Speaker 1: You're listening Waiting on Reparations production of I Heart Radio. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm writing it on an olymphant to see is the
Speaker 1: empty hotel rooms from the developers and turn them into
Speaker 1: tenements so all a homeless brothers and sisters can get
Speaker 1: some shelter when the weather gets its fault to rent
Speaker 1: so much abundance seventy million houses in this countries and
Speaker 1: empty for seven hundred thousands of a bobo medicine and
Speaker 1: dwelve and twent simply astounding. The answer to this pricis
Speaker 1: is so simple and so eloguant. Meanwhile, the president reaction
Speaker 1: saw the CENTI when we asked him when he send
Speaker 1: in checks it spending renting and then then why it's
Speaker 1: important immigrants. This has been an image of the evil
Speaker 1: of before on it's lightly more Talentingo, I'm dope knife.
Speaker 1: We are waiting on reparations. So we did our our
Speaker 1: episode last week about Fred Hampton, and I think this
Speaker 1: week we're gonna keep it talking about revolutionaries. But we're
Speaker 1: about to flip the script of little Bit and we're
Speaker 1: about to talk about contemporary revolutionary, a contemporary revolutionary and
Speaker 1: also someone who is across the pond Yeah. So, um,
Speaker 1: week before last, uh, Catalonian rapper Pablo Hassel got arrested
Speaker 1: for some tweets and uh lyrics that he has insulting
Speaker 1: the crown and allegedly uh uh glorifying terrorism, which hasn't
Speaker 1: since struck up riots all over all over the country
Speaker 1: of Spain. Uh. That went on for about five days.
Speaker 1: And so we're gonna talk a little bit about Pablo
Speaker 1: Sells music and political leanings, the riots in Spain last
Speaker 1: week that sprung up in a response to his incarceration
Speaker 1: over his lyrics and tweets, and think a little bit
Speaker 1: about what they can tell us Yankees about free speech
Speaker 1: and left his politics in Spain. Now, wouldn't we say riots?
Speaker 1: Are we talking about riots in the form of that's
Speaker 1: what the powers that be would describe them as, or
Speaker 1: are we talking about like actual legits And like a
Speaker 1: hundred people were injured, thirty five points officers hospitalized. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, just kind of ship you know, demonstrations that
Speaker 1: some on the ground reported escalated into clashes when the
Speaker 1: police you know agitated. Some young folks interviewed by like
Speaker 1: CNN as an example kind of like claimed that they
Speaker 1: were someone of the aggressors that led to UM the
Speaker 1: escalation of violence as well. There were some claims that
Speaker 1: there were some quote unquote outside agitators that did things
Speaker 1: like start looting, etcetera, that weren't part of the demonstrations
Speaker 1: in spirit, etcetera. But you know, this kind of stuff
Speaker 1: that's become familiar as global capitalism. Curious, I'm curious, ato
Speaker 1: how many of our listeners are aware of this, because,
Speaker 1: like I mean, I wasn't even aware of the situation
Speaker 1: because it's not being covered on American at least not
Speaker 1: corporate news anyway. To be honest with you, I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it anywhere. I haven't even heard. I didn't even hear,
Speaker 1: you know, hear about this in Democracy Now or anywhere,
Speaker 1: So I don't know. It's wild. So we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about who Pablo is UM, the events
Speaker 1: leading up to his arrest, including you know, his uh,
Speaker 1: some of the political ally ships that he alludes to
Speaker 1: in his lyrics UH that have been condemned by the
Speaker 1: Spanish courts. But also want to go background on free
Speaker 1: speech in Spain, like this isn't the first time something
Speaker 1: like this has happened UM and the in two thousand
Speaker 1: and fifteen. I think the Conservatives, like slightly right party
Speaker 1: passed some like ship cracking down on rdom of expressions
Speaker 1: like there, it's kind of like a whole thing and
Speaker 1: we're getting into just like in simplications, etcetera. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get into all of that after the jump.
Speaker 1: Pablo Hassel is a Catalan rapper, writer, poet, and left
Speaker 1: his political activists. He took his artistic name from a
Speaker 1: revolutionary character in an Arabic short story. In an interview
Speaker 1: with l Periodico Inen, he cited the typical influences the
Speaker 1: source of his revolutionary ideas. That's a Shakavara, the Cuban
Speaker 1: of the Cuban revolution. He said, I asked myself the question,
Speaker 1: and Marxism gave me the answer for why some hoards
Speaker 1: so much and the majority have so little and live
Speaker 1: in misery. And I quickly want to say that, like
Speaker 1: I had to like read a bunch of interviews with
Speaker 1: him and like songs and stuff. The best I can
Speaker 1: was my like Spanish, I used to be very good,
Speaker 1: like almost, but I haven't used in many years, like
Speaker 1: translate a lot of his interviews and stuff. So I
Speaker 1: hope I do him justice. He or in some of this,
Speaker 1: but in any case and tweets and music. Hotel is
Speaker 1: condemned to police violence and express support for armed revolutionary groups,
Speaker 1: including Grappo, a group that engaged in arms struggle to
Speaker 1: destabilize the new Spanish Democratic government in favor of communism
Speaker 1: during the nineteen seventies eighties after the Branko dictatorship was toppled.
