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Speaker 1: Fellow conspiracy realist. We are returning to you with a

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Speaker 1: classic episode that's been on our minds lately. Not to

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Speaker 1: too long ago, Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins fame claimed

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Speaker 1: that there was a conspiracy behind what he sees as

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Speaker 1: the decline of rock music and the rise of gangster rap.

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Speaker 2: I don't know.

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Speaker 3: I just think he's as mad people aren't listening to

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Speaker 3: his records and I yeah.

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Speaker 1: We talked about this with our friend Gandhi on her

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Speaker 1: excellent shows Sauce on the Side. Please do check out Gandhi.

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Speaker 1: She's just a legend in the game, and we had

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Speaker 1: a lot of fun chatt and conspiracies here. This also

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Speaker 1: reminded us our recent conversation of an episode we did

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Speaker 1: an investigation way back in twenty twenty. Right, I want

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Speaker 1: to say, right after Thanksgiving about whether the prison industry,

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Speaker 1: in cooperation maybe with the government, created gangster rap or

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Speaker 1: popularized gangster rap.

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Speaker 4: Wait a second, are we saying that there are maybe

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Speaker 4: small groups of powerful individuals that run I don't know,

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Speaker 4: television networks, schamle channels, radio stations, and they like can

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Speaker 4: push certain music on us.

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Speaker 5: And dare we say shape world events through their influence.

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's funny.

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Speaker 5: Though, guys, because it becomes a question of like is

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Speaker 5: it taste maker kind of stuff, like is it influence

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Speaker 5: of culture in a way that you know, leans on

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Speaker 5: maximizing profits or is there something more sinister and stuff

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Speaker 5: they don't want you to know about it in terms

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Speaker 5: of like doing that in the most weird ass around

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Speaker 5: your elbow way you could possibly imagine. And one thing

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Speaker 5: we talked about too on our conversation with Gandhi was like,

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Speaker 5: isn't this also this notion that like gangster rap executives

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Speaker 5: like wanted to feed the is in pipeline by pushing

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Speaker 5: gangsterrap out there to make young people commit more crimes.

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Speaker 5: Isn't that also kind of a satanic panic thing?

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Speaker 3: Like did Marilyn Manson really make more people worship Satan

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Speaker 3: or whatever it be?

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Speaker 1: You know, an outbreak of moral panic. That's a good question.

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Speaker 1: You know. It reminds me, of course, I think I

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Speaker 1: mentioned this earlier on air. Reminds me of that jay

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Speaker 1: Z line that might be surprisingly insightful for this classic

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Speaker 1: I used to rhyme like common sense until I made

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Speaker 1: my first mill I haven't rhymed like common sense.

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Speaker 4: You know, so we're speaking of Common the rapper.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, Common Sense the thing that is in short supply,

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Speaker 3: and these are modern times.

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Speaker 4: I would just like to congratulate him on not rapping

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Speaker 4: like Common. I don't know why I do not. I

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Speaker 4: do not particularly care for the stylings of Common. And

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Speaker 4: that's not that I don't like what he's saying. I

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Speaker 4: just don't like the way that he wraps.

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Speaker 2: Okay, don't like his flow, don't like his kaiden, I

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Speaker 2: do not appreciate.

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Speaker 1: It, Sam I am. I do not like these green

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Speaker 1: eggs of But yeah, I don't know if I told

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Speaker 1: you guys. But years ago I actually interviewed Common for

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Speaker 1: a very different thing, and he answered the questions in freestyle.

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Speaker 4: When did this happen? How did this happen?

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Speaker 1: This was at a club called Vision, I want to say,

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Speaker 1: which no longer exists in Atlanta. It was a different time,

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Speaker 1: But this was before. This was before I want to say,

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Speaker 1: twenty twelve, when an email from someone claiming to be

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Speaker 1: a former music industry executive alleged that gangster rap was

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Speaker 1: not an organic success. Instead, they say the story dates

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Speaker 1: back to a high level meeting in nineteen ninety one

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Speaker 1: when all the big to dos that were slightly mentioning

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Speaker 1: here got together and said they're going to ensure the

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Speaker 1: prison system becomes even more profitable by making crime cool.

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Speaker 4: Whoa and then Diddy.

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Speaker 2: Make crime great?

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Speaker 1: Geez?

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Speaker 4: Wait? So wait? Is he is Ditty the Epstein but

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Speaker 4: for the music industry, you know, like you know how

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Speaker 4: Epstein is for the world leaders?

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Speaker 1: I think they have an embarrassment of Epstein's. That's the

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Speaker 1: group name, the group term HM parliament OL's embarrassment of Epstein's.

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Speaker 1: Did the prison industry push gangster rap? Let's roll the tape.

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Speaker 6: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies? History is

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Speaker 6: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 6: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 6: production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 4: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,

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Speaker 4: my name is Noel.

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Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We are joined as always with

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Speaker 1: our super producer Alexis codename Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: researching a lot of this, it kept playing in my head.

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Speaker 1: It's bigger than hip hop, and it's true. This is

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Speaker 1: a prescient group. This is a group that, for anyone

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Speaker 1: unfamiliar with the genre, is known for activism, known for

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Speaker 1: political stances, known for taking the message beyond the music

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Speaker 1: right and into the halls of power and speaking truth

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Speaker 1: to those folks. Today's episode, if we were describing it

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Speaker 1: as a wine, would have a you know, an autumnal

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Speaker 1: note of Edward Burnet's right, a crisp bite of music

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Speaker 1: industry corruption, yes, maybe a vintage of hip hop. And

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Speaker 1: then some would say an undertone throughout a bouquet of

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Speaker 1: conspiracy that may affect millions of people today, and overall quite.

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Speaker 4: The you mommy, if I may say so myself, Yeah,

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Speaker 4: Mommy of institutionalized racism bunch.

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Speaker 2: That's the one I was referring to, Matt.

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Speaker 1: The Insidious Ummmy, which was also the name of my

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Speaker 1: post rock vape wave group. Anyway, we don't need to

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Speaker 1: get into that, but music. We're talking about hip hop.

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Speaker 1: We are fans of hip hop. We are obviously nerds.

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Speaker 1: I think to some degree, like many people, we define

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Speaker 1: different phases of our lives by the music we encounter

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Speaker 1: at those pivotal moments, and that's something that's common to

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Speaker 1: all human beings. But if you didn't know anything about

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Speaker 1: hip hop, we should probably start there as we dive

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Speaker 1: into this strange allegation. So here are the facts.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, the genesis of hip hop really is,

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Speaker 3: and it's a uniquely American art form, and that it started,

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Speaker 3: you know, in Brooklyn, New York, largely in Harlem street

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Speaker 3: parties kind of or block parties that involved DJs taking

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Speaker 3: two records and playing back and forth the breaks, which

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Speaker 3: are like the part in a track that is sort

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Speaker 3: of like the part where there's no singing, and you

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Speaker 3: could take like jazz records or you know, R and

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Speaker 3: B records or what have you, and juggle those back

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Speaker 3: and forth by keeping those breaks going, and then MC's

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Speaker 3: masters of ceremony would rap over them and these would

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Speaker 3: literally be I mean, there were certainly parties that involved

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Speaker 3: just you know, like boomboxes and that kind of prerecorded music,

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Speaker 3: but it's this phenomenon that really started, you know, becoming

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Speaker 3: what we now know as hip hop. You had DJs

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Speaker 3: like jam Master J, grand Master Flash, funk Master Flex,

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Speaker 3: they were all masters of the art of turntabling. And

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Speaker 3: then you would have MC's like Fab five, Freddy or

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Speaker 3: some of the earlier names that you would hear about

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Speaker 3: in the genesis of hip hop rapping on top of

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Speaker 3: those juggled kind of beats.

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: history 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 in general, these four pillars or elements

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Speaker 1: will call them, can be considered the foundations of this movement.

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Speaker 1: Like you describe Noel to the most well known DJ,

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Speaker 1: MCing or rapping right DJ and turntabling, mcen rapping, graf right,

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Speaker 1: and then of course breakdancing B Boy. And nowadays you'll

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Speaker 1: often hear hip hop use as a synonym for rap music,

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Speaker 1: but it's really best to think of rap as part

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Speaker 1: of hip hop rather than the thing entire And you're right,

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Speaker 1: it did originate in New York City in the South

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Speaker 1: Bronx in the nineteen seventies, an economically depressed period of

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Speaker 1: time in that area. And again, there's so much excellent

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Speaker 1: scholarship on the complex cultural roots of this movement that

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Speaker 1: I would recommend. There's something will reference later in this episode,

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

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

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Speaker 1: It's got our own Rodney Carmichael on there. This kind

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Speaker 1: of stuff proves that there's serious academic thoughts, forensic research

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Speaker 1: into the ecosystem from which this movement sprang and the

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Speaker 1: way that it synthesizes much much older traditions and things.

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Speaker 1: As hip hop began at society's margins. Its origins are

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Speaker 1: kind of legendary, at times mythical or enigmatic. But one

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Speaker 1: thing's for sure. The bright eggs in the music industry

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Speaker 1: realized there was money to be made. And when they

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

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Speaker 1: as an underground or less mainstream thing began to move

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Speaker 1: to the center of public conversation.

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Speaker 2: I do want to walk back really quickly.

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Speaker 3: I said, the earliest days of hip hop were in

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Speaker 3: Brooklyn and Harlem, And you're absolutely right, Ben, it was

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Speaker 3: the South Bronx where it started, but then it quickly

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Speaker 3: kind of spread throughout the other boroughs of New York

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Speaker 3: and it is very much a New York City phenomenon.

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Speaker 3: And it's very true, Ben, it very quickly became clear

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Speaker 3: that there was an industry within, you know, this very

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Speaker 3: grassroots genre and culture. Because you're right, it wasn't just

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Speaker 3: the music. It was the graffitia, it was the dancing,

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Speaker 3: it was fashion, it was all of this thing that

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Speaker 3: was just rife for you know, commodifying.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's an important, just an important thing

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Speaker 4: to think about. I want to pinpoint on the graffiti

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Speaker 4: really quickly because it's a form of marketing in a

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Speaker 4: way if you think about it correctly. You know, if

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Speaker 4: you could if you tagged your name and you're a

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Speaker 4: well known you know, DJ or MC, and you were

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Speaker 4: you know, tagging in certain places, people start to recognize,

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Speaker 4: oh yeah, this is around an area where there was

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Speaker 4: you know, essentially a concert or a party or something

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Speaker 4: going on. You begin to recognize that tag and then Ben,

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Speaker 4: you're just you're talking about some some people within this

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Speaker 4: larger music industry realized how popular this could be if

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Speaker 4: it was funneled through the official channels. And that's that's

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Speaker 4: what this whole episode is about. What happens when when

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Speaker 4: something that has a grassroots, that is being risen from

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Speaker 4: the grassroots, gets funneled through these channels.

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Speaker 1: With a little bit of a viig some rents seeking

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

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Speaker 1: only ideology that'll take a T shirt that says down

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Speaker 1: with capitalism and figure out a way to sell it

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Speaker 1: to you. That's, at the risk of sounding cynical or nihilistic,

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Speaker 1: that is the case. The music industry today is a

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Speaker 1: very different beast now, mainly because of the advent of

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Speaker 1: the Internet, which democratized a lot of things. People had

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Speaker 1: access they did not have before. But in the days

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Speaker 1: before you could hop online or use your magic pocket computer,

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Speaker 1: structural forces in the music business wielded profound control over

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Speaker 1: what could or could not be played, what was or

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Speaker 1: was not to find us successful, right, and what you

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Speaker 1: heard if you're just going to concerts, if you're just

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Speaker 1: listening to the radio, if you don't live in New

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Speaker 1: York and the music industry suits are not giving the

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Speaker 1: co sign consigliere style to a given group performing in

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Speaker 1: New York, then you might never hear of them. And

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Speaker 1: of course this is still to some extent true in

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Speaker 1: the modern day. The industry, with all its wiles and woes,

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Speaker 1: still does this stuff all the time. We've talked about it.

