Speaker 1: All media.
Speaker 2: Today is special.
Speaker 1: First of all, what up, Welcome, We're gonna bring in
Speaker 1: the Canadian correspondent. Cannot wait for y'all to talk to
Speaker 1: my man Shad, who is now officially the greatest rapper
Speaker 1: out of Canada. Please do your googles on Shad if
Speaker 1: you like, do your googles Shad is. We got some
Speaker 1: music coming out. We've already done music together. But Shad
Speaker 1: is like a top tier artist hip hop evolution. His
Speaker 1: show on Netflix, go watch it. The guys won an
Speaker 1: egregious amount of Juno's, which are the Canadian Grammys. The
Speaker 1: guys that he's just a stud anyway. Before we bring
Speaker 1: him in to discuss the final final, final thoughts on
Speaker 1: Kendrick and Drake and the Big three and what culture means,
Speaker 1: let's drop in and do some current See it's like
Speaker 1: this Bullduk is like this, Bullook is like this all right,
Speaker 1: so Hunter fighting, So help me starting his case. His
Speaker 1: case is on a gun charge for him lying on
Speaker 1: his application saying he wasn't on no junk.
Speaker 2: Now it's verifiably true. He was lying.
Speaker 1: He was on that junk and he talked about it
Speaker 1: all the time. But on the application to get a gun.
Speaker 1: The man said, na, I ain't on nothing. Now, remember
Speaker 1: when we talked about what you won't do with Trump?
Speaker 1: How a defense one could make is like, bro, you
Speaker 1: ain't never lied on no application. That don't make it
Speaker 1: all right. I'm just saying to be fair imbalanced, who
Speaker 1: among us has not lied on some application. Now, this
Speaker 1: is a federal case. So if bringing us to the
Speaker 1: other news in the criminal justice system right now is
Speaker 1: Trump is a whole felon.
Speaker 2: Thirty fort them beats thirty for them.
Speaker 3: Host.
Speaker 1: That was not a federal case. That was a state case,
Speaker 1: the state of New York. So Trump's defense about this
Speaker 1: being a political thing with Joe Biden making sure it happened.
Speaker 1: Joe ain't got no jurisdiction over the New York courts.
Speaker 1: That's New York did that. And that was a trial
Speaker 1: by jury. The judge ain't even choose it.
Speaker 2: Nigga. The jury did.
Speaker 1: Twelve yo homies that y'all all agreed on when this
Speaker 1: case started talking about I can't get no fair nigga happened.
Speaker 2: In New York. What do you want these people to do? Okay?
Speaker 1: So yeah, anyway, thirty four and most that was a
Speaker 1: case brought by the state. The Joe Biden situation, where
Speaker 1: he does have some control over, is a federal case,
Speaker 1: and that case is against his son, and he ain't
Speaker 1: stopping that one, you know what I'm saying. But in
Speaker 1: that case, man, he probably gonna lose that I ain't
Speaker 1: gonna I ain't gonna hold you. But anyway, Trump with
Speaker 1: his thirty fold and felonies. Boy, now here's where it
Speaker 1: gets really interesting. Let's just say he get a conviction
Speaker 1: in Georgia on the Rico case. I'm pretty sure up
Speaker 1: in New York he probably not gonna get no jail
Speaker 1: time first time offender maximum four years.
Speaker 2: He in his late seventies, mid seventies.
Speaker 1: You know, probation community service is probably worse with somebody
Speaker 1: like a man like him. But like, if he gets
Speaker 1: that and then gets found guilty in Georgia and when
Speaker 1: he tries to get probation, they're no leniency. They're like, wait,
Speaker 1: you're a convicted felon. You already got probation in another state,
Speaker 1: or we gotta give you time cause you get leniency
Speaker 1: when you're a first time offender, but you already a
Speaker 1: feling because so, oh lord, this.
Speaker 2: Might really whoa wait, it's stacking up on.
Speaker 3: It, Bret.
Speaker 2: Now Trump has.
Speaker 1: Consistently dodged a freakish amount of bullets. Now, I don't
Speaker 1: know if he's out of his nine lives, but it's
Speaker 1: hard to make any particular call about what's going to
Speaker 1: happen with this man because he continues to defy gravity.
Speaker 1: But I tell you what, to try to get probation
Speaker 1: in another state when you already a feeling. If the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system worked the way I know it works,
Speaker 1: good luck, my gee.
Speaker 2: What else?
Speaker 1: Oh, Mexico got a el president TA They hired them
Speaker 1: a female. They had an elected day first and what
Speaker 1: was crazy was a female was their only option. It
Speaker 1: was two females running for president in Mexico. They don't
Speaker 1: shattered the glass in second half on your monkey, All
Speaker 1: my rappers on my true hip hop fans know that
Speaker 1: one right shattered that glass ceiling got them a female president.