Speaker 1: He also shouted out bast separatist group e t A,
Speaker 1: a nationalist separatist organization in the Basque Country of northern
Speaker 1: Spain and southwestern France that engaged in a violent campaign
Speaker 1: of bombings, assassinations and kidnappings throughout the Spanish territory with
Speaker 1: the goal of gaining independence for the Basque Country. An
Speaker 1: interview its outside of Garrappo. It is incredible that people
Speaker 1: are branded as criminals and spent thirty years in prison
Speaker 1: because they have chosen to dedicate their entire life to
Speaker 1: the fight against a genocidle system. One can be against
Speaker 1: armed struggle, but please, Grappo did not bomb hospitals and
Speaker 1: schools like the Yankee Empire. Instead, you are a popular
Speaker 1: party member who supports down side in the East. Well,
Speaker 1: you are considered an hero and a great man. The
Speaker 1: People's Party, for background, is a conservative Christian democratic political
Speaker 1: party in Spain. They goes on to say, however, if
Speaker 1: you do not condemn Grappo, you are branded a terrorist
Speaker 1: of the worst kind. We live in an upside down
Speaker 1: world where the worst is accepted in justice and resistance
Speaker 1: and barbarity gets punished. As Malcolm X said, the newspapers
Speaker 1: act so that the masses end up loving their oppressors
Speaker 1: and condemning those who oppressed them. It's important to understand
Speaker 1: that bass in the northwest and Catalans in the northeast
Speaker 1: have a strong national identity, long histories and a struggle
Speaker 1: for autonomy from the Spanish government, which I imagine influences
Speaker 1: things too. Yeah, so there's already the sense of like
Speaker 1: fun the government just ringing down the chain of their
Speaker 1: own like community histories, as these like autonomous regions that
Speaker 1: you know, see themselves as separate from Spain, but ultimately
Speaker 1: are like overseen by the Spanish government. Um, I think
Speaker 1: deeper than we experience in the States, in the sense
Speaker 1: of like our history is fairly short and so like
Speaker 1: there isn't really a regional history, regional sense of identity
Speaker 1: that extends back past the foundation of our nation and
Speaker 1: so like we might be like every bit, but it's
Speaker 1: not because like there's like in our DNA like recollection
Speaker 1: and like you know, like a cultural like uh tendency
Speaker 1: towards like this your memory for I'm saying, I'm like,
Speaker 1: we're not even part of this ship, right, Like yeah,
Speaker 1: part of their culture is we are our own people,
Speaker 1: like we are separate, like going back way back before
Speaker 1: Spain was ever a country, and like it today still
Speaker 1: like animates a lot of their you know, fight, the
Speaker 1: fight for liberation is like in different terms here because
Speaker 1: they're struggling for their autonomy against like what they see
Speaker 1: is like a fascist Spanish government and that's kind of
Speaker 1: imposed on them, even if it's supposedly a democracy. And
Speaker 1: I imagine when some of those lines were drawn that
Speaker 1: included them into the nation of Spain, it wasn't done
Speaker 1: necessarily on their own volition country. It's like part of
Speaker 1: Spain and part of France, and they're just like, well, nope,
Speaker 1: half of half of that is Spain now, like you
Speaker 1: know what the hell is? That would not raised my eyebrow,
Speaker 1: but just it's always like a cool thing to see
Speaker 1: as him citing Malcolm X, and it's just like, you know,
Speaker 1: it always takes me aback, how like I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: someone like Malcolm X was like trying to make a
Speaker 1: difference in trying to change things, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: and affect a lot of different people. But it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, if you could ask Malcolm X back then,
Speaker 1: it's like, yo, do you think fifty sixty years from
Speaker 1: now that Spanish revolutionary you know what I'm saying, are
Speaker 1: gonna be like citing you as an influence or or
Speaker 1: citing the work you did, or learning from the steps
Speaker 1: that you took. That that always is impressive to me.
Speaker 1: Let's go, let's get to talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: Pablo's arrest. So there's a twenty four hour stand off
Speaker 1: between police and rapper Pablo, which saw riot cops clash
Speaker 1: with HASEL supporters outside of YadA University in northeastern Carolonia, Spain.
Speaker 1: It ended last Tuesday. Last Tuesday morning, when anti riot
Speaker 1: officers strom the university's rectoric building. An apprehended as he
Speaker 1: was escorted out, Pablo's reporter to have shouted, it is
Speaker 1: the fascist state that has arrestued me death to the
Speaker 1: fascist state. With his fist racing the air, He and
Speaker 1: more than fifty supporters locked themselves inside the university in
Speaker 1: Spain's northeastern Catalina region at midday on Monday. This isn't
Speaker 1: his first bresh with the law either. It was also
Speaker 1: convicted in eighteen for insulting the monarchy and glorifying terrorism.