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Speaker 1: We talked about who actually writes so many of the

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Speaker 1: pop songs you hear. But in the pre internet era,

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Speaker 1: corruption was there's a there's a word. Frank Maharan, friend

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Speaker 1: of the show, taught me a long time ago, wide rife.

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Speaker 1: Remember that one corruption was wide rife, like predatory deals

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Speaker 1: sent artists directly from the studio to the poorhouse.

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Speaker 4: Well, they'd make us stop at a couple concert halls

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Speaker 4: and then here we are.

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Speaker 1: And that's maybe something we have to do another day.

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

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Speaker 3: Really quickly, I just wanted to add, you know, we're

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Speaker 3: talking about the difference between needing a record deal and

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Speaker 3: being able to do it yourself through like SoundCloud and

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Speaker 3: so many of these these infrastructures that are in place now,

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Speaker 3: just you wouldn't have had those in those days. And

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Speaker 3: that's really democratized, you know, the entertainment industry to the

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Speaker 3: point where it's almost like who needs a record label anymore?

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Speaker 3: And if you're interested, there's actually a little bit of

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Speaker 3: clever modeling that some programmer dreamt up, and it's called

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Speaker 3: a record deal simulator, and it just lets you kind

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Speaker 3: of run the numbers and make it make you realize

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Speaker 3: very quickly if you are in fact getting screwed. And

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Speaker 3: unless you're dealing with cool indie labels that have a

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Speaker 3: very cool niche kind of foot in the door with

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Speaker 3: a certain type of genre or certain type of artists,

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Speaker 3: you really don't need that as much anymore. And so

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Speaker 3: many amazing artists like Billie Eilish, for example, Sure she

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Speaker 3: has a record deal because she gets this massive benefit

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Speaker 3: of the distribution that is a record label like Interscope,

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Speaker 3: but she got big because of her SoundCloud and because

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Speaker 3: of like just being an interesting artist in and of herself,

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Speaker 3: or touring.

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Speaker 1: You know, a lot of a lot of the financial

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Speaker 1: bread and butter for many musical acts is ultimately touring. Anyway.

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Speaker 1: Shout out to Algiers and then the Matador label. They

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Speaker 1: seem they seem pretty cool. Nobody ruined that for me.

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Speaker 1: I don't want it to go wrong. You're right though,

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Speaker 1: you're right, and contracts aside, there's physical and emotional danger

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Speaker 1: in the music industry. You want to be successful, says

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Speaker 1: some creepy suit, What would you do? You know what

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Speaker 1: I mean? So abuse of all types is common, and

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Speaker 1: it's covered up because people feel like their careers are

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Speaker 1: on the line, and in some cases they may be

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Speaker 1: absolutely correct. Paola and nepotism runs rampant. For anyone who

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Speaker 1: doesn't know, guys, what is paola?

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Speaker 4: It's a it's Creola's really really evil cousin.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, nailed it. Paola is also a term for a

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Speaker 1: term for direct pay to play on a radio station, right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, And it's weird. It's really yeah, that's that's

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Speaker 4: weird stuff because you could you can pay to gain

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Speaker 4: on it, or the radio station can just decide to

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Speaker 4: play your song a lot, and then all of a

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Speaker 4: sudden it becomes their one of their top hits. And

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Speaker 4: that's weird to say coming from you know that you

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Speaker 4: may be listening to this on the radio.

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Speaker 2: That's true.

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Speaker 4: 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: a mandated thing about ethics in this in this field,

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

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Speaker 1: said is no payola, it's illegal. Don't do it like

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Speaker 1: that was that was a point. I don't know about

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Speaker 1: you all, but coming from the podcast that that was

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Speaker 1: really weird to me. I was like, thank you for

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Speaker 1: thinking I'm important enough for this to ever be an issue.

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Speaker 1: But I think you guys got it, you know.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think the simplest way to think about

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Speaker 3: what payola is is just pay for play.

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Speaker 2: It's it's it's.

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Speaker 3: Literally, you know, grease and palms to get radio play,

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Speaker 3: you know, gifts and the like. And so there are

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Speaker 3: a very codified set of rules in place to prevent

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Speaker 3: even the whiff of this practice, and that's mandated by

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Speaker 3: the Federal Communications Commission.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and that happened for a reason. Like you ever

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Speaker 1: walk into a place of business and you see a

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Speaker 1: weird like you see you see the normal warnings like

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Speaker 1: no shirt, no shoes, no service, but then you see

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Speaker 1: really weirdly specific warning where it's like no drunk ducks,

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Speaker 1: and you're thinking, okay, well that something weird happened at

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Speaker 1: this chevron or whatever. But this law exists, and it's

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Speaker 1: explicit because it was so prevalent, and there were like

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Speaker 1: literally small groups of people, small number of people who

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

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

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Speaker 1: a cabal quite yet, but this group cast its collective

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Speaker 1: gaze saw on like toward this thing called rap. Fast forward. Today,

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

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

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Speaker 1: like you know, think of like tricky or similar performers,

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Speaker 1: mumble rap, grime. And for a time, as these things

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Speaker 1: were evolving successfully and concurrently, one of the most controversial

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Speaker 1: genres was something that was originally known as reality rap

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Speaker 1: and today is often referred to as bangster rap.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know the genre of gangst You know,

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Speaker 3: sometimes the name of a genre, it certainly doesn't come

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Speaker 3: along with the like advent of a genre. It kind

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Speaker 3: of gets named later, usually based around the zeitgeist, like

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Speaker 3: the way it's referred to in criticism or in like

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Speaker 3: music journalism or whatever. Like. Nobody usually coins the name

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Speaker 3: of their genre as they're pushing it out into the

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Speaker 3: world is kind of left up to the listeners to decide,

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Speaker 3: or you know, the tastemakers or whatever. But we could

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Speaker 3: trace back the genre that is considered gangster rap, which

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Speaker 3: isn't always a sound. It's not always there's there's a

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Speaker 3: lot of things that goes into it. But six in

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Speaker 3: the Morning by Iced Tea, which was released in nineteen

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Speaker 3: eighty six, is typically referred to as the very first

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Speaker 3: gangster rap song. But Iced Tea, however, gives credit where

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Speaker 3: credit is due, as we are huge fans of doing

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Speaker 3: on this very show, but that is not something that

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Speaker 3: is always a common thing done in the entertainment industry.

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Speaker 3: It's all about kind of flexing and sort of you know,

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Speaker 3: biting people's styles often especially in hip hop, and just

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Speaker 3: being first to market with something, and that in and

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Speaker 3: of itself is almost like considered, Oh, I was first

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Speaker 3: to do it, therefore it was my idea.

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Speaker 2: But we know that's not true.

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Speaker 3: But he very clearly gives credit for this tune to

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Speaker 3: school e D's PSK.

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Speaker 1: Track Parkside Killers Yeah I See. Also notes that around

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Speaker 1: the same time, Boogie Down 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

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Speaker 1: is something different here, and it's not clearly defined 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, Noel. There's a sound that's different.

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Speaker 1: The stories told are different, as they are. Wont to

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Speaker 1: do hate this new stuff it. Hate it, hate it,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean? They say the main reason

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Speaker 1: they hate it is they feel that it glorifies violence.

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Speaker 1: They feel that it sells a romanticized view of a

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Speaker 1: criminal life to vulnerable children, to vulnerable populations struggling to

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Speaker 1: get by. This is a relatively conservative view. It's very

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Speaker 1: popular in conservative circles. But I want to point out

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Speaker 1: this is not an original view. The US has had

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Speaker 1: a weird love hate relationship, call it a fatal attraction

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Speaker 1: crush with what it perceives as gangster since the country

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Speaker 1: was founded. I mean, people loved al Capone, right, al

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Speaker 1: Capone didn't even make music, he was he was just

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Speaker 1: a scumbag. And people people like Body and Clyde, right,

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Speaker 1: they were murders.

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Speaker 2: I mean that's right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, Well people also loved alcohol even and we were

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Speaker 4: you know, when the view was that it should be

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Speaker 4: prohibited completely, you know. I mean, it's just it's an

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Speaker 4: interesting love hate relationship that we have with law and

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Speaker 4: order and then you know freedom right. I think those

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Speaker 4: are the two dichotomies, like right, that's what it feels like.

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Speaker 1: What's that old line during Prohibition there was some guy

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

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Speaker 1: quote where he said, look, people are going to vote

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Speaker 1: for prohibition as long as they could still stumble to

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Speaker 1: the polls. And that's that's kind of I mean that

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Speaker 1: there is a commonality there, There is a there is

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Speaker 1: a pattern America. And I love your point about freedom

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Speaker 1: versus law, you know, autonomy versus authoritarianism here, Matt, because

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Speaker 1: one thing that the critics often and in my mind,

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Speaker 1: willfully ignored was that gangster rap was is speaking truth

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Speaker 1: to power like n w A. I'm sorry, you'll have

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Speaker 1: to edit me here. I want a sense the thing

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Speaker 1: in WA's song the police this right, this ruffled feathers. Right,

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Speaker 1: not just like a moral panic somewhere in America, but

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Speaker 1: the FBI paid attention. The FBI assistant director at the time,

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Speaker 1: a guy named Milt Alarch, wrote a letter in response,

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Speaker 1: and the letter was mainly talking about just how deeply

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Speaker 1: law enforcement resented the song, so they got a strongly

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Speaker 1: worded letter, which is like the most square authoritarian thing

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Speaker 1: to do.

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Speaker 3: But I was speaking to a real problem in that

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Speaker 3: in that quarantity, and it's something that obviously, you know

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Speaker 3: hasn't gone away. If if the times we're living in now,

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Speaker 3: or any indication that the l a p D in

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Speaker 3: particular has a history of corruption and has a history

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Speaker 3: of being involved in crime themselves and taking advantage of people,

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Speaker 3: especially people of color, Yeah, for sure.

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Speaker 4: But it is I mean, it's it's a fascinating thing

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Speaker 4: to look at me because cause if you look at

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Speaker 4: the lyrics of something like six in the Morning, the

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Speaker 4: iced T song that we're referencing there, I mean he's

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Speaker 4: talking about getting into a firefight, a gun battle with

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Speaker 4: police officers with a SWAT team, which you know, you

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Speaker 4: can totally see like suburban families, maybe more conservative thinking

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Speaker 4: people would just think that is the worst thing ever.

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Speaker 4: And like you're encouraging other people to think about that

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Speaker 4: and like that's a cool thing or a good thing.

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Speaker 4: It's talking about jail time, it's talking about a lot

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Speaker 4: of other crimes. But yeah, you're absolutely right, like drawing

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Speaker 4: that line then between what the LAPD is actually doing,

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Speaker 4: what NYPD was doing, what police departments across the country

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Speaker 4: were doing at the time. It's just, you know, it

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Speaker 4: does feel like a battle in some ways for the

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Speaker 4: mind about what is right and what is actually happening.

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

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Speaker 1: same damn thing. Long time read those reads, Johnny Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: read at you read some Johnny Cash lyrics and tell

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

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: It's like we always say one one side's terrorist is

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Speaker 3: the other side's freedom fighter.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's easy.