Speaker 1: It's really America, that's knuckle dragon. Because Afghanistan, for God's sakes,
Speaker 1: has had female presidents. While we're out here talking about
Speaker 1: they are developing country. You know what I'm saying. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So we'll see, man, some of their feelings about this
Speaker 1: is like you know. Now, I don't know if this
Speaker 1: on some misogyny or nothing, but just like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: politicians are politicians, but maybe you know according I'm saying this,
Speaker 1: this is the polls in Mexico. According to them, like
Speaker 1: girls ain't gonna be following for the okie dog filing
Speaker 1: for the coron that the men be falling for. Inside
Speaker 1: of the Mexican government, they like, now that we got
Speaker 1: a lady in there, it might be different.
Speaker 2: Now I don't know. I ain't over there. I know
Speaker 2: women be doing.
Speaker 1: Dirt because girls is pepanes too, right, I know girls
Speaker 1: be doing the dirt too, So I don't know. But
Speaker 1: either way we'll see. That's a big deal. And lastly,
Speaker 1: we may or may not have a ceasefire deal. Now
Speaker 1: we done heard this before. And oh, Joe Senior, Joe
Speaker 1: Biden talking about then y'allhoo told me when everybody left
Speaker 1: that he really was trying to get this thing over with.
Speaker 2: So to which Joe out here like, oh.
Speaker 1: Then stand on business, that's what you believe, or just
Speaker 1: tell me this and let me say it, because you
Speaker 1: too scared that your whole government coalition will fall apart.
Speaker 1: Now I'm gonna talk to you about what it means
Speaker 1: to make a coalition in one of these hood politics episodes,
Speaker 1: because it kind of makes it make sense.
Speaker 2: At the end.
Speaker 1: But even if you don't know, that's a full situation. Essentially,
Speaker 1: if because the way that the Israeli government is set up,
Speaker 1: netn Yahoo only got on power only, he only got
Speaker 1: put on because he made a coalition with extremely right
Speaker 1: wing people that are like burn it all down. So
Speaker 1: if he falter a little bit, he out the game.
Speaker 1: He has to stay the course. But the course he's
Speaker 1: staying is chaos, and he knows chaos. So the man
Speaker 1: ain't got no way out anyway. Now this ain't no
Speaker 1: I'm not giving that man no cookies because he's also
Speaker 1: facing multiple corruption charges himself, which is part of why
Speaker 1: it was so hard for him to get elected in
Speaker 1: the first place, and why they don't change the courts.
Speaker 2: Over there. We did an episode on this, but that's
Speaker 2: going on over there.
Speaker 1: There might be a ceasefire deal first six week thing
Speaker 1: to which they exchange hostages, give everybody back on and
Speaker 1: they start removing troops, and then they finally talk about
Speaker 1: how they going clean all this up that they just destroyed.
Speaker 1: Like that's what they're trying to do. And maybe Hamas
Speaker 1: is down because the Moss was like, why ain't make
Speaker 1: a no deal with you? That's temporary, nigga, you just
Speaker 1: blew up the whole city like talking about ceasefire. How
Speaker 1: about like like for a little bit, like oh, just
Speaker 1: so you could blow up the rest of the city,
Speaker 1: Like what did you talk about? So they are working
Speaker 1: on getting the rest of the deal back and we'll
Speaker 1: see what's up.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you know, hopefully this is a good sign, you
Speaker 1: feel me, and then these people can begin the generational
Speaker 1: trauma that they're going to experience.
Speaker 2: Is not funny, but.
Speaker 1: Maybe they could start the process of possibly existing with
Speaker 1: PTSD for the rest of their life. All right, let's
Speaker 1: talk to Chad. Welcome to Herd Politics with prop lessons
Speaker 1: from the Big Three. This is a bonus episode which
Speaker 1: ended up being lessons of the Big two, which some
Speaker 1: could argue Big one, but we won't get to that.
Speaker 2: At this point. It seems as though.
Speaker 1: After all the responses and had deep it's got we
Speaker 1: can't call anything right now. It's May sixth, the day
Speaker 1: after at least California is calling Cinco di Kendrick h
Speaker 1: So this is.
Speaker 2: The day after that.
Speaker 1: But we couldn't do this without tapping into our Canadian correspondent,
Speaker 1: the now new number one rapper in Canada.
Speaker 2: This is so much shape, my man, Shad?
Speaker 3: What's good?
Speaker 2: Oh man? What of Shaddy? Is anybody ever call you Shaddy?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, actually my family does.
Speaker 2: Your family calls you shatty?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Like my parents, my aunt? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay is that off limits?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: No? I love it.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, let's make it sure. All right.
Speaker 1: So obviously, as y'all know, we had to talk to
Speaker 1: Shad because as someone who is a Toronto resident, a
Speaker 1: bona fide Canadian, and a black man with a ton
Speaker 1: of accolades in the hip hop and music scene of Canada.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about this is a this is a
Speaker 1: very respected voice in his scene and out here.
Speaker 2: So first of all, what up, Shad?
Speaker 3: What about? Thank you for having me? Let's get into it.
Speaker 2: Let's get into it all a waste of time? Okay.
Speaker 1: So uh, at the end of probably the greatest weekend
Speaker 1: in hip hop history. You know, I already know you've
Speaker 1: been You've been fielding a lot of interviews. What have
Speaker 1: what have been the tenor of the interviews you've been
Speaker 1: You've been a fielding out here.
