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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.

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Speaker 1: My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called

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Speaker 1: me Ben. We are joined as always with our super

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Speaker 1: producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you

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Speaker 1: are you, You are here, and that makes this stuff

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Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. What more appropriate way

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Speaker 1: to begin today's episode than to shout out dead Press,

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Speaker 1: who should be familiar to any any fan of hip hop.

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Speaker 1: As it was, I don't know about you all, but

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Speaker 1: as I was researching a lot of this, he kept

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Speaker 1: playing in my head. It's bigger than hip hop, and

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Speaker 1: it's true. This This is a prescident group. Uh. This

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Speaker 1: is a group that, for anyone unfamiliar with the genre,

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Speaker 1: is known for activism, known for political stances, known for

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Speaker 1: taking the message beyond the music right and into the

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Speaker 1: halls of power and speaking truth to those folks. Today's episode,

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Speaker 1: if we were describing it as a wine, would have

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Speaker 1: a you know, an autumnal note of Edward Burnet's a

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Speaker 1: crisp bite of music industry corruption. Yes, a vintage of

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Speaker 1: hip hop. And then some would say an undertone throughout

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Speaker 1: a bouquet of conspiracy that may affect millions of people

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Speaker 1: today and overall quite the you mommy, if I may

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Speaker 1: say so myself, Yeah, mommy of institutionalized racism. That's the

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Speaker 1: one I was referring to, Matt the idiosum Mommy, which

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Speaker 1: was also the name of my post rock vavee wave group. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: we don't need to get into that. But but music,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about hip hop. We are fans of hip hop. Uh.

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Speaker 1: We're obviously nerds, I think to some degree. Uh In

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Speaker 1: like many people, we define different phases of our lives

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Speaker 1: by the music we encounter at those pivotal moments, and

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Speaker 1: that's something that's common to all human beings. But if

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Speaker 1: you didn't know anything about hip hop, uh, we we

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Speaker 1: should probably start there as we dive into this this

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Speaker 1: strange allegation. So here are the facts. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: the genesis of hip hop really is and it's it's

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Speaker 1: a uniquely American art form and that it started, you

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Speaker 1: know in Brooklyn, New York, largely uh, in Harlem street parties.

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Speaker 1: Kind of or block parties that involved DJs taking two

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Speaker 1: records and playing back and forth the breaks, which are

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Speaker 1: like the part in a track that is sort of

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Speaker 1: like the part where there's no singing, and you could

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Speaker 1: take like jazz records or you know, R and B

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Speaker 1: records or what have you, and juggle those back and

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Speaker 1: forth by keeping those breaks going, and then mcs masters

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Speaker 1: of ceremony would wrap over them and these would literally

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Speaker 1: be I mean, there were certainly parties that involved just

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Speaker 1: you know, um like boom boxes and in that kind

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Speaker 1: of pre recorded music, but it's this phenomenon that really started,

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Speaker 1: you know, becoming what we now know as hip hop.

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Speaker 1: You had DJs like jam Master J and grand Master Flash,

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Speaker 1: funk Master Flex, they were all masters of the art

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Speaker 1: of of turntabling, and then you would have mcs like

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Speaker 1: Fab five, Freddie or some of the earlier names that

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Speaker 1: you would hear about in the Genesis of hip hop

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Speaker 1: rapping on top of those juggled kind of beats. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would say one of the biggest misconceptions that we

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Speaker 1: run into when exploring hip hop is if someone is

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Speaker 1: not familiar with it right or familiar with the history

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Speaker 1: of it, then it might be mistaken as simply music,

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Speaker 1: which is not the case. Hip hop is more of

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Speaker 1: a movement, and there's a large amount of scholarly debate

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Speaker 1: over what the foundational pillars of this movement would be considered,

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Speaker 1: you know, but but in general, these four pillars or

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Speaker 1: elements will call them, can be considered the foundations of

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Speaker 1: this movement, like you described Noel to the most well

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Speaker 1: known DJ mcne or rapping right DJ and turntabling, em sing, rapping,

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Speaker 1: graffiti right, and then of course breakdancing B boy. And

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Speaker 1: nowadays you'll often hear hip hop use as a synonym

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Speaker 1: for rap music, but it's really best to think of

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Speaker 1: rap as part of hip hop rather than the thing

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Speaker 1: entire And and you're right, it did originate in New

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Speaker 1: York City, in the South Bronx, in the and economically

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Speaker 1: depressed period of time in that in that area. And

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Speaker 1: again there there's so much excellent scholarship on the complex

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Speaker 1: cultural roots of this movement, uh that I would recommend

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Speaker 1: that there's something will reference later in this episode a

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Speaker 1: great new podcast called Louder Than a Riot, which is

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Speaker 1: available on MPR, and I highly recommend checking it out.

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Speaker 1: It's got our own Rodney Carmichael on there. Uh, this

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Speaker 1: this kind of stuff proves that there there's serious academic thought,

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Speaker 1: forensic research into the ecosystem from which this movement sprang

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Speaker 1: and and the way that it synthesizes much much older

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Speaker 1: traditions and things. As hip hop began at society's margins.

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Speaker 1: Its origins are kind of legendary, at times mythical or enigmatic.

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Speaker 1: But one thing's for sure. The bright eggs in the

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Speaker 1: music industry realized there was money to be made. And

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Speaker 1: when they realized there was money to be made, what

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Speaker 1: was seen as an underground or less mainstream thing began

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Speaker 1: to move to the center of public conversation. I do

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Speaker 1: want to walk back really quickly. I said, Uh, the

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Speaker 1: earliest days of hip hop were in you know, Brooklyn

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Speaker 1: and and Harlem, And you're absolutely right. Then it was

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Speaker 1: the South Bronx were started. But then it quickly kind

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Speaker 1: of spread throughout the other boroughs of New York and

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Speaker 1: and it is very much a New York City phenomenon um.

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Speaker 1: And it's it's very true, Ben. It very quickly became

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Speaker 1: clear that there was an industry within you know, this

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Speaker 1: very grassroots uh genre and culture because You're right. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't just the music. It was the graffiti, it was

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Speaker 1: the dancing, it was fashion, it was all of this

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Speaker 1: thing that was just rife for you know, commodifying. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think that's an important it's just an important thing

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Speaker 1: to think about. What I want to pinpoint on the

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Speaker 1: graffiti really quickly, because it's a form of marketing in

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Speaker 1: a way, Um, if you think about it correctly. You know,

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Speaker 1: if you could if you tagged your name and you're

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Speaker 1: a well known you know, DJ or m c um

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Speaker 1: and you're you know, tagging in certain places, people start

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Speaker 1: to recognize, oh yeah, this is around an area where

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Speaker 1: there was you know, essentially concert or a party or

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Speaker 1: something going on. You begin to recognize that tag um

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Speaker 1: And then Ben, you're just you're talking about some some

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Speaker 1: people within this larger music industry realized how popular this

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Speaker 1: could be if it was funneled through the official channels.

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Speaker 1: And that's that's what this whole episode is about. What

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Speaker 1: happens when when something that has a grassroots uh, that

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Speaker 1: is being risen from the grassroots, gets funneled through these

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Speaker 1: channels with a little bit of a big some rent

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Speaker 1: seeking along the way. That's right, shout out to capitalism. Uh,

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Speaker 1: the only ideology that will take a T shirt that

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Speaker 1: says down with capitalism and figure out a way to

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Speaker 1: sell it to you. That's at the risk of sounding

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Speaker 1: cynical or nihilistic. That is that is the case. The

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Speaker 1: music industry today is a very different beast now, mainly

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Speaker 1: because of the advents of the Internet, which democratized a

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Speaker 1: lot of things people at access they did not have before.

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Speaker 1: But in the days before you could hop online or

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Speaker 1: use your magic pocket computer. UH, structural forces in the

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Speaker 1: music business wielded profound control over what could or could

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Speaker 1: not be played, what was or was not to find

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Speaker 1: us successful, right, and what you heard. If you're just

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Speaker 1: going to concerts, if you're just listening to the radio,

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Speaker 1: if you don't live in New York and the music

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Speaker 1: industry suits are not giving the co sign consigliare style

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Speaker 1: to a given group performing in New York, then you

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Speaker 1: might never hear of them. And of course this is

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Speaker 1: still to some extent true in the modern day. The industry,

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Speaker 1: with all its wiles and those still does this stuff

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Speaker 1: all the time. We've talked about it. We talked about

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Speaker 1: who actually writes so many of the pop songs you hear.

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Speaker 1: But in the pre Internet era, corruption was there's a

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Speaker 1: there's a word. Uh. Frank Moharan, friend of the show,

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Speaker 1: taught me a long time ago, wide rife that when

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Speaker 1: corruption was wide rife, uh, like predatory deals sent artists

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Speaker 1: directly from the studio to the poorhouse. Well, they'd make

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Speaker 1: a stop at a couple of concert halls and then

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Speaker 1: here we are. And that's maybe something we have to

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Speaker 1: do another day. That's a whole episode, but it's true.

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Speaker 1: Really quickly, I just wanted to add, you know, we're

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Speaker 1: talking about the difference between needing a record deal uh

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Speaker 1: and being able to do it yourself through like SoundCloud

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Speaker 1: and so many of these these infrastructures that are in

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Speaker 1: place now just you wouldn't have had in those in

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Speaker 1: those days. UM. And that's really democratized, you know, the

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Speaker 1: entertainment industry to the point where it's almost like who

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Speaker 1: needs a record label anymore? Um. And if you're interested,

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Speaker 1: there's actually, um a little bit of clever modeling that

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Speaker 1: some programmer dreamt up and it's called a record deal simulator,

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Speaker 1: and it just lets you kind of run the numbers

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Speaker 1: and make it make you realize very quickly if if

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Speaker 1: you are in fact getting screwed. Um, and unless you're

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Speaker 1: dealing with cool indie labels that have a very cool

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Speaker 1: niche kind of foot in the door with a certain

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Speaker 1: type of genre or certain type of artists, uh, you

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Speaker 1: really don't need that as much anymore. And so many

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Speaker 1: amazing artists like Billie Eilish, for example, Sure she has

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Speaker 1: a record deal because she gets this massive benefit of

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Speaker 1: the distribution that is a record label like Interscope, but

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Speaker 1: she got big because of her SoundCloud and because of

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Speaker 1: like just being an interesting artist in and of herself,

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Speaker 1: or touring. You know, a lot of a lot of

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Speaker 1: the financial bread and butter for many musical acts is

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Speaker 1: ultimately touring anyway. Shout out to out jeers and in

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Speaker 1: the matted or able they seem they seem pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: Nobody ruined that for me. I don't want it to

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Speaker 1: go wrong. You're right, though, you're right, and contracts aside,

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Speaker 1: there's physical and emotional danger in the music industry. You

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Speaker 1: want to be successful, says some creepy uh suit, What

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Speaker 1: would you do? You know what I mean? So, abuse

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Speaker 1: of all types is common, and it's covered up because

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Speaker 1: people feel like their careers are on the line, and

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Speaker 1: in some cases they may be absolutely correct. Payola nepotism

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Speaker 1: runs rampant. For anyone who doesn't know. Guys, what is payola,

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Speaker 1: It's a it's Creola's really really evil. Cousin nailed it. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Payola is also a term for a term for direct

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Speaker 1: pay to play on a radio station, right, yeah, and

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Speaker 1: it's weird. It's really yeah. That's that's weird stuff because

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Speaker 1: you could you can pay it again on it, or

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Speaker 1: the radio station can just decide to play your song

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Speaker 1: a lot, and then all of a sudden it becomes

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Speaker 1: they're one of their top hits. And that's weird to

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Speaker 1: say coming from you know that you may be listening

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Speaker 1: to this on the radio. That's true. I hope you are.

