Speaker 1: You were listening and waiting on reparations. Production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, I walk like a g
Speaker 1: talk like a wimp, wrappers a feast like lobster and
Speaker 1: shrimp mac on the track song on the Pimp Medieval
Speaker 1: Time tells zed get the Gilm out of ship. Don't
Speaker 1: change is a unity call. When they had their chance,
Speaker 1: they was building a wall. I ain't shaking no hands.
Speaker 1: I don't feel them at all. Yo, didn't y'all lose.
Speaker 1: I don't listen to y'all know. Hey, this is like, well, Franca,
Speaker 1: I'm dope knife and we are waiting on reparations. Harry,
Speaker 1: please do so what you got going on on my end?
Speaker 1: You know, it's UM Black History Month, as we all know,
Speaker 1: and I'm very pleased that this month, after almost two
Speaker 1: years of working on UM trying to get reparations for
Speaker 1: folks displaced by urban renewal here in Athens in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, is I feel, like I've discussed on previous episodes,
Speaker 1: we finally have UM resolution UM recognizing the harm that
Speaker 1: was done to them and their families when the university
Speaker 1: and the city of Athens conspired to have them moved
Speaker 1: out of their neighborhood for dormitory expansion in in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties. UM, we're gonna be building a wall of
Speaker 1: recognition on the site where their neighborhood used to be,
Speaker 1: so that UM students that traverse that corridor frequently can
Speaker 1: understand a bit of the history of the land which
Speaker 1: they stand. And we're hoping it's the beginning of continued
Speaker 1: work and getting some state laws changed so that we're
Speaker 1: going to provide some material redress for the losses UM
Speaker 1: they incurred. These properties that were taken from their families
Speaker 1: would today be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and
Speaker 1: so thinking about how we can get that money back
Speaker 1: in their hands and sort of recoup some of the
Speaker 1: financial losses to stay and as a part of that UM.
Speaker 1: It's ongoing work, but we're really pleased we finally made
Speaker 1: it this are and the Mayor of Athens will be
Speaker 1: reading a proclamation formally apologizing for urban renewal later this month.
Speaker 1: So we're like not only just talking about black history
Speaker 1: in terms of forgotten figures in our national historical landscape,
Speaker 1: but thinking locally about the history of black communities here
Speaker 1: in Ankananda. Then this month, which I think think it's
Speaker 1: really exciting and she gotten you know, just chilling living. Oh,
Speaker 1: my mom's got her first dose of the vaccine, so
Speaker 1: that's cool. Been making music, oh, speaking of you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like since we've been doing this, I've been
Speaker 1: pretty good at being ethical, Like I don't get up
Speaker 1: here in hawk music at people all the time. But
Speaker 1: I do have a new song that I'm putting out
Speaker 1: on the twelfth of February, so I think like next Friday.
Speaker 1: So that's exciting getting ready for that's doun A little
Speaker 1: bit about the song. Oh, it's called Sundance. It's a
Speaker 1: little love song and put know for Valentine's Day, so
Speaker 1: it's like a wildly off brand. Actually it's it's a
Speaker 1: funny story behind it. My um there was an ex
Speaker 1: that I had and I had written it for her.
Speaker 1: It was like a sweet ass, you know, love song
Speaker 1: just about our relationship and ship like that, and then
Speaker 1: we broke up like maybe two weeks after I wrote it,
Speaker 1: so I never really used it for anything because I
Speaker 1: was like, man, I don't even feel it into this
Speaker 1: ship anymore. But next thing you know, it's been like
Speaker 1: seven or eight years, me and her are still good. Friends,
Speaker 1: and uh, I don't know how it came up, but
Speaker 1: I let her hear a demo and she was like,
Speaker 1: oh yo, why didn't you ever put that out? So
Speaker 1: you know, she she got on me enough that I
Speaker 1: ended up rerecording it as part of like all these
Speaker 1: new songs that I was making, So you know, it's
Speaker 1: a good, good, different thing to have there. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be putting out a lot of ignorant ship afterwards, so
Speaker 1: it's like a good way to get my feet back
Speaker 1: into ship. But yeah, and I'm excited about it. Um
Speaker 1: it's been it's been a minute since I put out
Speaker 1: some new music, so there's all the excitement that comes
Speaker 1: with that sort of ship. And I'm gonna start, you know,
Speaker 1: putting out like songs on the regular while I'm working
Speaker 1: on an album, you know, just so I'm not inactive
Speaker 1: and shipped. So it's exciting times for me. I'm excited
Speaker 1: for people to hear my lockdown raps that I wrote.
Speaker 1: So that's gonna be February twelfth, and it'll be on
Speaker 1: all the streaming ship wherever you listen to ship, you'll
Speaker 1: be able to find it. Alright, let's get to it,
Speaker 1: So to set up what we're gonna be talking about today,
Speaker 1: kind of gotta give you a little bit of a
Speaker 1: backstory as to why I was thinking about this in
Speaker 1: the first place. So it very much involves recent events
Speaker 1: and things that are going on in politics right now.
Speaker 1: So in the wake of the Capital Rights a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago, while Republican politicians have stood pretty strong by
Speaker 1: their former disgrace president, there's been a wider public backlash
Speaker 1: against the Trump Field assault. Not only do a awhelming
Speaker 1: majority of Americans not support what happened, but fifty eight
Speaker 1: percent of Americans directly blame Trump according to MPR PBS poll. Now,
Speaker 1: if you ask ani like meent is not nearly enough,
Speaker 1: so everyone should be alarmed by that. But um, there
Speaker 1: is eight percent of Republicans who fully support the ship
Speaker 1: like they are behind what happened on January six, and
Speaker 1: apparently that's who elected Republicans in Congress are representing at
Speaker 1: this point. Regardless, the backlash has been severe for them
Speaker 1: so far. A lot of America's biggest companies are suspending
Speaker 1: our Nation to Republican congress members who objected to the
Speaker 1: Electoral College's votes, including American Express, the Cross Blue Shield, Commerce,
Speaker 1: bankdal Chemical, Marriott, AIRBNBA, Amazon A, t n D, Comcast, Disney,
Speaker 1: MasterCard for Google, Facebook, and more. UM. Speaking in Facebook
Speaker 1: as many of us problem only know social media companies vanished,
Speaker 1: Trump permanently suspending his Twitter account. He's been kicked off Twitch, YouTube,
Speaker 1: and Facebook tools like TikTok and others um, though it's
Speaker 1: unclear the permanence of those suspensions. The conservative alternative for Twitter,
Speaker 1: Parlor was banished from app stores and essentially rendered inaccessible
Speaker 1: as it became a cesspool for q and On and
Speaker 1: Nazis just straight up planning kidnappings and murders out in
Speaker 1: the open and shipped. Then there was Senator Josh Holly,
Speaker 1: who was one of the leading members of the Trees
Speaker 1: and Caucus, who was so upset that he couldn't make
Speaker 1: black people's votes not count that he just had to
Speaker 1: help Trump inspire a riot that killed a cop, but
Speaker 1: he ended up losing his Simon and Schuster's book deal,
Speaker 1: and he's asked her about that. All this, along with
Speaker 1: the fact that people who participated in the riots have
Speaker 1: been getting put on no fly lists, lit their jobs,
Speaker 1: getting divorced, and ma called terrorists, the American riot has
Speaker 1: being out a screech about their new favorite part of
Speaker 1: the culture war inns the culture as I feel, all
Speaker 1: this accountability is part of arguments that they're being canceled.
Speaker 1: So today we're gonna be talking about cancel culture, what
Speaker 1: it is, what it isn't, what we think of it,
Speaker 1: and what his hip hop's reaction been to it in
Speaker 1: this new climate that we're in. Later on, we're also
Speaker 1: going to be chatting with hip hop artists and professor
Speaker 1: at Bryant and Stranton College and Buffalo, n Y, Chucky Campbell,
Speaker 1: about his newest album, The Curious Incidents and Cancel Culture,
Speaker 1: and see if he can help us shed some light
Speaker 1: on this a little bit. We're gonna get into all
Speaker 1: of that after the job. Okay, So what is cancel culture. Well,
Speaker 1: you guys know how I love my Wikipedia results, So
Speaker 1: let's see what Wikipedia has to say. Okay, So if
Speaker 1: you search cancel culture in Wikipedia, what it says is
Speaker 1: cancel culture is a modern form of ostracism in which
Speaker 1: someone is thrust out of a social or professional circle,
Speaker 1: either online on social media, in the real world, or both.