Speaker 5: So I've done I've done a couple and I actually
Speaker 5: have one after this.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 4: Okay, so you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Listen, because this is, like you said, this is the
Speaker 3: biggest week in hip hop in my memory.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is. This is monumental. This is a two
Speaker 5: artists of their generation going at it. So a lot
Speaker 5: of to your question, the interviews I've done, I've done
Speaker 5: this one today will be for our public broadcaster, the CBC,
Speaker 5: which is the biggest news organization in Canada and so
Speaker 5: and so at this point it's national news like it
Speaker 5: is partly because Drake is our guy, yes, but also
Speaker 5: because just in music and entertainment and pop culture period,
Speaker 5: this is the biggest. This is the biggest thing in
Speaker 5: a long time.
Speaker 1: Which is crazy, right, It's just it's it's this. It
Speaker 1: is officially international news.
Speaker 3: Crazy crazy Like Jay and Naws was not.
Speaker 5: I don't think they were doing a segment on the
Speaker 5: you know, six pm National News.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in your version, in our version of like NPR, PBS,
Speaker 1: like Canada's version of that, that wasn't happening. No, Yeah,
Speaker 1: only when Dip said nim was on Bill O'Reilly being like,
Speaker 1: oh you mad bro.
Speaker 5: So the tone of those interviews, a lot of it
Speaker 5: has been setting the table, so to speak, you know,
Speaker 5: like really explaining to a general Canadian audience what this is, yeah,
Speaker 5: between these two, but also what is battling in hip
Speaker 5: hop in general?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: You know why? Why is it a thing? Why does
Speaker 3: it matter?
Speaker 5: So a lot of it has been setting kind of
Speaker 5: setting the table some some basic fundamental understanding of what's happening.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1: That's something that like I guess from from you and
Speaker 1: me perspective, who like we're like, what are you talking
Speaker 1: about Canada's King of the Doe?
Speaker 2: Like what do you mean? You don't know? You know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But that is a reality, like you know, sometimes we
Speaker 1: find ourselves too. Like when we were driving today or
Speaker 1: yesterday on purpose, I rolled down from where I live
Speaker 1: in East Lost to Long Beach to real ones. We
Speaker 1: had real ones yesterday, Uh, with my window down because
Speaker 1: I just wanted to see, let me just see, like
Speaker 1: it's is this does the city field the way I
Speaker 1: think it does about not like us? And it was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: every car you know what I mean, Like every car
Speaker 1: as I'm driving down was playing this song because we
Speaker 1: come from a place that is steeped in the culture
Speaker 1: of making bangers for the coast, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like whether you I mean like Chili Peppers made bangers
Speaker 1: for the coast, you know what I'm saying, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: so we just have that history, and so that's something
Speaker 1: that like if you're you know, to to Drake's like
Speaker 1: in his defense, it's like, well, we don't have that history,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like I'm doing like I'm
Speaker 1: breaking a lot of.
Speaker 2: Ground here, guys.
Speaker 1: You know so, yes, you know so in his defense, now,
Speaker 1: obviously I would never ask you to like I would
Speaker 1: never ask you to to to be fraudulent to your soil.
Speaker 1: I would never ask you to do that. So I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I'm not going this is not this conversation like this,
Speaker 1: you know for the listener.
Speaker 2: I would never do.
Speaker 1: That to Miami, Like I would never do that to you,
Speaker 1: you know, Like like if you ask me, like how
Speaker 1: I feel about like why somebody white ask me how
Speaker 1: I feel about OJ, I would be like, well, I
Speaker 1: ain't gonna say it on no recording but but I.
Speaker 3: Know, I.
Speaker 2: Know what I think Joe said, like.
Speaker 3: You're spare, You're sparing me what you know, we all
Speaker 3: we all know.
Speaker 2: Yes, we're yeah, yeah, yeah, we're sparing that.
Speaker 1: But I think, so here's here's the conversation we want
Speaker 1: to ask, Like I want to like, obviously, we want
Speaker 1: to talk about politics, because that's what this show is about.
Speaker 1: And what I always believe is that like there is
Speaker 1: a there's a sophistication in the conversation that's happening in
Speaker 1: hip hop and in black culture and period that can
Speaker 1: be a microcosm to what's happening in the world right So,
Speaker 1: so in our in our group text, we were talking
Speaker 1: about like attention spans and like, you know, is is
Speaker 1: it to Kendrick's detriment to be so cerebral in the
Speaker 1: sense that and is it to Drake's advantage to be
Speaker 1: more digestible? So like you were, you were waxing a
Speaker 1: little philosophical on that. I'll just let you kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, pop off on that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was the funniest part of the discourse to me.
Speaker 5: So far, we're seeing people online like I'm genuinely concerned
Speaker 5: for people's reading comprehension levels if they think that euphoria
Speaker 5: wasn't crazy, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So there, you know, there's that part of it.
Speaker 5: Because when you talk about battles, you know, one of
Speaker 5: the things that's so interesting about it is the intricacy. Right,
Speaker 5: We're talking about two mcs going at it, and if
Speaker 5: you don't have the attention span or the willingness to
Speaker 5: engage deeply with what people are saying, then you're losing
Speaker 5: the beauty and the value of this whole exercise.