Speaker 1: So on the Twitter account, he's paid homage to Grappo
Speaker 1: Um and um he said that Um, when the Granppo
Speaker 1: militant was shot dead by police in n two, that
Speaker 1: he had been murdered by the police for defending our rights.
Speaker 1: Writing on Twitter and Sol frequently accuses the Spanish security
Speaker 1: forces of torture and murder, using the term Nazia now police,
Speaker 1: a fusion of national and Nazi. And he's accused the
Speaker 1: royal family of corruption incests, corruption incests and cocaine addiction,
Speaker 1: suggesting the guillotine for one of the former monarch's daughters.
Speaker 1: Such things will come up in a sow. We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about a little bit later. The rapper also referred
Speaker 1: to the Spanish royal family as fascists and described one Carlos,
Speaker 1: the former monarch, as a mafia boss. First ties to
Speaker 1: Saudi royals. So after all of this, it stirred up
Speaker 1: free speech concerns from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and
Speaker 1: the U N Human Rights Council, who all say that
Speaker 1: they were troubled at the state of freedom of expression
Speaker 1: in Spain. And I mean it gets you. It's just
Speaker 1: the dichotomy, especially considering some of the things that we've
Speaker 1: talked about in the last few weeks. You know, when
Speaker 1: we were going back to cancel culture and how right
Speaker 1: wingers are feeling like they're persecuted and ship like that.
Speaker 1: It's like, this is this is what real life canceling it.
Speaker 1: I know, this is what the Yeah, this is what
Speaker 1: the actual First Amendment is like literally about like this
Speaker 1: about you, but like this is actual. This is not
Speaker 1: some people were mean to you on Twitter, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. And it's just like whether you're right wing,
Speaker 1: left wing, whatever, it's just having a proper perspective about things,
Speaker 1: I think definitely is important, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, especially when people
Speaker 1: learn about things like this, what's going on with just
Speaker 1: makes it just makes you sound like a fucking idiot.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, like, like, what exactly are
Speaker 1: you complaining about? So Amnesty International tweeted, no one should
Speaker 1: face criminal prosecution only for expressing themselves on social media
Speaker 1: or singing something that may be distasteful or shocking. Expressions
Speaker 1: that do not clearly and directly incite violence cannot be criminalized.
Speaker 1: And I agree with that. I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: I I know enough about myself to know that I'm
Speaker 1: not necessarily like a free speech absolutist, you know, just
Speaker 1: keeping it real, you know what I'm saying. You can't
Speaker 1: y'all fired a crowded theater all that. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: this is just interesting to like contrast with what we
Speaker 1: experience around free speech in the United States, to kind
Speaker 1: of highlight what like how bad things could be um
Speaker 1: and perhaps like for telling a future we could have
Speaker 1: if like we do not beat fascism here, Like yo,
Speaker 1: I mean, it gets into some other stories of other
Speaker 1: instances where this has happenings, But um, I think it's
Speaker 1: under perspect of our own the state of our own
Speaker 1: policy around our bright to expression, etcetera. So why don't
Speaker 1: you tell them a little bit about like what exactly,
Speaker 1: like explain the situation of the riots to them okay,
Speaker 1: so UM. The cells arrests resulted in riots in Barcelona, Didona,
Speaker 1: Medried and Tarragona, resulting in over a hundred injuries over
Speaker 1: the past week. During the demonstrations UM last Wednesday, fourteen
Speaker 1: people were arrested in Madrid and twenty nine in Barcelona.
Speaker 1: Cops and protesters are reported to have exchanged projectiles, bodels
Speaker 1: and rocks from one side and tear gas and reber
Speaker 1: billows from another. Protesters also built and set fired to barricades.
Speaker 1: Some demonstrators smash windows that fired trash containers and motorcycles
Speaker 1: related stores. UM. It was reported that thirty five Spanish
Speaker 1: capital police officers were hospitalized but UM. One young person
Speaker 1: interviewed by CNN who took to the streets in Barcelona
Speaker 1: on Saturday UM claimed that in her experience that protests
Speaker 1: had been peaceful until the police intervened, which UM, and
Speaker 1: it sounds about right. Yeah. I mean, whether I don't
Speaker 1: care whether it's stateside or it's across the ocean, Like
Speaker 1: police don't get the benefit of the doubt for me,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Like it's also interesting though,
Speaker 1: to read some of the quotations in that CNN pace
Speaker 1: uh speaking with young people who are participating in the
Speaker 1: demonstrations that the woman who I just quoted UM and
Speaker 1: one other young man they spoke with both condemned the
Speaker 1: looting and said that you claimed that there may might
Speaker 1: be outside agitators, that some people might sometimes try to
Speaker 1: take advantage of the social movements, but they don't, you know,
Speaker 1: not actually align them the cause. So it's also interesting
Speaker 1: to hear those sentiments, those evaluations of what is legitimate protests, etcetera,
Speaker 1: like also echo in a different um a political fear.