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Speaker 1: That's true. We actually it's funny. Just for being associated

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Speaker 1: with so many radio stations. We had to take a

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Speaker 1: mandated thing about ethics in this in this field, and

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Speaker 1: one of the big things that our corporate overlord said

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Speaker 1: is no, paola, it's illegal. Don't do it like that

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Speaker 1: was that was a point. I don't know about you all, uh,

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Speaker 1: but coming from the podcast side, that was that was

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Speaker 1: really weird to me. I was like, oh, got it.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for thinking I'm important enough for this to

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Speaker 1: ever be an issue. But I think you guys got it,

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Speaker 1: you know, And I think the simplest way to think

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Speaker 1: about what payola is is just pay for play. It's

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Speaker 1: it's it's literally you know, Greece and palms to get

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Speaker 1: radio play, you know, um gifts and the like. And

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Speaker 1: so there are very codified set of rules in place

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Speaker 1: to prevent even the whiff of of this practice. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and that's mandated by the Federal Communications Commission. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: that happened for a reason. Like you ever walk into

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Speaker 1: a place of business and you see a weird like

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Speaker 1: you see you see the normal warnings like no shirt,

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Speaker 1: no shoes, no service, but then you see really weirdly

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Speaker 1: specific warning it's like no drunk ducks. And you're thinking, okay,

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Speaker 1: well that something weird happened at this chevron or whatever.

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Speaker 1: This This law exists, and it's explicit because it was

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Speaker 1: so prevalent and there were there were like literally small

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Speaker 1: groups of people, small number of people who could make

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Speaker 1: someone a success. And this group or this industry, whatever

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Speaker 1: you want to call it, I wouldn't call it a

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Speaker 1: cabal quite yet. But this group cast its collective gaze

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Speaker 1: saw on like towards the thing called rap. Fast forward.

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Speaker 1: Today rap comes in a multitude of genres, so many

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Speaker 1: and so many amazing, amazing things like conscious hip hop,

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Speaker 1: trip hop like you know, think of like tricky or

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Speaker 1: a similar performers mumble rap, uh grime. And for a time,

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Speaker 1: as these things were evolving successfully and concurrently, one of

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Speaker 1: the most controversial genres was something that was originally known

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Speaker 1: as reality rap and today is often referred to as

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Speaker 1: gangster rap. Yeah, and you know the genre of gangs.

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Speaker 1: You know, sometimes the name of a genre, it certainly

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Speaker 1: doesn't come along with the like advent of a genre.

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Speaker 1: It kind of gets named later, usually based around the zeitgeister,

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Speaker 1: like the way it's referred to in criticism or in

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Speaker 1: like music journalism or whatever. Like. Nobody usually coins the

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Speaker 1: name of their genre as they're pushing it out into

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Speaker 1: the world. Is kind of left up to the listeners

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Speaker 1: to decide or you know, the taste makers or whatever.

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Speaker 1: But we could trace back the genre that is considered

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Speaker 1: gangster rap, which isn't always a sound. It's not always

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Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of things that goes into it.

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Speaker 1: But uh six in the Morning by Iced Tea UM,

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Speaker 1: which is released in x is typically referred to as

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Speaker 1: the very first gangster rap song. UM. But iced t, however,

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Speaker 1: gives credit where credit is due, as as we are

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Speaker 1: huge fans of doing on this very show. Um, but

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Speaker 1: that is not something that is always a common thing

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Speaker 1: done in the entertainment industry. It's all about kind of

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Speaker 1: flexing and uh sort of you know, biting people's styles often,

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Speaker 1: especially in hip hop, and just being first to market

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Speaker 1: with something and and that in and of itself is

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Speaker 1: almost like considered, Oh well, I was first to do it,

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Speaker 1: therefore it was my idea. But we know that's not true.

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Speaker 1: But he very clearly gives credit for this tune UM

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Speaker 1: to school E D S M p SK track part

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Speaker 1: side Killers Yeah I See. Also notes that around the

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Speaker 1: same time, Boogie Down in Productions on the East Coast

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Speaker 1: came out with the album Criminal Minded. So if you're

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Speaker 1: the average fan at this time, you notice immediately there's

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Speaker 1: something different here, and it's not clearly defined or or

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Speaker 1: limited by a single difference. You know. That's why I

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Speaker 1: really like about your point. Noll Uh, there's there's a

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Speaker 1: sound that's different there the stories told are different critics

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Speaker 1: as they are wont to do hate this new stuff.

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Speaker 1: Hate it, hate it, hate you know what I mean?

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Speaker 1: They say the main reason they hate it is they

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Speaker 1: feel that it glorifies violence. They feel that it sells

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Speaker 1: a romanticized view of a criminal life to vulnerable children,

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Speaker 1: to vulnerable population struggling to get by. This is a

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Speaker 1: relatively conservative view. It's very popular in conservative circles. But

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Speaker 1: I want to point out this is not an original view. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The US has had a weird love hate relationship, call

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Speaker 1: it a fatal attraction crush with what it perceives as

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Speaker 1: gangster since the country was founded. I mean, people loved

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Speaker 1: al Capone, right, al Capone didn't even make music. He

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Speaker 1: was just he was just a scumbag. And and people

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Speaker 1: people like body Clide right there. I mean that's yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: people also loved alcohol even when we were you know,

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Speaker 1: when the view was that it should be prohibited completely,

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Speaker 1: you know. I mean it's just it's an interesting love

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Speaker 1: hate relationship that we have with law and order and

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Speaker 1: then you know freedom. Right. I think those are the

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Speaker 1: two dichotomies. Like that's what it feels like. What's that

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Speaker 1: old line? Uh, during Prohibition, there was some guy I

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Speaker 1: can't remember his name, he said, uh choice where he said, look,

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Speaker 1: people are going to vote for prohibition as long as

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Speaker 1: they could still stumble to the polls. And that's that's

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Speaker 1: kind of I mean that there is a commonality there,

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Speaker 1: There is a there's a pattern America. And I love

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Speaker 1: your point about freedom versus law, you know, autonomy versus

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Speaker 1: authoritarianism here, Matt, because one thing that the critics often

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Speaker 1: and in my mind, willfully ignored was that Gangster rapp

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Speaker 1: was is speaking truth to power like in w A

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, you'll have to edit me here. I want

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Speaker 1: to censor the thing in w as song. The police

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Speaker 1: this right, this ruffled feathers. Right, not just like a

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Speaker 1: moral panic somewhere in America, But the FBI paid attention.

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Speaker 1: The FBI assistant director at the time, a guy named

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Speaker 1: Milt al Rich, wrote a letter in response, and the

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Speaker 1: letter was mainly talking about just how deeply law enforcement

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Speaker 1: resented the song. So they got a strongly worded letter,

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Speaker 1: which is like the most square authoritarian thing to do. Well.

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Speaker 1: By the time, I was speaking to a real problem

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Speaker 1: in that in that community. Uh. And it's something that

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Speaker 1: obviously you know, hasn't gone away, if if if the

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Speaker 1: times are living in now, or any indication um that

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Speaker 1: the l a p D in particular has a history

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Speaker 1: of corruption and has a history of being involved in

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Speaker 1: crime themselves and taking advantage of people, especially people of color. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: for sure. But but it is, I mean, it's it's

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Speaker 1: a fascinating thing to look at because if you look

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Speaker 1: at the lyrics of something like six in the Morning,

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Speaker 1: the iced Tea song that we're referencing there, I mean,

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Speaker 1: he's talking about getting into a firefight, a gun battle

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Speaker 1: with police officers with a swat team, um, which you

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Speaker 1: know you can totally see like suburban families maybe, um,

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Speaker 1: more conservative thinking people would just think that is the

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Speaker 1: the worst thing ever. Like you're encouraging other people to

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Speaker 1: think about that and like that's a cool thing or

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Speaker 1: a good thing. It's talking about jail time, it is

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Speaker 1: talking about a lot of other crimes. But yeah, you're

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Speaker 1: absolutely right, like drawing that line then between what the

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Speaker 1: what the l a p D is actually doing, what

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Speaker 1: NYPD was doing, um, what police departments across the country

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Speaker 1: we're doing at the time. It's just you know, it

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Speaker 1: does feel like a battle in some ways for the

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Speaker 1: mind about what is right and what is actually happening. Absolutely,

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Speaker 1: and then also point out, uh, country music does the

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Speaker 1: same damn thing for a long time. Read those reads. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: read out. You read some Johnny Cash lyrics and tell

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Speaker 1: me there's not some gangsters in there. You know. It's

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Speaker 1: like we always say one um, one side's terrorists is

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Speaker 1: the other side's freedom fighter. You know, it's easy. It's

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Speaker 1: all about where do you stand as to what the

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Speaker 1: police is to you? And I think that's that's important

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Speaker 1: to have that perspective. And so many of the is

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Speaker 1: are also play out allegorically where it's not there. There's

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Speaker 1: there's subtext within a lot of these lyrics that that

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Speaker 1: clearly isn't saying, yeah, I live this life. It's like

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Speaker 1: you might die if you live this life. But it

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Speaker 1: is a life, and it is the life that I

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Speaker 1: live or that we live. So it is speaking truth

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Speaker 1: to power, but I don't I would argue that it

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Speaker 1: doesn't always glorify it in the way that the square

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Speaker 1: sounding kind of critics might think. I agree with you

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Speaker 1: at times. You know, it's you can't say an entire

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Speaker 1: genre can be described by one thing or one message

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Speaker 1: and one song, but yeah, it's it's incredibly misleading to

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Speaker 1: say that there there is always glorification. I'd also like

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Speaker 1: to shout out a really cool my song freestyle on

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Speaker 1: funk Flex that is about this very issue, the image

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Speaker 1: being sold for the betrayal of that image, and what

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Speaker 1: the origins of that betrayal are and who decides what

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Speaker 1: part of the picture gets framed for public consumption. In

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Speaker 1: any case, as we're making we're making real points here.

