Ben Rubin-The Corporate Takeover of Music & Culture

Ben Rubin – former corporate consultant, underground DJ, and now UK Column journalist – delivers a powerful talk at the Hope Freedom Festival, exposing how corporations and global institutions have hijacked culture, music, and society itself.For nearly two decades, Ben lived a “double life”: working in high-powered consultancy by day and DJ’ing in the underground rave scene by night. In 2020, he left the corporate world to pursue music full-time. But lockdowns not only destroyed live events — they revealed how quickly culture, festivals, and grassroots movements surrendered to the very systems they once resisted.In this talk, Ben introduces his “skin suit” metaphor: institutions that still look the same on the surface but have been hollowed out and captured from within. From health and food to politics, money, and music, systems that once served people now serve profit, global agendas, and authoritarian control.To see all our written and video content, please visit the UK Column website: https://www.ukcolumn.org/If you would like to support the work we do, you can do so at https://support.ukcolumn.org/