Speaker 1: Now here's a question I have for you, like, Um,
Speaker 1: so you have this going on, which, like I said,
Speaker 1: I hadn't necessarily seen this covered. But then we know
Speaker 1: that there's the like anti Putin protests going on in Russia.
Speaker 1: We know what happened in Belarus when they protested after
Speaker 1: the election was stolen by the dictator there. Do you
Speaker 1: think it's do you think it's indicative of something? And
Speaker 1: then we have, you know, are the summer that we had.
Speaker 1: Do you think that any of this is like indicative
Speaker 1: of like a global like a global like a global
Speaker 1: sense of unrest. So the intersecting crises we're facing between
Speaker 1: you know, worsening like climate catastrophes, income inequality, uh, the right,
Speaker 1: the you know the way that there's this increased polarization
Speaker 1: of the like the new the rise of the new
Speaker 1: right globally, and how I think that it's like that
Speaker 1: mixed with like the failure of global global capitalism and
Speaker 1: like climate chaos, like people very rapidly radicalizing to the
Speaker 1: um and being willing to embrace a wider variety of
Speaker 1: tactics to make themselves hard um out of frustration, out
Speaker 1: of just like snapping under the economic anxiety of living
Speaker 1: at this moment um and living entertainment image coronavirus, you know,
Speaker 1: all the ship. I mean, the only thing to be
Speaker 1: careful about with that, I think is that the that
Speaker 1: like sense of like a global right new like a
Speaker 1: new global right wing movement is definitely coordinated, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. And the actors you see people like
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon medaling and not meddling, but like Steve Steve
Speaker 1: Bennon went on like an Austria white supremacist tour, and
Speaker 1: and that that's all I mean is like I sense
Speaker 1: that like the the reaction that's radicalizing people to the
Speaker 1: left is not as like contrived and you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, and and pre planned as this right wing
Speaker 1: movement is, because there's a lot of there's a lot
Speaker 1: of big money propaganda going into the global this global
Speaker 1: right wing movement. Um. I think that's all. I think
Speaker 1: it's also speaks to like the lack of like truly
Speaker 1: revolutionary like activity and recent history for people to like
Speaker 1: like we don't we don't really have that sort of
Speaker 1: I guess we just don't really have that culture of
Speaker 1: like actual arms struggle, Like when we talk about the
Speaker 1: Revolutionary War, it was fucking like four hundred years ago.
Speaker 1: Like you know, we like when we think about battle,
Speaker 1: we think about stuff that we do to other people
Speaker 1: in other countries. It's not something that's like happening in
Speaker 1: the streets of our town. Um, Like like you know,
Speaker 1: the E. T A Was doing like Croppo was doing
Speaker 1: of like blowing up like you know, government buildings and
Speaker 1: robbing banks and ship like that. Like we don't really
Speaker 1: have that kind of kind of history. Um and so um.
Speaker 1: I think that there's a lot to be said for
Speaker 1: like the way it seems that in Spain, the sense
Speaker 1: of like you know, with the with the riots, even
Speaker 1: like the sense of like revolutionary spirit of like take
Speaker 1: to the streets might be a little more alive there
Speaker 1: than here. Well, I mean we're gonna get a little
Speaker 1: into Hosells lyrics in a bit and actually unpacked some
Speaker 1: of them, and so we can maybe play the judge.