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Speaker 3: It's all about where do you stand as to what

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Speaker 3: the police is to you? And I think that's that's

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Speaker 3: important to have that perspective. And so many of these

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Speaker 3: are also play out allegorically where it's not there's there's

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Speaker 3: subtext within a lot of these lyrics that that clearly

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Speaker 3: isn't saying, yeah, live this life. It's like, you might

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Speaker 3: die if you live this life. But it is a life,

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Speaker 3: and it is the life that I live or that

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Speaker 3: we live, So it is speaking truth to power, But

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Speaker 3: I don't I would argue that it doesn't always glorify

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Speaker 3: it in the way that the square sounding kind of

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Speaker 3: critics might think.

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Speaker 1: I agree with you at times. You know, it's you

434
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:55,640
Speaker 1: can't say an entire genre. It can be described by

435
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:58,880
Speaker 1: one thing or one message in one song. But yeah,

436
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 1: it's it's incredible misleading to say that there is always glorification.

437
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:05,680
Speaker 1: I'd also like to shout out a really cool my

438
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:10,400
Speaker 1: song freestyle on funk Flex that is about this very issue,

439
00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:13,800
Speaker 1: the image being sold for the betrayal of that image,

440
00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:17,960
Speaker 1: and what the origins of that betrayal are and who

441
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:21,880
Speaker 1: decides what part of the picture gets framed for public consumption.

442
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:25,680
Speaker 1: In any case, you guys are making We're making real

443
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 1: points here. The battle lines are drawn right in some

444
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:34,200
Speaker 1: people's minds. We've got these organizations, these individuals who enter

445
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:38,439
Speaker 1: a legit moral panic about hip hop, similar to you know,

446
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:41,679
Speaker 1: as you pointed out, Matt, a satanic panic, right, D

447
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: and D is going to have our children reading the

448
00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 1: Keys of Solomon or whatever, which they might, but it

449
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 1: would be for a campaign and it would probably be

450
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:56,679
Speaker 1: pretty fun. This is weird? Is it glorification? Other people?

451
00:26:56,800 --> 00:27:04,080
Speaker 1: Proponents of are artistry, proponents of activism, actual musicians, producers,

452
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:08,120
Speaker 1: fans responded, and you know. Of course, the artist responded

453
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:12,760
Speaker 1: by saying, look, I'm depicting the life I experienced, right,

454
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:18,720
Speaker 1: and I'm successfully doing it. I didn't create the situation

455
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:22,880
Speaker 1: in which I was born, and it's you know, it's

456
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 1: it's a deeply offensive kind of censorship to say that

457
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 1: I can't tell the truth about my life in the

458
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 1: US of all places. So there's a complex argument there,

459
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:37,919
Speaker 1: and it's pretty solid. But back to the money, because

460
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:40,760
Speaker 1: this is the US in America, there are a couple

461
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:44,479
Speaker 1: of things that move the needle. The big one is cash,

462
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:48,680
Speaker 1: cold heart cash, the cheddar, the cheese, so gagser rap

463
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 1: was selling. It was successful. People wanted to listen to it, right,

464
00:27:54,080 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just a phenomenon where you know a

465
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:02,199
Speaker 1: lot of people are listening to it from a privileged perspective.

466
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:06,200
Speaker 1: They had the luxury of never experiencing and never having

467
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 1: to experience the things that are talked about in this music.

468
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 1: So for whatever reason it's successful, it was pushing the industry,

469
00:28:15,280 --> 00:28:18,280
Speaker 1: and then that means for both critics and proponents, it

470
00:28:18,359 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 1: is pushing the conversation. And side note, you know, there

471
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:25,919
Speaker 1: was a lot of research at the time and ongoing

472
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:30,640
Speaker 1: that tried to determine whether there was a causation right,

473
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:35,320
Speaker 1: whether there was a causative relationship between music and crime,

474
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 1: specifically between listening to gangster rap and then later joining

475
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:43,960
Speaker 1: a gang. This was, by the way, a popular view

476
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 1: for many folks on the US conservative side. But the

477
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:56,600
Speaker 1: problem there is that vastly oversimplifies the numerous socioeconomic factors

478
00:28:56,600 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 1: that were involved, many of which the majority of which

479
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:03,959
Speaker 1: I would say clearly existed way before Schooley d Right

480
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 1: ever ever, put out a record. In twenty eleven, the

481
00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 1: World Development Report confirmed that most of the street gang

482
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:14,720
Speaker 1: members as they defined them that they had spoken with

483
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 1: maintained that they were driven to crime by poverty and unemployment,

484
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 1: not by music. None of them even mentioned music once,

485
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 1: which I think is an interesting snapshot to pull for

486
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:27,920
Speaker 1: a look at this situation.

487
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I don't want to bring my wife's

488
00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 4: expertise into too many of these episodes, But another thing

489
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:39,480
Speaker 4: that you know has been shown to increase street level

490
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 4: gang members, at least very young people is home situations, yes,

491
00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:46,160
Speaker 4: and just what they're dealing with on a daily basis

492
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 4: and looking for a place for family, essentially outside of

493
00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:54,000
Speaker 4: any of the other glorified stuff that you would hear about.

494
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 4: Just putting that out there.

495
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:59,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point because people seek structure,

496
00:29:59,240 --> 00:30:04,640
Speaker 1: don't We want some form of stability. And in this morass,

497
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:08,120
Speaker 1: in this quagmire, as records are continuing to sell, by

498
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:14,200
Speaker 1: the way, a larger stranger question arises. What if what

499
00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:18,760
Speaker 1: the industry is calling gangster rap isn't an organic success.

500
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 1: What if in boardrooms and offices across the landscape of

501
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 1: the music industry, a hidden hand moves through the charts,

502
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:32,760
Speaker 1: turns the dial of the radio station. What if someone

503
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:38,120
Speaker 1: conspired to make gangster rap successful. We'll dive deeper into

504
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 1: the track list after a word from our sponsor. Here's

505
00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: where it gets crazy.

506
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 4: One thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain,

507
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:58,520
Speaker 4: you know. And white folks they say it controls your brain.

508
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:01,680
Speaker 4: I know better than that. That's that's game. Uh, and

509
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:04,280
Speaker 4: we're ready for that. I just I just want to

510
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:05,040
Speaker 4: put that out there.

511
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:08,959
Speaker 1: Oh de press, it's so well written. But I mean,

512
00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:12,560
Speaker 1: that's that's a great that's a great example and salient

513
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:16,080
Speaker 1: because there is the question, you know, to what degree

514
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:21,520
Speaker 1: does the media we encounter affect our decisions? Not for nothing,

515
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 1: is propaganda tremendously successful. That's an exhibit a of how

516
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 1: this stuff, how media can influence real life actions and perceptions.

517
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:35,080
Speaker 1: But there's a weird question here, you know, like when

518
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 1: we ask what if the rise of yangs rap was

519
00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 1: not just an organic trend? At first? That seems like

520
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 1: an odd thing to ask, you know, because just imagine

521
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:48,120
Speaker 1: the moving parts involved. How could the success of not

522
00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:53,480
Speaker 1: just a single artist, but an entire genre be somehow

523
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 1: coordinated across multiple institutions. How could it be somehow manufactured?

524
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 1: In twenty twelve, someone claimed, uh to know exactly how

525
00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 1: it happened.

526
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:13,800
Speaker 4: Yeah, or at least they gave us a window into

527
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 4: some of the details of how they say it happened.

528
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 1: Alleged window. I don't wanna, I don't want to. I

529
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 1: don't want to poke at it until we know what

530
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:27,560
Speaker 1: it is. Okay, Okay, yeah, okay, sure, you're right, sure

531
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:29,120
Speaker 1: I claim.

532
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 4: No, No, I don't know. No for sure, We're we're

533
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 4: we're gonna, we're gonna have fun with us. We just

534
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 4: you know, on this show, as we always state, sources

535
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 4: are very important where they come from, backing things up,

536
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:42,920
Speaker 4: journalistic approach. We are we are presenting this to you

537
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:47,960
Speaker 4: all exactly as we found it and as the world

538
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:49,600
Speaker 4: found it back in twenty twelve.

539
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:53,320
Speaker 3: So, back in twenty twelve, someone created a Gmail account

540
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:58,680
Speaker 3: and sent a letter that absolutely upended the world of

541
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 3: hip hop. The user name John Smith very clever, the

542
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:08,320
Speaker 3: address industry Confessions at gmail dot com. And they composed

543
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:14,400
Speaker 3: the message using this very I would say, titillating, I

544
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 3: don't know, very intriguing at the very least, subject line

545
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 3: the secret meeting that changed rap music and destroyed a generation.

546
00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:27,520
Speaker 3: And this letter, which we're going to look at through

547
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 3: some excerpts, tells a profoundly and disturbing, if true story.

548
00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:36,160
Speaker 2: Yeah.

549
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 1: So this letter, which you can read in full, was

550
00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:43,200
Speaker 1: sent and published on hip hop is Read dot com.

551
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:46,480
Speaker 2: R E ad R E A D Yes. Thank you.

552
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 1: The anonymous author says, Okay, it's taken me a long

553
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:54,440
Speaker 1: time to I have thought about sending this letter for

554
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 1: a long long time, and I was afraid to. But

555
00:33:56,960 --> 00:34:00,479
Speaker 1: I want to tell you what happened. Well, we can

556
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:03,800
Speaker 1: call them John Smith went on, let's play their reindeer games.

557
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:07,800
Speaker 1: So John says that they were from Europe and they

558
00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:10,560
Speaker 1: lived in the US in the nineties, where they worked

559
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:15,600
Speaker 1: as a music executive. Very vague term there, John essentially

560
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 1: implying that they're one of the elites on the corporate

561
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 1: side of the music industry. And they say that in

562
00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:27,239
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one they were invited to a very exclusive

563
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 1: meeting on the outskirts of Los Angeles. The letter specifically says, quote,

564
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:35,120
Speaker 1: I was invited to tend a closed door meeting with

565
00:34:35,160 --> 00:34:38,719
Speaker 1: a small group of music business insiders to discuss rap

566
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:44,160
Speaker 1: music's new direction, which is just a funny phrase, new direction.

567
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:48,640
Speaker 4: Anyway they knew when they formed the group, by the way, Yeah.

568
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:50,879
Speaker 1: Little did I know. The author says that we would

569
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 1: be asked to participate in one of the most unethical

570
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:58,680
Speaker 1: and destructive business practices I've ever seen. And so they

571
00:34:58,719 --> 00:35:03,160
Speaker 1: set the stage. Again, this is an elite insider, right,

572
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:07,200
Speaker 1: So you would assume in an exclusive meeting in their

573
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:10,439
Speaker 1: area of expertise, they would know everybody kind of.

574
00:35:10,560 --> 00:35:14,799
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, yeah, I mean it's a possibility at least,

575
00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:16,759
Speaker 4: And it gets a little stranger when it comes to

576
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:19,680
Speaker 4: like whose house it was and some of the other

577
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 4: people that were there. The details are a bit murky.

578
00:35:22,120 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 4: I want to point something out, just maybe grammatically within

579
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:31,120
Speaker 4: the letter itself, so we are a writer here, at

580
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:34,239
Speaker 4: least according to their own story, is from Europe or

581
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:38,880
Speaker 4: originally from some European country, came to the United States

582
00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:42,200
Speaker 4: to Los Angeles, became an executive. They wrote this then.

583
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 4: I don't want to spoil it too much, but they

584
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:50,959
Speaker 4: wrote this letter later on after leaving Yes, so they

585
00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 4: they make several grammatical errors, several spelling errors that I mean,

586
00:35:57,160 --> 00:35:59,440
Speaker 4: it's not spelling, it's just grammatical errors, but things that

587
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:04,280
Speaker 4: I I could see maybe just occurring if you didn't

588
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:07,880
Speaker 4: write a whole bunch. But they're pretty simple errors that

589
00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 4: I think would be caught even in twenty twelve by Gmail.