Speaker 3: Right, This is what it's about.
Speaker 5: It is about MC sparring with skill, and so if
Speaker 5: you're not willing to engage with that, then something is lost.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 5: The other piece that there wasn't in a group text,
Speaker 5: to me is the social media aspect, where one piece
Speaker 5: of what somebody says can become the whole conversation.
Speaker 3: And again, now we're no longer engaging with all of what.
Speaker 5: Somebody said, right, So I feel like that's also happened
Speaker 5: to this battle, is it's been reduced a little bit
Speaker 5: to like two three lines or talking points, when really
Speaker 5: both of these guys went in and brought a whole
Speaker 5: lot of effort and a whole lot of lyrics. We
Speaker 5: got like six six minute songs on our hands to
Speaker 5: like parse through. So that's the other part to me,
Speaker 5: you know, in terms of attention span and general cognitive abilities,
Speaker 5: you know, being applied or not applied to.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, there's definitely like, uh, in my
Speaker 1: own in my own mind equating to like a magic
Speaker 1: and Bird, you know type situation, because part of uh,
Speaker 1: A big piece of California's disdain for Larry Bird was
Speaker 1: that he's so good, Like you get like he's an
Speaker 1: undeniably amazing basketball player, and it's like and that's part
Speaker 1: of why we hate him, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: So like that, So in this but that as a
Speaker 1: basketball fan, you know, to to make a comparison, if
Speaker 1: you are a fan of basketball, I don't care if
Speaker 1: you bleed purple and gold. Of course, it's like I
Speaker 1: hate the Celtics, But in that hate for them is
Speaker 1: a deep respect for that.
Speaker 3: That's a perfect analogy.
Speaker 5: That's a you can't actually have that strong feeling of
Speaker 5: hate without.
Speaker 2: If the if they trash, yeah, if they trash yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So like no, it's like, you know, it's he's an
Speaker 1: amazing incredible hit maker. For the comparison here, I'm wondering
Speaker 1: it is has y'alls. We could say in America, our
Speaker 1: political discourse has evolved into the two to three minute
Speaker 1: meme and.
Speaker 2: Clip. Is it the same up there?
Speaker 5: It's the same up here. We're like a little bit Listen,
Speaker 5: this is how I explain it. In Canada, we like
Speaker 5: to think of ourselves as less of that culture, uh huh.
Speaker 5: But the truth is, if you were to zoom out
Speaker 5: to the whole globe, we're the closest to American culture
Speaker 5: of anywhere else.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So it's like they call it narcissism of small differences.
Speaker 5: It's like we define ourselves as so different, but the
Speaker 5: truth is we're like actually very similar, very very very similar,
Speaker 5: and something comfortably It's called narcissism of small differences.
Speaker 2: It's a good one man.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So it's it explains sort of like Protestants and Catholics fighting, Right,
Speaker 5: You zoom out from that, and it's like almost laughable,
Speaker 5: Like these are the two most similar people obviously, yeah right,
Speaker 5: but if you were to ask them, they'd be like, none.
Speaker 4: Of you're nothing like them. Yeah, we are nothing like them.
Speaker 1: Bro, that's crazy, Like I've heard an interview, is it
Speaker 1: Dax Shepherd, I think where he was like, yeah, Pete
Speaker 1: Holmes's podcast. He was like, okay, so just keep zooming out.
Speaker 1: So you zoom out and your aliens looking at us
Speaker 1: and they're like, that's crazy. Those hairless monkeys when they
Speaker 1: make this sound, these other ones get angry and they
Speaker 1: make these explosions. I wonder what that sound is, Like,
Speaker 1: what is that sound that they make that makes the
Speaker 1: other ones make explosions? Like you know, when you che
Speaker 1: the camera loud it up, that's crazy. Anyway, I cut
Speaker 1: you off exactly exactly.
Speaker 5: So I do think we are we are the same culture,
Speaker 5: like by and large, you know what I mean, we
Speaker 5: are still we are social media culture. We're all that.
Speaker 5: We just have some other influences. So you know, if
Speaker 5: you look at say the political sphere for example, yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, we still we have the very similar discourse
Speaker 5: right left, the division all of that. But a little
Speaker 5: bit of a difference is in our politics we hate celebrity.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, we hate celebrity.
Speaker 2: That's good. Yeah, that's I wish we had that.
Speaker 5: And I don't know exactly the difference is, but yeah,
Speaker 5: but as it relates to this beef. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I think it's the same culture and there's this that's
Speaker 5: there's that same discourse going on about our.
Speaker 3: People really engaging with the with the whole thing.
Speaker 5: Because when this started, before this started, I was thinking,
Speaker 5: you know what, Drake's style really applies better to a
Speaker 5: battle like this, because when it comes to just a
Speaker 5: straight up battle, it's like Drake is so clever and witty,
Speaker 5: and he's got the flows and he has that songwriting
Speaker 5: gift of like those lines people are gonna remember, whereas
Speaker 5: Kendrick's gift seems more to be you know, as a
Speaker 5: recording artist, as a performer conceptually artistically. That was my
Speaker 5: feeling at the outset. But you know, Kendrick displayed. I
Speaker 5: think Kendrick surprised everybody in terms of what he displayed
Speaker 5: with this, like yeah, he's got this, he's got it
Speaker 5: for battling. He's he's got and we saw hints of
Speaker 5: it with control and you know, backseat reestylli of stuff.