Speaker 1: Then if any American rapper has content this, uh, it's
Speaker 1: alarming to the state. Yeah. So free speech issues aren't
Speaker 1: new in Spain or even in Spanish hip hop. So inen,
Speaker 1: how do you say? How do you pronounce that? Maa
Speaker 1: Maoca based rapper Faltonik fled to Belgium to avoid a
Speaker 1: three and a half year sentence for lyrics critical of
Speaker 1: the Spanish monarchy and allegedly glorifying terrorism. Caesar Strawberry, member
Speaker 1: of the rock band Death cons Dust, received a one
Speaker 1: year suspended sentence for tweeting several jokes about E t
Speaker 1: A in Grappo but qween. He was initially acquitted by
Speaker 1: the National Court in sixteen, which declared that Caesar, both
Speaker 1: in his professional and his private life, doesn't postulate support
Speaker 1: for terror groups or any kind of violence, and that
Speaker 1: his intention was ironic or provocative. However, earlier this year,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court said that his intention is irrelevant, arguing
Speaker 1: that Article five seven eight of the Criminal Code does
Speaker 1: doesn't demand proof of intention behind acts that constitute offense
Speaker 1: to glorifying terrorism. His lawyer said he would appeal to
Speaker 1: the European Court of Human Rights. But Yo, what if
Speaker 1: we made a law in America that it didn't matter,
Speaker 1: that it didn't matter your intent? I say that, but
Speaker 1: I don't even know if maybe they do actually do that. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: intent matters, right, because that's why we have second degree
Speaker 1: murder and first degree murder and you know, an attempted
Speaker 1: murder and ship like that. But for like, well, I
Speaker 1: guess we don't mean for the state to like prosecute
Speaker 1: you to say that intent doesn't matter. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it would kind of be. I don't know if I'm
Speaker 1: taking this to an extreme, but like with like harmful
Speaker 1: like harmful consequences of free speech acts, I mean I
Speaker 1: would imagine that at some point, even in the US,
Speaker 1: that your intent wouldn't matter. But it was just kind
Speaker 1: of I guess it would be depending on what you said,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it, Because I mean if you said, Yo, everybody
Speaker 1: start a riot and then or everybody blows something up
Speaker 1: and then that happened, and then they were like, hey,
Speaker 1: why do you say that? And you're like, well, that
Speaker 1: wasn't my intention. Then I guess you could kind of
Speaker 1: be like, doesn't matter what your intention said. So in February,
Speaker 1: two puppeteers were accused of glorifying terrorism while performing a
Speaker 1: play in Madrid, Damn They're going after puppet tears to
Speaker 1: The play represented a police set up in which a
Speaker 1: character held up a poster with the words glora alka
Speaker 1: e t a, a play on the words al Qaeda
Speaker 1: and a basque for long live et. A police arrested
Speaker 1: the duo and help them on charges belonging to an
Speaker 1: armed gang for several days. They or later acquitted, but
Speaker 1: the damage had already been done. Eric since de Bremantuh
Speaker 1: eric Sen's de Breman, one of the puppeteers lawyers, explained
Speaker 1: that being accused of glorifying terrorism was already a punishment
Speaker 1: in itself. The puppeteers were subjected to a public exposure
Speaker 1: nothing short of brutal. Imagine how it was for them
Speaker 1: out on the streets in those days, he told periodical,
Speaker 1: adding that the artists and their families had received death threats.
Speaker 1: He also pointed out that when the judge decided that
Speaker 1: the play was completely legal, the media didn't show the
Speaker 1: same interest. Okay, well, I mean see they were already
Speaker 1: not the government and the police were already not getting
Speaker 1: the benefit of the doubt from me. But it's like
Speaker 1: the pattern is already is obviously there, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So it's like you can possibly again the
Speaker 1: whole plausible deniability that you can possibly make the explanation of, Yo,
Speaker 1: we're dealing with important ship and this thing that this
Speaker 1: rapper said was just so bad that like we have
Speaker 1: to pay attention to it and we have to go
Speaker 1: after him in YadA YadA, YadA. But obviously if they're
Speaker 1: going after rapper after rapper and fucking puppet tears on
Speaker 1: doing street show, you know what I'm saying, it's like
Speaker 1: the pattern is obviously there that they're just trying to
Speaker 1: suppress the set just period. It really is fascists, as
Speaker 1: they say um in two like uh, it kind of
Speaker 1: expands beyond just like you know, street side puppet shows
Speaker 1: or whatever. In two thousand fifteen, the Spanish government, then
Speaker 1: led by the sender Right People's Are Popular party, introduced
Speaker 1: a highly controversial public security law known as the gag
Speaker 1: La I'm on critics, which cracked down on both the
Speaker 1: right to symbol and freedom of expression. So, yeah, the
Speaker 1: right rising up ale of Era oll over everywhere, they're
Speaker 1: gonna win. You know what, I've decided today that they're
Speaker 1: probably gonna win. Man. The thing is is that they
Speaker 1: they have like a strategy, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: And it's like your right wingers are a lot more
Speaker 1: willing to put aside their differences so that they can
Speaker 1: find solidarity with each other and win. If we keep treating,
Speaker 1: if we keep treating what right wingers are worldwide or
Speaker 1: doing as if it's like hyperbole or it's like a
Speaker 1: boogeyman that doesn't really exist. Yeah, you know, one day
Speaker 1: you're gonna wake up in the US and you know,
Speaker 1: find yourself getting arrested for some shift you tweeted. It
Speaker 1: ain't nobody going to riot because this ship kind of
Speaker 1: ship doesn't happen Americas. Trying to imagine a single hip
Speaker 1: hop artist that would inspire this kind of uprising for
Speaker 1: what doing? What doing? I'm not saying what I mean.
Speaker 1: If the FBI came for no name or something, I
Speaker 1: probably have there in the streets, but like not like
Speaker 1: thousands of people. So yeah, so we won't have the
Speaker 1: people to come save us when they start getting for us.