590
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:17,799
Speaker 4: I'm just interested to know how those came about. Maybe

591
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,560
Speaker 4: it's something as simple as just a mistype but saying

592
00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:26,000
Speaker 4: destructive business practice rather than practices. And there are a

593
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:28,520
Speaker 4: couple other places where they do that within the email,

594
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:32,200
Speaker 4: where it's just incorrect and it's just I don't know,

595
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 4: it's something to point out, I guess to think about

596
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 4: when we're imagining who this person may be true true?

597
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 1: Who is this Kuyser SoSE the yeah, and it gets

598
00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 1: us to the area where we might be reading some

599
00:36:45,680 --> 00:36:48,759
Speaker 1: tea leaves at times, but these are important questions. You

600
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:51,960
Speaker 1: could also say something as simple as well, this is

601
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 1: a very emotional confession for them, and they're typing in

602
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 1: a hurry, and they're sending before they regret or before

603
00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:01,240
Speaker 1: they give them, you know, before they start to have doubt.

604
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:03,680
Speaker 1: But the truth of the matter is, we don't know.

605
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:08,240
Speaker 1: Here's what they say about this meeting again, this alleged meeting.

606
00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 1: They say, I remember seeing about twenty five to thirty

607
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 1: people being there, most of them familiar faces. Speaking to

608
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:18,480
Speaker 1: those I knew. We joked about the theme of the meeting,

609
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:20,960
Speaker 1: as many of us did not care for rap music

610
00:37:21,120 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 1: and failed to see the purpose of being invited to

611
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:27,320
Speaker 1: a private gathering to discuss its future. It's very interesting.

612
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:32,400
Speaker 1: Among the attendees was a small group of unfamiliar faces

613
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:35,560
Speaker 1: who stayed to themselves and made no attempt to socialize

614
00:37:35,560 --> 00:37:39,440
Speaker 1: beyond their circle. Based on their behavior and formal appearances,

615
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: they didn't seem to be part of our industry. Oh tantalizing, vague,

616
00:37:44,239 --> 00:37:45,680
Speaker 1: incitious umami hmm.

617
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 3: Indeed, and the group in question was given a very

618
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 3: strongly worded non disclosure agreement that they were forced to

619
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:02,680
Speaker 3: sign before the meeting would commence, and some refused and

620
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:05,319
Speaker 3: got a little freaked out and they were like, nah,

621
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:07,120
Speaker 3: I'm good, and they took off.

622
00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 4: And that's when the meeting commenced. And again there's a

623
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:17,840
Speaker 4: there's a person that the writer knew who welcomed everyone.

624
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 4: It was like they're they're running the meeting. At least

625
00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:22,759
Speaker 4: it seemed to be their house, at least according to

626
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:26,080
Speaker 4: the person who're writing this. It's like, thanks everybody, And

627
00:38:26,200 --> 00:38:29,239
Speaker 4: here's one of these men that you don't know, and

628
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:31,600
Speaker 4: he's going to speak to us for a little while.

629
00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 3: That a.

630
00:38:34,160 --> 00:38:39,719
Speaker 1: Polite collapse, all right, And so this speaker will paraphrase

631
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:42,080
Speaker 1: some of this, But this this speaker is one of

632
00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:47,400
Speaker 1: those unfamiliar folks, goes on to say some wildly surreal

633
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:51,600
Speaker 1: stuff to this audience. Basically says, look, you all are

634
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:56,440
Speaker 1: here because the companies that you represent have invested in

635
00:38:56,520 --> 00:39:02,439
Speaker 1: an exciting new business opportunity, a profitable industry that could

636
00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:06,560
Speaker 1: be a gold mine. It could be immensely rewarding as

637
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:09,799
Speaker 1: long as you all help us out. See the companies

638
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:12,839
Speaker 1: that you all work for, says this person, even if

639
00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:16,360
Speaker 1: you don't know it yet, they've invested millions of dollars

640
00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:21,640
Speaker 1: into building what we call private prisons, and because of

641
00:39:21,719 --> 00:39:26,320
Speaker 1: your position as the taste makers of the music industry,

642
00:39:26,440 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 1: you could have a big effect on the profit of

643
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:34,760
Speaker 1: these investments. Imagine like we've been just over the years,

644
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:39,880
Speaker 1: the four of us, code named Doc Holliday, Matt Nolan, myself,

645
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:42,719
Speaker 1: we've all been in some really weird meetings. One time,

646
00:39:42,719 --> 00:39:46,440
Speaker 1: Matt and I had to smuggle an Elvis impersonator into

647
00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:49,160
Speaker 1: a product office.

648
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:50,360
Speaker 4: Wait we did, really?

649
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:54,040
Speaker 1: Yeh yeah really? Wait were you not there with Roxanne?

650
00:39:55,400 --> 00:40:00,480
Speaker 4: Oh no, we did. Whoa, that's weird. Yep, memory these

651
00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:01,240
Speaker 4: weird meetings.

652
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:03,399
Speaker 2: That one was little right past.

653
00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 1: Okay, so you know, you're active in an industry or career,

654
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:12,600
Speaker 1: you're going to have some weird meetings. But this is

655
00:40:12,680 --> 00:40:16,719
Speaker 1: pretty twilight zone even for these folks. And we have

656
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:19,399
Speaker 1: our author's reaction to some.

657
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:20,120
Speaker 6: Of this news.

658
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:23,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, at this time, in general, the concept

659
00:40:23,320 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 3: of a private prison wasn't as much in the in

660
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:29,719
Speaker 3: the news has it has it has been for many

661
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 3: years at this point didn't have the rep that it

662
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:34,440
Speaker 3: has now. So the author didn't even know what that was,

663
00:40:35,719 --> 00:40:38,919
Speaker 3: and he wasn't the only one, he says, quote sure enough,

664
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:41,960
Speaker 3: someone asked what these prisons were and what any of

665
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:44,719
Speaker 3: this had to do with us. We were told that

666
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:48,120
Speaker 3: these prisons were built by privately owned companies who received

667
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:50,680
Speaker 3: funding from the government based on the number of inmates.

668
00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:54,040
Speaker 3: The more inmates, the more money the government would pay

669
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:56,359
Speaker 3: these prisons. It was also made clear to us that

670
00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 3: since these prisons are privately owned, as they become publicly traded,

671
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 3: we'd be able to buy shares.

672
00:41:03,239 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 4: Dude, it's really weird, right, yeah, And it's also a

673
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 4: cheap way to incentivize people. Yeah, I mean, we're talking

674
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:16,040
Speaker 4: about psychological warfare here on like in the highest levels

675
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:18,320
Speaker 4: if this is true, If.

676
00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 1: This is true, and insider trading probably as well. So

677
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:27,520
Speaker 1: the guy that from that point, the guy who you mentioned, Matt,

678
00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:29,239
Speaker 1: who may or may not be the owner of the house,

679
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:31,880
Speaker 1: but it's definitely in the music industry. He takes to

680
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:37,640
Speaker 1: the floor for questions and he says, Look, since our

681
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:42,800
Speaker 1: bosses are silent investors in this promising new prison business,

682
00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:47,120
Speaker 1: it is now in their interest, in your boss's interests

683
00:41:47,200 --> 00:41:51,080
Speaker 1: to make sure these prisons stay filled. And your job,

684
00:41:51,160 --> 00:41:54,200
Speaker 1: the way you guys help the team here is to

685
00:41:55,360 --> 00:41:59,759
Speaker 1: market music that promotes criminal behavior and rap says, this

686
00:41:59,800 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 1: guy is our music of choice, and then the author says,

687
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:06,160
Speaker 1: he assured us that this would be a great situation

688
00:42:06,320 --> 00:42:09,960
Speaker 1: for us because rap music is already becoming increasingly profitable

689
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:12,359
Speaker 1: for companies, and you know, you'll be able to buy

690
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:15,240
Speaker 1: personal stocks in the prison. So they're not like directly

691
00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:18,960
Speaker 1: paying these people. They're saying, tilt the scale with all

692
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:21,839
Speaker 1: the levers that you're you know, at your command, and

693
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:25,319
Speaker 1: then you can, in addition to helping us, you can

694
00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:30,200
Speaker 1: buy in to our really messed up plan. And then

695
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:35,200
Speaker 1: silence filled the room for one long moment before someone shouted,

696
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:36,720
Speaker 1: is this a joke?

697
00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:39,800
Speaker 2: Okay?

698
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:41,759
Speaker 3: But the question that I'm that comes to mind, and

699
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:43,000
Speaker 3: I know we'll get in more into this is the

700
00:42:43,040 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 3: implication that, like we're gonna fill up prisons more by

701
00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:53,840
Speaker 3: popularizing the gangster lifestyle and like making young people aspire

702
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:55,880
Speaker 3: to that and therefore end up in prison.

703
00:42:56,160 --> 00:42:57,080
Speaker 2: Is that the implication here?

704
00:42:57,160 --> 00:42:57,320
Speaker 6: Am I?

705
00:42:57,440 --> 00:42:59,920
Speaker 2: Am I overstating the case? Or am I missing something?

706
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:02,640
Speaker 4: Let's take a quick break here to talk about history

707
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 4: and bring back some stuff, if it's okay, from our

708
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:10,360
Speaker 4: Private Prisons episode and videos and content we've made on

709
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:14,160
Speaker 4: that before. So if you really want to start talking

710
00:43:14,160 --> 00:43:16,160
Speaker 4: about this stuff. You got to go back to Reagan

711
00:43:16,480 --> 00:43:19,719
Speaker 4: in the nineteen eighties and the War on drugs and

712
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:25,000
Speaker 4: the effect that those policies had on prison populations, because now,

713
00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 4: because of those laws, there are a lot more people

714
00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:33,960
Speaker 4: getting sent to prison for smaller charges for like small

715
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 4: a lot of smaller mandatory minimums and being and being

716
00:43:40,640 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 4: sentenced for longer periods of time, which means the federal,

717
00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:48,920
Speaker 4: state and local prisons and jails are being filled up

718
00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:53,719
Speaker 4: faster and faster, which then spawns this concept and you're

719
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:56,279
Speaker 4: really talking about nineteen eighty three and onwards. I think that's. Yeah,

720
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:59,440
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty three is when Corrections Corporation of America CCA

721
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 4: that we've talked about is formed. So that is a

722
00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:08,320
Speaker 4: real thing. That is you know, I guess an industry

723
00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:12,480
Speaker 4: that is taking off, you know what seven years prior

724
00:44:12,719 --> 00:44:16,920
Speaker 4: eight years prior to this meeting that allegedly takes place,

725
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:21,520
Speaker 4: and you know it, we do know for sure that

726
00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:26,160
Speaker 4: that that system that industry works by filling their prisons

727
00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:29,279
Speaker 4: by the number of beds that are filled. I just

728
00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:30,640
Speaker 4: I guess I just want to pause you for saying

729
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:33,760
Speaker 4: to say, yeah, the incentive it there is real incentive

730
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 4: there to make sure those private prisons are filled up.

731
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:39,760
Speaker 4: And if you can do anything to move the needle

732
00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:43,680
Speaker 4: to get more people into those prisons, then it would

733
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:47,360
Speaker 4: be profitable for people who invested in it.

734
00:44:47,960 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 6: Yeah.