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Speaker 1: The battle lines are drawn right in some people's minds.

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Speaker 1: We've got these organizations, these individuals who enter a legit

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Speaker 1: moral panic about hip hop, similar to you know, as

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Speaker 1: you pointed out, mad, a satanic panic, right, D and

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Speaker 1: D is gonna have our children reading the Keys of

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Speaker 1: Solomon or whatever which they might, but it would be

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Speaker 1: for a campaign and it would probably be pretty fun. Uh,

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Speaker 1: this this is weird? Is it glorification? Other other people?

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Speaker 1: Proponents of artistry, proponents of activism, actual musicians, producers, fans responded, Uh,

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Speaker 1: and you know, of course the artists responded by saying, look,

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Speaker 1: I'm depicting the life I experienced, right, and I'm successfully

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Speaker 1: doing it. I didn't create the situation in which I

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Speaker 1: was born. Uh, and it's you know, it's it's a

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Speaker 1: deeply offensive kind of censorship to say that I can't

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Speaker 1: tell the truth about my life in the US of

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Speaker 1: all places. So there's a complex argument there, and it's

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Speaker 1: pretty solid brought back to the money, because this is

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Speaker 1: the US in America, there are a couple of things

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Speaker 1: that move the needle. The big one is cash, cold

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Speaker 1: heart cash, the cheddar, the cheese. So Gang Sa Rapp

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Speaker 1: was selling. It was successful. People wanted to listen to it, right, Uh.

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Speaker 1: And it wasn't just a phenomenon where uh, you know

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Speaker 1: a lot of people are listening to it from a

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Speaker 1: privileged perspective. They had the luxury of never experiencing and

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Speaker 1: never having to experience the things that are talked about

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Speaker 1: in this music. So for whatever reason it's successful, it

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Speaker 1: was pushing the industry. And then that means for both

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Speaker 1: critics and proponents, it is pushing the conversation. And and

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Speaker 1: side note, you know, there was a lot of search

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Speaker 1: at the time and ongoing that tried to determine whether

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Speaker 1: there was a causation, right, whether there was a causitive

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Speaker 1: relationship between music and crime. Uh, specifically between listening to

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Speaker 1: gangster rap and then later joining a gang. This was,

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Speaker 1: by the way, popular view for many of folks on

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Speaker 1: the US conservative side. But the problem there is that

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Speaker 1: vastly oversimplifies the numerous socio economic factors that were involved,

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Speaker 1: many of which the majority of which I would say

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Speaker 1: clearly existed way before school. E. D Right ever, ever,

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Speaker 1: put out a record in two thousand eleven, the World

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Speaker 1: Development Report confirmed that most of the street gang members

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Speaker 1: as they defined them, that they had spoken with, maintained

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Speaker 1: that they were driven to crime by poverty and unemployment,

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Speaker 1: not by music. None of them even mentioned music once,

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Speaker 1: which I think is is an interesting snapshot to pull

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Speaker 1: for a look at this situation. Yeah, you know, I

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Speaker 1: don't I don't want to bring my my wife's expertise

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Speaker 1: into too many of these episodes. But another thing that

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Speaker 1: you know has been shown to increase street level gang members,

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Speaker 1: at least in very young people, is home situations and

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Speaker 1: just what they're dealing with on a daily basis and

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Speaker 1: looking for a place with for family essentially, um outside

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Speaker 1: of any of the other glorified stuff that you would

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Speaker 1: hear about. Just putting that out there, Yeah, yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: a really good point, because people seek structure, don't we

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Speaker 1: We want some form of stability. And in this morass,

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Speaker 1: in this quagmire, as records are continuing to sell, by

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Speaker 1: the way, a larger stranger question arises. What if what

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Speaker 1: the industry is calling gangster wrap isn't an organic success.

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Speaker 1: What if in boardrooms and offices across the landscape of

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Speaker 1: the music industry, a hidden hand moves through the charts,

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Speaker 1: turns the dial of the radio station. What if someone

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Speaker 1: conspired to make gangster wrap successful. We'll dive deeper into

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Speaker 1: the track list after a word from our sponsor. Here's

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Speaker 1: where it gets crazy. One thing about music when it

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Speaker 1: when it hits you feel the pain, you know. And

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Speaker 1: and white folks they say it controls your brain. I

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Speaker 1: know better than that. That's that's game. Uh, and we're

427
00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:41,240
Speaker 1: ready for that. I'm just want to put that out

428
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:45,440
Speaker 1: there dead press. It's so well written, but I mean

429
00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:48,480
Speaker 1: that that's That's a great That's a great example in

430
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:52,040
Speaker 1: salient because there is the question, you know, to what

431
00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:57,399
Speaker 1: degree does the media we encounter affect our decisions? Not?

432
00:26:57,520 --> 00:27:01,720
Speaker 1: For nothing is propaganda tremendously six pessful. That's an exhibit

433
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:05,760
Speaker 1: a of how this stuff, how media can influence real

434
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:10,720
Speaker 1: life actions and perceptions. But there's a weird question here,

435
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:12,960
Speaker 1: you know, like when we ask what if the rise

436
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:16,159
Speaker 1: of gangster rap was not just an organic trend? At first?

437
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:19,719
Speaker 1: That seems like an odd thing to ask, you know,

438
00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:23,359
Speaker 1: because just imagine the moving parts involved. How could the

439
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:28,080
Speaker 1: success of not just a single artist, but an entire

440
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 1: genre be somehow coordinated across multiple institutions. How could it

441
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 1: be somehow manufactured? In two thousand twelve, someone claimed to

442
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:44,919
Speaker 1: uh to know exactly how it happened. Yeah, or at

443
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:50,879
Speaker 1: least they gave us a window into some of the

444
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:55,639
Speaker 1: details of how they say it happened, alleged window. I

445
00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 1: don't wanna, I don't want to. I don't want to

446
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 1: poke at it until we know it is okay, ok, yeah,

447
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: okay short, No, No, I don't know for sure. We're

448
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna have fun with this. We just

449
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 1: you know, on this show, as we always state, sources

450
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:16,280
Speaker 1: are very important where they come from, backing things up,

451
00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:19,439
Speaker 1: journalistic approach. We are we are presenting this to you

452
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:24,119
Speaker 1: all exactly uh, as we found it and as the

453
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:26,880
Speaker 1: world found it back in two thousand twelve. So back

454
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:30,440
Speaker 1: in two twelves, someone created a Gmail account and sent

455
00:28:30,600 --> 00:28:35,119
Speaker 1: a letter that absolutely um up ended the world of

456
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 1: hip hop. The user name John Smith very clever um,

457
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 1: the address industry Confessions at gmail dot com, and they

458
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:50,800
Speaker 1: composed the message using this very um, I would say, titillating. Uh,

459
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:53,240
Speaker 1: I don't know, very intriguing at the very least um

460
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:58,360
Speaker 1: subject line. The secret meeting that changed rap music and

461
00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 1: destroyed a generate ship. And this letter, which we're going

462
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 1: to look at through some excerpts, um tells a profoundly

463
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 1: and disturbing, if true story. Yeah. So this letter, which

464
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 1: you can read in full, was sent and published on

465
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:21,720
Speaker 1: hip hop has Read dot com r E D r

466
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:25,960
Speaker 1: E A D Yes. Thank you. The anonymous author says, Okay,

467
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:29,720
Speaker 1: it's taken me a long time too. I have thought

468
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 1: about sending this letter for a long long time, and

469
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:34,080
Speaker 1: I was afraid to. But I want to tell you

470
00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: what happened. Uh, well, we can call them John Smith.

471
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 1: Why not. Let's let's play their reindeer games. So John

472
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:44,680
Speaker 1: says that they were from Europe and they lived in

473
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:47,800
Speaker 1: the US in the nineties where they worked as a

474
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:52,960
Speaker 1: music executive. Very vague term there. John essentially implying that

475
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:55,920
Speaker 1: they're one of the elites on the corporate side of

476
00:29:55,960 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 1: the music industry, and they say that in they were

477
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:05,720
Speaker 1: invited to a very exclusive meeting on the outskirts of

478
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:10,000
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. The letter specifically says, quote, I was invited

479
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:12,320
Speaker 1: to tend to close door meeting with a small group

480
00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:16,960
Speaker 1: of music business insiders to discuss rap music's new direction,

481
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:23,480
Speaker 1: which is just a funny phrase, new direction, by the way. Yeah,

482
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:27,360
Speaker 1: little did I know. The author says that we would

483
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:30,120
Speaker 1: be asked to participate in one of the most unethical

484
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:35,120
Speaker 1: and destructive business practices I've ever seen. And so they

485
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 1: set the stage because again, this is an elite insider, right,

486
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:43,640
Speaker 1: so you would assume at an exclusive meeting in their

487
00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 1: area of expertise, they would know everybody kind of right, Yeah, yeah,

488
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's a possibility at least, And it

489
00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 1: gets a little stranger when it comes to like whose

490
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:56,480
Speaker 1: house it was and some of the other people that

491
00:30:56,560 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 1: were there. The details are a bit murky. I want

492
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 1: to point something out, just maybe grammatically within the letter itself,

493
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:08,680
Speaker 1: so we we are writer here, at least, according to

494
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 1: their own story, is from Europe, originally from some European country,

495
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:17,200
Speaker 1: came to the United States to Los Angeles, became an executive.

496
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:20,520
Speaker 1: They wrote this then. I don't want to spoil it

497
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:24,800
Speaker 1: too much, but they wrote this letter later on after leaving. Yeah.

498
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: So they they make several grammatical errors, several spelling errors

499
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 1: that I mean, it's not spelling, just grammatical errors, but

500
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:40,320
Speaker 1: things that I could see maybe just occurring if you

501
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 1: didn't write a whole bunch. But they're pretty simple errors

502
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:47,520
Speaker 1: that I think would be caught even in two thousand

503
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:52,720
Speaker 1: twelve by gmail. Um. I'm just interested to know how

504
00:31:52,840 --> 00:31:55,520
Speaker 1: those came about. Maybe it's something as simple as just

505
00:31:55,560 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 1: a mistype, but saying destructive business practice rather than practices. Um.

506
00:32:02,120 --> 00:32:03,800
Speaker 1: And there are a couple other places where they do

507
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:07,920
Speaker 1: that within the email, where it's just incorrect, and it's

508
00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 1: just it's something to point out, I guess, to think

509
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:14,960
Speaker 1: about when we're imagining who this person may be true? True?