Speaker 1: Those who are subject to this ostracism are said to
Speaker 1: be canceled. Marion Webster's notes that to cancel, as used
Speaker 1: in the context, means to stop giving support to that person,
Speaker 1: while dictionary dot com it says in its pop Cultural
Speaker 1: Dictionary defines cancel culture as withdrawing support or canceling a
Speaker 1: public figure and companies after they have done or said
Speaker 1: something considered objectionable or offensive. The expression cancel culture has
Speaker 1: mostly negative connotations and is commonly used in debates on
Speaker 1: free speech and censorship. The notion of cancel culture is
Speaker 1: a variant of the term call out culture and constitutes
Speaker 1: a form of boycott involving an individual, usually a celebrity,
Speaker 1: who is deemed who have acted or spoken in a
Speaker 1: questionable or controversial manner. For those at the receive even
Speaker 1: end of cancel culture, the consequences can lead to loss
Speaker 1: of reputation and income that can be hard to recover from.
Speaker 1: So that's what you have in on Wikipedia. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I agree with that. When you know,
Speaker 1: if I hear the term cancel culture, I imagine that
Speaker 1: most reasonable people kind of are thinking this when they
Speaker 1: hear the term cancel culture. I mean, scratch that, I
Speaker 1: don't even know what people think now. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: been so much. It's been propagandized so much that it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't even know what people are thinking. And maybe
Speaker 1: everyone just like automatically thinks of like screeching hordes of
Speaker 1: purple haired Antifa or something now because they think of
Speaker 1: cancel culture people being canceled. I don't know, what do
Speaker 1: you think about this definition? I feel like, um, the
Speaker 1: Wikipedia definition of cancel culture does neglect that financial element.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess if you're thrust out of your
Speaker 1: professional circle, with that comes some um financial harm like
Speaker 1: loss of income, salary. Um we're seeing, you know with
Speaker 1: the Republican Party, UM, loss of donations from big companies,
Speaker 1: which actually I want to point out that some of
Speaker 1: these companies UM have suspended donations all political campaigns. So
Speaker 1: it's like great collapropment getting money out of politics. But
Speaker 1: like this both sides is UM, that's a little ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It's kind of funny, but UM, yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think these are pretty apt to Miriam Webster, you know,
Speaker 1: stop giving support for that person. Support can be material, social, um,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Stuff like that gets at it pretty well.
Speaker 1: I would I would, um say that the key thing
Speaker 1: that's missing composition is discussion of accountability. That this to
Speaker 1: me is a form of accountability. UM, that's like, Yo,
Speaker 1: we're gonna hold you accountable by you know, punishing you
Speaker 1: for what you've done. It's interesting to me that that
Speaker 1: accountability is not really included among the way this uh
Speaker 1: future of our society and media landscape is defined. Conservative
Speaker 1: political analysts Ross do That wrote a piece for The
Speaker 1: New York Times titled tenth Thesis about cancel culture, and
Speaker 1: it's an interesting piece of insight into how traditional conservatives
Speaker 1: interpreted these things. To his credit, he doesn't frame it
Speaker 1: as a First Amendment issue, which many conservative types too.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the most time of thing is what he what
Speaker 1: he chose as his first thesis. Cancelation he says, properly
Speaker 1: understood or first to an attack on someone's employment and
Speaker 1: reputation by a determined collective of critics based on an
Speaker 1: opinion or an action that it alleged to be disgraceful.
Speaker 1: It is qualifying. Reputation and appointment are key terms here.
Speaker 1: You're not simply you're not being hanceled if you um
Speaker 1: have been canceled, if you're really being heckled or insulted.
Speaker 1: So like what are your overall it's just your your
Speaker 1: overall view on cancel culture. I mean, I have interesting
Speaker 1: thoughts on cancel culture as an abolitionist one that does
Speaker 1: believe in transformative justice, as a means of holding people
Speaker 1: accountable for the harm that they do others, but also
Speaker 1: calling them in to see see what they've done wrong,
Speaker 1: to understand how they've harmed others, to change their behavior,
Speaker 1: change their thinking so that they don't harm others in future.
Speaker 1: And so I worry at times that cancel culture UM
Speaker 1: replicates like carcero logics, uh, banishing someone just putting them
Speaker 1: some other place, be in a physical space of a prison,
Speaker 1: or casting them out of social circle, or you know, uh,
Speaker 1: UM stripping them of their of their networks. UM. That
Speaker 1: is ultimately is ultimately harmful. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I don't really understand what you I don't really understand
Speaker 1: what else you can do with some people like UM.
Speaker 1: Take for example, Marjorie Taylor Green having UM express support
Speaker 1: for the executions of prominent democratic lawmakers UM and things
Speaker 1: like that, and seeing how the rhetoric of UM you know,
Speaker 1: stole an election, inspired a deadly mob then ended up
Speaker 1: you know, seeing the lives of five people taken that
Speaker 1: you know, two police officers who took their own lives
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of the storming of the capitol. Um
Speaker 1: like the lack of remorse, the lack of self um reflection,
Speaker 1: willingness to engage in like yeah, like reflection on once actions, uh,
Speaker 1: resistance to accountability of any kind. Like I really don't
Speaker 1: understand what else we can do with these people other
Speaker 1: than like, all right, you're in time out until uh
Speaker 1: you get your act together, and if you don't, at
Speaker 1: least you're not enable to continue harming people by having
Speaker 1: the material resources to um engage in campaigns that you know,
Speaker 1: wage war on the vulnerable, or you know, having these
Speaker 1: platforms where you can inspire further violence. Things like that. Like,
Speaker 1: I really don't know what else we can do. I'm
Speaker 1: really interested to hear others and read others way in
Speaker 1: on this From annapoligious perspective, it's like, if somebody really
Speaker 1: doesn't want to gain accountability, really really doesn't want to
Speaker 1: engage in process accountability, like what else are you supposed
Speaker 1: to do with them? So, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a bad thing to hold people accountable.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's I think it can be helpful
Speaker 1: to inspire that reflection by showing people like your actions
Speaker 1: have consequences, like you can't have your fancy platform or
Speaker 1: your a she job if you funk around and hurt people.
Speaker 1: Um So maybe step back and be listen. All right,
Speaker 1: this sucks. Um maybe I should think about how all
Speaker 1: my actions have harmed others. Um So, yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: really know whether option we have in this day and age,
Speaker 1: though I do think like engaging with singing around what
Speaker 1: accountability can look like that brings people in and helps
Speaker 1: transform your behavior is really important to do. I tend
Speaker 1: to look at what is the opposite of that. So
Speaker 1: if there's there's definitely mad instances where quote unquote cancel
Speaker 1: culture can be like cringe, and there's even some instances
Speaker 1: where it can kind of be dangerous and can kind
Speaker 1: of just be like a go with the mob whatever whatever,
Speaker 1: I'm mad, But the opposite of that is like just
Speaker 1: straight up bigotry. And you know, so, I don't know,
Speaker 1: like I can deal with the annoyance and cringe factor
Speaker 1: better than I could deal with it if just nobody
Speaker 1: gave a fuck and there was zero accountability for anything. However,
Speaker 1: I personally don't see the use in using activism or
Speaker 1: organizational or boycott energy over stupid ship, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. And amongst stupid ship, I would be like, Yo,
Speaker 1: why why are we organizing over like who's getting a
Speaker 1: Netflix special or who's going to be in this movie
Speaker 1: or who's voicing this character or whatever? You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. It's like, I would rather that energy solely
Speaker 1: be put to more important ship. And then once we
Speaker 1: get through the checklist of important ship that we have
Speaker 1: to do, then I guess we can direct some energy
Speaker 1: to that. And I know people can chew gum and
Speaker 1: walk at the same time, so whatever. But again, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, that's the aspect of the
Speaker 1: ship that bothers me is like, damn, you know, y'all
Speaker 1: are using all this energy over over that ship. But
Speaker 1: other than that, yeah, it's just it's just annoying. It's
Speaker 1: not really like I don't see it as a as
Speaker 1: like this thing that is dominating society and is going
Speaker 1: to make society collapse. Right by the name of Sarah
Speaker 1: Hagee wrote an article for Time magazine called Cancel Culture
Speaker 1: Isn't Real at least not in the way that people think.