735
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 1: In the in the research for that one, one thing

736
00:44:50,680 --> 00:44:56,040
Speaker 1: that heartbreaking really was to look at video clips you

737
00:44:56,080 --> 00:45:02,520
Speaker 1: can see from trade shows where company private prison corporations are,

738
00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:04,520
Speaker 1: you know, and they got the little like science fair

739
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:07,400
Speaker 1: displays set up and they're talking the numbers and how

740
00:45:07,800 --> 00:45:13,200
Speaker 1: profitable this is and networking, and they yeah, their success

741
00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:18,280
Speaker 1: is defined by the expansion of the mass incarceration system

742
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:23,479
Speaker 1: in the US. And when this became, luckily a matter

743
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:27,239
Speaker 1: of larger debate in the US mainstream. Can't remember when

744
00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:30,239
Speaker 1: it happened, maybe a little after our episode episodes of that,

745
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:34,520
Speaker 1: but whenever it happened, they were radio silent for a

746
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:38,279
Speaker 1: little while. They took the hit on their stocks, and

747
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:44,319
Speaker 1: then there were these huge cries, panics even dare I say,

748
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:49,640
Speaker 1: a moral panic over illegal immigration. And what did those

749
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:54,880
Speaker 1: private prison companies do with their infrastructure. They just moved

750
00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:57,120
Speaker 1: it to you know, they stopped calling them prisons and

751
00:45:57,120 --> 00:45:58,880
Speaker 1: started calling them detainment centers.

752
00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:01,120
Speaker 3: I think I may have mentioned this in a past episode,

753
00:46:01,160 --> 00:46:04,840
Speaker 3: but in a previous life, when I was a reporter

754
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:10,000
Speaker 3: for Georgia Public Radio, I covered when the housing collapse happened,

755
00:46:10,719 --> 00:46:12,560
Speaker 3: and it put a lot of like small towns that

756
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:16,560
Speaker 3: were based around manufacturing basically just completely you know, leveled

757
00:46:16,560 --> 00:46:17,719
Speaker 3: their employment.

758
00:46:17,760 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 2: There was just nothing.

759
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:20,759
Speaker 3: And there was this one little town in Georgia that

760
00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:24,160
Speaker 3: I covered who their entire business was based around like

761
00:46:24,239 --> 00:46:27,440
Speaker 3: textile manuf It wasn't textiles, it was like building materials

762
00:46:27,480 --> 00:46:30,200
Speaker 3: and you know, fabric for furniture and things like that.

763
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:33,080
Speaker 3: But all of their plants closed and it was like

764
00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:36,000
Speaker 3: they had the highest unemployment rate like in the entire state.

765
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:41,960
Speaker 3: And CCA was gonna bring a prison there maybe maybe,

766
00:46:42,200 --> 00:46:45,360
Speaker 3: And I covered this event where the CCA people literally

767
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:49,040
Speaker 3: had a gym, you know, packed with like all the

768
00:46:49,120 --> 00:46:52,319
Speaker 3: townspeople like you would think, and just talking about how

769
00:46:52,400 --> 00:46:55,800
Speaker 3: great this this prison facility was gonna be, how it

770
00:46:55,880 --> 00:46:57,880
Speaker 3: was going to bring jobs to the community, how it

771
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:01,040
Speaker 3: is going to be their ticket out of thehouse. And

772
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:04,080
Speaker 3: then they ultimately ended up taking it somewhere else. And

773
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:07,000
Speaker 3: I guarantee they had that same meeting and a bunch

774
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:10,839
Speaker 3: of other distressed small towns and they got a better

775
00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 3: deal on infrastructure or whatever, and they just pissed right off.

776
00:47:14,680 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 3: But I mean that was the heartbreaking part of the story.

777
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:19,520
Speaker 3: And also I think the heartbreaking part of this larger

778
00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:24,600
Speaker 3: story is that these companies are callous on all ends

779
00:47:24,640 --> 00:47:25,800
Speaker 3: of these calculations.

780
00:47:26,200 --> 00:47:31,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if you're looking for comparison or an

781
00:47:31,520 --> 00:47:34,200
Speaker 1: analog in the world of fiction, then I would recommend

782
00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:37,440
Speaker 1: checking out the monoail episode of The Simpsons. Those speeches

783
00:47:37,480 --> 00:47:39,880
Speaker 1: are made. Those folks are trying to get in front

784
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:43,399
Speaker 1: of Nimby, right, They're trying to find places that are

785
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:47,799
Speaker 1: desperate enough such that Nimby meaning not in my backyard

786
00:47:48,120 --> 00:47:51,600
Speaker 1: no longer applies. And it works because these things get

787
00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:57,120
Speaker 1: built back to this story. So this is the context,

788
00:47:57,360 --> 00:48:01,440
Speaker 1: the larger context in which this conversation is happening. That

789
00:48:01,640 --> 00:48:04,040
Speaker 1: was a quote. The guy says, is this a joke?

790
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:10,400
Speaker 1: The two other folks from that unfamiliar group, whoever they are,

791
00:48:10,080 --> 00:48:13,040
Speaker 1: they they're not play it. They seize this dude, you know,

792
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:16,000
Speaker 1: with that weird like elbow grab kind of thing that

793
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:19,319
Speaker 1: you see that where you see people getting pushed out

794
00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:22,759
Speaker 1: of nice clubs or fancy restaurants or like someone who

795
00:48:22,800 --> 00:48:26,799
Speaker 1: objected at the wedding. This this person's getting. They're trying

796
00:48:26,840 --> 00:48:29,480
Speaker 1: to get this guy out of the house, and then

797
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:33,279
Speaker 1: our anonymous author and a couple of other a couple

798
00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:35,359
Speaker 1: of other dudes try to intervene. They're like, well, what

799
00:48:35,360 --> 00:48:38,000
Speaker 1: are you doing? Stop hang on, and that's when one

800
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:40,200
Speaker 1: of the one of the guys, one of the goons,

801
00:48:40,239 --> 00:48:43,280
Speaker 1: pulls a gun and then all four people are like, okay,

802
00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:46,200
Speaker 1: whoa no, it's this is this is the weirdest meeting.

803
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:50,120
Speaker 1: And they get the boot and they're pushed outside, and

804
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:53,200
Speaker 1: the industry guy, who may have been the homeowner who

805
00:48:53,360 --> 00:48:55,560
Speaker 1: set all this up, he follows them outside and the

806
00:48:55,560 --> 00:48:59,680
Speaker 1: conversation changes, and then very explicitly, this guy says, you know,

807
00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:02,719
Speaker 1: just want to remind you. I want to warn you

808
00:49:02,800 --> 00:49:05,520
Speaker 1: that you have signed an agreement and there will be

809
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:08,759
Speaker 1: consequences if you talk about this in public. There will

810
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:11,480
Speaker 1: be consequences if you talk about it to each other

811
00:49:11,640 --> 00:49:15,040
Speaker 1: or to anybody else who stayed in that room. And

812
00:49:15,080 --> 00:49:21,800
Speaker 1: then months passed, and our anonymous author, John Smith feels

813
00:49:21,840 --> 00:49:24,840
Speaker 1: that he saw a sea change in the industry overall.

814
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:30,319
Speaker 4: I'm just going to read part of this verbatim. The

815
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:33,279
Speaker 4: person where this letter says that he was he or

816
00:49:33,320 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 4: she was never a fan of gangster rap or a

817
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:39,520
Speaker 4: rap in general, but even I could tell the difference

818
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:43,319
Speaker 4: between like the way this person says rap was and

819
00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:47,080
Speaker 4: how it changed around that time. This person says rap

820
00:49:47,200 --> 00:49:50,520
Speaker 4: acts that talked about politics or harmless fun were quickly

821
00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:55,120
Speaker 4: fading away as this quote, gangster rap started dominating.

822
00:49:54,520 --> 00:49:56,480
Speaker 2: The air waves and only.

823
00:49:56,320 --> 00:49:59,160
Speaker 4: A few months had passed since the meeting, But he

824
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:03,759
Speaker 4: suspects that the ideas presented that day had been successfully implemented.

825
00:50:04,480 --> 00:50:06,799
Speaker 4: It was as if the order had been given to

826
00:50:07,000 --> 00:50:11,400
Speaker 4: all major label executives. The music was climbing the charts,

827
00:50:11,480 --> 00:50:18,760
Speaker 4: and most companies were more than happy to capitalize on it. Okay,

828
00:50:20,719 --> 00:50:25,319
Speaker 4: you know, we don't have exact statistics and sales numbers

829
00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:30,279
Speaker 4: to compare to here, because honestly, we don't even know

830
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:32,800
Speaker 4: exactly how much money was made within the music industry

831
00:50:32,840 --> 00:50:36,040
Speaker 4: and all the various streams of revenue that the music

832
00:50:36,080 --> 00:50:38,239
Speaker 4: industry had for a lot of the acts that were

833
00:50:38,239 --> 00:50:41,920
Speaker 4: coming out around that time. But there was certainly a

834
00:50:41,960 --> 00:50:45,680
Speaker 4: lot of money being made around the time that this

835
00:50:46,360 --> 00:50:48,400
Speaker 4: author is speaking about.

836
00:50:48,440 --> 00:50:52,400
Speaker 1: Yeap, and this haunts them, at least according to their claim,

837
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:56,320
Speaker 1: they say that they start checking out of the industry.

838
00:50:56,360 --> 00:50:59,880
Speaker 1: They don't want to go to the to the posh party,

839
00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:02,960
Speaker 1: they don't want to network. And then so much of

840
00:51:03,000 --> 00:51:06,440
Speaker 1: that stuff is networking, and I think networking is terrible

841
00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:10,879
Speaker 1: for meritocracies. I'm just going to say it. But anyway,

842
00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:15,080
Speaker 1: they eventually call it quits officially nineteen ninety three, they

843
00:51:15,160 --> 00:51:18,279
Speaker 1: leave the music business and they returned to Europe for

844
00:51:18,320 --> 00:51:21,840
Speaker 1: a few years, and in the nineties, late nineteen nineties,

845
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:25,480
Speaker 1: through the Internet, this author says, they learned about the

846
00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:29,040
Speaker 1: prison industrial complex for the first time, learned about the

847
00:51:29,080 --> 00:51:32,359
Speaker 1: whole leviathan of the thing and all the places its

848
00:51:32,400 --> 00:51:35,960
Speaker 1: tentacles reach. And in their mind, the story of this

849
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:39,799
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone meeting, this x files meeting, because as men

850
00:51:39,840 --> 00:51:43,040
Speaker 1: in Black right, this x files meeting began to make

851
00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:48,279
Speaker 1: a horrifying sort of sense. Was it true though, and

852
00:51:48,719 --> 00:51:52,840
Speaker 1: more importantly, what does the conversation about the veracity of

853
00:51:52,880 --> 00:51:56,880
Speaker 1: this letter tell us about music discrimination and crime?

854
00:51:56,920 --> 00:51:57,280
Speaker 2: Today?

855
00:51:57,880 --> 00:52:08,279
Speaker 1: We'll answer that question afterword from our sponsor. Okay, all right,

856
00:52:08,360 --> 00:52:10,160
Speaker 1: it was it was a little tough to hold on

857
00:52:10,200 --> 00:52:12,080
Speaker 1: to this. I think we I think we were fair

858
00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:14,680
Speaker 1: to the author of the letter right, and I think

859
00:52:14,680 --> 00:52:18,160
Speaker 1: we gave some good contexts. But if we're asking whether

860
00:52:18,239 --> 00:52:21,720
Speaker 1: this letter is true or whether it's bunk, or whether

861
00:52:22,840 --> 00:52:25,600
Speaker 1: it's something in between, we have to we have to

862
00:52:25,600 --> 00:52:30,000
Speaker 1: be honest. We have to acknowledge a couple of holes

863
00:52:30,040 --> 00:52:35,160
Speaker 1: in this story. So people have been scrutinizing this for

864
00:52:35,200 --> 00:52:40,440
Speaker 1: almost a decade now, it should be like for any

865
00:52:40,480 --> 00:52:44,520
Speaker 1: this letter touches on so many things in US culture, right,

866
00:52:44,640 --> 00:52:47,200
Speaker 1: and for anyone familiar with any one of those things,

867
00:52:47,239 --> 00:52:51,239
Speaker 1: you may have heard of this letter right now. The

868
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:54,000
Speaker 1: first thing to get out of the way is we

869
00:52:54,239 --> 00:52:57,080
Speaker 1: are not at the end of this particular iteration of

870
00:52:57,120 --> 00:53:00,120
Speaker 1: the usual suspects. We have not identified the author. We

871
00:53:00,160 --> 00:53:03,440
Speaker 1: don't know who this Kaiser SoSE is. And because we

872
00:53:03,520 --> 00:53:07,719
Speaker 1: haven't identified this person, we also haven't identified the veracity

873
00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:10,799
Speaker 1: or the truth of their claims. We just have a

874
00:53:10,880 --> 00:53:16,000
Speaker 1: letter that seems very explicit in what it's recounting. But

875
00:53:16,360 --> 00:53:19,640
Speaker 1: there hasn't been another person who's come forward in the

876
00:53:19,719 --> 00:53:22,800
Speaker 1: years since who provably said I was at that meeting.