510
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:19,080
Speaker 1: Who is this guyser? So's uh the yeah, and it

511
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 1: gets it gets us to the area where we might

512
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 1: be reading some tea leaves at times. But these are

513
00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 1: important questions. You could also say something as simple as well,

514
00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:30,640
Speaker 1: this is a very emotional confession for them and they're

515
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 1: typing in a hurry, and they're sending before they regret,

516
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:37,240
Speaker 1: before they give them, you know, before they start to

517
00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:39,560
Speaker 1: have doubt. But the truth of the matter is, we

518
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:43,600
Speaker 1: don't know. Here's what they say about this meeting again,

519
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 1: this alleged meeting. They say, I remember seeing about twenty

520
00:32:47,680 --> 00:32:51,440
Speaker 1: five to thirty people being there, most of them familiar faces.

521
00:32:52,080 --> 00:32:54,360
Speaker 1: Speaking to those I knew. We joked about the theme

522
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 1: of the meeting, as many of us did not care

523
00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 1: for rap music and failed to see the purpose of

524
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 1: being invited to a private gathering to discuss its future.

525
00:33:02,760 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 1: It's very gets interesting. Among the attendees was a small

526
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:10,720
Speaker 1: group of unfamiliar faces who stayed to themselves and made

527
00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:14,000
Speaker 1: no attempt to socialize beyond their circle. Based on their

528
00:33:14,040 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 1: behavior and formal appearances, they didn't seem to be part

529
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:23,560
Speaker 1: of our industry. Oh tantalizing, vague, in citious hue mummy. Indeed,

530
00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:30,480
Speaker 1: and the group in question was given a very strongly

531
00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:35,000
Speaker 1: worded nondisclosure Agreement UM that they were forced to sign

532
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:39,480
Speaker 1: before the meeting would commence, and some refused and got

533
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:42,560
Speaker 1: a little freaked out, and they were like, nah, I'm good,

534
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:47,560
Speaker 1: And they took off, and that's when the meeting commenced. Uh.

535
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:50,960
Speaker 1: And again there's a there's a person that the writer

536
00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 1: knew who welcomed everyone. It was like there they were

537
00:33:56,640 --> 00:33:58,360
Speaker 1: running the media at least it seemed to be their house,

538
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:00,560
Speaker 1: at least according to the person. And you're writing this,

539
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:04,120
Speaker 1: it's like, thanks everybody, And here's one of these men

540
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 1: that you don't know, and he's going to speak to

541
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:12,440
Speaker 1: us for a little while. That U polite collapse around

542
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:16,759
Speaker 1: and so this speaker will paraphrase some of this. But

543
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:20,600
Speaker 1: this this speaker is one of those unfamiliar folks, goes

544
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 1: on to say some wildly surreal stuff to this audience.

545
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:30,040
Speaker 1: Basically says, look, you all are here because the companies

546
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:35,919
Speaker 1: that you represent have invested in an exciting new business opportunity,

547
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:40,480
Speaker 1: a profitable industry that could be a gold mine. It

548
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:44,080
Speaker 1: could be immensely rewarding as long as you all help

549
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:47,520
Speaker 1: us out. See the companies that you all work for,

550
00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:50,240
Speaker 1: says this person, even if you don't know it yet,

551
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:54,560
Speaker 1: they've invested millions of dollars into building what we call

552
00:34:54,719 --> 00:35:00,880
Speaker 1: private prisons. And because of your position as taste makers

553
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:04,240
Speaker 1: of the music industry, you could have a big effect

554
00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:10,040
Speaker 1: on the profit of these investments. Imagine like we've been

555
00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:14,080
Speaker 1: just over the years, the four of US code named

556
00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 1: Doc Holiday, Matt Nolan, myself, we've all been in some

557
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:19,960
Speaker 1: really weird meetings. One time, Matt and I had to

558
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:28,480
Speaker 1: smuggle an Elvis impersonator into a into a Wait we did, really? No? Yeah? Really? Wait?

559
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:33,240
Speaker 1: Were you not there with Roxane? Oh no, we did. WHOA,

560
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:43,920
Speaker 1: that's weird blew right path. So you know, you're active

561
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:47,120
Speaker 1: in in an industry your career, you're gonna have some

562
00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:51,040
Speaker 1: weird meetings. But this is pretty twilight zone even for

563
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 1: these folks. And uh we have our author's reaction to

564
00:35:55,640 --> 00:35:58,280
Speaker 1: some of this news. Yeah, I mean at this time,

565
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:01,759
Speaker 1: in general, the concept of a private prison wasn't as

566
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:04,920
Speaker 1: much in the in the news UM as it has

567
00:36:04,960 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 1: it has been for many years. At this point, UM

568
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:09,560
Speaker 1: didn't have the rep that it has now. So the

569
00:36:09,560 --> 00:36:12,440
Speaker 1: author didn't even know what that was UM, And he

570
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:15,359
Speaker 1: wasn't the only one, he says, uh quote. Sure enough,

571
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:18,440
Speaker 1: someone asked what these prisons were and what any of

572
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:21,239
Speaker 1: this had to do with us. We were told that

573
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 1: these prisons were built by privately owned companies who received

574
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:28,040
Speaker 1: funding from the government. Based on the number of inmates. Um,

575
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 1: the more inmates, the more money the government would pay

576
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:32,840
Speaker 1: these prisons. It was also made clear to us that

577
00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 1: since these prisons are privately owned, as they become publicly traded,

578
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:41,799
Speaker 1: we'd be able to buy shares. It's really weird, right, Yeah,

579
00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:47,400
Speaker 1: it's also a cheap way to incentivize people. Yeah, I

580
00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 1: mean we're talking about psychological warfare here on like in

581
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:55,239
Speaker 1: the highest levels if this is true, If this is true,

582
00:36:55,320 --> 00:36:59,839
Speaker 1: and insider trading probably as well. Uh So the guy

583
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 1: from that point, the guy who you mentioned, Matt, who

584
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 1: may or may not be the owner of the house,

585
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:08,320
Speaker 1: but it's definitely in the music industry. He takes to

586
00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 1: the floor through questions and he says, look, since our

587
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:19,240
Speaker 1: bosses are silent investors in this promising new prison business,

588
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:23,440
Speaker 1: it is now in their interest, in your boss's interests

589
00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:27,480
Speaker 1: to make sure these prisons stay filled and your job.

590
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:30,839
Speaker 1: The way you guys helped the team here is two

591
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:36,239
Speaker 1: market music that promotes criminal behavior, and rap, says this

592
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:39,880
Speaker 1: guy is our music of choice. And then the author

593
00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:42,000
Speaker 1: says he assured us that this would be a great

594
00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:45,719
Speaker 1: situation for us because rap music is already becoming increasingly

595
00:37:45,800 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 1: profitable for companies, and you know you'll be able to

596
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:51,040
Speaker 1: buy personal stocks to the prison. So they're not like

597
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 1: directly paying these people. They're saying, tilt the scale with

598
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:57,760
Speaker 1: all the levers that you're you know, at your command,

599
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:00,880
Speaker 1: and then you can, in a asition to helping us,

600
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:05,719
Speaker 1: you can buy in two our really messed up plan.

601
00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:10,000
Speaker 1: And then silence filled the room for one long moment

602
00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:16,440
Speaker 1: before someone shouted is this a joke? Okay? But the

603
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:18,279
Speaker 1: question that that I'm that comes to mind, and I

604
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:21,000
Speaker 1: know we'll get in more into this is the implication that,

605
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:25,759
Speaker 1: like we're gonna fill up prisons more by popularizing the

606
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:30,560
Speaker 1: gangster lifestyle and like making young people aspire to that

607
00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 1: and therefore end up in prison. Is that the implication here?

608
00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 1: And am I overstating the case or I missing something? Well,

609
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:39,040
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break here to talk about history

610
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:41,560
Speaker 1: and and bring back some stuff, if it's okay, from

611
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:46,719
Speaker 1: our Private Prisons episode and videos and content we've made

612
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:50,399
Speaker 1: on that before. So if you really want to start

613
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:52,560
Speaker 1: talking about this stuff, you gotta go back to Reagan

614
00:38:52,920 --> 00:38:56,120
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties and the War on drugs and

615
00:38:56,239 --> 00:39:00,760
Speaker 1: the effect that those policies had on prison populations because

616
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:04,520
Speaker 1: now because of those laws, there are a lot more

617
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:09,880
Speaker 1: people getting sent to prison for smaller charges for like

618
00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 1: small a lot of smaller and being and being sentenced

619
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:21,880
Speaker 1: for longer periods of time, which means the you know, federal,

620
00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:25,359
Speaker 1: state and local prisons and jails are being filled up

621
00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:30,200
Speaker 1: faster and faster, which then spawns this concept and we're

622
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:32,359
Speaker 1: really talking about nineteen eighty three and onwards. I think

623
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:36,279
Speaker 1: that's when Corrections Corporation of America sec A that we've

624
00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:41,080
Speaker 1: talked about is formed. So that is a real thing

625
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 1: that is you know, I guess an industry that is

626
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:49,760
Speaker 1: taking off, you know what seven years prior eight years

627
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:55,279
Speaker 1: prior to this meeting that allegedly takes place, and you know,

628
00:39:56,320 --> 00:40:00,160
Speaker 1: we do know for sure that that that syste them

629
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:03,400
Speaker 1: that industry works by filling their prisons by the number

630
00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:06,120
Speaker 1: of beds that are filled. I just I guess I

631
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:07,600
Speaker 1: just want to pause you for saying to say, yeah,

632
00:40:07,600 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 1: the incentive there is real incentive there to make sure

633
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:14,279
Speaker 1: those private prisons are filled up. And if you can

634
00:40:14,320 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 1: do anything to move a need the needle to get

635
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:20,960
Speaker 1: more people into those prisons, then it would be profitable

636
00:40:22,239 --> 00:40:25,320
Speaker 1: for people who invested in it. Yeah, in the in

637
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:30,279
Speaker 1: the research for that one, one thing that heartbreaking really

638
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:33,279
Speaker 1: was to look at video clips you can see from

639
00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:39,400
Speaker 1: trade shows where company private prison corporations are, you know,

640
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:42,080
Speaker 1: and they've got the little like science fair displays set up,

641
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:44,960
Speaker 1: and they're talking the numbers and how how profitable this

642
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:50,440
Speaker 1: is and networking and they yeah, their success is defined

643
00:40:50,640 --> 00:40:55,360
Speaker 1: by the expansion of the mass incarceration system in the US.