Speaker 5: But I still, before going in, I would have been like, yeah, no,
Speaker 5: like Drake A he's very battle tested, whereas who's dumb
Speaker 5: enough to go at Kendrick?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: And and b He's got that very straightforward understandable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he can make yeah, yeah, that was
Speaker 2: my thought.
Speaker 1: I was like, Drake can make songs like these will
Speaker 1: be battle songs. I was like bar in my mind,
Speaker 1: I was like bar for Barr, Like it's because of way.
Speaker 2: We think about him.
Speaker 1: Seeing I was like, ah, nah man, like I think
Speaker 1: bar for I was thinking bar for Park Kendricks gonn
Speaker 1: mop the floor with him. But if we're going song
Speaker 1: for song, this might be different. You know what I mean,
Speaker 1: who's gonna give us something that we're gonna Who's gonna
Speaker 1: give us the ether? Who's gonna give us the anthem?
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: And me and you're right, Like I like as a
Speaker 1: fan of rap, like West Coast bias aside as a
Speaker 1: fan of rap, I was like, I did not the
Speaker 1: angles for which Kendrick took. This was like, okay, you
Speaker 1: you you went into another gear that I didn't know
Speaker 1: you had, you know, and didn't didn't didn't know it,
Speaker 1: didn't know yet. Yeah and and and and I think
Speaker 1: it was interesting to your point, like this being a
Speaker 1: new era. Like somebody reminded me recently that like the
Speaker 1: the space between Takeover and Ether was six months and
Speaker 1: they were on albums.
Speaker 2: Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: Like like that's how that's how how far apart it
Speaker 1: was right.
Speaker 5: And we got this weekend, you know, by the end
Speaker 5: of it by Sunday night. A lot of the conversation
Speaker 5: online was like, Yo, I'm exhausted, Yo.
Speaker 4: It's tired, Yeah, tired.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know, like I'm tired. I
Speaker 1: can't keep up with the group text like I'm tired, yes,
Speaker 1: pray oh man, So I think live okay, So I
Speaker 1: don't have much more time with you, but so I
Speaker 1: want to really cut to the chase here as far
Speaker 1: as uh like when we say, like when Kendrick says,
Speaker 1: this is how the culture feels, and then so we
Speaker 1: have to be like, well, who or what is that
Speaker 1: that's been something that's been Who's the arbiter of it?
Speaker 1: Like how do we decide like is there an actual
Speaker 1: border around what we mean by culture?
Speaker 2: Who's in, who's out? You know? And then.
Speaker 1: Which obviously is a is a bigger conversation about what
Speaker 1: we mean by blackness, you know, because that's been a
Speaker 1: very good to me, like an important thing at Reckoning
Speaker 1: if you will that we need to talk about just
Speaker 1: a hip hop and in black culture in period. Because
Speaker 1: obviously when when we say well, I don't want to
Speaker 1: end to the question already, but when we say culture,
Speaker 1: we mean a lot more than just rap. It's not
Speaker 1: just hip hop, and it's not necessarily melanin. Right, it's
Speaker 1: not necessary because nobody's questioning j Cole's blackness, like you say,
Speaker 1: just light skin. So if you were to try your
Speaker 1: best to be on your version of PBS, what is
Speaker 1: it CBC?
Speaker 2: Is that what it's called? And somebody was like, hey,
Speaker 2: so what's what's the culture?
Speaker 5: Yes? Wow, So this is a great question. I think
Speaker 5: like in the aftermath, when the dust settles, this is
Speaker 5: the stuff, this is the stuff that this battle has
Speaker 5: brought to light.
Speaker 3: The people are going to be parking out right, Okay, So.
Speaker 5: I'm going to try to answer your question speaking about
Speaker 5: Drake specifically, because he's such an interesting case. Okay, Yes,
Speaker 5: Drake in Canada before he signed Young Money and everything,
Speaker 5: he was getting checked about these exact same things within Canada.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: Okay, Right, Because.
Speaker 5: Like you said, culture is not just skin color. It's
Speaker 5: a lot of things. Right, So the case of Drake. Yes,
Speaker 5: he's light skin. Yeah, came up in the acting teen
Speaker 5: drama world. So that's outside of the culture, that's outside
Speaker 5: of hip hop. He didn't come we didn't get to
Speaker 5: know him first in hip hop. We came to get
Speaker 5: to know him first in mainstream teen drama.
Speaker 3: Okay. So that's outside. Then the neighborhood.
Speaker 5: The neighborhood conversation was interesting to begin with in Canada
Speaker 5: because in I think his high school years at least,
Speaker 5: if not maybe a bit younger, he lived in one
Speaker 5: of the most affluent neighborhoods in Canada. Now he lived
Speaker 5: there in the basement apartment or in some sort of
Speaker 5: apartment with his mother. But so it's like there's complications
Speaker 5: and nuances.
