turning rebellion into money?
[NEW YORK] Fast Company reports that a PR firm representing musician, Penguin Prison issued a press release at the end of last week to publicise his forthcoming single ‘Don’t F**k With My Money,’ which they claim'is already steadily becoming the anthem for [the Occupy Wall Street] movement!'
“CALLING ALL NEW YORKERS & PENGUIN PRISON FANS,” the announcement invited people to join Penguin Prison at the site of the OWS protests as they shot the video for said single.
Penguin Prison, aka Chris Glover ia apparently born-and-bred New Yorker, who's breeding, FC notes, apparently included attending Manhattan's Trevor Day School, which currently charges $36,000 in annual tuition.
Interestingly, none of the direct agents involved in co-ordinating, documenting and agitating around the OWS situation have seen or heard of Penguin Prison, so were unable to confirm whether the 'anthem' had indeed captured anyone's imagination.
*musical footnote: Anarchy In The UK it ain't, it's a pretty flimsy piece of 80's style syth-pop. link: http://youtu.be/Miu-XOx5Jg0
In fact Justin Hampton, blogger and music journo active in the OWS movement, noted 'f*ck Penguin Prison and f*ck them using this as a means to market their hipster bubblegum.'
It's not just the Penguin, slightly more predictably, corporate rappers Lupe Fiasco and Kanye West have also been muscle-ing in for some borrowed interest.
In advertising land, 'borrowed interest' being the flakey activity of brands of little or no substance scratching around for credibility by sponsoring or otherwise phoney-baloneying around the edges of some sort of cultural activity without providing any value or acting out of any purpose.
I couldn't help but wonder if old Joe Strummer would be turning in his grave...
'The new groups are not concerned,
With what there is to be learned,
They got Burton suits, you think it's funny,
Turning rebellion into money'