644
00:40:55,840 --> 00:41:00,880
Speaker 1: And when this became, luckily a matter of larger debate

645
00:41:01,080 --> 00:41:04,280
Speaker 1: in the US mainstream, I can't remember when it happened,

646
00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:06,800
Speaker 1: maybe a little after our episode episodes of that, but

647
00:41:06,920 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 1: whenever it happened, Uh, they were radio silent for a

648
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:14,640
Speaker 1: little while. They took the hit on their stocks, and

649
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:20,799
Speaker 1: then there were these huge cries, panics even dare I say,

650
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 1: a moral panic over illegal immigration. And what did those

651
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:31,320
Speaker 1: private prison companies do with their infrastructure. They just moved

652
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:33,560
Speaker 1: it to you know, they stopped calling him prisons and

653
00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:35,920
Speaker 1: started calling them detainment centers. I think I may have

654
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:39,040
Speaker 1: mentioned this in a past episode, but um in a

655
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:42,680
Speaker 1: previous life, when I was a reporter for Georgia Public Radio,

656
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:47,360
Speaker 1: UM I covered when the housing collapse happened and it

657
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:49,399
Speaker 1: put a lot of like small towns that were based

658
00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 1: around manufacturing basically just completely you know, leveled their employment.

659
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:55,919
Speaker 1: There was just nothing. And there was this one little

660
00:41:55,960 --> 00:41:59,880
Speaker 1: town in Georgia that I covered who their entire businesses

661
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:02,719
Speaker 1: based around like textile menu or it wasn't textiles, it

662
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:05,960
Speaker 1: was like building materials and you know, fabric for furniture

663
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:08,320
Speaker 1: and things like that. Um, but all of their plants

664
00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:11,000
Speaker 1: closed and it was like they had the highest unemployment

665
00:42:11,120 --> 00:42:13,800
Speaker 1: rate like in the entire state. And c c A

666
00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:18,719
Speaker 1: uh was gonna bring a prison there maybe maybe. And

667
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:21,280
Speaker 1: I covered this event where the c c A people

668
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:25,359
Speaker 1: literally had a gym, you know, packed with like all

669
00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 1: the towns people like you would think, and just talking

670
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:31,520
Speaker 1: about how great this sees this prison facility was gonna be,

671
00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:34,480
Speaker 1: how it's gonna bring jobs to the community, how it's

672
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 1: gonna be their ticket out of the poorhouse. And then

673
00:42:37,640 --> 00:42:40,640
Speaker 1: they ultimately ended up taking it somewhere else. And I

674
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:43,520
Speaker 1: guarantee they had that same meeting and a bunch of

675
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:47,600
Speaker 1: other distressed small towns and they got a better deal

676
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:50,680
Speaker 1: on infrastructure or whatever, and they just pissed right off.

677
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:53,120
Speaker 1: But I mean it was that was the heartbreaking part

678
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 1: of the story. And also I think the heartbreaking part

679
00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:59,640
Speaker 1: of this larger story is that these companies our callous

680
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:03,719
Speaker 1: on all ends of these calculations. Yeah. I mean, if

681
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:08,440
Speaker 1: you if you're looking for uh comparison or an analog

682
00:43:08,560 --> 00:43:10,959
Speaker 1: in the world of fiction, then I would recommend checking

683
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:14,359
Speaker 1: out the monorail episode of The Simpsons. Those speeches are made.

684
00:43:14,520 --> 00:43:18,040
Speaker 1: Those folks are trying to get in front of Nimby, right,

685
00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:21,120
Speaker 1: They're trying to find places that are desperate enough such

686
00:43:21,239 --> 00:43:25,640
Speaker 1: that Nimby uh meaning not in my backyard no longer applies.

687
00:43:26,040 --> 00:43:30,200
Speaker 1: And it works because these things get built. Uh. Back

688
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:34,320
Speaker 1: to this story. So this is the context, the larger

689
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 1: context in which this conversation is happening. The that was

690
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:42,520
Speaker 1: a quote the guy says, is this a joke? The

691
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:46,080
Speaker 1: two to other folks from that unfamiliar group, whoever they are,

692
00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:49,320
Speaker 1: They they're not play it. They seize this dude, you

693
00:43:49,440 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 1: know with that weird like elbow grab kind of thing

694
00:43:52,360 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 1: that you see that where you see people getting pushed

695
00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:58,960
Speaker 1: out of nice clubs or fancy restaurants or like someone

696
00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:02,800
Speaker 1: who objected at wedding. Uh. This this person is getting

697
00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:04,880
Speaker 1: there trying to get this guy out of the house,

698
00:44:05,440 --> 00:44:09,160
Speaker 1: and then our anonymous author and a couple of other

699
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:11,360
Speaker 1: a couple of other dudes try to intervene. They're like,

700
00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:14,040
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Stop? Hang on, and that's when

701
00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:16,360
Speaker 1: one of the one of the guys, one of the goons,

702
00:44:16,680 --> 00:44:19,720
Speaker 1: pulls a gun. And then all four people are like, okay,

703
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 1: whoa no, it's this is this is the weirdest meeting.

704
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:26,440
Speaker 1: And they get the boot and they're pushed outside, and

705
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:29,640
Speaker 1: the industry guy, who may have been the homeowner who

706
00:44:29,840 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 1: set all this up, he follows them outside and the

707
00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 1: conversation changes, and then very explicitly, this guy says, you know,

708
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:39,000
Speaker 1: I just want to remind you. I want to warn

709
00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:41,839
Speaker 1: you that you have signed an agreement and there will

710
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:45,040
Speaker 1: be consequences if you talk about this in public. There

711
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:47,719
Speaker 1: will be consequences if you talk about it to each

712
00:44:47,760 --> 00:44:50,120
Speaker 1: other or to anybody else who stayed in that room.

713
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:57,280
Speaker 1: And then months past and our anonymous author, John Smith

714
00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:01,280
Speaker 1: feels that he saw a sea change in the industry overall.

715
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:06,759
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna read part of this verbatim um the

716
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 1: person where this letter says that he was he or

717
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:13,359
Speaker 1: she was never a fan of gangster rap or rap

718
00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:16,600
Speaker 1: in general, But even I could tell the difference between

719
00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:19,680
Speaker 1: like the way he's this person says rap was and

720
00:45:19,840 --> 00:45:23,480
Speaker 1: how it changed around that time. This person says, rap

721
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:26,960
Speaker 1: acts that talked about politics or harmless fund we're quickly

722
00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:31,040
Speaker 1: fading away as this quote, gangster rap started dominating the

723
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:34,279
Speaker 1: air waves and only a few months had passed since

724
00:45:34,360 --> 00:45:37,719
Speaker 1: the meeting. But he suspects that the ideas presented that

725
00:45:37,840 --> 00:45:41,880
Speaker 1: day had been successfully implemented. It was as if the

726
00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:46,239
Speaker 1: order had been given to all major label executives. The

727
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:50,719
Speaker 1: music was climbing the charts, and most companies were more

728
00:45:50,800 --> 00:45:57,320
Speaker 1: than happy to capitalize on it. Okay, Um, you know,

729
00:45:57,480 --> 00:46:01,880
Speaker 1: we don't have exact statistics and sales and numbers to

730
00:46:02,280 --> 00:46:07,120
Speaker 1: compare two here, because honestly, we don't even know exactly

731
00:46:07,200 --> 00:46:09,320
Speaker 1: how much money was made within the music industry and

732
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:12,920
Speaker 1: all the various streams of revenue that the music industry

733
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:14,919
Speaker 1: had for a lot of the acts that were coming

734
00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:18,600
Speaker 1: out around that time. But there was certainly a lot

735
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:23,200
Speaker 1: of money being made around the time that this author

736
00:46:23,520 --> 00:46:27,879
Speaker 1: is speaking about. Yeah, and this haunts them, at least

737
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:31,040
Speaker 1: according to their claim, they say that they start checking

738
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:33,840
Speaker 1: out of the industry. They don't want to go to

739
00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:38,160
Speaker 1: the UH, to the posh parties. They don't want to network,

740
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:40,680
Speaker 1: and then so much of that stuff is networking, and

741
00:46:40,760 --> 00:46:44,319
Speaker 1: I think networking is terrible for meritocracy. Is just going

742
00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:49,399
Speaker 1: to say it. But the anyway, they they eventually call

743
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:53,719
Speaker 1: it quits, officially, they leave the music business and they

744
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:55,960
Speaker 1: returned to Europe for a few years and in the

745
00:46:56,120 --> 00:47:01,560
Speaker 1: nineties late through the Internet, this author says, they learned

746
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:05,200
Speaker 1: about the prison industrial complex for the first time, learned

747
00:47:05,200 --> 00:47:07,840
Speaker 1: about the whole you know, Leviathan of the thing and

748
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:10,960
Speaker 1: all the places its tentacles reach. And in their mind,

749
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:15,160
Speaker 1: the story of this Twilight Zone meeting, this x files meeting,

750
00:47:15,680 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 1: because it has been in black right, this x files meeting,

751
00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:23,600
Speaker 1: began to make a horrifying sort of sense. Was it

752
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:28,520
Speaker 1: true though? And more importantly, what does the conversation about

753
00:47:28,560 --> 00:47:31,600
Speaker 1: the veracity of this letter tell us about music, UH,

754
00:47:32,040 --> 00:47:35,800
Speaker 1: discrimination and crime? Today we'll answer that question after a

755
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:45,200
Speaker 1: word from our sponsor. Okay, all right, it was it

756
00:47:45,320 --> 00:47:47,279
Speaker 1: was a little tough to hold onto this. I think

757
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:49,800
Speaker 1: we I think we were fair to the author of

758
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:52,480
Speaker 1: the letter, right, and I think we gave some good context.

759
00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:56,200
Speaker 1: But if we're asking whether this letter is true or

760
00:47:56,239 --> 00:48:00,880
Speaker 1: whether it's bunk, or whether it's something to between. We

761
00:48:01,080 --> 00:48:02,960
Speaker 1: have to we have to be honest. We have to

762
00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:09,680
Speaker 1: acknowledge a couple of holes in this story. So people

763
00:48:09,840 --> 00:48:13,279
Speaker 1: have been scrutinizing this for almost a decade now. It

764
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:18,160
Speaker 1: should be like for any this letter touches on so

765
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:22,480
Speaker 1: many things in US culture, right, and for anyone familiar

766
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:24,279
Speaker 1: with any one of those things, you may have heard

767
00:48:24,320 --> 00:48:28,200
Speaker 1: of this letter. Uh. Right now, the first thing to

768
00:48:28,239 --> 00:48:31,319
Speaker 1: get out of the way is we are not at

769
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:34,640
Speaker 1: the end of this particular iteration of the usual suspects.

770
00:48:34,719 --> 00:48:37,080
Speaker 1: We have not identified the author. We don't know who

771
00:48:37,120 --> 00:48:40,239
Speaker 1: this guy's or so is. Uh. And because we haven't

772
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:44,320
Speaker 1: identified this person, we also haven't identified the veracity or

773
00:48:44,360 --> 00:48:47,600
Speaker 1: the truth of their claims. We just have a letter

774
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:52,960
Speaker 1: that seems very explicit and what it's recounting. But there

775
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:55,960
Speaker 1: there hasn't been another person who has come forward in

776
00:48:56,040 --> 00:48:59,240
Speaker 1: the years since who provably said I was at that meeting.