877
00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:26,640
Speaker 1: It's still just an email from twenty twelve.

878
00:53:27,239 --> 00:53:27,399
Speaker 6: Oh.

879
00:53:27,440 --> 00:53:30,800
Speaker 4: The other thing to keep in mind here, when we're

880
00:53:31,200 --> 00:53:34,520
Speaker 4: talking about attempting to prove this. We have to remember

881
00:53:34,560 --> 00:53:39,400
Speaker 4: that the United States government and private industry within the

882
00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:43,960
Speaker 4: United States and internationally, these are very powerful things, and

883
00:53:44,000 --> 00:53:47,360
Speaker 4: they have functioned in the past as essentially a hand

884
00:53:47,480 --> 00:53:51,720
Speaker 4: that's way over here and it's pulling strings and making things. Sorry,

885
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:57,280
Speaker 4: it's not working in audio. The government working with private

886
00:53:57,880 --> 00:54:01,239
Speaker 4: corporations and industries has functioned as a hidden hand in

887
00:54:01,280 --> 00:54:03,440
Speaker 4: the past. We've talked about this before. Check out our

888
00:54:03,480 --> 00:54:07,440
Speaker 4: episode on the FBI and US counterculture. There's a serious

889
00:54:07,520 --> 00:54:10,680
Speaker 4: rabbit hole to jump into there about the bizarre aesthetic

890
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:14,719
Speaker 4: rules of Soviet era propaganda. We've talked about this, We've

891
00:54:14,719 --> 00:54:16,600
Speaker 4: talked I mean, there's so many things. I mean, just

892
00:54:16,600 --> 00:54:20,400
Speaker 4: Brene's alone the first episode we ever did, like, it's industry,

893
00:54:20,440 --> 00:54:24,359
Speaker 4: but it's also government and what's good for society? And

894
00:54:24,400 --> 00:54:27,759
Speaker 4: what does that mean? What does it mean when when

895
00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:32,160
Speaker 4: the government in private industry is deciding what the best,

896
00:54:32,480 --> 00:54:35,240
Speaker 4: the best humans do in their homes when they're alone

897
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:35,799
Speaker 4: with each other.

898
00:54:36,440 --> 00:54:40,919
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I mean like the goose for the gander thing, right,

899
00:54:41,560 --> 00:54:44,080
Speaker 1: what gander are we talking about? And does anyone ask

900
00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:45,000
Speaker 1: the actual goose?

901
00:54:45,760 --> 00:54:47,720
Speaker 4: I mean I've seen him in a while.

902
00:54:48,040 --> 00:54:54,320
Speaker 1: The you know, the the overthrow of democratically elected governments

903
00:54:54,760 --> 00:54:59,719
Speaker 1: throughout Latin America. The reason Hawaii is a state. These

904
00:54:59,719 --> 00:55:05,040
Speaker 1: things happened because of this sort of hand in hand uh,

905
00:55:05,520 --> 00:55:09,680
Speaker 1: evil stuff. Like it's not even if this story is

906
00:55:09,719 --> 00:55:14,520
Speaker 1: not true, it's a it's something that could be considered

907
00:55:14,560 --> 00:55:20,440
Speaker 1: plausible based on the patterns of the past. Third, and

908
00:55:20,520 --> 00:55:22,160
Speaker 1: this is a this is something I have to I

909
00:55:22,160 --> 00:55:24,440
Speaker 1: have to pooke a hole in here. So Third, while

910
00:55:24,480 --> 00:55:28,880
Speaker 1: this story is amazing and terrifying if it's true, it

911
00:55:28,920 --> 00:55:31,839
Speaker 1: has a really dangerous implication and something that we have

912
00:55:31,920 --> 00:55:36,800
Speaker 1: to acknowledge is blaming a genre of music for real

913
00:55:36,920 --> 00:55:41,640
Speaker 1: life actions. Is it an intellectually honest feat You know,

914
00:55:41,960 --> 00:55:45,600
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons is accused of turning nerds across the

915
00:55:45,600 --> 00:55:49,840
Speaker 1: country into devil worshipers. Clearly not true. Clearly not. We

916
00:55:50,280 --> 00:55:52,160
Speaker 1: talked about this a little bit earlier. I mean, the

917
00:55:52,200 --> 00:55:54,520
Speaker 1: heavy metal music that was the subject of so many

918
00:55:54,600 --> 00:55:59,040
Speaker 1: satanic panics is not even really that heady. It's like

919
00:56:00,760 --> 00:56:06,400
Speaker 1: right right, And we see also this pattern it iterates

920
00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:10,680
Speaker 1: into the past. New genres of music have been the

921
00:56:10,680 --> 00:56:14,239
Speaker 1: cause of moral panics for a long long time. There

922
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:17,279
Speaker 1: was probably someone at some point who was like Gregorian

923
00:56:17,400 --> 00:56:19,759
Speaker 1: chant is going to ruin the world, you know what

924
00:56:19,800 --> 00:56:23,200
Speaker 1: I mean, And the world and it's a weird, unsteady,

925
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:27,799
Speaker 1: imbalanced way kept spinning. So this phenomenon dates back into

926
00:56:27,880 --> 00:56:34,120
Speaker 1: antiquity and it's it's I think it's a dangerous and

927
00:56:34,280 --> 00:56:36,560
Speaker 1: I don't mean be extremist about this, but I think

928
00:56:36,600 --> 00:56:41,920
Speaker 1: it's somewhat insulting to the intelligence of a given audience

929
00:56:42,600 --> 00:56:46,360
Speaker 1: to say that they can be completely programmed. But again,

930
00:56:46,440 --> 00:56:49,160
Speaker 1: you know, you brought up this point of normalization off air,

931
00:56:49,200 --> 00:56:52,240
Speaker 1: Matt that I thought was brilliant, and we know propaganda works,

932
00:56:52,719 --> 00:56:54,480
Speaker 1: so maybe the truth is somewhere in between.

933
00:56:54,880 --> 00:56:56,840
Speaker 4: Well, I think, yeah, that was off air, wasn't it.

934
00:56:56,840 --> 00:56:59,680
Speaker 4: We didn't actually talk about this. I do, I do

935
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:02,799
Speaker 4: want to this up, and I know many of you

936
00:57:02,840 --> 00:57:05,879
Speaker 4: will disagree with me, but I do feel like there

937
00:57:06,000 --> 00:57:10,080
Speaker 4: is truth to growing up as a you know, the

938
00:57:10,080 --> 00:57:12,479
Speaker 4: mind of a child growing up in a world where

939
00:57:12,520 --> 00:57:16,120
Speaker 4: the music that's being that you end up exposed to

940
00:57:16,440 --> 00:57:19,160
Speaker 4: as as you your developing brain is going through some

941
00:57:19,240 --> 00:57:23,320
Speaker 4: of these early processes. The language that you hear on

942
00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:27,880
Speaker 4: a frequent basis will I think contribute to the way

943
00:57:27,920 --> 00:57:31,919
Speaker 4: your mind forms thoughts. And what you what you do,

944
00:57:32,440 --> 00:57:34,960
Speaker 4: like think about social media if if anyone's seen the

945
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:40,200
Speaker 4: social dilemma, you there's essentially gen Z. I think, are

946
00:57:40,320 --> 00:57:43,040
Speaker 4: the people who grew up with cell phones in middle

947
00:57:43,080 --> 00:57:47,360
Speaker 4: school and how that, how that has inextricably changed the

948
00:57:47,400 --> 00:57:51,560
Speaker 4: way gen Z. Not every person who would be considered

949
00:57:51,560 --> 00:57:54,120
Speaker 4: gen Z, but as a whole, if you look at

950
00:57:54,320 --> 00:57:57,600
Speaker 4: statistically changes their behaviors and their thoughts and the way

951
00:57:57,640 --> 00:58:01,920
Speaker 4: they act. And I think any kind of exposure, like

952
00:58:02,000 --> 00:58:04,200
Speaker 4: to anything for a long enough period of time at

953
00:58:04,240 --> 00:58:08,040
Speaker 4: a young enough age can have an effect not on

954
00:58:08,480 --> 00:58:11,600
Speaker 4: you know, the adults who are listening to music and

955
00:58:11,960 --> 00:58:15,240
Speaker 4: you know, thinking about what's happening and understanding all the context,

956
00:58:15,600 --> 00:58:17,560
Speaker 4: but a child that is maybe thinking about it in

957
00:58:17,600 --> 00:58:21,520
Speaker 4: a little more of a fantastical or a fantasy like,

958
00:58:21,600 --> 00:58:22,280
Speaker 4: dream like way.

959
00:58:22,480 --> 00:58:23,720
Speaker 1: Aspirational preps.

960
00:58:24,160 --> 00:58:26,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, possibly want to.

961
00:58:26,360 --> 00:58:28,400
Speaker 3: I would argue too that I mean a lot of

962
00:58:28,440 --> 00:58:32,040
Speaker 3: the hip hop that's really popular now, like trap music,

963
00:58:32,720 --> 00:58:36,520
Speaker 3: it's sort of like all of the glamorization of that

964
00:58:36,720 --> 00:58:40,160
Speaker 3: stuff without any of the thoughtful commentary.

965
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:41,960
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, Like not all of it.

966
00:58:42,000 --> 00:58:44,360
Speaker 3: And I'm a big fan of like gimmicky kind of

967
00:58:44,400 --> 00:58:47,560
Speaker 3: trap music, and it's definitely catchy, and there's you know,

968
00:58:47,640 --> 00:58:49,840
Speaker 3: it's all about like these catchphrases and stuff. And then

969
00:58:49,880 --> 00:58:52,400
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that it's all like garbage, but a

970
00:58:52,440 --> 00:58:55,040
Speaker 3: lot of it is a bit more frivolous and not

971
00:58:55,200 --> 00:59:00,240
Speaker 3: particularly intelligently constructed and lyrically speaking, Whereas the gang to

972
00:59:00,280 --> 00:59:02,320
Speaker 3: rap stuff that we're talking about, at least it has

973
00:59:02,440 --> 00:59:05,760
Speaker 3: kind of a message, whereas a lot of the rap

974
00:59:05,920 --> 00:59:08,400
Speaker 3: nowadays I sound like a grandpapap but like it's sort

975
00:59:08,400 --> 00:59:10,080
Speaker 3: of junk food, you know, I.