Speaker 1: And she made a pretty good point in this passage
Speaker 1: here she says the idea is that if you do
Speaker 1: something that others deemed problematic, you automatically lose all your currency,
Speaker 1: your voice of silence. You're done. Those who condemn cancel
Speaker 1: culture usually imply that it's unfair and indiscriminate. The problem
Speaker 1: with this perspective is cancel culture isn't real, at least
Speaker 1: not in the way that people believe it is. Instead,
Speaker 1: it's turned into a catch all for when people in
Speaker 1: power face consequences for their actions or receive any type
Speaker 1: of criticism something that they're not used to. And that
Speaker 1: right there at the heart of it is why I
Speaker 1: just don't really funk with people who complain about cancel
Speaker 1: culture like that. And I would disagree with her that
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily a thing about rich or powerful, it's
Speaker 1: just people in general, like people are starting to wrap
Speaker 1: that ship up at any and all criticism. I think
Speaker 1: um ms Haggy is completely on point with this um
Speaker 1: it is turning into a catch all for when people
Speaker 1: in power face any kinds of consequences for their action
Speaker 1: or receive any type of criticism. UM, Like, I don't
Speaker 1: know if J. K Rowling has experiencing sort of financial
Speaker 1: hardship as a result of her transportic comments that have
Speaker 1: led her to, you know, cry cancelation, Um, like from
Speaker 1: what I understand, but still that books coming out and ship.
Speaker 1: So I mean like when people are so Bela getting
Speaker 1: heckled online as I believe Mr do that was talking
Speaker 1: about in his New York Times piece, and they want
Speaker 1: to call it cancelation. It's like yo, Like, still, the
Speaker 1: internet is a harsh place. You funk around, you find
Speaker 1: out period. Um. Getting heckled, getting criticized is not is
Speaker 1: not the same as being deep platform and people need
Speaker 1: to start stop complaining the two. So I mentioned J.
Speaker 1: K Rowling, even Murby Atwood, No Chomsky, Gary Kasparov, someone
Speaker 1: Rushdie and over a hundred and forty other intellectual cultural
Speaker 1: figures UM signed on an open letter UM called the
Speaker 1: Letter on Justice and Debate for Harper's Magazine, which criticized
Speaker 1: the current tour and public shaming and ostracism, ostracism, public
Speaker 1: shaming and ostracism of those proposing views I e. Canceled culture.
Speaker 1: But then with the letter, is that caught a lot
Speaker 1: of it caused a huge cur fluffle at the time,
Speaker 1: is that there's some dope people who signed it. There's
Speaker 1: some respect to people, there are some grifters, there's definitely
Speaker 1: some kuks. The diversity of people signed it was kind
Speaker 1: of the gimmick of it. Journalist Jeff Yang criticized the letter,
Speaker 1: writing for CNN dot com, it's hard not to see
Speaker 1: the letters merely an elegantly written affirmation of elitism and privilege,
Speaker 1: and he said that the signatories, in the face of
Speaker 1: result and backlash, dismissed rebuttals and positioned themselves as be
Speaker 1: leaguered victims of a current culture, turning their support for
Speaker 1: open debate and free expression into an example of stark
Speaker 1: hypocrisy or sly gas lighting. Public Seminar criticized the letters timing,
Speaker 1: stating that the letter primarily blamed cancel culture for disrupting
Speaker 1: free and open conversation at a moment during the George
Speaker 1: Floyd protest when it was becoming clear what influences institutions
Speaker 1: had on controlling the debate. There's a dope article in
Speaker 1: the Washington Post about the letter by one of the
Speaker 1: people who signed it, Phoebe Maltz Bovy who also wrote
Speaker 1: the Perils of Privilege, and she breaks down in a
Speaker 1: nutshell pretty much what the problem is with the freak
Speaker 1: out over the cancel culture boogevan, and why it's important
Speaker 1: you know that regular people don't get caught up in
Speaker 1: that scene. She describes how she agreed with her understanding
Speaker 1: of the gist of the letter quote that writer should
Speaker 1: get to choose their topics and that progressive over correction
Speaker 1: helps trump all free speech. Sometimes there's as an euthemism
Speaker 1: for the right to hold forth allah archie bunker. It's
Speaker 1: being bigger trade from the comfort of an armchair, consequence free.
Speaker 1: I happen to believe that's all of this, and she continues,
Speaker 1: but on a more principal level, I credit here was
Speaker 1: a list made up of largely uncancellables Margaret Atwood, J K.
Speaker 1: Bowling and high profile and high profile you hold suspects Marklima,
Speaker 1: Stephen Pinker and yes a few expected and yes a
Speaker 1: few unexpected names here and there, Noam chom Ski. The
Speaker 1: message was is sound the messengers as a collective risk
Speaker 1: obscaring it. I mean, no Times has gotten trouble before
Speaker 1: for I think defending if I recall correctly a holocaust,
Speaker 1: and I are not for his beliefs for his right
Speaker 1: to publish work. Um uh, you know about his beliefs,
Speaker 1: and so I you know, I wasn't super surprised to
Speaker 1: see his name there. Oh I don't fucking I don't
Speaker 1: care about UM. But the thing, it's interesting that like
Speaker 1: it's like an interesting reflection of like how cancel culture works,
Speaker 1: where UM people are like on board with the idea
Speaker 1: until they realize that people are agreeing with them that
Speaker 1: they don't like UM or it's like oh wait, wait,
Speaker 1: that person is down with this, that person is now
Speaker 1: on this, where like cancel culture is okay as long
Speaker 1: as it's not happening to you or to someone that
Speaker 1: you agree with. Yeah, funk with that heavy. I mean
Speaker 1: it's like we all want free and open debate, but
Speaker 1: it's like I don't wanna just me personally. It's like
Speaker 1: I don't want to be associated with any whack ship
Speaker 1: when I'm trying to make like a good point, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. So I don't know, it's like
Speaker 1: whatever objections to quote unquote cancel culture that I may have,
Speaker 1: it's like I don't want to express that ship because
Speaker 1: I don't want to be fucking associated with Ben Shapiro
Speaker 1: or Dave Ruben like that if you you listen to
Speaker 1: those motherfucker's like, cancel culture is worse than fucking climate
Speaker 1: change and ship. So it's like when they're mucking up
Speaker 1: that argument against it, it's like, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: really that important enough an argument for you to make.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna sit this one out. So today we
Speaker 1: are talking with a good friend of mine, Chucky Campbell.
Speaker 1: He is a professor at the Bryant and Stratton College
Speaker 1: and buff Low and Why, where he teaches media and ethics,
Speaker 1: public speaking, information, literacy, learning, communities, and almost any other
Speaker 1: writing and communication course at the college. He has a
Speaker 1: PhD in English Literature, Creative Writing, and Composition Rhetoric from
Speaker 1: the University of Southern Mississippi. He's the winner of the
Speaker 1: Eastern Kentucky University Fiction Award, uh the Julia Visor Award
Speaker 1: presented by the National College Learning Center and Association, and
Speaker 1: numerous other awards. He's also a national touring hip hop artists.
Speaker 1: Who's the newest album, Curious Incidents in Cancel Culture? That's
Speaker 1: out right now? How are you doing, Chucky? I'm doing well.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys for inviting me on. Yeah, it's great
Speaker 1: to have you. Good to have you. How are you
Speaker 1: holding up in these times? Um about like everybody else,
Speaker 1: very confused about the strange things happening. But uh, for
Speaker 1: the most part, I'm doing well well. I mean I'm
Speaker 1: We're always curious as to, you know, people who are
Speaker 1: working artists and things like at to how the new
Speaker 1: way of life as it is is like affected your
Speaker 1: craft and what you've been doing and how you have
Speaker 1: to change things up. UM. Well, for somebody who's been
Speaker 1: supported by the gig economy for so many years and
Speaker 1: relied so heavily on live shows and live events, UM,
Speaker 1: it's been troubling trying to put together things to coordinate people,
Speaker 1: and UM it shifted everything online. A lot of my uh,
Speaker 1: I would say, other work in terms of education, UM
Speaker 1: is all remote learning. So that's a that's definitely a
Speaker 1: shift and a change. And it's shifted the way I
Speaker 1: do art out of the live environment, less of a
Speaker 1: performance space and more into the virtual world. So I've
Speaker 1: had to adjust to some of that. How in your
Speaker 1: experience with remote learning, if at all, have you encountered, um,
Speaker 1: issues of educational equity with different folks access to things
Speaker 1: like odd Brand and now down here UM in Georgia.
