Pablo Escobar, Donald Trump, and the Neoliberal Ethos: Hip-Hop and Visual Media in the 1990s

• In Event: (Re)visions of American Selves: U.S. Mass Culture and its Exclusions

Abstract

This paper explores the portrayal of the war on drugs in American media, with a focus on the representation of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar and his adoption as a cultural icon in hip-hop during the 1990s. Through an analysis of investigative journalism from outlets like ABC News, NBC, 60 Minutes, hip-hop music videos, and narrative depictions in film, television, and broader popular culture, this paper examines how Escobar’s persona was framed within the racialized and gendered discourse of criminality in the war on drugs and the neoliberal era. I argue that Escobar’s mythos exemplifies the convergence of racialized American imperialist narratives and the emerging neoliberal ethos of the late 20th century.

During the 1990s, Pablo Escobar was portrayed in American media as an emblem of the self-reliant neoliberal subject. His immense fortune and audacious rise to power reflected the ruthless individualism and material success celebrated under neoliberalism, making him an aspirational figure. At the same time, American media coverage of the war on drugs simultaneously sensationalized Escobar’s criminal empire and reinforced imperialist narratives, portraying Colombia as a chaotic frontier requiring U.S. intervention. This dual portrayal positioned Escobar as a critique of unbridled capitalism and a disturbing embodiment of its ethos. During the 1990s, figures like Donald Trump rose to cultural prominence and were celebrated as legitimate icons of neoliberal success. Through media coverage and sensationalized reporting, Trump’s ruthless capitalism—defined by his real estate empire and public persona as a bold, self-made mogul—was framed as aspirational, glossing over the exploitation and inequalities underpinning his success. The cultural fascination with Escobar and Trump reveals a blurred boundary between legitimate enterprise and criminality in the neoliberal imagination, where wealth and dominance, regardless of their origins, became the ultimate measure of success.

Investigative reporting on the drug war also amplified fears of black and brown criminality, constructing stereotypes such as the “superpredator” and “crack babies” to pathologize urban black young men as violent threats to societal order and the “welfare queen” and “crack mothers” to vilify black women as symbols of vice and state dependency. These depictions supported neoliberalism’s punitive political agenda, embodied in Clinton’s 1994 Crime Bill, which expanded policing and incarceration while perpetuating the systemic marginalization of communities of color. In particular, hip-hop artists, grappling with the socio-economic fallout of Reagan-era neoliberalism and the crack epidemic, adopted Escobar—and later Trumop—as a metaphorical figurehead for survival and resistance. Artists like Nas and The Wu-Tang Clan invoked Escobar’s persona to critique structural inequalities while simultaneously embracing the ethos of hyper-capitalism and self-determination as they narrate the violence and depravation neoliberal policies caused all across American cities.

Author

• Fernando Esquivel-Suarez, Spelman College