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The CIA’s Playlist
How The CIA Hijacked Music
You thought the CIA was just in the business of toppling governments and assassinating leftist leaders?
Turns out they’ve also been moonlighting as cultural DJs, spinning records and curating entire musical movements to manufacture consent and keep the global population humming along to the beat of American empire. From jazz clubs in the 1950s to TikTok hits in 2025, the CIA’s been shaping your Spotify algorithm long before social media algorithms were even a thing.
In the 1950s, right in the thick of the Cold War, the U.S. was busy screaming about “freedom” while Black Americans were still being lynched and barred from lunch counters.
The State Department (with plenty of behind-the-scenes help from Langley) sent jazz legends like Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Duke Ellington overseas to spread the gospel of American exceptionalism the “Jazz Ambassadors”.
These artists, many of whom were themselves victims of racism, were trotted out as proof that America was a racially enlightened utopia. Meanwhile, Emmett Till’s body was floating in the Tallahatchie River.
Ironically, Armstrong’s tour to Ghana in 1956 was supposed to impress African nations flirting with socialism. Meanwhile, back home, the guy still couldn’t check into white-only…