Speaker 3: His father. So okay. So blackness in Canada.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, which we were ultimately going to get to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like because that's super curious to me.
Speaker 3: So then that's a whole other thing, right, So blackness
Speaker 3: in Canada, Okay.
Speaker 5: We have in Canada descendants of Slavery mm hmm. That's
Speaker 5: a black population, and we have a lot of immigrants, okay.
Speaker 5: So there's there's little pockets all throughout Canada of people
Speaker 5: that came to Canada through the underground railroad in some place.
Speaker 3: In some places like or or we're fought on the side.
Speaker 5: Of the British in the Civil War and we're rewarded
Speaker 5: with land in Canada. So you have black people that
Speaker 5: are like six seven generations black Canadians. Okay, you have that.
Speaker 5: Then you have immigration from the Caribbean, which has flavored
Speaker 5: a lot of what we consider kind of the black
Speaker 5: Canadian identity. A lot of it is colored by that
Speaker 5: because that's a major thing. You have African immigration, like myself.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, so.
Speaker 5: Drake is none of those things exactly. Drake has a
Speaker 5: black American father who's deep in the culture and a
Speaker 5: white white Canadian mother Jewish mother.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So all of this to say from the culture standpoint,
Speaker 5: Drake was getting checked on this from Jump within Canada,
Speaker 5: within Canada, right, but.
Speaker 3: He overcame that largely, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: Like because of years, you know, decade and a half
Speaker 5: of hits of work with all all sorts of artists
Speaker 5: that are deep in the caulture.
Speaker 3: And then now Kendrick is calling into question.
Speaker 5: That he's saying now but so okay, so you got
Speaker 5: accepted into the culture but did you get accepted into
Speaker 5: the culture.
Speaker 3: Because you kind of paid your way.
Speaker 1: And yeah, by.
Speaker 5: Co sign and by ingratiating yourself and by using you know,
Speaker 5: it's the real nuances of cultural appropriation, right like, because
Speaker 5: of course culture, to me, cultures meant to be shared facts,
Speaker 5: cultures meant to be shared. The question is just in
Speaker 5: that sharing, in that exchange, what's the power dynamics, who's benefiting,
Speaker 5: who's getting shine, who's getting celebrated, all of those dynamics
Speaker 5: within that very natural exchange. So this is a long
Speaker 5: winded answer to your question.
Speaker 2: No, it's perfect.
Speaker 3: Like to try to.
Speaker 5: Answer it through Drake, I think is the most helpful
Speaker 5: because Drake is just and I also don't do not
Speaker 5: believe in faulting people for just who they are and
Speaker 5: who they're born at you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 5: that's not cool at all. But this battle does raise
Speaker 5: this question of what exactly is Drake's relationship to the culture?
Speaker 5: Is it?
Speaker 3: And and.
Speaker 5: Exactly what exactly is Drake's relationship to the culture.
Speaker 3: Isn't fair if you if.
Speaker 5: You were to take my guess, and again I'm trying
Speaker 5: to put my my local bias aside. I think Drake
Speaker 5: is first of first, almost a very good rapper period,
Speaker 5: so that you know, in terms of relationship for the culture,
Speaker 5: he respects it in the sense that he's good at it. Yes,
Speaker 5: he learned the crap and he became good. I think
Speaker 5: he has genuine.
Speaker 4: Love for the culture.
Speaker 5: But I think there is something to be investigated because
Speaker 5: he's become not just the biggest artist in.
Speaker 3: The culture, but like too big to fail.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And once you get to that status, I think
Speaker 5: it is only fair that we we ask we take
Speaker 5: a look at what is your relationship to the culture.
Speaker 5: Who is benefiting all of these things that are important
Speaker 5: to look at, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 5: a very long winded answer.
Speaker 4: No, it's great.
Speaker 2: I think yeah, there's a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like there's these I think about, like you know,
Speaker 1: myself as an example, or just lahoods in general, Like
Speaker 1: in most in almost every black or brown neighborhood, there's
Speaker 1: a dirt, poor white family that lived across the street,
Speaker 1: you know, and know what, ever thinks twice about them, right,
Speaker 1: because they're just here, you know. And I think that
Speaker 1: there's a shared experience to where you learn norms that
Speaker 1: come with a shared experience.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. That to me is my
Speaker 2: best attempt at it.
Speaker 1: Like I grew up black and Latino neighborhoods, there was
Speaker 1: a lot of Mexican, a lot of Filipinos, but I
Speaker 1: for me, it was like, because I had such proximity
Speaker 1: with them, I know which parts of these conversations I'm
Speaker 1: not a part of, like that like this is this
Speaker 1: is actually none of my business.
Speaker 2: Like I feel connected to y'all.