777
00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:04,400
Speaker 1: It's still just an email from Oh. The other thing

778
00:49:04,560 --> 00:49:08,600
Speaker 1: to keep in mind here when we're talking about attempting

779
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:11,760
Speaker 1: to prove this, we have to remember that the United

780
00:49:11,800 --> 00:49:18,040
Speaker 1: States government and private industry within the United States and internationally. Uh,

781
00:49:18,320 --> 00:49:21,200
Speaker 1: these are very powerful things, and they have functioned in

782
00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:25,040
Speaker 1: the past as essentially a hand that's way over here

783
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:28,719
Speaker 1: and it's pulling strings and making things. Sorry, that's not

784
00:49:28,840 --> 00:49:35,120
Speaker 1: working in audio. Um. The government working with private corporations

785
00:49:35,480 --> 00:49:38,160
Speaker 1: and industries has functioned as a hidden hand in the past.

786
00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:40,480
Speaker 1: We talked about this before. Check out our episode on

787
00:49:40,560 --> 00:49:44,280
Speaker 1: the FBI and US counterculture. Uh, there's a serious rabbit

788
00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:47,560
Speaker 1: hole to jump into their about the bizarre aesthetic rules

789
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:51,399
Speaker 1: of Soviet era propaganda. I've talked about this, We've talked

790
00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many things. I mean just Bernet's

791
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:56,840
Speaker 1: alone the first episode we ever did, Like, it's industry,

792
00:49:56,880 --> 00:49:59,959
Speaker 1: but it's also a government. And what's good force acid?

793
00:50:00,719 --> 00:50:02,920
Speaker 1: And what does that mean? What does it mean when

794
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:08,560
Speaker 1: when the government in private industry is deciding what the best,

795
00:50:08,960 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 1: the best humans do in their homes when they're alone

796
00:50:11,719 --> 00:50:15,480
Speaker 1: with each other. Yeah? Yeah, I mean like the the

797
00:50:15,600 --> 00:50:18,719
Speaker 1: goose for the gander thing, right, what what gander are

798
00:50:18,760 --> 00:50:21,400
Speaker 1: we talking about? And has anyone asked the actual goose?

799
00:50:22,200 --> 00:50:29,239
Speaker 1: I mean the you know, the the overthrow of democratically

800
00:50:29,320 --> 00:50:34,840
Speaker 1: elected governments throughout Latin America. The reason Hawaii is a

801
00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:38,720
Speaker 1: state these things happen because of this sort of hand

802
00:50:38,800 --> 00:50:45,359
Speaker 1: in hand uh, evil stuff. Like it's not even if

803
00:50:45,440 --> 00:50:49,880
Speaker 1: this story is not true, it's a it's something that

804
00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:55,840
Speaker 1: could be considered plausible based on the patterns of the past. Third,

805
00:50:56,840 --> 00:50:58,480
Speaker 1: and this is a this is something I have to

806
00:50:58,600 --> 00:51:01,000
Speaker 1: have to pook a hole inheritce so. Third, while this

807
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:05,520
Speaker 1: story is amazing and terrifying if it's true, it has

808
00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:08,400
Speaker 1: a really dangerous implication. And something that we have to

809
00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:14,320
Speaker 1: acknowledge is blaming a genre of music for real life actions.

810
00:51:14,960 --> 00:51:18,960
Speaker 1: Is it an intellectually honest feat You know, Dungeons and

811
00:51:19,040 --> 00:51:22,799
Speaker 1: Dragons is accused of turning nerds across the country into

812
00:51:22,880 --> 00:51:26,959
Speaker 1: devil worshipers. Clearly not true. Clearly not. When we talked

813
00:51:26,960 --> 00:51:28,919
Speaker 1: about this a little bit earlier. I mean, the heavy

814
00:51:29,000 --> 00:51:32,040
Speaker 1: metal music that was the subject to so many satanic panics,

815
00:51:32,239 --> 00:51:37,879
Speaker 1: it's not even really that heavy. It's like right right,

816
00:51:39,280 --> 00:51:43,640
Speaker 1: And and we see also this pattern it iterates into

817
00:51:43,719 --> 00:51:47,080
Speaker 1: the past. Uh, new genres of music have been the

818
00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:50,640
Speaker 1: cause of moral panics for a long long time. There

819
00:51:50,760 --> 00:51:53,719
Speaker 1: was probably someone at some point who was like Gregorian

820
00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:56,160
Speaker 1: chant is going to ruin the world, you know what

821
00:51:56,280 --> 00:51:59,600
Speaker 1: I mean? And the world and it's a weird, unsteady

822
00:51:59,800 --> 00:52:03,879
Speaker 1: and balanced way kept spinning. So this phenomenon dates back

823
00:52:04,080 --> 00:52:08,960
Speaker 1: into antiquity and it's it's I think it's a dangerous

824
00:52:09,360 --> 00:52:12,200
Speaker 1: um And I don't mean to be extremist about this,

825
00:52:12,280 --> 00:52:17,040
Speaker 1: but but I think it's somewhat insulting to the intelligence

826
00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:20,640
Speaker 1: of a given audience to say that they can be

827
00:52:21,200 --> 00:52:23,920
Speaker 1: completely programmed. But again, you know, you brought up this

828
00:52:24,080 --> 00:52:27,000
Speaker 1: point of normalization off airmat that I thought was brilliant,

829
00:52:27,160 --> 00:52:30,160
Speaker 1: and we know propaganda works, so maybe the truth is

830
00:52:30,160 --> 00:52:32,920
Speaker 1: somewhere in between. Well, I think, yeah, that was off air,

831
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:35,840
Speaker 1: wasn't it. We didn't actually talk about this. I do,

832
00:52:35,960 --> 00:52:37,360
Speaker 1: I do want to bring this up, and I know,

833
00:52:37,960 --> 00:52:40,440
Speaker 1: I know many of you will disagree with me, but

834
00:52:40,600 --> 00:52:44,920
Speaker 1: I do feel like there is truth to growing up

835
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:47,840
Speaker 1: as a you know, the mind of a child growing

836
00:52:47,920 --> 00:52:51,040
Speaker 1: up in a world where the music that's being that

837
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:54,560
Speaker 1: you end up exposed to as as you're you're developing

838
00:52:54,640 --> 00:52:57,640
Speaker 1: brain is going through some of these early processes. Um.

839
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:01,080
Speaker 1: The language that you hear on a frequent basis will,

840
00:53:01,520 --> 00:53:05,960
Speaker 1: I think contribute to the way your mind forms thoughts

841
00:53:06,200 --> 00:53:10,000
Speaker 1: and what you what you do, like think about social

842
00:53:10,080 --> 00:53:13,320
Speaker 1: media if if anyone's seen the social dilemma, Um, you

843
00:53:13,719 --> 00:53:17,120
Speaker 1: there's essentially general gen Z. I think are the people

844
00:53:17,160 --> 00:53:20,440
Speaker 1: who grew up with cell phones in middle school and

845
00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 1: how that, how that is inextricably changed the way gen Z.

846
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:28,800
Speaker 1: Not every person who would be considered gen Z, but

847
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:32,440
Speaker 1: as a whole, if you look at statistically changes their

848
00:53:32,560 --> 00:53:35,480
Speaker 1: behaviors and their thoughts and the way they act. And

849
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:39,320
Speaker 1: I think any kind of exposure, like to anything for

850
00:53:39,400 --> 00:53:41,200
Speaker 1: a long enough period of time at a young enough

851
00:53:41,280 --> 00:53:45,239
Speaker 1: age can have an effect not on you know, the

852
00:53:45,320 --> 00:53:49,160
Speaker 1: adults who are listening to music and you know, thinking

853
00:53:49,200 --> 00:53:52,279
Speaker 1: about what's happening and understanding all the context, but a

854
00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:54,399
Speaker 1: child that is maybe thinking about it in a little

855
00:53:54,440 --> 00:54:01,680
Speaker 1: more of a uh, fantastical or a fantasy like dreamlike way, aspirational. Yeah, possibly,

856
00:54:02,000 --> 00:54:04,680
Speaker 1: Just what are you to that? I mean, a lot

857
00:54:04,760 --> 00:54:07,640
Speaker 1: of the hip hop that's really popular now, um, like

858
00:54:07,800 --> 00:54:10,480
Speaker 1: trap music. Um, it's sort of like all of the

859
00:54:10,920 --> 00:54:15,920
Speaker 1: glamorization of of that stuff without any of the thoughtful commentary,

860
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:18,320
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like not all of it.

861
00:54:18,480 --> 00:54:20,759
Speaker 1: And I'm a big fan of like gimmicky kind of

862
00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:23,479
Speaker 1: trap music, and it's it's definitely catchy and and there's

863
00:54:23,800 --> 00:54:26,080
Speaker 1: you know, it's all about like these catchphrases and stuff.

864
00:54:26,120 --> 00:54:28,080
Speaker 1: And then I'm not saying that it's all like garbage,

865
00:54:28,440 --> 00:54:31,080
Speaker 1: but a lot of it is a bit more frivolous

866
00:54:31,239 --> 00:54:36,640
Speaker 1: and not particularly intelligently constructed lyrically speaking, Whereas the gangster

867
00:54:36,760 --> 00:54:38,799
Speaker 1: rap stuff that we're talking about, at least it has

868
00:54:38,880 --> 00:54:42,160
Speaker 1: kind of a message, whereas a lot of the rap

869
00:54:42,360 --> 00:54:44,839
Speaker 1: nowadays I sound like a grandpapa, but like it's sort

870
00:54:44,840 --> 00:54:47,640
Speaker 1: of junk food, you know, I I hear you and

871
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:51,840
Speaker 1: that My question then would be are we hearing like what?

872
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:57,279
Speaker 1: Why is that a phenomenon people feel, they perceive like

873
00:54:58,239 --> 00:55:01,920
Speaker 1: what's the old? What's the old? Jay Z line? I

874
00:55:02,040 --> 00:55:04,120
Speaker 1: used to wrap like common sense until I made my

875
00:55:04,400 --> 00:55:07,960
Speaker 1: first mill. I haven't wrapped like common sense, Like there's

876
00:55:08,120 --> 00:55:11,440
Speaker 1: there's a financial perspective there, you know. And I want

877
00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:12,960
Speaker 1: to be very clear, I don't think any of us

878
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:17,359
Speaker 1: are saying that any musician is somehow unintelligent. Maybe they're

879
00:55:17,400 --> 00:55:20,160
Speaker 1: just playing to the crowd, or maybe maybe they have

880
00:55:20,440 --> 00:55:26,040
Speaker 1: like uh, maybe they have an entire catalog of more,

881
00:55:26,520 --> 00:55:30,320
Speaker 1: you know, perhaps were overtly political or ideological stuff and

882
00:55:30,480 --> 00:55:32,960
Speaker 1: they're just not allowed to predict. It's like the idea

883
00:55:33,040 --> 00:55:35,600
Speaker 1: that like Picassa just like you know, oh, anyone could

884
00:55:35,600 --> 00:55:38,160
Speaker 1: do what Picassa does. Look, it's all just like finger painting.