Speaker 1: I've had a number of students who come from rural
Speaker 1: areas and have had to like sit in the parking
Speaker 1: lot of the McDonald's to get WiFi to attend the
Speaker 1: synchronous portions of our teaching. And I was wondering if
Speaker 1: you had experienced anything similar with your UM past remote
Speaker 1: learning during this time as well. Absolutely, I have a
Speaker 1: lot of students that, especially if you come from a
Speaker 1: disadvantaged background or low income background, you have less access
Speaker 1: to technology, less access to the internet, and uh, a
Speaker 1: lot of those students have been forced to try to
Speaker 1: find different methods um of joining in in remote learning.
Speaker 1: In terms of the college, the college is offered some
Speaker 1: laptops and things of that nature to try to help
Speaker 1: those students out, but unfortunately there's only so much you
Speaker 1: can do, especially and a lot of your students are
Speaker 1: from the background and from places like my students come from.
Speaker 1: And uh, what you were talking about in terms of
Speaker 1: rule environments, a lot of those same things carry over
Speaker 1: to more urban city based environments as well. So just
Speaker 1: to backtrack a little bit, so could you tell us
Speaker 1: a little a little about your your story as it were,
Speaker 1: because you're you're hip hop artists, your professor. So how
Speaker 1: did that come about? Um? So, I'm I'm basically a
Speaker 1: child of hip hop. Hip hop raised me so to speak, um,
Speaker 1: and I grew up with it. It was initially you know,
Speaker 1: I'm from a low income, high crime environment. Um, I
Speaker 1: grew up and uh spaces besides the color of my skin,
Speaker 1: I really um, it wasn't in a privileged environment. Um.
Speaker 1: And so hip hop was like my access to learning
Speaker 1: about my voice, my entrance into the world of ideas.
Speaker 1: It was like the reason I wanted to read books
Speaker 1: and challenge my thoughts, challenged myself with thoughts that were
Speaker 1: just not readily available to me, I would say at
Speaker 1: that moment. Um. So, I started out like in Kentucky. Actually,
Speaker 1: like I'm from Richmond, Kentucky. Um and I used to
Speaker 1: with one of my friends, traveled down and participate in
Speaker 1: some of the mic battles. And uh, that's how I
Speaker 1: really kind of was ushered into hip hop. It was
Speaker 1: a community, um that I was just a part of
Speaker 1: in that kind of way of life, a way of
Speaker 1: learning how to speak and talk and walk and you know,
Speaker 1: as I got older, you know, it became something else
Speaker 1: to me. I was not just a student of it.
Speaker 1: I became someone who also wanted to get back to it. So, like,
Speaker 1: what what type of what what artists were you listening
Speaker 1: to around that time? A lot of different ones because
Speaker 1: I was, I guess Kentucky is a strange place. It's
Speaker 1: like not in the South, and it's not in the North.
Speaker 1: It's like kind of not even Midwest either. So, um,
Speaker 1: I was listening to everything you know coming up. Um,
Speaker 1: everything from like Tupac and Biggie two, Outcast Too, No
Speaker 1: Limit to Freestyle Fellowship two. I mean, it was just
Speaker 1: so many different influences coming together. Um, there were a
Speaker 1: lot of like strict lines and divides in our hip
Speaker 1: hop community because um, a lot of those people who
Speaker 1: kind of are part of those different factions don't get along.
Speaker 1: What I mean is that all like it all converges
Speaker 1: in Kentucky like this was there is there no strong
Speaker 1: was there no strong local scene at the time. There
Speaker 1: was there was a strong local scene, but there were
Speaker 1: hard lines that divided it. So a lot of the
Speaker 1: a lot of the scene that was in coming out
Speaker 1: of Lexington. You would have a lot of like really
Speaker 1: really strong down South rap, you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: then the I would say vogue of say like no
Speaker 1: Limit Cash Money records. And then on the other side
Speaker 1: of that you had some very heavily like Wootang East
Speaker 1: Coast influenced music. And those two groups, while they were
Speaker 1: part of the same community, didn't necessarily, um talk to
Speaker 1: each other collaborate very much, so there wasn't a lot
Speaker 1: of like cross pollination between those two styles. Yeah, those
Speaker 1: two bases, it kind of divided the community. So Okay,
Speaker 1: So at this time, hip hop captures your imagination and
Speaker 1: you're kind of learning about your voice through it. So
Speaker 1: then what makes you actually pick up the pen and
Speaker 1: the mic and start rapping. I had a friend, Dame
Speaker 1: Ralph prador Uh, and he was in a group called
Speaker 1: Microphone Microphone Fanatics at that time, and they were collaborating
Speaker 1: with another group named Mad Militia and Lexington and UM.
Speaker 1: I went to some battles with him, and then when
Speaker 1: I got like kind of brave enough to step on
Speaker 1: stage and do my own thing, UM because he kind
Speaker 1: of pushed me into that, UM, I found out that
Speaker 1: it was something that I really liked. UM after kind
Speaker 1: of that cultivated itself, me and Ralph started doing projects together,
Speaker 1: and uh, that grew its own legs in a certain way. Um,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be too many years later that I would
Speaker 1: start releasing stuff like publicly and it was first under
Speaker 1: a moniker named soul Asleep. Um, it was the when
Speaker 1: I first started putting out music. No one knew me
Speaker 1: as Chucky Campbell. So so I mean if you were
Speaker 1: doing all of that at the same time that you know,
Speaker 1: obviously you were getting yourself educated and ready to like
Speaker 1: get into the career path that you're in. So was
Speaker 1: that something that you always knew was going to be
Speaker 1: the case? The joys know, you were gonna be putting
Speaker 1: as much time and effort into your music as you
Speaker 1: were as you are your your teaching career. Um, not
Speaker 1: really at all. I mean at first, I mean, like
Speaker 1: a lot of people that come from like local, low income,
Speaker 1: high crime environments, like I really wasn't into um my
Speaker 1: education very young. I came from a public school that
Speaker 1: was really not funded well, um, and it had its
Speaker 1: own issues, you know, And so I didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of people on that side of education, and that
Speaker 1: was that were influencing me and valued what I was doing.
Speaker 1: So initially gravitated towards athletics. So I was a basketball player,
Speaker 1: and uh I earned a scholarship to play basketball at
Speaker 1: Lee University. UM I played four years of college basketball there,
Speaker 1: um and then after that for a very short stint
Speaker 1: some professional basketball before my knee. And then when I
Speaker 1: came back after my knee injury, UM, I had at
Speaker 1: that time kind of been balancing my academic life with
Speaker 1: hip hop and rap music. So I had dropped like
Speaker 1: a couple of EPs, and they had did um I
Speaker 1: guess pretty well at that time for what for the
Speaker 1: kind of industry that there was for independent art, And
Speaker 1: so I decided when I came back after I hurt
Speaker 1: my knee, that I was gonna move to Nashville, Tennessee
Speaker 1: without producer. And we lived there for about a year,
Speaker 1: and um, so I ran out of money. So I
Speaker 1: ran out all the money that I had professionally and
Speaker 1: built up from playing basketball. And then so when we
Speaker 1: were forced to go back to Kentucky together, I was
Speaker 1: there probably for about five or six months before Ralph
Speaker 1: had moved back from Seattle, Washington, and so me and
Speaker 1: Ralph were talking about doing some stuff again, forming a
Speaker 1: live band and doing hip hop together. And um, then
Speaker 1: there was and um an issue between me and Ralph.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you want me to tell that story,
Speaker 1: but my um, my job was broken in two places,
Speaker 1: so I have two metal plates in my face. UM,
Speaker 1: and uh that with the doctors. Initially after that happened,
Speaker 1: they told me I was not going to be able
Speaker 1: to rap again. So I stopped rapping for like seven years. Um.