Speaker 1: So we better take it seriously right now. And which
Speaker 1: when we were talking about I think it was the
Speaker 1: last episode about Fred Hampton because we're talking about how
Speaker 1: come or were saying that there's we've had We've had
Speaker 1: a friend, a new another Fred Hampton. Just it was different, right,
Speaker 1: trying to make the point about like how we're in
Speaker 1: America especially, we're all just like just comfortable enough to
Speaker 1: not want to rock the boat, you know. That's that's
Speaker 1: one of those things is gonna work against us. So
Speaker 1: even if we do have a situation that's absolutely egregious
Speaker 1: where like they go after some artists, actor or rapper
Speaker 1: or whatever, activists, somebody who who says something or makes
Speaker 1: a piece of art that that makes an expression when
Speaker 1: they do crack down on them, and it's like obviously
Speaker 1: like some hatchet job, unfair fascist move, We're still going
Speaker 1: to kind of be you know, we still have that
Speaker 1: built in gonna work tomorrow, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like we might tweet about it. This is sucked up
Speaker 1: and you gotta go to work, and what are you
Speaker 1: supposed to do? You know? The attitude with that, I
Speaker 1: think that we should get into a little bit of
Speaker 1: the homie Pablo's discography. Let's get into Pablo's work and
Speaker 1: see what Pablo has been saying in his music that
Speaker 1: elicited such a strong reaction out of the government over there.
Speaker 1: We'll be into that after the joke. As a preface.
Speaker 1: This man his songs called the USSR overturned All Power
Speaker 1: to the Soviets. The first song we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: his catalog, it's called straight, straight up, just called communist down.
Speaker 1: It's communists. Um, let's let's take a listen real quick.
Speaker 1: That ship was dope. Yeah, alright, so it was fucking hard.
Speaker 1: It does, I mean off the bat, off the jump. Yeah.
Speaker 1: My first reaction to it, and this is, um, we've
Speaker 1: like Murray was saying, Um, we were watching a lyric
Speaker 1: video and we've pulled out some lyrics for you, but um,
Speaker 1: off the jump from listening to it and and reading
Speaker 1: the lyrics the ad libs at the beginning where he's like,
Speaker 1: socialism is the only viable form of large scale change.
Speaker 1: That's like his ad libs where like an American rapper
Speaker 1: would be going, uh huh, yeah, take that, take that.
Speaker 1: This motherfucker's like yeah, motherfucker. Socialism is the only viable
Speaker 1: form of large scale change, Like off the jump, it
Speaker 1: is so avertly agenda driven, you know what I'm saying
Speaker 1: That like if if you put yourself in a factist
Speaker 1: governments shoes for a second, it's like we got so terrified.
Speaker 1: And I mean, like from aesthetic perspective, it doesn't feel
Speaker 1: pre chey to me. It doesn't like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not like I feel like a lot of people ensure
Speaker 1: like there's there's wool, like like listen to hip hop
Speaker 1: jact having good time. I do like unraveling the puzzle
Speaker 1: of a hip hop song. That's like I got a
Speaker 1: lot going on in it lyrically, but this those are
Speaker 1: this It's just like the flow is though, like I
Speaker 1: like the rhymes, like and it's a hard beat. It's
Speaker 1: not corny, it's weird. It's like for being is like
Speaker 1: very obviously drenched in like study of history and theory.
Speaker 1: It's just like actually pretty listen to what I think,
Speaker 1: Like the ticket to It is like you could take
Speaker 1: his lyrics off of this song and put a less
Speaker 1: focus or less serious song on top of this, and
Speaker 1: it would still work like aurally as like a song,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like if this is just
Speaker 1: a gangster rap song, yeah it would it would be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this as hard as yeah, he's going in, but it's
Speaker 1: like like choosing to replace that content with the content
Speaker 1: that he's doing and it just makes it more accessible.
Speaker 1: Hard like against rap song because like the opening line,
Speaker 1: he says communists as Bolsheviks stabbing czz are because nobody
Speaker 1: should have the right to be to exploit communists as
Speaker 1: day labors occupying the land, collectivising and dreaming of dead
Speaker 1: duchess like for real, like yeah, we're about to order
Speaker 1: the monarchs, like yo, shout out cha, Marks Lenin grandpo
Speaker 1: members Jose Manuel uh Civil Siviano who died in a
Speaker 1: hunger strike in prison. Yeah, and the stric is really
Speaker 1: interesting and we're talking about for a second. So I
Speaker 1: began in November of ended on February second nine one,
Speaker 1: which at the time made it the longest running one
Speaker 1: of the longest running hunger strikes in modern history. Among
Speaker 1: the demands made by the prisoners was an end to
Speaker 1: isolation and control units, to be recognized political prisoners and
Speaker 1: to be regrouped into one prison so as to continue
Speaker 1: their political education they maintain their identity, is obviously vigorously
Speaker 1: opposed by the Spanish government, who at the time held
Speaker 1: over a thousand political prisoners. During the hunger strike in Saviano,
Speaker 1: died of heart failure due to malnutrition. Um To prolong
Speaker 1: the hunger strike, the government force fed the prisoners. Several
Speaker 1: government officials. This is what's fucking insane, including the head
Speaker 1: one head of Present Medicine, who was in charge of
Speaker 1: force feeding, were executed during the strike by grappo. Just shit,
Speaker 1: what that's crazy. Wait, we just can't really imagine something
Speaker 1: like that happening here. No, I mean, like for real,
Speaker 1: I can't, I mean should, I don't even I'm almost
Speaker 1: at like speechless, at a loss for words because it's
Speaker 1: just like I can't I can't even picture like any
Speaker 1: sort of conditions which this this would be the state
Speaker 1: of like American hip hop. You know what. It reminds
Speaker 1: me of an interview that mad Lib is doing recently,
Speaker 1: and he was making the point of, like, you know,
Speaker 1: all hip hop should pretty much just in terms of
Speaker 1: what's going on in the world. He's like, all hip
Speaker 1: hop should pretty much sound like Public Enemy at this point,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like like like that's what that's what
Speaker 1: we should be tired of. We should we should be like, man,
Speaker 1: how come everybody's rapping like Public Enemy and rapping about
Speaker 1: all this serious political ship? How come to what he's
Speaker 1: having fun anymore? Like that should be the complaint the complaint.
