Nepotism on Wax: Liberal Elitism and the Commodification of Producers’ Labor

Part I: The Scam in Plain Sight

Legacy DJs are no longer innovators — they’re middle managers of theft. Their entire “craft” consists of taking tracks from producers, stripping them of context, and pressing play with the poise of someone who has never actually touched Ableton.

But don’t worry — there’s always a press release. “This isn’t a DJ set,” insists Calvin ‘Three Hyphens in His Name’ Montgomery, a legacy headliner with no discography. “It’s an *immersive sonic installation interrogating memory, time, and the aesthetics of community.” Translation: I downloaded promos from my inbox and stood behind CDJs.

Part II: Gallery-Speak as a Weapon

The only real talent these DJs have is fluency in gallery-speak. Every lazy set gets wrapped in language stolen straight out of an MFA critique.

• A playlist? That’s a “curatorial practice.”

• Recycling tracks you didn’t make? That’s an “archival intervention.”

• Booking your cousin for the opening slot? That’s “community lineage.”

  
  

Liberals eat this up because it flatters them. “When I hear him press play on someone else’s dubplate, I don’t feel like I’m consuming culture,” said one audience member at a festival. “I feel like I’m participating in a dialogue with the future. And also, I just like the font they used on the flyer.

Part III: The Invisible Labor of Producers

Producers, meanwhile, remain completely invisible. Their tracks are gutted and repurposed as “sonic brushstrokes” in a DJ’s “vision.” The work is theirs, the glory is not.

Ask any producer and they’ll tell you the truth: “It feels like ghostwriting for someone who doesn’t even read,” one anonymous beatmaker confessed. “I spend weeks designing sound. Then a nepotism DJ presses sync, and suddenly they’re the genius. It’s like doing someone’s essay and then watching them get into Harvard.”

Part IV: The Economics of Nepotism

The entire ecosystem runs on network over merit. Nepotism DJs don’t need talent — they’ve got surnames, crews, and curators who mistake proximity for skill.

“I’ve never made a track in my life,” admits DJ Heirloom, son of a Canadian arts council director. “But I did once eat sushi with someone from Red Bull Music Academy. That’s basically the same thing as being a producer.”

Meanwhile, the actual producers get scraps: Bandcamp sales, maybe a late-night slot if they’re lucky, but never the cultural capital that comes with being the face behind the decks.

Part V: Nepotism as Canon

The saddest part? This isn’t treated as a scam — it’s canonized. Journalists celebrate nepotism DJs as “visionaries,” festival lineups recycle the same surnames, and audiences clap for the illusion.

“People don’t want risk,” explained one festival booker. “They want surnames they recognize. Booking someone’s cousin is much safer than taking a chance on a producer who actually makes music. Besides, producers don’t look good in press photos.”

Closing: The Reckoning

Dance music doesn’t have a creativity problem — it has a theft problem. Until nepotism DJs are stripped of their immunity, until critics stop rewarding gallery-speak, and until liberals realize they’re not buying “culture” but funding fraud, producers will keep being exploited while parasites profit.

Because at the end of the day, it isn’t innovation on the decks. It’s nepotism on wax — nothing more.

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