Speaker 1: And during that time, my mother kind of helped me
Speaker 1: condition myself where I was able to articulate and speak
Speaker 1: again in a somewhat normal fashion. Most people can't tell
Speaker 1: that I've ever had that happened to me now, UM,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I wouldn't. I went off after that and
Speaker 1: channeled all that creative energy, went back to school d
Speaker 1: Skentuck University, got my masters, and then uh won some
Speaker 1: awards and did some did some work in academia, and
Speaker 1: then decided that I wanted to continue that work is
Speaker 1: teaching English as a second language. So I moved to
Speaker 1: China for price six to eight months and taught in
Speaker 1: Beijing and Hining and Shanghai, and then I got into
Speaker 1: a PhD program. How was the time that you spent overseas. Oh,
Speaker 1: it was fun. I enjoyed it very much. That I
Speaker 1: was learning some Mandarin Chinese at the time. It was
Speaker 1: like a language program, exchange program. And uh, A lot
Speaker 1: of the kids that we were teaching, we were teaching
Speaker 1: language English, language through English by our American culture, I
Speaker 1: would say. And uh, a lot of the kids were
Speaker 1: very young, you know, elementary UM or middle school. So
Speaker 1: with the things that you learned and experience being an
Speaker 1: m C and performing and you know, talking to crowds
Speaker 1: of people or even just putting ideas out there for
Speaker 1: people to respond to, does any of that translate into
Speaker 1: being an educator? Oh? Yeah, I think I've almost learned
Speaker 1: the backward you know, like it was almost like him
Speaker 1: seeing was what taught me how to teach instead of
Speaker 1: like teaching help my m seeing out. So it was
Speaker 1: like kind of learning to project my voice learning. Uh,
Speaker 1: authenticity leads to true authority. Um. You know, some of
Speaker 1: the values that carry over and in the culture of
Speaker 1: hip hop work well in the classroom, and they also
Speaker 1: work well to inspire especially kids that have been kind
Speaker 1: of um have troubled educational histories or backgrounds that don't
Speaker 1: necessarily lend themselves to um to wanting to read literature
Speaker 1: or engage and uh and some more academic kinds of activities.
Speaker 1: So I think that hip hop is kind of what
Speaker 1: taught me about community and what allows people to come
Speaker 1: together and and stitch those uh, those ideas into one thing.
Speaker 1: Do hip hop texts or practices of wreck? I'm into uh,
Speaker 1: composition classrooms in terms of analysis or is a jumping
Speaker 1: off place to discuss um social issues or anything like
Speaker 1: that all the time. I use Kindrick Lamar a whole
Speaker 1: lot um. I use Lauren Hill a whole whole lot um.
Speaker 1: Who's some other people. Recently I've used Blueprint and some
Speaker 1: of his music. He has a song called Perspective that
Speaker 1: is a really good one. Um lupe Fiasco. He has
Speaker 1: a song named Jennala Forever which is pretty like craftably
Speaker 1: written and uh. We use that in terms of understanding reading,
Speaker 1: not just as words on a page, but reading in
Speaker 1: a more uh kind of critical thinking, since seeing the
Speaker 1: deep structure of things understanding that meaning often is kind
Speaker 1: of like him hemming ways iceberg theory, like, so the
Speaker 1: top and tip of the iceberg is what you see,
Speaker 1: but most of the meaning lies beneath it, and that
Speaker 1: meets kind of hand in hand theoretically with another communication
Speaker 1: theorist that I implement, Michael Polani, who talks about communication
Speaker 1: has a tacit dimension where we often when we speak,
Speaker 1: we mean more than we say, and we say more
Speaker 1: than we mean. So I kind of take those kinds
Speaker 1: of propositions into the classroom. Um. That's especially true of
Speaker 1: hip hop, the way we sort of circumlow qute through
Speaker 1: metaphor and through um slang and stuff like that, sort
Speaker 1: of obscuring the meeting, so that we do have this
Speaker 1: tip of an iceberg that is um very aesthetic. But
Speaker 1: what do you you know, do repeated listens or sort
Speaker 1: of breakdown what people are saying. There's a lot more
Speaker 1: meaning there. Um. So there's a lot of rich potential
Speaker 1: for um exploration of hip obtects in the classroom generally.
Speaker 1: But interesting to hear what a particular artists have come
Speaker 1: into play in your classrooms specifically. Right. I also think
Speaker 1: it's important that I have students that are performatively kind
Speaker 1: of expressing themselves through not just rap music but the
Speaker 1: culture of hip hop in the classroom as well. You know,
Speaker 1: like so It's not as if I'm kind of just
Speaker 1: using hip hop as a bridge. I'm actually giving hip
Speaker 1: hop a voice in the classroom, you know. So it's
Speaker 1: not that I'm forcing them into academic culture. It has
Speaker 1: to be a gateway instead. Academic culture and hip hop
Speaker 1: don't have to contradict themselves. You So, now, like that
Speaker 1: is kind of a question for both of you, because
Speaker 1: y'all are two people who I know personally in my
Speaker 1: life who are to teach and do hip hop. So
Speaker 1: do you guys like see even broader use for hipolo?
Speaker 1: Do you think that that, um, there's a more of
Speaker 1: a there's a more of an opportunity for teachers who
Speaker 1: have of backgrounds like you guys to utilize just different
Speaker 1: aspects of hip hop to like, you know, get messages
Speaker 1: across into more effectively teach classes. Like does it work
Speaker 1: that way? Is there any yes? For sure? I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, my whole I don't know if you've talked
Speaker 1: about this techy, but my whole dissertation is on like
Speaker 1: hip hop paedagogy and like the many decades of research
Speaker 1: people have put in to look at how we can
Speaker 1: use um poetic devices within hip hop to teach poetic
Speaker 1: devices and Shakespeare to use hip hop to respond to literature,
Speaker 1: so giving students the opportunity to respond to works of
Speaker 1: art and using wrap as well as practices or you know,
Speaker 1: mind states akin to like being in the cipher for example,
Speaker 1: some way to structure dialogue in the classroom to both
Speaker 1: like the use of hip hop text and then the
Speaker 1: hip hop practices more broadly with regards to like stance
Speaker 1: as we take or um sort of activities we engage
Speaker 1: in to build community as as you were kind of saying,
Speaker 1: checky um. But I but I guess the problem we've
Speaker 1: seen in the research of that very often times these
Speaker 1: practices of pedagogy are taken up by hip hop heads
Speaker 1: and not as frequently actual hip hop practitioners as it were,
Speaker 1: like folks like Chuckie and I um and so uh.
Speaker 1: It is interesting to hear from someone that does do
Speaker 1: hip hop what that looks like for them in their classroom, right.
Speaker 1: And I think it doesn't just extend to education. I
Speaker 1: think it speaks to the importance of civil discourse and
Speaker 1: what education where those two lines come to come together
Speaker 1: or overlap, you know, I mean hip hop as even
Speaker 1: what Mariah has done, you know politically, you know, the
Speaker 1: it trains you and conditions you for those places once
Speaker 1: you evolve to to take them on, you know. So
Speaker 1: it's it's a place, it's where, like I mean, it
Speaker 1: doesn't prepare you completely for all the things that are
Speaker 1: gonna happen to you, um once you take that spot. Um,
Speaker 1: but I think it's a training ground. So if um
Speaker 1: just your your your opinion the way that you see it,
Speaker 1: what is the probably like the biggest obstacle in the
Speaker 1: way right now, like America's education system. Um, I think
Speaker 1: it's the opposite thing of what most people think. It is,
Speaker 1: like a lot of people think that, you know, the
Speaker 1: university system is all like left wing. In my experience,
Speaker 1: it's almost the opposite. It's very um conservative, and uh
Speaker 1: you know, I think that that's also being propped up
Speaker 1: right now by a number of voices and talking heads
Speaker 1: that are dangerous to civil discourse in our country, people
Speaker 1: like uh Canadian Jordan Peterson or Sam Harris, Ben Shapiro. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those are all the dirt problems, the surf one. I
Speaker 1: haven't heard that one that like that. Yeah for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was really curious about some of your advocacy. I
Speaker 1: know that for a while you ran hip Hop as
Speaker 1: Revolution the music series and collaboration with Push Buffalo. I
Speaker 1: was wondering if you talk to us a little bit
Speaker 1: about that, right, Push Buffalo's incredible organization. You know, uh
Speaker 1: pushes responsible for you know, keeping people up the streets
Speaker 1: almost at this point, like with rent control and all
Speaker 1: of those issues. And then they're also deeply kind of
Speaker 1: entrenched in some of the more revolutionary time talk about
Speaker 1: sustainable housing and the environment and where that meets economically
Speaker 1: with government. And so I collaborated with guy named John Washington,
Speaker 1: and John and me had this idea to uh cover
Speaker 1: it up and and begin a hip hop platform that
Speaker 1: not only brought in heavily influential political hip hop artists
Speaker 1: and match them with some local artists that also have
Speaker 1: that kind of tilt to their music and their their art,
Speaker 1: but also um and form the public too. So those
Speaker 1: events were you know, used to get people involved in
Speaker 1: other parts of not just their political education, but also
Speaker 1: taking taking part in changing some of the unfair properties
Speaker 1: about the way our society is form and institutionalized. So
Speaker 1: what was the role of hip hop as Resolution in
Speaker 1: some of the organizing what they were doing was like
Speaker 1: sort of recruitment space, educational like what how how were
Speaker 1: you using that event to advance some of their prerogatives.
