ability to approach self-sufficiency is limited by its lack of robust plans, and by the lack of data to support planning.

• The rise of ChatGPT and similar artificial intelligence systems has been accompanied by a sharp increase in anxiety about AI.
• Worries peaked in May 2023 when the nonprofit research and advocacy organization Center for AI Safety released a one-sentence statement: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I.
• And, in its most extreme version, this argument morphs into explicit anxieties about AIs enslaving or destroying the human race.

Actual harm

• Yes, AI’s ability to create convincing deep-fake video and audio is frightening, and it can be abused by people with bad intent.
• In fact, that is already happening: Russian operatives likely attempted to embarrass Kremlin critic Bill Browder by ensnaring him in a conversation with an avatar for former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
• Cybercriminals have been using AI voice cloning for a variety of crimes – from high-tech heists to ordinary scams.

Not in the same league

• The statement from the Center for AI Safety lumped AI in with pandemics and nuclear weapons as a major risk to civilization.
• COVID-19 resulted in almost 7 million deaths worldwide, brought on a massive and continuing mental health crisis and created economic challenges, including chronic supply chain shortages and runaway inflation.
• They have also changed the calculations of national leaders on how to respond to international aggression, as currently playing out with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

What it means to be human

• AI in its current form can alter the way people view themselves.
• It can degrade abilities and experiences that people consider essential to being human.
• But the role of algorithmic recommendation engines is to reduce that kind of serendipity and replace it with planning and prediction.
• If it does, educators will lose a key tool for teaching students how to think critically.

Not dead but diminished

• But the increasingly uncritical embrace of it, in a variety of narrow contexts, means the gradual erosion of some of humans’ most important skills.
• Algorithms are already undermining people’s capacity to make judgments, enjoy serendipitous encounters and hone critical thinking.
• The fantastic anxieties around the coming AI cataclysm, singularity, Skynet, or however you might think of it, obscure these more subtle costs.

• A new survey of 126 women and non-binary punters and artists working the music industry in Melbourne has found 60% of respondents feel unsafe in music spaces.
• The survey found sexual violence disempowers female music workers, deters non-binary communities from working in the industry, and discourages punters from going to gigs.
• As Melbourne beats Sydney to became the nation’s most populated city in 2023, the epidemic of sexual violence may intensify in its urban music spaces.

The #meNoMore awakening

• Studies have found grassroots venues and promoters in the United Kingdom need to implement changes to tackle sexual violence and work towards gender equality.
• In January, it was announced the federal government’s new Revive cultural policy would establish a centre to address sexual harassment in the arts and entertainment industry.
• Read more:
  Pay, safety and welfare: how the new Centre for Arts and Entertainment Workplaces can strengthen the arts sector

A frequent violence

• Respondents reported street harassment to and from venues, or were assaulted in commercially shared vehicles.
• One third of the music punters reported an incident to venue staff or festival management.
• Fearing unemployment in a highly competitive industry, they remain stoic victim-survivors in the boy’s club.

What’s next

• The 2018 Melbourne Music Census found only 49% of staff in venues were trained in-house to deal with sexual harassment or assault.
• Our study suggests all security staff should be provided with bystander training to prevent, detect and address perpetrators’ behaviour, and to refer victim-survivors to relevant authorities.
• Too often, security staff have a reluctance to change routine practices, and many venues have a lack of female security staff.
• There is poor collaboration between security companies and music staff, and limited funding for grassroots venues to conduct this training.
• Read more:
  Camp Cope leaves the Australian music industry forever changed by their fearless feminist activism