885
00:55:38,280 --> 00:55:40,080
Speaker 1: But he was like a classically trained artist that just

886
00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:43,600
Speaker 1: happened to funnel his efforts into this particular genre. And

887
00:55:43,800 --> 00:55:46,439
Speaker 1: he you know, um, but you know, I'm literally talking

888
00:55:46,480 --> 00:55:50,200
Speaker 1: about stuff like Gucci Gang, Gucci Gang, Gucci Gang, Gucci Gang.

889
00:55:50,280 --> 00:55:52,880
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. It's it's very meant to

890
00:55:52,960 --> 00:55:55,120
Speaker 1: be catchy and get stuck in your head and be

891
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:57,400
Speaker 1: these ear worms. But there's not a lot of substance

892
00:55:57,440 --> 00:55:59,759
Speaker 1: to to that kind of stuff. Hey watch out, man,

893
00:56:00,680 --> 00:56:03,160
Speaker 1: you know what I'm I'm I gotta on that one,

894
00:56:06,280 --> 00:56:08,920
Speaker 1: hoping hoping he had a secret life, um as a

895
00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:12,719
Speaker 1: as a, as a trap ghostwriter. I have a couple

896
00:56:12,719 --> 00:56:14,360
Speaker 1: of secret lives. But I see what, I see what

897
00:56:14,400 --> 00:56:16,759
Speaker 1: you're saying. I guess in the end, it's in the end. Look,

898
00:56:17,680 --> 00:56:22,000
Speaker 1: did I listen to all Christian music as a young

899
00:56:22,200 --> 00:56:25,080
Speaker 1: mind because I was Christian and looking for something to

900
00:56:25,160 --> 00:56:29,480
Speaker 1: listen to or did a lot of that music influenced

901
00:56:29,520 --> 00:56:31,560
Speaker 1: me and how I was thinking what I was deciding

902
00:56:31,600 --> 00:56:34,320
Speaker 1: to do. I want to say that I was listening

903
00:56:34,360 --> 00:56:36,759
Speaker 1: to that because I identified as a Christian and I

904
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:40,480
Speaker 1: wanted to listen to music with that content. Um. And

905
00:56:40,600 --> 00:56:44,040
Speaker 1: it's a fascinating argument that is, you know, been had

906
00:56:44,160 --> 00:56:48,440
Speaker 1: for a long time about popular consumption of of varying

907
00:56:48,520 --> 00:56:53,160
Speaker 1: media and its effect or our you know, our effect

908
00:56:53,320 --> 00:56:56,919
Speaker 1: on that media itself. It's a chicken argument right where

909
00:56:56,960 --> 00:57:00,720
Speaker 1: it's like, did the school shooter shoot up the school

910
00:57:01,080 --> 00:57:05,319
Speaker 1: because he listened to Marilyn Manson or was he gonna

911
00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:07,880
Speaker 1: do it anyway? And this is just a thing that

912
00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:09,640
Speaker 1: he sought out because he I don't know, you know

913
00:57:09,640 --> 00:57:13,120
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like, I don't think we've ever successfully

914
00:57:13,239 --> 00:57:17,680
Speaker 1: been able to like hang actions on like exclusively on

915
00:57:17,840 --> 00:57:20,840
Speaker 1: violent video games, like violent video games turned someone into

916
00:57:21,240 --> 00:57:24,080
Speaker 1: a sociopath or a psychopath. I don't know that anyone's

917
00:57:24,120 --> 00:57:27,640
Speaker 1: ever successfully proven that argument. And I think this is

918
00:57:28,000 --> 00:57:32,680
Speaker 1: very similar well too, I mean in that regard, Well,

919
00:57:32,760 --> 00:57:34,720
Speaker 1: first I would see that this way it was spent

920
00:57:34,840 --> 00:57:39,920
Speaker 1: some time exploring these larger patterns, right, these larger social

921
00:57:40,120 --> 00:57:44,360
Speaker 1: consumption patterns. There's a good argument to be made that

922
00:57:44,640 --> 00:57:49,000
Speaker 1: if someone to take your earlier example, UH, did participate

923
00:57:49,080 --> 00:57:51,680
Speaker 1: in mass shooting or they shot up a school, and

924
00:57:52,080 --> 00:57:55,440
Speaker 1: even in the claim that, uh, the music they were

925
00:57:55,480 --> 00:57:59,600
Speaker 1: listening to was the impetus for that decision, then that's

926
00:57:59,720 --> 00:58:03,760
Speaker 1: just one impetus. That's one of the dominoes. There's a

927
00:58:03,960 --> 00:58:08,320
Speaker 1: very good argument that, uh, if it wasn't you know,

928
00:58:08,520 --> 00:58:11,800
Speaker 1: insert album here, it would have been something else that

929
00:58:11,960 --> 00:58:15,800
Speaker 1: prompted a violent break. It's just it's like, it's so

930
00:58:16,400 --> 00:58:21,280
Speaker 1: self satisfying and to a degree masturbatory, honestly for people

931
00:58:21,360 --> 00:58:25,720
Speaker 1: to say this simple answer explains the thing and makes

932
00:58:25,840 --> 00:58:31,000
Speaker 1: my opinion right. And despite feeling satisfying, the simple answer

933
00:58:31,080 --> 00:58:34,040
Speaker 1: is not always the correct one, right, And that's when

934
00:58:34,400 --> 00:58:37,880
Speaker 1: that speaking to that point of simplicity. So one thing

935
00:58:37,960 --> 00:58:42,040
Speaker 1: we have to say, just observing this scheme as it's

936
00:58:42,120 --> 00:58:48,120
Speaker 1: structured in this letter, isn't it isn't it a little complicated.

937
00:58:48,920 --> 00:58:51,040
Speaker 1: It's got a lot of intervening variables, got a lot

938
00:58:51,080 --> 00:58:54,360
Speaker 1: of actors. Uh. It seems like there are other ways

939
00:58:54,800 --> 00:59:00,280
Speaker 1: to increase incarceration, like increasingly draconian laws for only certain

940
00:59:00,320 --> 00:59:03,160
Speaker 1: types of crime. Look at the look at the consequences

941
00:59:03,200 --> 00:59:06,680
Speaker 1: for possession of crack cocaine versus possession of cocaine, and

942
00:59:07,040 --> 00:59:10,160
Speaker 1: you know, let's say that there and try your best

943
00:59:10,520 --> 00:59:16,040
Speaker 1: to somehow explain the difference without talking about systemic racism,

944
00:59:16,440 --> 00:59:18,240
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like I want to hear

945
00:59:18,280 --> 00:59:21,200
Speaker 1: it if you got one. Uh, that's kind of stuff.

946
00:59:21,560 --> 00:59:25,480
Speaker 1: Seems to have a more immediate and a more predictable

947
00:59:25,560 --> 00:59:29,560
Speaker 1: impact on the US addiction to mass incarceration, much more

948
00:59:29,640 --> 00:59:32,200
Speaker 1: so of a measurable impact than a three to four

949
00:59:32,280 --> 00:59:36,120
Speaker 1: minutes song. Was some insightful, if violent rhyme schemes and

950
00:59:36,240 --> 00:59:39,200
Speaker 1: a kick ass hook like it seems like we're it

951
00:59:39,280 --> 00:59:43,439
Speaker 1: seems like a lot of work to do. But that's

952
00:59:43,720 --> 00:59:46,959
Speaker 1: that's again just it's based on this letter. It's based

953
00:59:47,000 --> 00:59:49,840
Speaker 1: on this one letter. And we know that factions of

954
00:59:49,920 --> 00:59:53,520
Speaker 1: government agencies if like by what I mean is like

955
00:59:53,680 --> 00:59:57,120
Speaker 1: it's not always as if the entire CIA decides to

956
00:59:57,240 --> 01:00:00,640
Speaker 1: do something. It's like four or five people the CIA

957
01:00:00,800 --> 01:00:04,959
Speaker 1: conspire with somebody's to do something as the CIA, maybe

958
01:00:05,000 --> 01:00:09,560
Speaker 1: not with approval, but it's true that these entities have

959
01:00:09,760 --> 01:00:12,680
Speaker 1: tilted the scale of public opinion in the past. The

960
01:00:12,760 --> 01:00:18,160
Speaker 1: shadow of Bernets stretches into the modern day. And what's

961
01:00:18,200 --> 01:00:21,680
Speaker 1: so fascinating, and another reason I recommend Louder than a

962
01:00:21,800 --> 01:00:26,080
Speaker 1: Riot is that the host Sydney Madden and Rodney Carmichael

963
01:00:26,600 --> 01:00:30,520
Speaker 1: explore all the all the things this conversation about this

964
01:00:30,680 --> 01:00:34,400
Speaker 1: letter brings up. You know, they interview different, uh, the

965
01:00:34,560 --> 01:00:37,120
Speaker 1: interview different luminaries in the world of hip hop and

966
01:00:37,160 --> 01:00:39,040
Speaker 1: say what do you think about this? Do you think

967
01:00:39,120 --> 01:00:43,120
Speaker 1: it's legit? Do you believe this letter? And some people

968
01:00:44,640 --> 01:00:46,919
Speaker 1: it's it's fascinating because there are people who are saying,

969
01:00:47,240 --> 01:00:50,720
Speaker 1: you know, I just looking around and growing up, I

970
01:00:50,840 --> 01:00:54,160
Speaker 1: just figured this is something like this is very plausible,

971
01:00:54,240 --> 01:00:56,560
Speaker 1: and there are people are saying, well, it's a conspiracy theory,

972
01:00:57,200 --> 01:01:02,040
Speaker 1: but it leads to important questions in the modern day. Um,

973
01:01:02,520 --> 01:01:04,720
Speaker 1: we shall also say, yeah, at this point, not only

974
01:01:04,840 --> 01:01:08,320
Speaker 1: did is there no one from that alleged meeting who

975
01:01:08,360 --> 01:01:10,920
Speaker 1: has come forward to confirm it. There's no government official

976
01:01:11,000 --> 01:01:15,600
Speaker 1: on record who's saying like, oh, yeah, yeah, that was

977
01:01:15,640 --> 01:01:19,200
Speaker 1: our bad And there's he doesn't even require this like

978
01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:22,959
Speaker 1: shadowy meeting to have taken place with the actual executives

979
01:01:23,040 --> 01:01:26,560
Speaker 1: of private prisons. Like the laws that led to so