Speaker 1: But we tried to bring in like anyone in the
Speaker 1: community that had a part in hip hop, so anyone
Speaker 1: that was related even like from culinary arts and food
Speaker 1: to UM, an entire like booths that have UM you know,
Speaker 1: inform a about how to organize UM, I mean the
Speaker 1: artists themselves, kind of propping them up and giving them
Speaker 1: a stage to say what they need to say and
Speaker 1: voice their opinions, and then matching them with UM artists
Speaker 1: that already have an audience and a crowd. So you're
Speaker 1: bringing out people that normally wouldn't come to an independent
Speaker 1: arts event and then kind of using that as a
Speaker 1: springboard to get people interested in some of the more
Speaker 1: important positions of our day. UM. Because it's I mean
Speaker 1: really at this point, like we're in a slippery slope
Speaker 1: I feel like almost a turning point in society, and
Speaker 1: it's all of the there's been many things that are
Speaker 1: working together to cause that two come about and get
Speaker 1: this outcome that we're all working through right now. So,
Speaker 1: So can you tell us a bit about the new album,
Speaker 1: Oh curious incidents and cancel culture all right, Um, really
Speaker 1: the point of the uh the point I really at
Speaker 1: this point, like for years I've been collaborating with like
Speaker 1: bigger artists and um, taking a whole different approach to
Speaker 1: rap music and kind of like instead of just doing
Speaker 1: whatever with stereotypical, just being as free as I could artistically.
Speaker 1: And so I had like the band and all of
Speaker 1: these different moving parts that where we're doing all the
Speaker 1: touring and doing really high in music videos and um,
Speaker 1: you know, collaborating with singers across the aisle from like
Speaker 1: folk music. That's the thing I wanna I just need
Speaker 1: to interject, You'll need to check out Chucky's music videos
Speaker 1: because especially in the indie scene, like Chucky's videos are
Speaker 1: especially like it looked like Martin Scorsese films and ship
Speaker 1: uh this I think this project right here. We um,
Speaker 1: so we we noticed that most of what's happening with
Speaker 1: independent music right now is a lot of things are
Speaker 1: going visual, you know, and since we're kind of confined
Speaker 1: this virtual platform right now and we can't perform live. Um, Instead,
Speaker 1: what I've done is that packaged an entire EP into
Speaker 1: a video project, and so there are six interconnected videos
Speaker 1: feature song. Um right now, I think we've learned the
Speaker 1: song too. UM. But there's just a lot of heavy symbolism, symbolism,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to speak directly to some of the
Speaker 1: confusion and chaos um things like, um, you know, the
Speaker 1: loss of the apprentice becomes president, murder hornets, you know,
Speaker 1: like these these crazy things that you could not have
Speaker 1: possibly foreseen, potentially you know, kind of happening. And I
Speaker 1: feel like that's all too kind of put into like this,
Speaker 1: this entire discourse about what cancel culture is too, because
Speaker 1: they're good things that cancel culture does, like a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of there's a lot of good aspects
Speaker 1: to woke to wokeness and woke culture and to cancel culture.
Speaker 1: Because some some of these people who are being called
Speaker 1: out deserved to be, and we should believe the people
Speaker 1: who are calling them out. I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: I think a lot of them we were getting called
Speaker 1: out deserve to be. I just for me, the thing
Speaker 1: that really grates me about the crowd that is like
Speaker 1: goes out of their way to be anti cancel culture
Speaker 1: is just they treat it that the things about cancel
Speaker 1: culture or woke culture, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 1: that are at the worst annoying. They treat it as
Speaker 1: if it's like some giant incident that's gonna make Western
Speaker 1: civilization collapse if if we don't quell it right now,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, the opposite of cancel culture is
Speaker 1: people just you know, kind of being openly bigoted and ships.
Speaker 1: So it's like right, auntability from ones like I don't know, yeah,
Speaker 1: bigotry or transgressions are just harm that are done to others.
Speaker 1: I kind of think that cancel culture is you know,
Speaker 1: like a lot of things good and bad, so um.
Speaker 1: Mostly I feel like it's a form of descent, and
Speaker 1: a good form of descent, a good form of kind
Speaker 1: of protesting. It'st um things in society that are unfair
Speaker 1: or target unfair groups or people without lots of power,
Speaker 1: And so cancel culture is good in the respect that
Speaker 1: it kind of um allows the voices of the people
Speaker 1: to speak up against some of the injustices that consistently
Speaker 1: society doesn't do a good job regulating or um protecting
Speaker 1: people from on the other side of some of this,
Speaker 1: it is a kind of um I would say, unchecked
Speaker 1: um form of of power. I mean, it's power in
Speaker 1: the people's hands, but sometimes that can be good and
Speaker 1: bad depending on how much powers in whose hands. So
Speaker 1: one of the things that UM has commonly been I
Speaker 1: would say issue in our current media climate is that
Speaker 1: UM social media has made UM information flow in such
Speaker 1: a way where there's not UM a real UM kind
Speaker 1: of fabric in society that we can truly trust. So
Speaker 1: UM I would say that when you ruin like that,
Speaker 1: that feeling of trust in the society, then also solidarity
Speaker 1: kind of diminishes, and UH that can be problematic for
Speaker 1: a lot of different reasons because UM, there's no editor
Speaker 1: to edit all of these different pieces of information that
Speaker 1: are going out and coordinating to make meaning and make
Speaker 1: sense of the world for people. UM. And it's not
Speaker 1: that we would prefer like all corporate entities kind of
Speaker 1: control this and that the power flow from top to
Speaker 1: bottom all the time. But when there's no one checking
Speaker 1: to make sure something is true, then now you've put
Speaker 1: all narratives on an equal playing field. So people who
Speaker 1: have any sort of opinion UM. And it seems that
Speaker 1: nowadays everybody thinks that they not only have a right
Speaker 1: to an opinion, but that all opinions are equal, it
Speaker 1: makes it harder to siphon out the good opinions from
Speaker 1: the bad opinions, a higher truth from a lower truth.
Speaker 1: And obviously, like there are differences between that. I would
Speaker 1: much rather take an informed opinion, like let's say, on
Speaker 1: race um, from someone like Martin Luther King, than I
Speaker 1: would and Adolf Hitler. You know, so, Um, the the
Speaker 1: idea there is that um, when you put with narrative
Speaker 1: is the only thing that we have here, then you
Speaker 1: have nothing to quy, defy, to test um, to prove
Speaker 1: factually right. So when you put facts up against alternative facts,
Speaker 1: it's just whoever has more power because each story is
Speaker 1: going against the other story. And uh, that's that's definitely
Speaker 1: an issue if you have, like, let's say, a president
Speaker 1: who's saying fake news to everything that he doesn't like,
Speaker 1: and it's just kind of using the power of his
Speaker 1: pulpit to tell people whatever stories he wants them to believe,
Speaker 1: which could be kind of what happened at the capitoling.
Speaker 1: You know, so what, um, what made you want to
Speaker 1: like tackle this on your album? I think just because
Speaker 1: it's confusing, you know, Like I think that there's no
Speaker 1: real straightforward, perfect answer. Two. Um, there's the current social
Speaker 1: climate we're in. We're we're in a pretty dark place.
Speaker 1: And I feel that what I was trying to tackle
Speaker 1: specifically is, uh, the cognitive dissonance that comes with that.
Speaker 1: UM also some of just the confusion about who to
Speaker 1: believe and what to believe, and UM, how the degradation
Speaker 1: of that entire fabric kind of leads us to this
Speaker 1: space where almost nothing is believable. We're in a very
Speaker 1: strange existential kind of situation. UM. So I felt that
Speaker 1: very real. You know, like, UM, some of the songs
Speaker 1: on the album tackle um ag is m you know
Speaker 1: the idea that you know, you have this older generation
Speaker 1: uh coming up and the younger people are calling them
Speaker 1: boomers and saying they don't they don't understand the current
Speaker 1: generation and the way to do things, and that they
Speaker 1: mounted up this huge amount of debt and put these
Speaker 1: and put these young kids in that debt. And then
Speaker 1: on the other side of the older narration is looking
Speaker 1: back and saying, well, you guys know nothing about the world.