Speaker 1: I feel like I understand what you're saying, but I
Speaker 1: also understand that it would be disrespectful for me to
Speaker 1: move this way. And it's because I know you well
Speaker 1: enough you know what I'm saying. So I think at
Speaker 1: that to me is what speaks to the idea of
Speaker 1: like to use Drake as an example, like the a
Speaker 1: man I don't know, but like a longing for belonging
Speaker 1: or acceptance of something that feels like I in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, like I miss out on this, but
Speaker 1: it's really what I've always loved, you know, so, but
Speaker 1: since you missed out, there's a lot of like I
Speaker 1: crave being a part of what I've always wanted to
Speaker 1: be a part of, rather than already being there and
Speaker 1: then knowing that like hey, some stuff is like it's
Speaker 1: not my place, you know what I'm saying, yes, And
Speaker 1: that being said, it's like another comparison I think about
Speaker 1: it is like, like you said, culture is meant to
Speaker 1: be shared. I'm like, if you come to my house,
Speaker 1: I am going to open the door with I'm gonna
Speaker 1: show you hospitality. I want to show you things that
Speaker 1: we've done. This is our food. Here, sit down, have
Speaker 1: a meal, let me make you some coffee. But I
Speaker 1: also don't expect you to be like that's a dopefrigerator.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna buy it off you like what you know,
Speaker 1: or hey, let me cook this, you know, and then like,
Speaker 1: well you're in my house, man likes, why are your
Speaker 1: shoes off with your feet up on my couch? Like
Speaker 1: you just my g you just got here, Like you
Speaker 1: don't know that you that's not how you act at
Speaker 1: somebody's house, you know.
Speaker 2: So I feel like those are.
Speaker 1: The signs, you know, to make me be like these
Speaker 1: are those like grayish like kind of edges of like
Speaker 1: where it's not like a hard border, but these edges
Speaker 1: of nuance that makes me say, like you're right, I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't draw a bubble around what we mean by culture.
Speaker 1: But there are norms, there are understandings, you know that
Speaker 1: makes us say, hey, this, maybe I should keep my
Speaker 1: mouth shutting this. You know what I'm saying. I mean,
Speaker 1: I might have an opinion, but maybe I should keep
Speaker 1: my mouth. Maybe this is not a move that were
Speaker 1: I indigenous, I would understand that this move. Wow powerful,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Wow, it's smart because I, like,
Speaker 1: I don't think Drake has never made a dumb move,
Speaker 1: you know, except for the AI POC thing, but like,
Speaker 1: you know, but besides that, I don't think like I
Speaker 1: don't think he's never made a dump. It's never been
Speaker 1: dumb like this is Actually he does great business. It's
Speaker 1: just in out not our rules, but our norms. These
Speaker 1: are not moves we make against each other because of
Speaker 1: a shared experience.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: That's listen. I agree one hundred percent. It is not
Speaker 5: hard borders. It's a conversation to be had. Yeah, always
Speaker 5: with culture, just to make sure culture is being respected,
Speaker 5: just to make sure that people are benefiting equally, right,
Speaker 5: And so when someone gets to the level of Drake
Speaker 5: where they're that big and also now in the economics
Speaker 5: of the music industry kind of like too big to
Speaker 5: fail and such a massive out, sort of out of
Speaker 5: proportion piece of the whole pie. You got to have
Speaker 5: that conversation. Now, to me, the other piece with culture
Speaker 5: that you got to talk about that Kendrick highlights and
Speaker 5: that a lot of fans in hip hop have highlighted,
Speaker 5: is that when you are within hip hop, when we're
Speaker 5: talking about the greatest MC's of all time.
Speaker 4: Yes, one of the rightsier.
Speaker 2: Within hip hop talk to me is.
Speaker 3: Do you speak on things?
Speaker 5: Yes, it's a matter of substance that matter to this
Speaker 5: ongoing struggle that we're in.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Do you speak to that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, Hawk is on people's Mount Rushmore because he
Speaker 5: obviously wasn't always speaking to that.
Speaker 4: But at moments he didn't speak to Yes.
Speaker 5: Jay wasn't always speaking to that, but at moments he
Speaker 5: was speaking to that, right, and so on down the
Speaker 5: list of the greatest of all time.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: So again, I'm I'm a Toronto resident, I'm a Canadian guy,
Speaker 5: you know, so I understand our experience.
Speaker 3: I understand our black experience.
Speaker 5: I think Drake is a great practitioner of art form
Speaker 5: and I think they he is a person who genuinely
Speaker 5: loves hip hop.
Speaker 4: I do too, yeah, deeply, but.
Speaker 5: He hasn't done those things within the culture, like speaking
Speaker 5: to you know, what's going on. And then again, when
Speaker 5: you talk about culture, you also got to talk about
Speaker 5: the economics and the benefits and who gets the benefits. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and that's just open. That's just these things are just
Speaker 5: the open conversation. You got to have that conversation. Look
Speaker 5: at it, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, And the
Speaker 5: battle brings those things to life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in a way that like, uh yeah, the idea
Speaker 1: that like this battle wasn't just wasn't only I'm doper
Speaker 1: than you. It was you need to get help and
Speaker 1: you're and you know and and like and the other
Speaker 1: one was like the people around you don't trust you.
Speaker 1: You're you know, like you know, you like, where's your
Speaker 1: entertainment value? Like it's just such a bigger I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: you know that I would love to see and to
Speaker 1: bring it around the politics, and we're running out of
Speaker 1: time because of the show. I would love to see
Speaker 1: like this sort of level of reckoning in not just
Speaker 1: how we do government or how we do governing, but
Speaker 1: how we campaign and discuss politics.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, because.