980
01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:29,440
Speaker 1: much more mass incarceration by people of color were in

981
01:01:29,520 --> 01:01:32,520
Speaker 1: and of themselves racist, Like the idea of you know,

982
01:01:32,640 --> 01:01:35,480
Speaker 1: putting this burden on the black community by having these

983
01:01:35,520 --> 01:01:40,440
Speaker 1: mandatory minimums for marijuana possession, you know, for uh, cocaine

984
01:01:40,480 --> 01:01:42,040
Speaker 1: and crack possession or what what have you. And then

985
01:01:42,240 --> 01:01:45,240
Speaker 1: you know, Dave Chappelle jokes, but I don't think he's

986
01:01:45,360 --> 01:01:48,440
Speaker 1: entirely joking that he thinks the c i A created

987
01:01:48,520 --> 01:01:53,920
Speaker 1: crack to destroy the black community. And and that's add

988
01:01:54,640 --> 01:01:56,720
Speaker 1: but that's what I'm saying. That's also, you know, just

989
01:01:56,880 --> 01:01:59,640
Speaker 1: as plausible. But I don't think to your point, Benet

990
01:02:00,040 --> 01:02:03,240
Speaker 1: wires this level of secrecy or or shadowing us. It's

991
01:02:03,280 --> 01:02:05,720
Speaker 1: just kind of like, of course, this is what's happening,

992
01:02:06,000 --> 01:02:07,880
Speaker 1: you know, and who's more likely to benefit from this

993
01:02:08,000 --> 01:02:11,960
Speaker 1: record label executives or like people in government, you know who,

994
01:02:12,040 --> 01:02:15,680
Speaker 1: who are who? Or in business with these private prisons.

995
01:02:16,320 --> 01:02:19,640
Speaker 1: M M. That's an excellent question. And I know, I

996
01:02:19,720 --> 01:02:21,320
Speaker 1: think there's one thing we want to I know we're

997
01:02:21,400 --> 01:02:23,400
Speaker 1: run a little long, but I think there's one thing

998
01:02:23,480 --> 01:02:27,960
Speaker 1: we we should address. Uh, it's this we are looking

999
01:02:28,200 --> 01:02:30,880
Speaker 1: we're trying to look at this as objectively as possible

1000
01:02:30,960 --> 01:02:34,520
Speaker 1: based on the letter, right, the question about the letter,

1001
01:02:35,080 --> 01:02:39,160
Speaker 1: but there is a much deeper exploration we're on. We're

1002
01:02:39,280 --> 01:02:41,760
Speaker 1: on the outside of this, you know, what I mean

1003
01:02:42,160 --> 01:02:45,560
Speaker 1: very much so, And with that in mind, that's why

1004
01:02:45,720 --> 01:02:49,840
Speaker 1: that's why I'm recommending, uh this show Louder than a Riot.

1005
01:02:50,200 --> 01:02:55,080
Speaker 1: And I'd like to directly quote Rodney Carmichael here, which

1006
01:02:55,120 --> 01:02:58,240
Speaker 1: you can read the transcript on MPR. He says, he

1007
01:02:58,320 --> 01:03:02,160
Speaker 1: says something that I think is I think is profound,

1008
01:03:02,400 --> 01:03:05,560
Speaker 1: and he says, quote the hype around this letter fake

1009
01:03:05,680 --> 01:03:08,200
Speaker 1: news or not, it really tells us that the fear

1010
01:03:08,320 --> 01:03:13,120
Speaker 1: and the paranoia around how the criminal justice system disproportionately

1011
01:03:13,200 --> 01:03:18,360
Speaker 1: impacts black people in this country is very real. And I,

1012
01:03:18,840 --> 01:03:22,400
Speaker 1: you know, I want to give space to that observation.

1013
01:03:22,520 --> 01:03:25,960
Speaker 1: I hope it stays with people, because if everything was

1014
01:03:26,120 --> 01:03:30,960
Speaker 1: hunky dory, then a letter like this would have just

1015
01:03:31,160 --> 01:03:35,400
Speaker 1: been another piece of spam. It's it's it's uh pointing

1016
01:03:35,520 --> 01:03:39,840
Speaker 1: to a symptom of a much larger problem. And with that,

1017
01:03:41,160 --> 01:03:44,640
Speaker 1: you know, we can't we can't prove the validity or

1018
01:03:44,720 --> 01:03:48,520
Speaker 1: legitimacy of this letter, but we want to hear from

1019
01:03:48,560 --> 01:03:51,080
Speaker 1: you whether or not this letter is real. Do you

1020
01:03:51,320 --> 01:03:55,160
Speaker 1: think something like this happened? Do you think there has

1021
01:03:55,200 --> 01:04:01,720
Speaker 1: been conspiracy to you to artificially inflate the successive music

1022
01:04:02,200 --> 01:04:05,400
Speaker 1: of certain types of music to create some kind of

1023
01:04:05,600 --> 01:04:10,840
Speaker 1: widespread social impact. We're specifically talking about this alleged plan

1024
01:04:10,960 --> 01:04:13,760
Speaker 1: to push people into the prison system, but it could

1025
01:04:13,800 --> 01:04:15,840
Speaker 1: be it could be any number of things. You know,

1026
01:04:16,040 --> 01:04:19,480
Speaker 1: if this kind of mechanism works, uh, you know, it

1027
01:04:19,600 --> 01:04:21,800
Speaker 1: just becomes a matter of figuring out your end goal,

1028
01:04:22,160 --> 01:04:25,560
Speaker 1: doesn't it if you're that insidious and you've thrown ethics

1029
01:04:25,760 --> 01:04:29,240
Speaker 1: away long ago. Um, I don't know, do you do

1030
01:04:29,440 --> 01:04:32,320
Speaker 1: you think it's likely and if so, how would it work?

1031
01:04:32,400 --> 01:04:36,960
Speaker 1: And also I feel like it's it's it contains some

1032
01:04:37,080 --> 01:04:40,920
Speaker 1: stuff we have to unpack about. I don't know. It's

1033
01:04:41,000 --> 01:04:44,040
Speaker 1: kind of unfair to the actual artists and musicians working

1034
01:04:44,400 --> 01:04:46,520
Speaker 1: in this genre to you know what I mean. It's

1035
01:04:46,560 --> 01:04:52,720
Speaker 1: like saying that success that you literally spent years attaining

1036
01:04:53,440 --> 01:04:56,320
Speaker 1: is not your own. It kind of removes agency from

1037
01:04:56,360 --> 01:04:59,600
Speaker 1: those people too. I don't know. It's a lot, and

1038
01:04:59,760 --> 01:05:02,880
Speaker 1: we want to hear your opinion about it, for sure.

1039
01:05:03,320 --> 01:05:07,240
Speaker 1: We want to hear your opinion about the low end

1040
01:05:07,280 --> 01:05:10,320
Speaker 1: theory by a trip called Quest because that came out

1041
01:05:11,560 --> 01:05:14,680
Speaker 1: I think or maybe ninety two, I'm not sure, but um,

1042
01:05:15,280 --> 01:05:18,160
Speaker 1: that was certainly not gangster rap like what we just

1043
01:05:18,200 --> 01:05:21,760
Speaker 1: want to know your opinion about but like a lot

1044
01:05:21,840 --> 01:05:24,240
Speaker 1: of rap, but I mean I love that nineties kind

1045
01:05:24,280 --> 01:05:26,320
Speaker 1: of they called it woke rap. I guess like um

1046
01:05:26,600 --> 01:05:28,200
Speaker 1: before that was a term that got thrown around all

1047
01:05:28,200 --> 01:05:32,840
Speaker 1: the time, like tribe and arrested development and just a

1048
01:05:32,920 --> 01:05:35,200
Speaker 1: lot of those kind of positive positivity rap, you know,

1049
01:05:35,320 --> 01:05:37,560
Speaker 1: but then also a huge like Wou Tang clan fan.

1050
01:05:37,920 --> 01:05:41,360
Speaker 1: Tell us your favorite artists and why and what you

1051
01:05:41,440 --> 01:05:44,760
Speaker 1: think about this entire episode. You can find us on

1052
01:05:44,840 --> 01:05:48,160
Speaker 1: social media where we are Conspiracy Stuff on Twitter and Facebook.

1053
01:05:48,200 --> 01:05:51,280
Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram Conspiracy Stuff Show. If

1054
01:05:51,360 --> 01:05:53,880
Speaker 1: you don't want to do that stuff, we have a

1055
01:05:54,200 --> 01:05:57,160
Speaker 1: phone number you can call. That's right, you can hit

1056
01:05:57,240 --> 01:06:00,520
Speaker 1: us up at one eight three three st d w

1057
01:06:00,880 --> 01:06:04,680
Speaker 1: y t k Uh. Fellow writers, fellow freestylers, if you

1058
01:06:04,880 --> 01:06:08,760
Speaker 1: if you have some insightful response, uh, you could you

1059
01:06:08,840 --> 01:06:11,800
Speaker 1: could put it there, just keep it less than three minutes, um.

1060
01:06:11,920 --> 01:06:15,120
Speaker 1: And I also want to hear people's just favorite isolated

1061
01:06:15,160 --> 01:06:20,440
Speaker 1: lines or thoughts from from a hip hop uh lyricist perspective. Uh.

1062
01:06:20,560 --> 01:06:23,240
Speaker 1: And the only thing you have to do when you

1063
01:06:23,280 --> 01:06:25,000
Speaker 1: call that line just let us know if we can

1064
01:06:25,120 --> 01:06:27,600
Speaker 1: use your voice or your name on air. But what

1065
01:06:27,720 --> 01:06:30,960
Speaker 1: if you hate social media? What if you're like, uh, I,

1066
01:06:31,400 --> 01:06:35,400
Speaker 1: this is too much. You know, life is already tough.

1067
01:06:35,720 --> 01:06:37,720
Speaker 1: Whe are you guys throwing his plots twists and always

1068
01:06:37,880 --> 01:06:40,760
Speaker 1: hoopla at me? I have time to log into Instagram.

1069
01:06:41,200 --> 01:06:44,160
Speaker 1: I'm old school. I use email. Well, do we have

1070
01:06:44,320 --> 01:06:46,960
Speaker 1: news for you? You can always reach us at our

1071
01:06:47,040 --> 01:06:50,320
Speaker 1: good old fashioned email address where we are conspiracy at

1072
01:06:50,320 --> 01:07:11,240
Speaker 1: iHeart radio dot com. M m hmmm. Stuff they don't

1073
01:07:11,240 --> 01:07:13,760
Speaker 1: want you to know is a production of I Heart Radio.

1074
01:07:14,080 --> 01:07:16,320
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I

1075
01:07:16,440 --> 01:07:19,280
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

1076
01:07:19,360 --> 01:07:20,160
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.