976
00:59:10,800 --> 00:59:13,840
Speaker 1: Hear you on that. My question then would be are

977
00:59:13,880 --> 00:59:19,439
Speaker 1: we hearing like why is that a phenomenon people feel

978
00:59:19,480 --> 00:59:24,640
Speaker 1: they perceive, like what's the old what's the old? Jay

979
00:59:24,760 --> 00:59:27,240
Speaker 1: Z line? I used to rap like common sense till

980
00:59:27,240 --> 00:59:29,600
Speaker 1: I made my first mill. I have it wrapped like

981
00:59:29,640 --> 00:59:34,000
Speaker 1: common sense, Like there's there's a financial perspective there, you know.

982
00:59:34,480 --> 00:59:36,040
Speaker 1: And I want to be very clear, I don't think

983
00:59:36,080 --> 00:59:39,960
Speaker 1: any of us are saying that any musician is somehow unintelligent.

984
00:59:40,440 --> 00:59:43,400
Speaker 1: Maybe they're just playing to the crowd, or maybe maybe

985
00:59:43,440 --> 00:59:48,400
Speaker 1: they have like maybe they have an entire catalog of

986
00:59:49,360 --> 00:59:53,760
Speaker 1: more you know, perhaps more overtly political or ideological stuff

987
00:59:53,800 --> 00:59:55,680
Speaker 1: and they're just not allowed to put it out.

988
00:59:55,760 --> 00:59:58,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like the idea that like Pacassa, just like

989
00:59:58,080 --> 01:00:00,560
Speaker 3: you know, oh, anyone could do a Paassa. Look, it's

990
01:00:00,560 --> 01:00:02,320
Speaker 3: all just like finger painting. But he was like a

991
01:00:02,320 --> 01:00:05,560
Speaker 3: classically trained artist that just happened to funnel his efforts

992
01:00:05,600 --> 01:00:07,080
Speaker 3: into this particular genre.

993
01:00:07,120 --> 01:00:09,520
Speaker 2: And he you know, but you know, I'm.

994
01:00:09,400 --> 01:00:13,120
Speaker 3: Literally talking about stuff like Gucci Gang, Gucci Gang, Gucci Gang,

995
01:00:13,160 --> 01:00:13,800
Speaker 3: Gucci Gang.

996
01:00:13,840 --> 01:00:13,960
Speaker 4: You know.

997
01:00:14,040 --> 01:00:17,560
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's very meant to be catchy and

998
01:00:17,680 --> 01:00:19,440
Speaker 3: get stuck in your head and be these earworms.

999
01:00:19,440 --> 01:00:22,000
Speaker 2: But there's not a lot of substance to that kind

1000
01:00:22,000 --> 01:00:22,400
Speaker 2: of stuff.

1001
01:00:22,440 --> 01:00:26,200
Speaker 1: Hey watch out, man, you know, I'm I got excited

1002
01:00:26,280 --> 01:00:26,760
Speaker 1: on that one.

1003
01:00:28,040 --> 01:00:31,960
Speaker 3: Sham Dang was hoping, hoping he had a secret life

1004
01:00:32,240 --> 01:00:34,840
Speaker 3: as a as a as a trap ghostwriter.

1005
01:00:35,200 --> 01:00:37,440
Speaker 1: I have a couple of secret lives. But I see what,

1006
01:00:37,560 --> 01:00:38,360
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying.

1007
01:00:38,680 --> 01:00:40,360
Speaker 4: I guess in the end, it's in the end. Look,

1008
01:00:41,240 --> 01:00:45,600
Speaker 4: did I listen to all Christian music as a young

1009
01:00:45,760 --> 01:00:48,680
Speaker 4: mind because I was Christian and looking for something to

1010
01:00:48,720 --> 01:00:52,960
Speaker 4: listen to or did a lot of that music influence

1011
01:00:53,040 --> 01:00:55,120
Speaker 4: me and how I was thinking what I was deciding

1012
01:00:55,160 --> 01:00:57,880
Speaker 4: to do I want to say that I was listening

1013
01:00:57,920 --> 01:01:00,720
Speaker 4: to that because I identified as a Christian and I wanted

1014
01:01:00,760 --> 01:01:04,440
Speaker 4: to listen to music with that content. And it's a

1015
01:01:04,480 --> 01:01:08,000
Speaker 4: fascinating argument that has, you know, been had for a

1016
01:01:08,040 --> 01:01:13,440
Speaker 4: long time about popular consumption of varying media and its

1017
01:01:13,480 --> 01:01:17,960
Speaker 4: effect or our you know, our effect on that media itself.

1018
01:01:18,000 --> 01:01:20,439
Speaker 3: It's a chicken and egg kind of argument right where

1019
01:01:20,480 --> 01:01:24,240
Speaker 3: it's like, did the school shooter shoot up the school

1020
01:01:24,600 --> 01:01:28,800
Speaker 3: because he listened to Marilyn Manson or was he going

1021
01:01:28,880 --> 01:01:31,240
Speaker 3: to do it anyway? And this is just a thing

1022
01:01:31,360 --> 01:01:33,120
Speaker 3: that he sought out because he I don't know, you

1023
01:01:33,120 --> 01:01:35,919
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying, Like, I don't think we've ever

1024
01:01:36,000 --> 01:01:41,120
Speaker 3: successfully been able to like hang actions on like exclusively

1025
01:01:41,160 --> 01:01:44,000
Speaker 3: on violent video games, like violent video games turned someone

1026
01:01:44,160 --> 01:01:47,120
Speaker 3: into a sociopath or a psychopath. I don't know that

1027
01:01:47,160 --> 01:01:50,120
Speaker 3: anyone's ever successfully proven that argument.

1028
01:01:50,240 --> 01:01:52,560
Speaker 2: And I think this is very similar.

1029
01:01:52,640 --> 01:01:56,640
Speaker 1: Well too, I mean in that regard, Well, first I

1030
01:01:56,680 --> 01:02:00,000
Speaker 1: would say this way, it was spent some time exploding

1031
01:02:00,120 --> 01:02:05,800
Speaker 1: or in these larger patterns, right, these larger social consumption patterns,

1032
01:02:05,840 --> 01:02:08,800
Speaker 1: there's a good argument to be made that if someone,

1033
01:02:08,960 --> 01:02:13,320
Speaker 1: to take your earlier example, did participate in mass shooting

1034
01:02:13,400 --> 01:02:16,120
Speaker 1: or they shot up a school, and even in a

1035
01:02:16,360 --> 01:02:20,520
Speaker 1: claim that the music they were listening to was the

1036
01:02:20,560 --> 01:02:25,440
Speaker 1: impetus for that decision, then that's just one impetus. That's

1037
01:02:25,560 --> 01:02:29,000
Speaker 1: one of the dominoes. There's a very good argument that

1038
01:02:30,160 --> 01:02:34,080
Speaker 1: if it wasn't you know, insert album here, it would

1039
01:02:34,120 --> 01:02:37,840
Speaker 1: have been something else that prompted a violent break. It's

1040
01:02:37,880 --> 01:02:42,160
Speaker 1: just it's like, it's so self satisfying and to a

1041
01:02:42,200 --> 01:02:47,040
Speaker 1: degree masturbatory, honestly for people to say this simple answer

1042
01:02:47,200 --> 01:02:52,280
Speaker 1: explains the thing and makes my opinion right. And despite

1043
01:02:52,480 --> 01:02:56,640
Speaker 1: feeling satisfying, the simple answer is not always the correct one, right,

1044
01:02:56,960 --> 01:03:01,080
Speaker 1: And that's when speaking of that point of simplicity. So

1045
01:03:01,120 --> 01:03:04,680
Speaker 1: one thing we have to say, just observing this scheme

1046
01:03:05,120 --> 01:03:10,520
Speaker 1: as it's structured in this letter, isn't it isn't it

1047
01:03:10,560 --> 01:03:14,040
Speaker 1: a little complicated. It's got a lot of intervening variables,

1048
01:03:14,080 --> 01:03:16,800
Speaker 1: It's got a lot of actors. It seems like there

1049
01:03:16,840 --> 01:03:22,960
Speaker 1: are other ways to increase incarceration, like increasingly draconian laws

1050
01:03:23,000 --> 01:03:26,720
Speaker 1: for only certain types of crime. Look at the consequences

1051
01:03:26,720 --> 01:03:30,360
Speaker 1: for possession of crack cocaine versus possession of cocaine, and

1052
01:03:30,560 --> 01:03:34,160
Speaker 1: you know, say that there and try your best to

1053
01:03:34,560 --> 01:03:40,080
Speaker 1: somehow explain the difference without talking about systemic racism, you

1054
01:03:40,120 --> 01:03:41,920
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like I want to hear it

1055
01:03:42,000 --> 01:03:45,520
Speaker 1: if you got one. That's kind of stuff seems to

1056
01:03:45,560 --> 01:03:50,040
Speaker 1: have a more immediate and a more predictable impact on

1057
01:03:50,120 --> 01:03:53,480
Speaker 1: the US addiction to mass incarceration, much more so of

1058
01:03:53,520 --> 01:03:56,480
Speaker 1: a measurable impact than a three to four minute song

1059
01:03:56,680 --> 01:03:59,880
Speaker 1: with some insightful if violent rhyme schemes and a ca

1060
01:04:00,160 --> 01:04:03,280
Speaker 1: as hook. Like it seems like we're it seems like

1061
01:04:04,280 --> 01:04:07,760
Speaker 1: a lot of work to do. But that's that's again

1062
01:04:07,960 --> 01:04:10,760
Speaker 1: just it's based on this letter. It's based on this

1063
01:04:10,840 --> 01:04:14,520
Speaker 1: one letter. And we know that factions of government agencies

1064
01:04:15,440 --> 01:04:17,800
Speaker 1: if like by what I mean is like it's not

1065
01:04:17,960 --> 01:04:21,360
Speaker 1: always as if the entire CIA decides to do something.

1066
01:04:21,440 --> 01:04:24,840
Speaker 1: It's like four or five people and the CIA conspire

1067
01:04:24,920 --> 01:04:28,600
Speaker 1: with somebodies to do something as the CIA, maybe not

1068
01:04:28,680 --> 01:04:33,720
Speaker 1: with approval, but it's true that these entities have tilted

1069
01:04:33,760 --> 01:04:36,720
Speaker 1: the scale of public opinion in the past. The shadow

1070
01:04:36,720 --> 01:04:42,640
Speaker 1: of Berne stretches into the modern day. And what's so fascinating,

1071
01:04:42,840 --> 01:04:46,200
Speaker 1: and another reason I recommend Louder than a Riot is

1072
01:04:46,240 --> 01:04:51,680
Speaker 1: that the host Sidney Madden and Rodney Carmichael explore all

1073
01:04:51,720 --> 01:04:55,040
Speaker 1: the all the things this conversation about this letter brings up.

1074
01:04:55,160 --> 01:04:59,640
Speaker 1: You know, they interview different they interview different luminaries in

1075
01:04:59,680 --> 01:05:01,400
Speaker 1: the world of hip hop, and say, what do you

1076
01:05:01,400 --> 01:05:04,160
Speaker 1: think about this? Do you think it's legit? Do you

1077
01:05:04,240 --> 01:05:09,520
Speaker 1: believe this letter? And some people it's It's fascinating because

1078
01:05:09,520 --> 01:05:11,560
Speaker 1: there are people who are saying, you know, I just

1079
01:05:12,760 --> 01:05:15,200
Speaker 1: looking around and growing up, I just figured this is

1080
01:05:15,840 --> 01:05:18,280
Speaker 1: something like this is very plausible, and there are people

1081
01:05:18,280 --> 01:05:21,000
Speaker 1: who are saying, well, it's a conspiracy theory, but it

1082
01:05:21,120 --> 01:05:26,360
Speaker 1: leads to important questions in the modern day. We shall

1083
01:05:26,400 --> 01:05:29,080
Speaker 1: also say, yeah, at this point, not only did is

1084
01:05:29,120 --> 01:05:32,160
Speaker 1: there no one from that alleged meeting who has come

1085
01:05:32,200 --> 01:05:35,000
Speaker 1: forward to confirm it. There's no government official on record

1086
01:05:35,000 --> 01:05:38,960
Speaker 1: who's saying like, oh, yeah, nineteen ninety one, Yeah that

1087
01:05:39,080 --> 01:05:40,400
Speaker 1: was our bad And there's.