Speaker 1: The idea of like really dissecting and saying what does
Speaker 1: this person stand for? And what we've been seeing here
Speaker 1: recently is like everybody's kind of over the like the
Speaker 1: TMZ of it all, like the gossip of it all.
Speaker 1: Like while I'm over the allegations and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: We'll let the fense figure that out. I'm interested in
Speaker 1: what type of man are you? What is your strategy,
Speaker 1: and how do you want to see our genre, our world,
Speaker 1: our culture, our people move forward? Like what is your
Speaker 1: desire for that?
Speaker 3: I love that you brought it circle to that.
Speaker 5: One thing I always bring up about battling is the
Speaker 5: first battle that I was in, And I've heard Kanye
Speaker 5: tell a very similar story. First battle I was in,
Speaker 5: I learned more than anything taught me about hip hop,
Speaker 5: about being a performer, about being an artist. Because what
Speaker 5: I realized that it all came down to, without going
Speaker 5: into the whole story, what I really realized it all
Speaker 5: came down to is it's not about my opponent. It's
Speaker 5: about the audience, and it's about communicating. Who can communicate
Speaker 5: and connect with the audience more and What that comes
Speaker 5: down to is who can convey something that's going to
Speaker 5: connect with them, that's going to make them ultimately support
Speaker 5: you more than they support the other person. That might
Speaker 5: be that might be giving voice to a level of
Speaker 5: aggression that they feel, might be being more charming and
Speaker 5: eloquent and funny than you know what I'm saying and
Speaker 5: touching them in that way, Or it might be demonstrating
Speaker 5: that you are the stronger, more grounded person with more
Speaker 5: integrity of all of it. So, but it's all about
Speaker 5: striking a chord with the people, right, So I like
Speaker 5: that you. I like that you bring it back around
Speaker 5: to politics, Like that's.
Speaker 3: What, Yeah, that's who do we believe in?
Speaker 5: And yes, like it feels like battles do that more
Speaker 5: quickly and effectively and illuminate the issues, you know what
Speaker 5: I'm saying, better than political debates do. Like we have
Speaker 5: all these debates and it feels like the truth has
Speaker 5: never come into the surface.
Speaker 2: Never ever.
Speaker 1: It's just a whole bunch of yeah, so you, but you,
Speaker 1: but you. But when it comes to the surface, we
Speaker 1: can really make a decision.
Speaker 5: We can really make a decision, and then battles it's like, nah,
Speaker 5: it just comes to the surface right away. Yes, we
Speaker 5: believe you, or we don't believe you. Yes, we like
Speaker 5: you or we don't like you. It's just facts.
Speaker 3: It's just so yeah.
Speaker 2: Man, man, thank you.
Speaker 1: I know you got a hard out in two minutes,
Speaker 1: so I just want to say thank you for doing this.
Speaker 1: Our Canadian correspondent following him at shad K Music. Right,
Speaker 1: that's right, shad K Music. Please go peep the whole catalog.
Speaker 1: Peep Hip Hop Evolution. It's done right, like, no more
Speaker 1: of those.
Speaker 3: It's done. It's done. But there's some there's some good
Speaker 3: stuff too about battles in that.
Speaker 1: So okay, yeah, oh yeah, yeah there are yeah, So
Speaker 1: please go peep that. It's on Netflix. And thank you
Speaker 1: so much for your time. And this was probably one
Speaker 1: of the most succinct episodes we've ever had.
Speaker 3: Thank you, my man.
Speaker 1: All Right, all right, bro, all right, now, don't you
Speaker 1: hit stop on this pod.
Speaker 2: You better listen to these credits. I need you to
Speaker 2: finish this thing so I can get the download numbers. Okay,
Speaker 2: so don't stop it yet, but listen.
Speaker 1: This was recorded in East Lost Boil Heights by your
Speaker 1: boy Propaganda tap in with Me at prop Hip hop
Speaker 1: dot com. If you're in the Coldbrew coffee we got
Speaker 1: Terraform Coldbrew. You can go there dot com and use
Speaker 1: promo code hood get twenty percent off get yourself some coffee.
Speaker 1: This was mixed, edited, and mastered by your boy Matt
Speaker 1: Alsowski Killing the Beast Softly. Check out his website Matdowsowski
Speaker 1: dot com.
Speaker 2: I'm'a spell it for you because I know.
Speaker 1: M A T T O s O W s ki
Speaker 1: dot com Matdowsowski. He got more music and stuff like
Speaker 1: that on there, so gonna check out The heat Politics
Speaker 1: is a member of cool Zone Media, Executive produced by
Speaker 1: Sophie Lichterman, part of the iHeartMedia podcast network. Your theme
Speaker 1: music and scoring is also by the one and nobly
Speaker 1: mattow Sowski. Still killing the beats softly, So listen, don't
Speaker 1: let nobody lie to you. If you understand urban living,
Speaker 1: you understand politics. These people is not smarter than you.
Speaker 1: We'll see y'all next week.