Speaker 1: But let's hop on him over to the next one.
Speaker 1: Juan Carlos el elbow bone. Have the name of the song?
Speaker 1: This name of the song? Yeah, uh. Sell plays of
Speaker 1: the words Bourbon, which is the name of the royal family,
Speaker 1: and bobbo, which is Spanish means idiot. Let's take a
Speaker 1: listening to this again. It's like the fucking direct nature
Speaker 1: of the ship that he's saying is crazy. I mean,
Speaker 1: like a lot of that. He's saying specific names of
Speaker 1: like specific Spanish politicians and making like accusations I mean
Speaker 1: whether again this is just objectively like looking at whether
Speaker 1: you accusations are true or not or whatever. He's making
Speaker 1: like explicit charges against people and saying you did this,
Speaker 1: you are this, you are responsible for X. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Yeah, So like imagine if I don't know,
Speaker 1: um no Name came out with a track like killed
Speaker 1: Joe Biden exactly exactly, like as I put myself more
Speaker 1: and more into the shoes of like I mean, do
Speaker 1: I think someone should be arrested over this? No? Do?
Speaker 1: I sort of understand why the Spanish govern I'm scared.
Speaker 1: I guess like like not giving the government a pass,
Speaker 1: but like I could totally imagine them being super frue
Speaker 1: jab or something like. It's like fascinating because it's not
Speaker 1: like we don't talk about death in rap is it
Speaker 1: all the time, but we're talking about dying is a question.
Speaker 1: It's like we're killing each other. That's fine, But like
Speaker 1: Kime out with a song that was like I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, murder people. Well, I mean you remember when
Speaker 1: we're talking about like you know, people don't rap about
Speaker 1: killing white supremacists and killing Nazis in their ship. But
Speaker 1: I mean, like I'm not even playing. There's literally rappers
Speaker 1: who was like every song is like yo, I'm shooting
Speaker 1: up this nigga, I'm killing this nigga, I shooting nigga's
Speaker 1: grandmama's house, and it's like they got like endorsement deals
Speaker 1: open like there's literally nobody who is worried about anything.
Speaker 1: They're saying. It's like, it's fine, it's it's whatever. So
Speaker 1: much to the way the white supremacy operates, Uh, because
Speaker 1: I mean they will. I mean, as we've discussed in
Speaker 1: various episodes, they will kill you. If they are are
Speaker 1: killing each other, they're like, then they don't mind. It's like, hey,
Speaker 1: it's all good. Is that nothing, nothing to be alarmed about.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I guess to give the government a
Speaker 1: little bit less credit, they do monitor hip hop artists
Speaker 1: for far less ship. Yeah, but unimportant jail. But the
Speaker 1: typical unimportant ship though, you know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 1: in the in the in the grand scheme of ship.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. It's like a let's uh,
Speaker 1: we don't like this guy because five years ago he
Speaker 1: knew this guy, you know what I'm saying, and we
Speaker 1: weren't able to get him on that. So we're mad.
Speaker 1: So let's listen to his rap lyrics and if he
Speaker 1: says something, then we can hit him with some rico
Speaker 1: charges to say that he knew a person that knew
Speaker 1: a person that did something. It's quite different than Yo,
Speaker 1: what did you say about the Duchess? Yeah? Um, what's
Speaker 1: the next track? We got one? Carlos Elbow. Definitely, the
Speaker 1: VAT is definitely a lot more lighter than the other
Speaker 1: stuff that we've heard him wrapping on. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of like a fun funny songs how I
Speaker 1: interpret it. I mean he's going in pretty hard on
Speaker 1: the monarchy, like nad Ship, but like the lighthearted beat
Speaker 1: and like the kind of like singing background on the
Speaker 1: hook make it feel like I can see this black
Speaker 1: put this on the car and kind of like slay
Speaker 1: but you're like, yeah, monarchy. So I found a Reddit
Speaker 1: thread of some people talking about it. Um. One person
Speaker 1: is going on about how he's making several accusations in
Speaker 1: the song that they deem to be false. And then
Speaker 1: I have another person talking about how his lyrics are
Speaker 1: horribly inflammatory and making accusations of homophobic and sexist remarks.