1088
01:05:40,240 --> 01:05:44,080
Speaker 3: No it doesn't even require this like shadowy meeting to

1089
01:05:44,160 --> 01:05:47,720
Speaker 3: have taken place with the actual executives of private prisons.

1090
01:05:48,080 --> 01:05:50,200
Speaker 2: Like the laws that led to so.

1091
01:05:50,240 --> 01:05:53,040
Speaker 3: Much more mass incarceration by people of color were in

1092
01:05:53,040 --> 01:05:56,120
Speaker 3: and of themselves racist, Like the idea of you know,

1093
01:05:56,200 --> 01:05:59,040
Speaker 3: putting this burden on the black community by having these

1094
01:05:59,040 --> 01:06:04,080
Speaker 3: mandatory minimums for marijuana possession, you know, for cocaine and

1095
01:06:04,120 --> 01:06:06,000
Speaker 3: crack possession or what have you. And then you know,

1096
01:06:06,160 --> 01:06:09,640
Speaker 3: Dave Chappelle jokes, but I don't think he's entirely joking

1097
01:06:09,680 --> 01:06:13,800
Speaker 3: that he thinks the CIA created crack to destroy the

1098
01:06:13,840 --> 01:06:14,560
Speaker 3: black community.

1099
01:06:14,760 --> 01:06:18,240
Speaker 2: And that's a we did an episode of exactly, but

1100
01:06:18,280 --> 01:06:21,080
Speaker 2: that's what I'm saying. That's also, you know, just as plausible.

1101
01:06:21,240 --> 01:06:23,920
Speaker 3: But I don't think to your point, Ben, it requires

1102
01:06:24,440 --> 01:06:27,520
Speaker 3: this level of secrecy or shadowiness. It's just kind of like,

1103
01:06:28,000 --> 01:06:30,080
Speaker 3: of course, this is what's happening, you know, and who's

1104
01:06:30,160 --> 01:06:33,000
Speaker 3: more likely to benefit from this record label executives or

1105
01:06:33,120 --> 01:06:36,560
Speaker 3: like people in government, you know, who are we are

1106
01:06:36,640 --> 01:06:39,200
Speaker 3: in business with these private prisons.

1107
01:06:40,400 --> 01:06:44,040
Speaker 1: That's an excellent question. And I think there's one thing

1108
01:06:44,080 --> 01:06:45,640
Speaker 1: we want to I know we're running a little along,

1109
01:06:45,920 --> 01:06:49,400
Speaker 1: but I think there's one thing we should address. It's this.

1110
01:06:50,240 --> 01:06:53,160
Speaker 1: We are lucky. We're trying to look at this as

1111
01:06:53,160 --> 01:06:57,400
Speaker 1: objectively as possible based on the letter, right, the question

1112
01:06:57,480 --> 01:07:01,800
Speaker 1: about the letter, but there is much deeper exploration. We're

1113
01:07:01,840 --> 01:07:05,000
Speaker 1: on we're on the outside of this, you know what

1114
01:07:05,040 --> 01:07:08,720
Speaker 1: I mean, very much so. And with that in mind,

1115
01:07:08,920 --> 01:07:13,440
Speaker 1: why that's why I'm recommending this show Louder than a Riot.

1116
01:07:13,760 --> 01:07:18,640
Speaker 1: And I'd like to directly quote Rodney Carmichael here, which

1117
01:07:18,640 --> 01:07:21,840
Speaker 1: you can read the transcript on NPR. He says, he

1118
01:07:21,880 --> 01:07:25,800
Speaker 1: says something that I think is I think is profound,

1119
01:07:25,920 --> 01:07:29,120
Speaker 1: and he says, quote the hype around this letter fake

1120
01:07:29,200 --> 01:07:31,760
Speaker 1: news or not. It really tells us that the fear

1121
01:07:31,840 --> 01:07:36,720
Speaker 1: and the paranoia around how the criminal justice system disproportionately

1122
01:07:36,760 --> 01:07:42,000
Speaker 1: impacts black people in this country is very real. And I,

1123
01:07:42,360 --> 01:07:45,920
Speaker 1: you know, I want to give space to that observation.

1124
01:07:46,080 --> 01:07:49,520
Speaker 1: I hope it stays with people, because if everything was

1125
01:07:49,640 --> 01:07:54,600
Speaker 1: hunky dory, then a letter like this would have just

1126
01:07:54,720 --> 01:07:56,280
Speaker 1: been another piece of spam.

1127
01:07:57,360 --> 01:08:01,400
Speaker 3: It's a pointing to a a symptom of a much

1128
01:08:01,480 --> 01:08:02,480
Speaker 3: larger problem.

1129
01:08:02,920 --> 01:08:06,440
Speaker 1: And with that, you know, we can't we can't prove

1130
01:08:07,320 --> 01:08:11,560
Speaker 1: the validity or legitimacy of this letter, but we want

1131
01:08:11,560 --> 01:08:13,880
Speaker 1: to hear from you whether or not this letter is real.

1132
01:08:14,360 --> 01:08:17,759
Speaker 1: Do you think something like this happened? Do you think

1133
01:08:18,360 --> 01:08:24,880
Speaker 1: there's been conspiracy to you to artificially inflate the successive

1134
01:08:24,960 --> 01:08:28,880
Speaker 1: music of certain types of music to create some kind

1135
01:08:28,920 --> 01:08:34,200
Speaker 1: of widespread social impact. We're specifically talking about this alleged

1136
01:08:34,200 --> 01:08:37,080
Speaker 1: plan to push people into the prison system, but it

1137
01:08:37,120 --> 01:08:39,439
Speaker 1: could be it could be any number of things. You know,

1138
01:08:39,560 --> 01:08:43,280
Speaker 1: if this kind of mechanism works, you know, it just

1139
01:08:43,320 --> 01:08:46,000
Speaker 1: becomes a matter of figuring out your end goal, doesn't

1140
01:08:46,040 --> 01:08:49,599
Speaker 1: it If you're that insidious and you've thrown ethics away

1141
01:08:49,720 --> 01:08:53,320
Speaker 1: long ago. I don't know, do you do you think

1142
01:08:53,400 --> 01:08:56,000
Speaker 1: it's likely and if so, how would it work? And

1143
01:08:56,040 --> 01:09:00,519
Speaker 1: also I feel like it's it's it can pines some

1144
01:09:00,600 --> 01:09:04,439
Speaker 1: stuff we have to unpack about. I don't know. It's

1145
01:09:04,520 --> 01:09:07,639
Speaker 1: kind of unfair to the actual artist and musicians working

1146
01:09:07,960 --> 01:09:10,040
Speaker 1: in this genre too, you know what I mean. It's

1147
01:09:10,080 --> 01:09:16,320
Speaker 1: like saying that success that you literally spent years attaining

1148
01:09:16,960 --> 01:09:19,840
Speaker 1: is not your own. It kind of removes agency from

1149
01:09:19,880 --> 01:09:23,240
Speaker 1: those people too. I don't know. It's a lot, and

1150
01:09:23,320 --> 01:09:25,479
Speaker 1: we want to hear your opinion about it.

1151
01:09:26,040 --> 01:09:30,360
Speaker 4: For sure. We want to hear your opinion about the

1152
01:09:30,400 --> 01:09:33,600
Speaker 4: low end theory by a tribe called Quest because that

1153
01:09:33,640 --> 01:09:36,040
Speaker 4: came out in nineteen ninety one I think, or maybe

1154
01:09:36,120 --> 01:09:39,519
Speaker 4: ninety two, I'm not sure, but that was certainly not

1155
01:09:39,800 --> 01:09:42,240
Speaker 4: gangster rap like what. We just want to know your

1156
01:09:42,240 --> 01:09:43,480
Speaker 4: opinion about.

1157
01:09:43,000 --> 01:09:43,960
Speaker 2: My favorite genre.

1158
01:09:44,720 --> 01:09:46,160
Speaker 3: I like a lot of rap, but I mean I

1159
01:09:46,200 --> 01:09:48,880
Speaker 3: love that nineties kind of they called it woke wrap.

1160
01:09:48,920 --> 01:09:51,200
Speaker 3: I guess like before that was a term that got

1161
01:09:51,200 --> 01:09:55,000
Speaker 3: thrown around all the time, like tribe and arrested development

1162
01:09:55,600 --> 01:09:58,559
Speaker 3: and just a lot of those kind of positive positivity rap,

1163
01:09:58,600 --> 01:09:58,920
Speaker 3: you know.

1164
01:09:58,840 --> 01:10:01,120
Speaker 2: But then also huge Wu Tang Clan fan.

1165
01:10:01,439 --> 01:10:04,880
Speaker 4: Tell us your favorite artists and why and what you

1166
01:10:04,960 --> 01:10:08,320
Speaker 4: think about this entire episode. You can find us on

1167
01:10:08,360 --> 01:10:11,679
Speaker 4: social media where we are Conspiracy Stuff on Twitter and Facebook.

1168
01:10:11,720 --> 01:10:14,880
Speaker 4: You can find us on Instagram Conspiracy Stuff Show. If

1169
01:10:14,880 --> 01:10:17,559
Speaker 4: you don't want to do that stuff, we have a

1170
01:10:17,720 --> 01:10:18,880
Speaker 4: phone number you can call.

1171
01:10:19,320 --> 01:10:21,760
Speaker 1: That's right, you can hit us up at one eight

1172
01:10:21,920 --> 01:10:26,759
Speaker 1: three three s T d W y t K. Fellow writers,

1173
01:10:26,800 --> 01:10:31,000
Speaker 1: fellow freestylers, if you if you have some insightful response,

1174
01:10:31,800 --> 01:10:34,040
Speaker 1: you could put it there. Just keep it less than

1175
01:10:34,080 --> 01:10:37,080
Speaker 1: three minutes. And I also want to hear people's just

1176
01:10:37,160 --> 01:10:41,519
Speaker 1: favorite isolated lines or thoughts from a from a hip

1177
01:10:41,520 --> 01:10:46,200
Speaker 1: hop lyricist perspective. And the only thing you have to

1178
01:10:46,200 --> 01:10:48,160
Speaker 1: do when you call that line, just let us know

1179
01:10:48,200 --> 01:10:50,599
Speaker 1: if we can use your voice or your name on air.

1180
01:10:50,880 --> 01:10:53,840
Speaker 1: But what if you hate social media? What if You're like, ugh,

1181
01:10:54,439 --> 01:10:59,040
Speaker 1: I this is too much. You know, life is already tough,

1182
01:10:59,240 --> 01:11:01,120
Speaker 1: while are you guys throw these plot twists and all

1183
01:11:01,160 --> 01:11:04,400
Speaker 1: the hoopla at me? I have time to log into Instagram.

1184
01:11:04,760 --> 01:11:07,760
Speaker 1: I'm old school. I use email. Well, do we have

1185
01:11:07,840 --> 01:11:10,519
Speaker 1: news for you? You can always reach us at our

1186
01:11:10,560 --> 01:11:12,560
Speaker 1: good old fashioned email address.

1187
01:11:12,160 --> 01:11:33,920
Speaker 3: Where we are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

1188
01:11:34,080 --> 01:11:36,120
Speaker 4: Stuff they Don't want you to know is a production

1189
01:11:36,240 --> 01:11:40,760
Speaker 4: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1190
01:11:40,840 --> 01:11:44,040
Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.