Speaker 1: You're obsessed with um social media and with your Instagram
Speaker 1: pictures and snapchat, and UM, there's wait to both of
Speaker 1: that to those things you know there is, But then
Speaker 1: it kind of gets stupid because like I had motherfucker
Speaker 1: trying to call me a boomer and ship it was like, yo, no,
Speaker 1: I think I just think you're wrong. I'm six years
Speaker 1: older than you. Shut the buck up, right right? No, absolutely,
Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's where I'm kind of getting. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I had to stand on one side of cancel culture,
Speaker 1: I would stand with the people who are marginalized and
Speaker 1: and fight for their voices to be heard. Um. I would.
Speaker 1: I would fight for you know, women to be believed
Speaker 1: when they called out someone as you know, a rapist
Speaker 1: or someone who's committed some of these grotesque kinds of
Speaker 1: crimes to just commit consistently go on checked. Um. But
Speaker 1: then there's someone like, you know, maybe Dave Chappelle stands
Speaker 1: up and starts poking holes in some of that stuff,
Speaker 1: and it makes me think, I'm like, okay, well, you know,
Speaker 1: should we be able to call people out and make
Speaker 1: them guilty before proven innocent and the um social court
Speaker 1: of law? You know, um? And so it does make
Speaker 1: me stand in that gray area because I don't want
Speaker 1: to just slam the gabble and and commit myself that
Speaker 1: everybody might be guilty of something that they've just been
Speaker 1: accused of before really taking my time to sift through
Speaker 1: the information and get my mind wrapped around some of
Speaker 1: this stuff. And you know, I was dealing with this.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's been coming for a long time. Um.
Speaker 1: You know some of the names that I just used
Speaker 1: on the album, like Tommy Laren and you know, Brett
Speaker 1: Kavanaugh and um, you know Kyrie Irvin. You know, like
Speaker 1: whether you're talking about flat earth or you're talking about
Speaker 1: extreme right wing politics, UM, that to me leads to
Speaker 1: almost fascism. Um. You know, all of that creates this
Speaker 1: kind of climate, and then when you combine that with
Speaker 1: this isolation of the pandemic, you kind of have the
Speaker 1: perfect petri dish for um for you know, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: for real, UM, what are some standout tracks to you? Um?
Speaker 1: I really personally, and I always like the tracks that
Speaker 1: I think other people don't get into as much, you know,
Speaker 1: I think because I mean when you're behind it writing
Speaker 1: and it's different. But I really like the second track
Speaker 1: swipe Right. I feel like it's um that line, um,
Speaker 1: and every human heart there's a guide shaped whole you
Speaker 1: know that comes from uh Sartre and existentialism, and you know, um,
Speaker 1: we do. I think everyone kind of fills that up
Speaker 1: with all of this stuff that is um really kind
Speaker 1: of unhealthy and it's really you can never achieve that
Speaker 1: original plnitude of being a whole with everything again um
Speaker 1: and so I feel like that's what's really appealing about existentialism,
Speaker 1: especially right now. UM. But UM, I think it sums
Speaker 1: up almost perfect what people would do just for any
Speaker 1: sort of love right now, whether like they're getting likes
Speaker 1: or comments on Instagram or or Facebook or whatever it
Speaker 1: might be, or um, why they're listening to some of
Speaker 1: the stuff that sounds just ridiculous, you know, whether it's
Speaker 1: Alex Jones saying so I think he said something about yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean some of the things that people are believing,
Speaker 1: you would think would be way too outrageous or out
Speaker 1: of bounds for them believe. But then again they're in,
Speaker 1: um a space that they've never been in, and it's
Speaker 1: a terrifying space full of fear. And so you know,
Speaker 1: someone believing like a Q and on um, you know,
Speaker 1: conspiracy about you know, wayfair selling children on the internet.
Speaker 1: You know, like as if is it was a couch
Speaker 1: or something. You know, like, um, that sounds crazy, but
Speaker 1: in someone's mind where they're reinforcing these narratives consistently, what
Speaker 1: really makes sense? Right now? You know that we're in
Speaker 1: a world wide pandemic and before storming the capital and
Speaker 1: they're believing that the president, uh, the election was still run.
Speaker 1: You know, well, what is how do you feel about
Speaker 1: like hip hop's place in this social climate of cancel
Speaker 1: culture existing? And no, I think that I think that
Speaker 1: a lot of people, you know, just because they're not
Speaker 1: being agreed with, they're using cancel culture as an excuse
Speaker 1: to um to kind of hold beliefs that they shouldn't
Speaker 1: be holding. You know, instead of thinking critically about what's
Speaker 1: going on or looking at the D structure of a situation,
Speaker 1: they would rather um point fingers, which is easier, you know.
Speaker 1: And what's missing here is the fine nuance you know
Speaker 1: to some of these arguments. You know, someone uh says
Speaker 1: something is as absurd like the Kanye West thing, you know,
Speaker 1: like slavery is a choice thing. Obviously you have to
Speaker 1: check them. You know, immediately I got just the complete
Speaker 1: absurdity of something like that just deserves to be called out.
Speaker 1: It's not canceling at all. That's telling me the truth.
Speaker 1: Do you think do you think you were able to
Speaker 1: like capture that and express that on the album? I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think all artists kind of fail
Speaker 1: at their vision, you know. Um yeah, but I did
Speaker 1: my best to to to kind of shape that in
Speaker 1: a way that I think other people would be um
Speaker 1: asking questions about it, you know, like, instead of kind
Speaker 1: of preaching at them or telling them what they're supposed
Speaker 1: to think or telling them what's supposed to be true,
Speaker 1: I thought that the bigger win would be to have
Speaker 1: them question and think about it for themselves and come
Speaker 1: to those conclusions by presenting them kind of evidence in
Speaker 1: a different way, you know. And I feel like that's
Speaker 1: what art's supposed to do. Instead of being like didactic
Speaker 1: didactic and telling you what, uh this means, you're supposed
Speaker 1: to kind of interpret it and kind of find the
Speaker 1: meaning to you know. So it's like a co construction.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if I I don't know if
Speaker 1: I achieved what I wanted to achieve. Um, but I
Speaker 1: am very proud of the record. Well for folks listening
Speaker 1: who want to answer that question for themselves. Where can
Speaker 1: they go check out your music? The best place to
Speaker 1: go is to my website. It's w W dot Chucky
Speaker 1: Campbell music dot com and Chucky with an I and E.
Speaker 1: It's not like a demonic possess. Okay, it's Curious Incidents
Speaker 1: and cancel culture um or if you google it, it'll
Speaker 1: pop up all over the place. It's it's on Spotify
Speaker 1: and it's been it did really well. It's an ep
Speaker 1: so um I was. I was happy the way the
Speaker 1: way it performed, especially during the pandemic. Yeah. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: gotta make sure you go check out Jackie Campbell and
Speaker 1: his his work. It's all on YouTube and all on
Speaker 1: the internet. Man, thank you for coming through again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: alright and blessings. Author Michael Eric Dyson said something when
Speaker 1: talking about Colin Kaepernick that kind of stuck with me.
Speaker 1: He said, cancel culture is the internalization of the of
Speaker 1: an ethic of white supremacy. And it's with the Colin
Speaker 1: Kaepernick situation that should pretty much inform you. Whenever you're
Speaker 1: talking to someone or whenever you hear somebody complaining about
Speaker 1: cancel culture, just think about Colin Kaepernick, point blank, period, Like,
Speaker 1: just think about the situation. Right, you have somebody who
Speaker 1: did something that wasn't politically correct, and as a result,
Speaker 1: he had a rabid PC mob that wouldn't hear him
Speaker 1: out and wouldn't show empathy and refuse to lend any
Speaker 1: sort of good faith interpretation to the context of his
Speaker 1: side of the story, and as a result, he got
Speaker 1: fire from his job. So whenever you hear any of
Speaker 1: these motherfucker's talking about, Okay, how's the culture this, how
Speaker 1: come I can't speak on this college campus, I guarantee
Speaker 1: you of them saying that would tell you all college
Speaker 1: camra Dick he used to shut up. He needed to
Speaker 1: do what he's told to stand out for the flags
Speaker 1: with the troops. So you know that's why at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, a lot of this ship is
Speaker 1: capped and I don't I don't buy any of it.