Speaker 1: And then because I've read interviews with the Soil in
Speaker 1: which he talks about how like, um, you know, his
Speaker 1: crimes and he and he says, you know, like hatred
Speaker 1: of homophobia, of racism, of sexism shouldn't be a crime,
Speaker 1: like those things themselves should be a crime. How to
Speaker 1: say that does not make him you know, sexist, homophobic,
Speaker 1: but he is that that would be you know, anti oppression,
Speaker 1: at least in the way he speaks at his world view.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I mean this this is just some random
Speaker 1: Reddit user. I have another person saying, um, he's the
Speaker 1: songs has lyrics about shooting cops in the head and
Speaker 1: supporting the vast terrorists, and then they're just going on
Speaker 1: about how like in Spain you can't encourage terrorists, but
Speaker 1: you know there's some people who are pushing back and
Speaker 1: they're talking about like it's a stretch to say that
Speaker 1: that's what the song is doing. Um. I think one
Speaker 1: of the line that stands out of the song, one
Speaker 1: that got him in trouble um a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: is um one that goes the poor go to jail.
Speaker 1: But not in Christina, although half the country want to
Speaker 1: see her on a guillotine. Christina is of one Carlos
Speaker 1: the former monarch's daughters, who was acquitted a fraud and
Speaker 1: corruption in two thousand and thirteen. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I feel that that's a threat. If I heard somebody
Speaker 1: said that about me, I probably would feel slightly threatened.
Speaker 1: I guess like as someone that's received death threats, I
Speaker 1: feel like thinking broadly about like the things that I
Speaker 1: find threatening, having had had to like evaluate risk level
Speaker 1: of different things that have been said. Um, if someone
Speaker 1: said this to me, I'd probably be like, I'm about
Speaker 1: this one. It's a good thing that you just said
Speaker 1: that for real, because like I didn't even think about
Speaker 1: it that way, Like I'm just like getting all cut
Speaker 1: up my feelings and ship like that. But yeah, like
Speaker 1: if if somebody sent if somebody sent your letter Earth,
Speaker 1: like you know what I mean, Like if some maga
Speaker 1: guy was, Like if some maga guy was like Mariah
Speaker 1: Parker because we all want to see her on a guillotine, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would, you know what I mean? Yeah, like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I want to look at look out for those
Speaker 1: guys that said that always gotten in trouble for some
Speaker 1: of the ship. Yeah, but I mean ultimately, like he
Speaker 1: just goes in on calling out the calling out the
Speaker 1: monarchy for being just you know, self centered corrupt multimillionaires.
Speaker 1: There's second working people dry to feed like their mental
Speaker 1: wealth and all the ship like he's already Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think the personal nature of his critiques are probably the
Speaker 1: largest aspect of what landsman in trouble, not that you know,
Speaker 1: the powers that we aren't worried about his message in
Speaker 1: his politics, but I do think that like the personal
Speaker 1: nature of because you know, when when when America did
Speaker 1: have that period where like Rappers where George Bush was
Speaker 1: saying ice Tea's name while he was running for president,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, when ice Cube was like
Speaker 1: public enemy number one and ship like that, Like when
Speaker 1: when we were in that moment, it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: in the backdrop of like explicit personal attacks, like people
Speaker 1: were really going in personally, and that was the moment
Speaker 1: when we had So maybe that's the key, Like maybe
Speaker 1: making a vague, vague statements like capitalism or you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, like socialism is the way, isn't enough
Speaker 1: to to push the buttons. Maybe you kind of gotta say, hey,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump Junior is a piece of ship and his
Speaker 1: breath smell like wet money. I don't know, something like that, Joe,
Speaker 1: can we please get a beat waiting a reporations when
Speaker 1: they stand it in your way? I think they better
Speaker 1: move on. We told you about the life of Pablo
Speaker 1: and the Revolution. Because your neck is what they want
Speaker 1: to go and step their boots. So they don't want
Speaker 1: you comfortable. They want you to to share futons. That's the
Speaker 1: fascist state. No one gotta listen with the beast state,
Speaker 1: killed the body politick and every time they last ray.
Speaker 1: If that's the ship I have to hate. Treated like
Speaker 1: passion play. They could be forever, but democracy one last
Speaker 1: to day. Think it's a game until you stop in
Speaker 1: the street and somebody up to power will lock you
Speaker 1: up for tweet. The cops are drunk on their power.
Speaker 1: Give your shoving a beat foot on your neck, tell
Speaker 1: a crowd nothing to see. Damn, my name's dope knife.
Speaker 1: We are waiting on reparations. Hurry up, see you next week.
Speaker 1: Waiting on Reparations as a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Listen to Waiting on Reparations on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.