Speaker 1: We've talked a lot in recent episodes about um the
Speaker 1: Maga rappers, who like in the sense we're canceled. I mean,
Speaker 1: they were like criticized online, but as we discussed as
Speaker 1: well in previous episodes, like I'm not sure I've really
Speaker 1: had hurt their pockets so that it came out in
Speaker 1: support of Trump or anything like that. Um Trina. As
Speaker 1: another example, rapper Trina called protesters during the George Floyd
Speaker 1: protests animals, and she was allegedly canceled for it. Um
Speaker 1: apparently super disturbing to me. A little boozy paid an
Speaker 1: adult woman to give oral sex his son and pup
Speaker 1: and publicly a tacked fame basketball players transgender son, and
Speaker 1: he was canceled allegedly. I say allegedly because I think
Speaker 1: if they were to put out new music, its success
Speaker 1: would be determined how hot they are, and by none
Speaker 1: of those contrapartues. I mean, I can to like he
Speaker 1: talked about Llewayne and on one of the most recent episodes,
Speaker 1: like his new album was new music, like probably like
Speaker 1: I don't know how it was doing, but I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised if a flop because it sucks, and not
Speaker 1: necessarily because he came out in favor of Trump. It's
Speaker 1: really about your artistic production and how people value it
Speaker 1: because people and you know, end up bobbing their heads
Speaker 1: and like this in the club to all sorts. A
Speaker 1: problem matter rappers all the time. It's really about the
Speaker 1: quality of your music. I mean, does anybody famous barring
Speaker 1: them committing like serious crimes and ship like that. But
Speaker 1: is anybody famous ever been successfully canceled for some ship
Speaker 1: that they said? I, I mean, has that happened? I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not sure, But like you know, whenever they've
Speaker 1: dug up somebody's old tweets or somebody has been caught
Speaker 1: on cameras, has this like actually tangibly affected anybody's career
Speaker 1: Because none of the people that we just talked about,
Speaker 1: I don't think their career is going to be affected
Speaker 1: by you know, like you just said, if people aren't
Speaker 1: gonna buy a new Trina album, it's gonna be because
Speaker 1: nobody is really checking for new treat of music as
Speaker 1: opposed to ah Man. I was a treat A fan.
Speaker 1: But then she said, like, I don't just think. I
Speaker 1: don't think her fans are even looking at caring about
Speaker 1: that ship. I would, but I don't think her fans are.
Speaker 1: Little Wayne is definitely not canceled. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: He's he's gonna he's gonna do do his numbers when
Speaker 1: he comes out, Kanye West, whatever he drops a new album,
Speaker 1: he's gonna do his numbers. So Lynn Minuel Miranda Face
Speaker 1: claims his renowned musical, Hamilton's whitewash crimes of the u
Speaker 1: S founding Fathers. That's cool, but what had happened? There's
Speaker 1: a good one of hip hop bands grind cancel culture
Speaker 1: despite the man of self tweeting all criticisms. The valid
Speaker 1: is your tonage of complexities and failings of these people.
Speaker 1: I couldn't get or wrestled with boot cut I took
Speaker 1: six years and fits as much as they could into
Speaker 1: a two and a half hour musical have been my best.
Speaker 1: It's all fair game. That's interesting. The people who are
Speaker 1: super opposed to cancel culture, we'll freak out about celebrities.
Speaker 1: They like receiving criticism, even in those celebrities themselves embrace
Speaker 1: that process of accountability. In my opinion, that's pretty much
Speaker 1: just what Chucky was saying, and Lynn had the right
Speaker 1: sort of perspective of it. But it's like, YO, shut
Speaker 1: the funk up. Just because people don't like something that
Speaker 1: someone did doesn't mean that they're being canceled. That means
Speaker 1: that a motherfucker is telling you they have a problem
Speaker 1: with you, and you can either be like, oh damn,
Speaker 1: you have a problem with me. Damn, what did I
Speaker 1: do wrong? How can I fix this, How can I
Speaker 1: be better? Or you can say, yeah, I don't give
Speaker 1: an if you got a problem with meks my ass,
Speaker 1: but don't fucking cry about your being canceled. And oh
Speaker 1: this is canceled culture. Oh my god, did you hear
Speaker 1: those four hundred people? Four hundred of my million Twitter
Speaker 1: followers are upset that I did something? Why are you
Speaker 1: canceling me? It's it sounds fucking pathetic. After a point,
Speaker 1: Atlanta rapper t I Mr t I P. Do they
Speaker 1: still call t t I P? Anyway? T I said,
Speaker 1: all this cancel culture I think is fake. Like jay
Speaker 1: Z said, first they hate you, then they love you,
Speaker 1: then they hate you again. You'll cancel Kanye. You canceled
Speaker 1: someone like Kanye. Now, I don't agree with his views.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of things he says, a lot
Speaker 1: of positions and perspectives he speaks from that I have
Speaker 1: no agreeance with. But that's not going to take away
Speaker 1: from the fact that he's a phenomenal artist and he
Speaker 1: makes great music. T I said, but you'll cancel him.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, when someone like Gucci does
Speaker 1: black face, then you're cool with that, so you'll keep
Speaker 1: wearing Gucci, but you canceled Kanye. No, nigga, you'll keep
Speaker 1: wearing Gucci, Yo, man, I don't understand Yeah, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: I just I've just read the news. I don't claim
Speaker 1: to understand it. I don't know what the funk any
Speaker 1: of that ship means. But it's like, no, I don't
Speaker 1: wear Gucci and I'm not gonna be listening to Kanye.
Speaker 1: It's just a personal decision. And I think that's all
Speaker 1: the any point that anybody was making. The few people
Speaker 1: who were willing to go that far, that's all they
Speaker 1: were saying. I didn't hear any sort of calls for
Speaker 1: a this company shouldn't sell the new Yea Zys or
Speaker 1: like Yo, Kanye's record labels should drop them, even after
Speaker 1: all the slavery was a choice ship. I didn't hear
Speaker 1: anybody calling for that ship. There was just, you know,
Speaker 1: a decent chunk of people who were like, oh, Kanye
Speaker 1: is sucking with the Nazis. I don't funk with Kanye anymore.
Speaker 1: And that's it. Now at the point that t is
Speaker 1: trying to make it, NA, you can't do that. That's canceling.
Speaker 1: You gotta buy his new album or else you're part
Speaker 1: of the PC mob. Get the funk out of here
Speaker 1: with that dumb ship. Okay, that is gonna do it
Speaker 1: for us today, Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget to go
Speaker 1: out and check out Chucky Campbell stuff. And don't forget
Speaker 1: to check me out my new song Sundance coming out
Speaker 1: in February twelve. Hey, shameless promotion in February twelve. Dope
Speaker 1: Knife new song Sundance. Check it out Spotify YouTube, all
Speaker 1: that ship. Um, I feel like rapping your joel. Let
Speaker 1: her brother get a beat? Check check check did dope
Speaker 1: waiting on reparations? Dope Knife is an effect while you
Speaker 1: hating the brother. The only thing that I'm gonna cancel
Speaker 1: is a date with your mother like a motherfucking all
Speaker 1: star knocking out the ballpark. Keep a short and simple dog.
Speaker 1: I've never been a tall dog. Cancel take the rap game.
Speaker 1: Holding for ransom. The only rat nigget it. Used to
Speaker 1: listen to hands and pouring beers and yelling cheers like
Speaker 1: Teddy dancing. I gotta be boys in my squad his
Speaker 1: steady dancing. I'm about to bug out and cause a
Speaker 1: fucking wreck. If biding the democrats, don't send me another check.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the hell is taken long? Why
Speaker 1: I had to make the song, need the reparations with
Speaker 1: the hell you people waiting all imagine for a second
Speaker 1: that your name is Joe Wynn Woklin and feeling the
Speaker 1: heat so transported. Now get crying. I cancel culture all
Speaker 1: your fans. So just why can't I just be a
Speaker 1: big weep on the French shoulder. Well, if it is
Speaker 1: in the consequences of oma shitty actually coming up to
Speaker 1: catch it, it's and it's so sad. You gotta answer
Speaker 1: to the people who made it so you could buy
Speaker 1: a fancy man. Just be in hell on the internet
Speaker 1: where the total possessed get a grip taken out of it.
Speaker 1: This is how bad against And trust me, girl, you're
Speaker 1: much luckier than the average. All the rest of us
Speaker 1: are broken ship between the bills and rent. You could
Speaker 1: to sit our neuro stickpy and hated, filthy rich. Hey yo,
Speaker 1: my name's Dove. We are waiting on reparations for up
Speaker 1: see you next week. Waiting on Reparations is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Listen to Waiting on Reparations on
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts.