Speaker 1: Oh you're listening to you waiting on reparations the production
Speaker 1: of My Heart radio. Yo. They want to call us
Speaker 1: agitators like we always in the static. They will label
Speaker 1: you a up felling or you're just an addict. But
Speaker 1: I think they got it backwards. Talking watches with the ratchets.
Speaker 1: I'm saying black panthers, not the Marvel cinematic chairman about
Speaker 1: to speak. If we have a choice, will go stay
Speaker 1: on your clock. You gotta watch the point tell pro
Speaker 1: can't depend on them, so we can't have a voice. Help, No,
Speaker 1: gotta take it. Those will need to help the most
Speaker 1: get low, so we can't wait for ship. The streets
Speaker 1: gotta make a shift less organized. We can all watch
Speaker 1: the racist pigs. Hold our supplies, built those box and
Speaker 1: play kids. Class solidarities right around the way you dig.
Speaker 1: Try to be passive. Its like Buddhism would do black Besides,
Speaker 1: so I don't need no judice in my crew. If
Speaker 1: the man had a chance, they would shoot us in
Speaker 1: the room. That's why I'm cooking the feed like every
Speaker 1: student in the room, teaching every student right on zoom
Speaker 1: an Franka. We are waiting on reparations. Hurry up, indeed,
Speaker 1: it is a late night. How are you doing? You
Speaker 1: have been in that meeting for like five hours this time? Yeah,
Speaker 1: five and a half five pm until I guess it's
Speaker 1: like ten five I got out. Um, who what was
Speaker 1: going on today? UM? So we just had an agenda
Speaker 1: setting sessions. We're deciding the topics to vote on at
Speaker 1: our next meeting, and we voted on a couple of
Speaker 1: things today. We passed a resolution in support of repeal
Speaker 1: of stan your Ground laws and had a moment of
Speaker 1: silence for Traymon Martin, Jordan Davis, and Ahmad are Very
Speaker 1: as well as other victims of UM stand your Ground
Speaker 1: laws UM in our state and across the South UM.
Speaker 1: And then we also passed UH I think we spoke
Speaker 1: spoken previously about the Lennontown resolution UM kind of like
Speaker 1: apologizing and offer offering a form of reparations to folks
Speaker 1: displaced by urban renewal. And so that was interesting. I mean,
Speaker 1: we put like a year or so of work into
Speaker 1: getting that pass, and one of the commissioners, one of
Speaker 1: my fellow commissioners that previously um Stone Wall did actually
Speaker 1: apologize for failing to condemn white supremacy previously and for
Speaker 1: his role in stalling the legislation getting passed. I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I see you send him a little couple clapping emojis.
Speaker 1: I was like, Hi, bro, what du I mean? He
Speaker 1: recognized that, like, like this coordinated act of forcible removal
Speaker 1: from the you know, the homes these black families lived in,
Speaker 1: was an active white of terrorism and white supremacy. Like
Speaker 1: he you know, upon his studying the historical documents and
Speaker 1: seeing what those people had gone through, the intimidation they suffered,
Speaker 1: the coercion, the you know, like and in some of
Speaker 1: the language that like legislators were is saying to talk
Speaker 1: about people who lived there, you know, like they were
Speaker 1: white supremacists and he's sort of fiddling with us was
Speaker 1: white supremacy, which, like, you know, there's an argument to
Speaker 1: be made of like, oh, well, you want to bring
Speaker 1: people to the table to like, you know, do this
Speaker 1: work together. Do you really want to go around calling
Speaker 1: people white supremacists. That's not been bridge building. But I mean,
Speaker 1: ultimately I feel like you got call call it what
Speaker 1: it is in order to heal. You can't heal. You
Speaker 1: can't heal cancer, can't cure cancer if you go around
Speaker 1: calling it appendicitis. Yeah, it's cancer. In order to do
Speaker 1: the right treatmentum fix the cancer. And so yeah, if
Speaker 1: if you're not even diagnosing what the problem is, then
Speaker 1: are you I'm like, oh yeah, I think he started
Speaker 1: to stone, like, no, this nig got cancer. Yo, doctor,
Speaker 1: please put on the chart that this man has cancer.
Speaker 1: Well damn. So, I mean, so what's the because it
Speaker 1: seems like that's been kind of something that a little
Speaker 1: project that's been going on for a minute now. So
Speaker 1: what's the I don't know, like when when's when's they
Speaker 1: actually going to start going into all these votes and stuff.
Speaker 1: Is it actually starting to go into So yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean we passed the resolution tonight, and so it's like
Speaker 1: sets in emotions all this additional work. So at the
Speaker 1: site where we've already started this, but like to you know,
Speaker 1: the resolution like affirmed. We're working on it. Like we're
Speaker 1: gonna put like a wall of recognition where it's gonna
Speaker 1: be like historical markers indicating the neighborhood used to be here,
Speaker 1: and like maybe some kind of like mural of like
Speaker 1: what the neighborhood used to look like with the kids
Speaker 1: running around and cute stuff. You know, actually where the
Speaker 1: neighborhood used to be UM and then this committee that
Speaker 1: I'm on with all these people who got you know,
Speaker 1: kicked out of their homes as children in this place
Speaker 1: so that the university could build dormitories. UM. They get
Speaker 1: to make recommendations to the budget to the county for
Speaker 1: what we should spend money on in our budget every
Speaker 1: year on so some of the immediate work to do,
Speaker 1: Like we approve a budget in like May, so we're
Speaker 1: probably gonna keep meeting, and so we can't The thing
Speaker 1: about it was like we couldn't give them the money
Speaker 1: for like, yo, if you were a house which was
Speaker 1: worth two thousand dollars in the the nine six were still
Speaker 1: there today, it would be worth like four. And we
Speaker 1: can't give that person that three and eighty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: back that he's taken from the family. But we said,
Speaker 1: he said, instead, y'all can tell us what to spend
Speaker 1: money on at the city, right, And so we'll probably
Speaker 1: start that work soon. So like this's like stuff to
Speaker 1: do still like however, but it's like it's the beginning.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a it's like this thing finally got
Speaker 1: you know, born long gestation period. I kind of already
Speaker 1: know the answer to this question, but like it has
Speaker 1: to be. Do you get frustrated at the fact that
Speaker 1: it's like you can do like so much work on
Speaker 1: the particular thing, but it doesn't It's like there's there's
Speaker 1: no process for it where it's like, Okay, we put
Speaker 1: this work in and now it's about to happen. You
Speaker 1: like you always have to constantly go through the motions
Speaker 1: of how things have to work. Does frustrating The most
Speaker 1: soul crushing thing about being an elected official, having been
Speaker 1: and identifying still as an activist is like adjusting to
Speaker 1: the pace of government. It took us a fucking year
Speaker 1: to like all agree on that what we did was bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like we owe them some stuff and we didn't
Speaker 1: even were even giving them the stuff they asked for.
Speaker 1: We're giving them some other stuff here, and we didn't
Speaker 1: even get really what this has been a thing that
Speaker 1: you've been dealing that you've been talking about since before COVID.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, yeah, like February of last year. That
Speaker 1: that was like that Nebery of last year when we
Speaker 1: first started talking about this resolution was six months or
Speaker 1: maybe even a year after we started writing the arrange.
Speaker 1: The resolution. So we've been doing this for two years
Speaker 1: just to get like a wall saying this neighborhood used
Speaker 1: to be there. These people get to give and put
Speaker 1: on the budget and like a couple other little things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so like in elected life, you sometimes wonder if
Speaker 1: you're like losing yourself when you come to accept the pace,
Speaker 1: But it's like, this is just how it works. I
Speaker 1: have come to accept that it takes a year to
Speaker 1: get something so small like that, Like, but should I
Speaker 1: accept it or should I just like fucking go into
Speaker 1: these meetings and just punch everybody in the face and
Speaker 1: be like nah, niggd, like we do with it like that,
Speaker 1: no more done today, buck your six months, Like we
Speaker 1: need to get this sh on today, you know. And
Speaker 1: so it just is a constant struggle, like yeah, I
Speaker 1: want to I want to be like, well, what can
Speaker 1: what can you do to change that? But I don't
Speaker 1: want you to give away your strategies a lot more
Speaker 1: good people, Yeah, because when you're trying to get consensus
Speaker 1: among ten motherfucker's that all believe different ships and care
Speaker 1: to various different degrees or know what the fund is
Speaker 1: going on to various degrees, some of whom not at
Speaker 1: all know what's happening. Like it's like, uh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: It's like, um, it's I feel like it's uh. It
Speaker 1: reminds me of like home alone when they're trying to
Speaker 1: get an airport and there's like kids trying to get
Speaker 1: you're trying to count them and like everyone here and
Speaker 1: then like you know, it's just a clown car just
Speaker 1: trying to pile people in to get us to this
Speaker 1: very simple destination. And if not not everybody, and if
Speaker 1: not everybody's in the car, then they're still drinking PEPSI
Speaker 1: mad upstairs, like not, Yeah, we're not on the same
Speaker 1: page at all. Were watching alone recently, I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Man, all right, well let's let's transition.
Speaker 1: What I did also of a note recently, is I
Speaker 1: watched Judice in the Black Messiah this weekend. You know,
Speaker 1: I haven't watched you. I'll just get some one thing
Speaker 1: funny that we're doing the episode that we're doing, and
Speaker 1: I haven't seen the movie yet, but there's gonna be
Speaker 1: not necessarily a reason, but there's an explanation for it.
Speaker 1: So we talked last week about the situation with the
Speaker 1: rapper No Name, and the request of her to be
Speaker 1: on the soundtrack for this new movie, Judas in the
Speaker 1: Black Messiah, which is a I don't want to say
Speaker 1: it's an autobiography, but it's like a what would you
Speaker 1: what genre would you describe it as? I mean like
Speaker 1: it it gives me a memoir like feel like an autobiography,
Speaker 1: feels comprehensive of like he was born and then he
Speaker 1: went to fifth grade. But I mean like snapshot really,
Speaker 1: but I mean like genre, like would you say it's
Speaker 1: a thriller? Like okay, So so it's more it's more
Speaker 1: along the lines of being a biopic. But it's not
Speaker 1: like a like an informant drama or like a thriller
Speaker 1: or because that's a heavy element in it. It's like
Speaker 1: the pension, the informant fields about what he's doing, you know,
Speaker 1: starting to I don't want to give too much away,
Speaker 1: you know, he kind of like feels the draws the
Speaker 1: black panthers and like, oh, I what I'm doing wrong? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't do it wrong, everybody. So last Friday, um,
Speaker 1: this new movie, Judas in the Black Messiah was released
Speaker 1: to streaming and the film follows FBI informant William O'Neill
Speaker 1: as he infiltrated the Chicago chapter of the Black Panthers
Speaker 1: Party and set an event the you know everything that
Speaker 1: would eventually lead to the assassination of the famed revolutionary
Speaker 1: Fred Hampton. Now, um, would you say it's a good movie?
Speaker 1: Like if you had to give it a letter grad
Speaker 1: just just for the movie that you saw on the screen,
Speaker 1: what would be your I did not feel qualified to
Speaker 1: give a ratings a person as personal though you're not
Speaker 1: giving You're not giving like something like I know you.
Speaker 1: I've talked to you about movies before. You're like, I'll
Speaker 1: give it up. Be like, I'll give it a ninety
Speaker 1: two points barely fairly an A grade. I'm slowly asking
Speaker 1: on the Mariah Park on the on the lingual Franco scale,
Speaker 1: you know. So, um, I think it was a good movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's good. You think it was good? All right?
Speaker 1: So I mean, I mean, like, as a leftist, I
Speaker 1: think it was a good film for leftism, and that
Speaker 1: like I heard, you know, because in our conversation about
Speaker 1: No Name and her qualms with the film last week,
Speaker 1: you know, she was concerned. I believe that like his
Speaker 1: politics weren't comprehensively represented in the film. Yeah, she didn't
Speaker 1: think it was enough about him. You know, Like I
Speaker 1: would agree that the left needs to get better at
Speaker 1: like producing like compelling media to like draw people to
Speaker 1: our ideas and educate folks. But like the left needs
Speaker 1: to do that. Hollywood is not the left capitalism institution
Speaker 1: or like industrial complex, and so all we need them
Speaker 1: to do is to like introduce them to, like very briefly,
Speaker 1: stuff like not sucking up Super Bad. And I felt
Speaker 1: like from the jump, like and this isn't a spoiler
Speaker 1: because like it's like like in the verse twenty minus
Speaker 1: the film, like it's very explicit that like Fred Hampton
Speaker 1: is this fucking socialist, and like he talks about socialism.
Speaker 1: They're all talking about socialism, and sure they don't get
Speaker 1: into it a ton and the rest of the film
Speaker 1: like they're not going into theory and ship they don't
Speaker 1: get in a theory. They're not like talking about well
Speaker 1: on page seventy six and like now you're not because
Speaker 1: no one was to watch that because that's not an
Speaker 1: entertaining movie. You know, we're trying to people, We're trying
Speaker 1: to give him a taste and so people who have
Speaker 1: watching the movie, you're seeing Fred Hampton being a badass
Speaker 1: and there's like a gunfight, so the and so if
Speaker 1: that's all it takes, it was enough of a teaser
Speaker 1: for somebody who doesn't get sure about politics to look
Speaker 1: it up Fred Hampton afterwards and then go and see like, huh,
Speaker 1: who is this? Like you know, yeah, and that's that's
Speaker 1: that's cha whatever, Like yeah, I feel that's that's kind
Speaker 1: of what I was. All I want's just to open
Speaker 1: the door for people who see it and it's not
Speaker 1: curious about more to go learn more. I don't expect
Speaker 1: films from Hollywood to teach actually teach people about So
Speaker 1: the movie. The movie came out and it's been getting
Speaker 1: you know, good reviews. People seem to like it. Um
Speaker 1: besides for the slight controversy with the no name thing
Speaker 1: in the soundtrack and that particular criticism of it, I
Speaker 1: haven't really seen too many um complaints with the film. Now.
Speaker 1: One thing that I have, you know, discoverag because you know,
Speaker 1: we we talked about it and then a little bit
Speaker 1: after we're like, hey, let's let's do an episode where
Speaker 1: we're talking about Fred Hamptons and it's like just from
Speaker 1: a basic you know, if you do somebody like you
Speaker 1: just said, if someone wants to look up Fred Hampton
Speaker 1: after seeing the movie pretty much, you know, just a
Speaker 1: basic search, you're gonna come into a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: about how he died, in the circumstances in which he died.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, um cointell pro uh rogue,
Speaker 1: FBI agents, and an informant struggling with what he's doing.
Speaker 1: Like all that sort of stuff makes for like an
Speaker 1: intriguing story, whether it's you know, an article or think
Speaker 1: piece being written about it, or whether it's a movie.
Speaker 1: So like most of the stuff that you're gonna find
Speaker 1: about it is going to be, especially now, is going
Speaker 1: to be about the assassination of Fred Hampton's you know,
Speaker 1: like what what led to What were the things that
Speaker 1: led to him being killed? And there's not too many
Speaker 1: just flat out hey, this is who Fred Hampton was
Speaker 1: and this is what he was about, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, without bringing in the aspects of his death.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to we wanted to use this episode
Speaker 1: to talk about Fred Hampton, his politics and what lessons
Speaker 1: can be learned from his revolution Before he was prematurely,
Speaker 1: prematurely taken away from Better Pigs. One last thing I
Speaker 1: want to say on the film itself before we move
Speaker 1: on to talk about the man. And I think, like
Speaker 1: this point comes up and what we're going to day
Speaker 1: about the man. But just like, if you haven't seen
Speaker 1: the film yet, go into this, go into it with
Speaker 1: this in mind. They cast thirty year old niggas to
Speaker 1: play like like like he's staying field. His character is
Speaker 1: seventeen years old in the in the real human, real life,
Speaker 1: and they got this like thirty old nigga player in
Speaker 1: the seventeen year old child Fred Hampton, what was he
Speaker 1: like nineteen? And they got fucking Daniel Kalua. I hope
Speaker 1: that's not his last name. I think. Okay, hold on,
Speaker 1: let me look just be like called the nigga Kalua
Speaker 1: and Kalua pronunciation kaluya close. Okay, Daniel Kalua. He is
Speaker 1: thirty one years old playing twenty year old child. Well
Speaker 1: that that could that's a Hollywood thing too, though, I
Speaker 1: mean in the Hollywood thing that does happen. But imagine
Speaker 1: if they had cast actual children to play these actual children,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like the gravity of what they were
Speaker 1: insconsin would like actually sort of thinking like you're you're right,
Speaker 1: but you know what, I think you're both right and
Speaker 1: wrong because I think you're right on While that would
Speaker 1: have been a bet from my just putting on my
Speaker 1: movie nerd Ship, that would have been a better like
Speaker 1: better aesthetically and it would have looked better because it
Speaker 1: would have been more realistic to the you know what
Speaker 1: they were portraying from a technical aspect, you're doing something
Speaker 1: like this, you want motherfucker's that know how to act,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And this is not shipping,
Speaker 1: not on a younger actor and stuff like that. But
Speaker 1: the people who are in this movie are fucking veteran
Speaker 1: actors who you can if you're a director, and you're right,
Speaker 1: they do a great job. If you're director actor, you
Speaker 1: don't have to be afraid to put a camera on
Speaker 1: Daniel Kluya for five minutes and have him just look
Speaker 1: you express some emotion and stuff like that. But I mean,
Speaker 1: just and this is all you know, again, with all
Speaker 1: due respect, if you're dealing with a seventeen year old actor,
Speaker 1: you probably have to search a lot harder to find
Speaker 1: that that actor who can do that. Who's that young,
Speaker 1: you know, So I'll give him a break on that.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, I'm an older cat, so I've been
Speaker 1: seeing high school students played by four year old motherfucker's
Speaker 1: since I was a kid and ship, so it's all
Speaker 1: it's all good with me. I get why they did that,
Speaker 1: but um yeah, so we're gonna We're gonna get into
Speaker 1: that and a little bit more. We're also going to
Speaker 1: do for the music discussion is we are going to
Speaker 1: do a quick little mini review of the soundtrack that
Speaker 1: kind of brought all of this to our attention anyway.
Speaker 1: It's a star studied hip hop extravaganzas soundtrack that they
Speaker 1: made for this uh movie. So we're gonna go into
Speaker 1: it and listen to some select cuts and kind of
Speaker 1: give our overall thoughts on how this works a as
Speaker 1: a rap album, but be also as a soundtrack that
Speaker 1: is advertising itself as being inspired by the film that
Speaker 1: you're I see on the screen. So that's where I'm
Speaker 1: going to be judging with south track from we will
Speaker 1: be into all that and more after the jump. Okay,
Speaker 1: August is the year Fred Hampton was born, and what
Speaker 1: is now summ at Illinois. His parents were transplants from Louisiana,
Speaker 1: some of the six million or so rural Southern United
Speaker 1: States dwellers of African descent that north um to the northeast, Midwest,
Speaker 1: and West in order to escape for economic conditions and
Speaker 1: the Hellish racism under Jim Crow States in the South
Speaker 1: um in between the years of nineteen six and nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1: So right there, smack in the middle, Fred Hampton's parents
Speaker 1: have moved up to Illinois. He gets born, and from
Speaker 1: a young age it was noticed that Fred was a
Speaker 1: pretty gifted student and athlete. He even wanted to like
Speaker 1: pitch for the Yankees one day, or play for the
Speaker 1: Yankees at least, I don't know what position you've played.
Speaker 1: But his future activism also shine really early on too,
Speaker 1: perhaps a precursor to the Black Panthers free breakfast programs
Speaker 1: that we're gonna touch on a little bit later. When
Speaker 1: he was ten years old, he would host weekend breakfasts
Speaker 1: for the neighborhood kids, and he would go so far
Speaker 1: as to even cook all of the meals himself. What
Speaker 1: do you think about that? So cute? I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have a lot to say. I think about mutual
Speaker 1: aid and its role in like shaping communities and like
Speaker 1: pushing for transformation and communities as a part of this,
Speaker 1: because I think it's a huge lesson from the Black panthers. Um.
Speaker 1: But I think in particular, like it's interesting to me,
Speaker 1: just like the way the Great Migration shaped, like Black
Speaker 1: liberation movement stuff is something I just would love to
Speaker 1: learn more about and delve more into. As some that's
Speaker 1: like my family didn't really leave the South, didn't go
Speaker 1: nowhere down here. Someone was making the point that there
Speaker 1: should be another Great Migration. You're saying that black people
Speaker 1: should migrate back to the South of African Americans live
Speaker 1: in the South South already exactly, So, Um, wouldn't it
Speaker 1: be funny? Though? I saw this like stupid fucking meme
Speaker 1: on Twitter or something that was like, you know, like
Speaker 1: if we if like all the you know, tech bros
Speaker 1: working on their MacBooks at a you know, Williamsburg coffee
Speaker 1: shop moved to Montana or Nebraska or Wyoming or wherever,
Speaker 1: you know, eight hundred thousand, five hundred thousand people, we
Speaker 1: could like flip the sentences. I've I've definitely heard a
Speaker 1: few right wing talking heads like make reference to that
Speaker 1: losing their ship. About man, what are these people from
Speaker 1: California moving to Texas? This is like I don't like
Speaker 1: this ship, man, what's going on? Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: But like you know, you get a hundred thousand of
Speaker 1: black people to move to Wyoming to have like a
Speaker 1: self sustaining I don't know, commune and some ship. And
Speaker 1: also you know they also elect a new senator, Senator.
Speaker 1: Uh no, I do not advocate for a great migration
Speaker 1: of any kind. South built the South. This is Arland.
Speaker 1: Everyone should everyone come back to the South. Let's really
Speaker 1: take a ship over. Let's reclaim Atlanta. Okay, So back
Speaker 1: back to Freddie so so okay, so you know that
Speaker 1: this is this activist part of him was being noticed
Speaker 1: at you know, very young age, and this development of
Speaker 1: organizing in the community and you know, starting these free
Speaker 1: breakfast programs where he would cook for neighborhood kids. This
Speaker 1: development would carry on into his teen years, whereas a
Speaker 1: high schooler he would lead lockouts to protest blacks being
Speaker 1: left out of the homecoming runnings, and he fought to
Speaker 1: get more black teachers and administration hired by the faculty.
Speaker 1: He ended graduating with honors and varsity letters, as well
Speaker 1: as a Junior Achievement Award in nineteen sixty six. Now,
Speaker 1: the amazing thing about that saying that to me, And
Speaker 1: it's also like when you consider the movie, so it's
Speaker 1: like Fred Hampton died in nineteen sixty nine, right, and
Speaker 1: here I am just telling you that he graduated high
Speaker 1: school in nineteen sixty six. So this means that all
Speaker 1: of the not all, but it means a good chunk
Speaker 1: of the impact and legacy that this dude left on
Speaker 1: the world was between the fucking three years that he
Speaker 1: graduated high school and died. This nigga went from Ayo,
Speaker 1: why the no mo fucking black homecoming queens getting murdered
Speaker 1: by the f year three years later? Wild wow? But
Speaker 1: then the year rolled So after graduating from high school,
Speaker 1: he had enrolled in Triton Junior Community College or he
Speaker 1: majored in pre law, started to gather ammunition winklink informa
Speaker 1: legal no use as a defense against the police. He
Speaker 1: would later on go on to use this like when
Speaker 1: they would do they had like a watch the police
Speaker 1: program that he set up where they would actually follow
Speaker 1: the cops and monitor them like as they patrolled the
Speaker 1: neighborhoods and stuff like that. So whenever the cops will
Speaker 1: trying to funk with them, you know, everyone who he
Speaker 1: would view with would look to him because he would
Speaker 1: know how to talk to the cops because he has
Speaker 1: like all that legal knowledge and ship like that, so
Speaker 1: they couldn't mess with them like that. Um. It was
Speaker 1: around nineteen sixty six, after he turned eighteen that some
Speaker 1: of his political identities started to crystallize. He formed a
Speaker 1: solidarity with the Third World Socialism movement that was a
Speaker 1: philosophy that's made up of African, Arab, Latin, Buddhist, Islamic
Speaker 1: versions of socialism with the worldview that socialism was the
Speaker 1: answer to establishing a strong and developed nation. Uh. This
Speaker 1: was all in the as the Vietnam War was really
Speaker 1: starting to ratchet up in violence and Fred began to
Speaker 1: read the work of Shakavara Ho Chi Minh maoz A
Speaker 1: Dung and other communists revolutionaries. After getting involved with and
Speaker 1: quickly moving up the ranks into leadership of the in
Speaker 1: Double A CP, Fred used his natural abilities as a
Speaker 1: community organizer to activate a youth group five members deep
Speaker 1: to fight for more and better recreational facilities and improved
Speaker 1: educational resources in their community. So how's the boy doing
Speaker 1: so far out of high school? We're doing okay at
Speaker 1: high school. Yeah, I mean, I feel like it is rare,
Speaker 1: at least in my personal experience as an organizer, as
Speaker 1: well as just like thinking about great figures of contemporary
Speaker 1: times that are like leading like modern day social movements
Speaker 1: that synthesize this, this this theoretical found um grounding in
Speaker 1: like the you know, writings and readings of the writings,
Speaker 1: readings the fucking words and books of of like the
Speaker 1: of of revolutionary thinkers with actual action in the community.
Speaker 1: I feel like you see, particularly you know now more
Speaker 1: than ever, like a lot of like folks that like
Speaker 1: read theory and then like just shot on other people
Speaker 1: for not knowing about it. I mean that a person
Speaker 1: that like I don't fucking read theory. I've never read
Speaker 1: up sh at all um, but like, you know, operate
Speaker 1: from a from a grounding of just like deep compassion
Speaker 1: and like just care that the community, and like I think,
Speaker 1: I think your natural quality and like I believe thing
Speaker 1: is going to be better. I don't know, I think
Speaker 1: your natural interests though in like the subject matter it
Speaker 1: makes I don't know, it makes it more like somebody
Speaker 1: like me to get into it would have to read theory.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, because I think that like
Speaker 1: for someone like you, who's like very hands on and
Speaker 1: like in the ground level of it, that I think
Speaker 1: you can better form of understanding of what these concepts
Speaker 1: are because it's like you know how they or how
Speaker 1: they will to actually apply in real life and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. Whereas someone who is more like like you. Remember,
Speaker 1: we had a discussion early on in the show when
Speaker 1: I was we were trying to determine whether or not
Speaker 1: I was a socialist or not, and it was like
Speaker 1: that's exactly. It's like it's like I feel like I
Speaker 1: feel like yeah, but then it's like, man, I don't
Speaker 1: know enough about it to claim that ship because I
Speaker 1: don't want you know what I mean, and not not
Speaker 1: from my perspectives, Like I don't want to like claim
Speaker 1: some something the have people like, man, you pose it, man,
Speaker 1: you wait with the ship you believe in that straight up.
Speaker 1: That's why I don't read theory and I don't want
Speaker 1: to become one of those assholes that's like man to
Speaker 1: baby Broby bro tears streamed down the face into the beard,
Speaker 1: into the weird. Um. So yeah, I mean and like
Speaker 1: and here we see that well before he got this
Speaker 1: like theoretical grounding in you know, tenets, a third world
Speaker 1: like internationalist socialist movement. Um, he already feeding people. And
Speaker 1: that's the thing if you have like a penchant, if
Speaker 1: you just want to go feed people in your community,
Speaker 1: and you don't know why, you don't have nobody told
Speaker 1: like some old dead like communist guy, I didn't tell
Speaker 1: you to do it. You're just like I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I should need food weekend breakfast for neighborhood kids. Let's
Speaker 1: do that. Like that is more revolutionary to me than like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, reading a bunch and then not doing ship.
Speaker 1: So reading a reading a bunch and starting a YouTube show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, I guess. I say that to say
Speaker 1: that I ultimately, in my own work find that the
Speaker 1: grounding and community engagement then like inflected with understanding of theory,
Speaker 1: is like an important orientation to have among our leadership.
Speaker 1: So a sense of like, I'm out here doing good
Speaker 1: and then later I read a book about like the
Speaker 1: best way to do good, and so I'm going to
Speaker 1: combine my real world knowledge with like what the old
Speaker 1: dead guy in the book said, like that is that's
Speaker 1: that sweet spot that made people that made someone like
Speaker 1: Fred Hampton so like transformative in their community and in
Speaker 1: our history. And the thing that the sense that I
Speaker 1: couldn't quite get from reading about it, and I wonder
Speaker 1: if this was you can maybe tell me if this
Speaker 1: was captured in the movie, is um it was a
Speaker 1: thing that he was so young? Right? Like I mean,
Speaker 1: it wasn't. I feel like no, And I feel like
Speaker 1: in the movie like he was just some who's just
Speaker 1: a person that made it seem like he was older. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I said so, I mean, like so I wonder
Speaker 1: if like the people around him, because you know, because
Speaker 1: I would imagine there were a lot of radicalized, activated
Speaker 1: young people back then, you know what I'm saying, probably
Speaker 1: more so than now. Would you think of now? Is that?
Speaker 1: One thing that I'm wondering is we have this conversation
Speaker 1: it's like what sorts of pipelines to what kind of
Speaker 1: leadership are we building in like our communities for for
Speaker 1: young people today? Like I don't know why, Like sure
Speaker 1: there's not a there there weren't a ton of Fred
Speaker 1: Hampton's then either that's why there's one Fred Hampton that
Speaker 1: stands out to us history. But like we don't have zero,
Speaker 1: We've got none for what do you got a single one? Like?
Speaker 1: Like you know, so what are we channeling people with
Speaker 1: this organic like leadership potential and like desire and drive
Speaker 1: to help their community, Like what are we funneling them into?
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things. Are things working against you
Speaker 1: though in that sense, because I mean, I just think
Speaker 1: like all of society, I think American society for like
Speaker 1: at least the last thirty years has kind of been
Speaker 1: designed to pacify people, you know what I'm saying, to
Speaker 1: make it harder for Fred Hampton to to get out there.
Speaker 1: And you know, as I even though I just said that,
Speaker 1: like he listened hearing what you just said, it also
Speaker 1: made me think that a lot of the technologies that
Speaker 1: are very pacifying in a way that simy like the
Speaker 1: rise of leadership in like a traditional sense, are also
Speaker 1: tools by which people, young people particularly are engaging in
Speaker 1: like really powerful forms of mass political education. Like I'm
Speaker 1: not on TikTok, I'm not twenty nine years old, but
Speaker 1: I like the zoomers are like from what I can
Speaker 1: tell Hella talking about socialism and ship on the there's
Speaker 1: definitely a lot of them. I don't know how dominant
Speaker 1: it is, but there definitely is like a strong political
Speaker 1: It's like just ecosystem on TikTok for sure, like on
Speaker 1: the left and the right. What's up? Okay, So trying
Speaker 1: to Okay, it's the study before I looked it up
Speaker 1: again just so I could accurately quote its findings. UM.
Speaker 1: According to a study from last year, nearly one third
Speaker 1: of gen z um support Marxism or socialism UM, which
Speaker 1: is up from six percent in two thousand nineteen. I
Speaker 1: don't know what this means. I don't know, like you know,
Speaker 1: what it means that something really bad happened that shocked
Speaker 1: a lot of people and changing the way that they thought. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let collapse and racial just almost civil war uprising, and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. So okay. So I guess I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say is that we also have to think about
Speaker 1: the way that social movements are shifting, given like the
Speaker 1: diversified and fragmented media landscape UM and technology landscape they
Speaker 1: were not living in. And so one of the things
Speaker 1: that's like seems like a drawback, but maybe is it
Speaker 1: benefit to like everyone's on a different social media platform,
Speaker 1: everyone's watching different YouTubers, are reading different they're listening to
Speaker 1: different podcasts, and they're not There's not like, oh, you
Speaker 1: turn on the TV and there's like the one news
Speaker 1: network that everyone watches and see it's okay on and
Speaker 1: so everyone thinks MLK is the dude. There's not that
Speaker 1: sort of like beautifying culturals like guys anymore. And so
Speaker 1: it makes it like so that the movement it's harder
Speaker 1: to kill because like, well, who's the Fred Hampton? You're
Speaker 1: shooting their bed? Now? Who is it? You can't Oh,
Speaker 1: you can't figure you there's too many that are operating
Speaker 1: on smaller scales, and so we don't know which one's
Speaker 1: worth murdering or I don't know, like Keevin Ferguson, activists
Speaker 1: turned up dead since the thousand fourteen. Maybe I spoke
Speaker 1: pres soon. Um so, so I don't know. We've nda
Speaker 1: get off on a tantent talking about like why don't
Speaker 1: we to make Fred Hampton's anymore? And I get the
Speaker 1: experienswer is we do? But it's different we do, but
Speaker 1: it's the well, um so, while he was making moves
Speaker 1: this we're going back to Fred Hampton. Now, sorry, y'all,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be transitioning in our thoughts and the subject matter.
Speaker 1: But okay. So while he was making moves in then
Speaker 1: double a CP, the Black Panthers began a rise in
Speaker 1: the national national prominence, and their approach to the struggle
Speaker 1: is one that Hampton found really appealing. The reason for
Speaker 1: that attraction well coincides with his readings and the forming
Speaker 1: of his new political identity. The Panthers, through Huey Newton
Speaker 1: and Bobby Seals, utilized the ten Point program that combined
Speaker 1: black self determination with class and economic critiques from Maoism.
Speaker 1: It laid out the physical needs and all philosophical principles
Speaker 1: that Fred wanted to lead it. So what is the
Speaker 1: ten point program? Mut's break down the points? Point point?
Speaker 1: What you want? What do we want? Now? I feel
Speaker 1: like we need to do this and like the it
Speaker 1: feels like it needs to be some bootcamp militaristic type
Speaker 1: way we say it. What do we want? We want freedom?
Speaker 1: We want power to determine the destiny of our Black community.
Speaker 1: I knowed to be like call and response or something,
Speaker 1: but they did want freedom. They wanted power to determine
Speaker 1: the destiny. They wanted all employment for people, which y'all
Speaker 1: know I've been harping on fucking guaranteed incommission. It was
Speaker 1: on that ship. They wanted to end to the robbery
Speaker 1: by capitalists of the black and oppressed communities. They want
Speaker 1: a decent housing fit for shelter of human beings. You
Speaker 1: want an education for people that exposes the true nature
Speaker 1: of this decadent American society. We want an education that
Speaker 1: teaches us a true history and our role in present
Speaker 1: day society. We want all black men to be exempt
Speaker 1: from military service. You want an immediate end to police
Speaker 1: brutality and murder of black people. We want freedom for
Speaker 1: all black men held in federal, state, county, and city
Speaker 1: prisons in jails. Want all black people, when brought to trial,
Speaker 1: to be tried by a jury of their peer group
Speaker 1: or people from the black communities as identified by the
Speaker 1: Constitution of the United States. And in closing, we want bread, housing, education, clothing,
Speaker 1: injustice and peace. I felt that was an important thing
Speaker 1: for us to say, because you know, I'm like interested
Speaker 1: in this ship, and I don't think I had ever
Speaker 1: like just straight up read the ten Points of the
Speaker 1: Black Panther Party until doing this, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of this still resonates with like
Speaker 1: policies that are much needed today and that have like
Speaker 1: echoed forward in time through the demands made by various
Speaker 1: social movements, groups and leaders. The one thing I kind
Speaker 1: of want to dig into is the idea of black
Speaker 1: self determination. The very first point. We want freedom, we
Speaker 1: want power to determine the destiny of our black community.
Speaker 1: And when I think about soft of community self determination
Speaker 1: in the context of like, you know, community like mine
Speaker 1: that I represent, which is like predominantly and historically black
Speaker 1: and working class, how black capital of them like is
Speaker 1: seen as like getting that self determination, like like if
Speaker 1: we just have enough wealth where we can like buy
Speaker 1: a home and then flip it if we want to,
Speaker 1: or just like be an entrepreneur and make money, but
Speaker 1: then only pay our worker, like then we'll be good.
Speaker 1: Like it's interesting to me that like, um, perhaps you know,
Speaker 1: and you know this is decontextualized since we're just like
Speaker 1: reading off the list rather than like hearing it within
Speaker 1: the general like discourse of the time, But like how
Speaker 1: that particular point could be what I would imagine, like
Speaker 1: you could say, is misconstrued by like modern day like
Speaker 1: black neoliberals, like we want to determine the destiny of
Speaker 1: our black community. I feel that like yeah, and like
Speaker 1: and gain a sense that like, oh, we are the
Speaker 1: spiritual successors of someone like but Fred Hampton. When it's
Speaker 1: like if you think that like every every black person
Speaker 1: being a business owner, like that's that's gonna be the fix.
Speaker 1: When it's like, well, what are they paying the people
Speaker 1: that work for them? Like what the working conditions of
Speaker 1: the people that work for them? Like what are their
Speaker 1: business practices? Are they exploiting the earth? Are they exploiting
Speaker 1: like other people like Dada Da Da Da? Are all
Speaker 1: still fairy fundamental in like and ultimately just society. I
Speaker 1: don't know to what degree at all, but I mean
Speaker 1: hip hop definitely has played its role in like this
Speaker 1: sort of messaging two people that attitude that you know,
Speaker 1: like you're saying that like black capitalism is the cure
Speaker 1: for all you know. What I'm saying is as somebody
Speaker 1: who's grown up for thirty years listening to hip hop
Speaker 1: and ship, it's like that that's like that's get Richard
Speaker 1: died trying that association of freedom being with like economic
Speaker 1: gain or economic freedom and solely that. And it's not
Speaker 1: like a judgment of that, because I think it's understandable.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't somebody want to look out for them and theirs.
Speaker 1: It's just the messaging. If that message gets drone, and
Speaker 1: it gets drone and it becomes there's a reason why
Speaker 1: when you hear rappers who speak in broader terms of
Speaker 1: like community and the people and ship like that, it's
Speaker 1: eyebrow raising. It's like, oh, man, that that motherfucker's cool,
Speaker 1: you know, because that's not the norm. And not to
Speaker 1: downplay at all with any rapper does like community wise
Speaker 1: off the mic. But I've been stressing since we started
Speaker 1: this show, and I keep stressing the power of hip hop,
Speaker 1: I believe is like a real thing, you know. And
Speaker 1: it's like if you keep droning on a message, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just not shocking to me that after
Speaker 1: thirty years of messaging, people are a lot more prone
Speaker 1: to be like, yo, man, what can I do get
Speaker 1: but get money? You know. And obviously there's other factors.
Speaker 1: I would just imagine that the most dominant aspect of
Speaker 1: pop culture telling you the same ship over and over
Speaker 1: again possibly have an effect. And I guess I want
Speaker 1: to like push back on that slightly with a reference
Speaker 1: to Vince Staples in North North where he says, hit
Speaker 1: the corner, make a dollar, flip it. Let the dollars
Speaker 1: with my mom and children, and so it being indicative
Speaker 1: of like there's this ethos of community care where it's
Speaker 1: like whatever you get, you split with your mama children,
Speaker 1: like you split with your boys. You make sure your
Speaker 1: mama got her lights onto their house, like you make
Speaker 1: sure your people are good. But it's how you get
Speaker 1: those gains that everybody is so confused about that would
Speaker 1: agree hip hop um like this misconception hip hop helps proliferate,
Speaker 1: but it's also just pervasive in America media or large
Speaker 1: in Hollywood, in the news, and and so it's not
Speaker 1: I don't think it's like specifically endemic to hip hop
Speaker 1: that like this is Oh, I don't. I wouldn't put
Speaker 1: the blame solely at the feet of hip hop. I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm just speaking from what my from from what
Speaker 1: I feel that you know, from my exposure to hip hop.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying what I feel that that line and
Speaker 1: the line came to me because like it also indicates
Speaker 1: the inverse where it's like, yes, there's this like get rich,
Speaker 1: do try and step on where you gotta get and
Speaker 1: make your money, like you know, get mine, you get yours.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. That's because because we've got
Speaker 1: to look out for people, for our people. So like
Speaker 1: I think if we could like somehow uplift that ethos,
Speaker 1: Like I think you could undo this whole ship just
Speaker 1: like yo, you know how like we all really care
Speaker 1: about our people and making sure they're good. What if
Speaker 1: instead of buying crack for five dollars and selling it
Speaker 1: for money, you know, Like I don't know, I can't
Speaker 1: come up with a good metaphor where we grow, we
Speaker 1: grow the cocaine ourselves and all the riches gained from
Speaker 1: something that though I don't know, I was going, Um,
Speaker 1: we films it, like you know, it's just like how
Speaker 1: you get how you get the gains to then split
Speaker 1: amongst your people, Like part we gotta like rehash out
Speaker 1: as like a subculture. But the ethos are taking care
Speaker 1: of our people is already there. Yeah, So let's kind
Speaker 1: of break down a little bit more about what each
Speaker 1: of these pen points means or like what they were
Speaker 1: seeking truly with each of these. So okay, so we
Speaker 1: want full employment for our people. That's pretty self explanatory. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they said they believe that the federal government is responsible
Speaker 1: and obligated to give every man employment or guaranteed income.
Speaker 1: Where if I heard these things before, Um, we believe
Speaker 1: that the white if the white American businessman will not
Speaker 1: give full employment, the means of production should be taken
Speaker 1: from the businessman in place in the community so that
Speaker 1: the people of the community can organize and employ all
Speaker 1: of its people and give a high standard of living.
Speaker 1: So these ideas of federal job guarantee, guaranteed employment from
Speaker 1: the federal government coupled with universal basic income are still
Speaker 1: ideas that have widely talked about, Uh in the main
Speaker 1: I mean it's becoming increasingly mainstreamed today. Um, this is
Speaker 1: what they're talking about even back then. Oh then then
Speaker 1: then you got the good old season, the means of
Speaker 1: production cash it. So third, we believe that this racist
Speaker 1: government has robbed us and now are we are demanding
Speaker 1: our overdue debt. Forty acres two mules. Forty acres two
Speaker 1: mules was promised a hundred years ago as redistribution for
Speaker 1: slave labor and mass murder of black people. Will accept
Speaker 1: the payment and currency which will be distributed to our
Speaker 1: many communities. The Germans are now aiding the Jews in
Speaker 1: Israel for genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans murdered
Speaker 1: six million Jews. Is the American racist has taken part
Speaker 1: in the slaughter of over fifty million black people. Therefore,
Speaker 1: we feel this is a modest demand that we make.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have anything to do with this. I mean
Speaker 1: it kind of us, but doesn't really. More on the
Speaker 1: topic of the podcast, generally we are called waiting on
Speaker 1: reparations and then talking about reparations. Something is a meeting tonight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so another Black commission there's three of us on the commission,
Speaker 1: and it's one of the other two black commissioners tonight
Speaker 1: had said, because we're voting on a packager for reparations
Speaker 1: to the people who have their land taken under urban renewal,
Speaker 1: and he said that he doesn't want reparations because even
Speaker 1: if he got them, he could still end up dead
Speaker 1: under the knee of a cop like George Floyd. And
Speaker 1: this is also I feel like worth flrowing in the
Speaker 1: mix here is also a man that, like the humanly
Speaker 1: supports the police. So wait, what I just I just like,
Speaker 1: can we just unpack it for a second. Hold on,
Speaker 1: let me just see if I can. Okay, So he said,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't want reparations because even if I
Speaker 1: did get them, I could still end up dead under
Speaker 1: the knee of a So like, does he not want
Speaker 1: to get paid at work? Like, I just I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't understand the correlation of those two things. I
Speaker 1: don't either. I think it unpacked because you know, we
Speaker 1: are this is a show that is titled about reparations,
Speaker 1: and it's like, actually, that's an interesting, kind of interesting point,
Speaker 1: like weird and dumb, but like like underneath kind of
Speaker 1: profound that reparations on their own, we wouldn't make it
Speaker 1: so that cops would stop killing black people. No, not
Speaker 1: at all, but but it seems like right, It's it's
Speaker 1: right in the sense that like, yeah, that's factually right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: if if I got reparations, a cops still could put
Speaker 1: his knee on his neck. Yeah, And it wasn't what
Speaker 1: I don't get what I do. But what I don't
Speaker 1: get is I don't get I don't want reparations because
Speaker 1: the cop because do you know, do you feel what
Speaker 1: I'm saying? Like that just doesn't make sense, Like I
Speaker 1: don't understand why you but I've heard people structure of
Speaker 1: like the because of this then this, like the way
Speaker 1: he said it doesn't make sense. But um, I guess
Speaker 1: like in short, he's like kind of right, but let's
Speaker 1: just deconstructed in the level. That's what I would have
Speaker 1: said to him at the meeting if I had given
Speaker 1: a ship, but mostly thought he was dumb and didn't
Speaker 1: want to talk about it. Um, Like, let's think about
Speaker 1: George Floyd. It feels like he had a kind of
Speaker 1: a hard life and we've talked previously on the show
Speaker 1: about like generations back, had had land stolen from his family, um,
Speaker 1: which had set him up for precarity in his adulthood,
Speaker 1: you know, struggles with you know, violence, behavioral issues, argubuse.
Speaker 1: Like had his family been paid reparations to the land
Speaker 1: I've been taken for them, maybe would have had a
Speaker 1: stabler life. That would have not led him to allegedly
Speaker 1: use a counterfetween the four dollar bill at that gas station,
Speaker 1: so he wouldn't have had the run in with the
Speaker 1: cops that would lead to the end of his life.
Speaker 1: In a sense, actually reparations what would have proven sure
Speaker 1: would help ensure that lots of people get killed by
Speaker 1: the cops because they would put them in fewer precarious
Speaker 1: situations to necessitate police response, creating the circumstance in which
Speaker 1: they are killed. I mean, I'm I'm personally somebody. I
Speaker 1: feel that somebody can make an argument against reparations that
Speaker 1: I can disagree with but still be like, Oh, I
Speaker 1: see the point that you're trying to make. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, And it's like I hear you, like
Speaker 1: like it's it's it's it's a complicated issue. I just
Speaker 1: don't think that this is it, though I should also
Speaker 1: could have been because I was longs mine. It's blown
Speaker 1: my mind. I'm really sitting here trying to wonder, like
Speaker 1: what point he was trying to make, Like guys, like,
Speaker 1: it's not the point. Like again, the point that he's
Speaker 1: making is accurate, but it just doesn't make sense. I
Speaker 1: don't want reparations. What do you gain? What do you gain?
Speaker 1: And making this argument right now, you honestly, if you
Speaker 1: you could replace a cop could still kill me with
Speaker 1: anything and just ask yourself, even that makes sense, guys,
Speaker 1: I don't want reparations because I can still die from
Speaker 1: high blood pressure. Yeah, like what what you know? Like
Speaker 1: a it's helf also a matter of systemic racism and
Speaker 1: the environmentalism contributing. Like so that's not even that's not
Speaker 1: even a crazier analogies literally, yeah, it's lines. Yeah wow,
Speaker 1: So thank you for entertaining this. Uh this tangent good
Speaker 1: on my fine, all right, So back to the ten points.
Speaker 1: So we believe that if white landlords will not get
Speaker 1: decent housing to our black communities, then the housing in
Speaker 1: the land should be made into cooperative so that our community,
Speaker 1: with government aid, can build and make a decent housing
Speaker 1: for his people. Feel that we believe in an educational
Speaker 1: system that will give our people a knowledge of self.
Speaker 1: If a man does not have knowledge of himself and
Speaker 1: his position in society in the world, then he has
Speaker 1: little chance to relate to anything else. I feel that too.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no lies there and that I mean
Speaker 1: that looks like a little bit of a little hip
Speaker 1: hop crossover there with um I think it's kres one.
Speaker 1: That's the fifth pillar of hip hop is knowledge. Yeah. Oh, no,
Speaker 1: it's Africa Bombata alright. We believe black people should not
Speaker 1: be forced to fight in the military service to defend
Speaker 1: a racist government that does not protect us. We will
Speaker 1: fight and kill other people of color in the world
Speaker 1: who like black people. We will not fight or kill
Speaker 1: other people of color in the world who, like black people,
Speaker 1: are being victimized by white, racist government of America. We
Speaker 1: will protect ourselves from the force of violence and the
Speaker 1: racist police and the racist military by whatever means necessary.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can only imagine how radicalizing it must
Speaker 1: have been during the Vietnam War to be called by
Speaker 1: a government that hates you to go kill people that
Speaker 1: are also brown, who you have a lot more in
Speaker 1: common with than like the politicians signing off on like
Speaker 1: the War Authorization Act or whatever. Well, one of the
Speaker 1: things that you can't overlook is that one of the
Speaker 1: things that started, you know, some of these revolutionary movements
Speaker 1: on the state side, is when you had black soldiers
Speaker 1: go and fight fascism in World War Two, and then
Speaker 1: they're fighting, they're seeing like that integrated society is possible.
Speaker 1: When they're like seeing like how the Europeans are doing it.
Speaker 1: Then they come back home and they can't even drink
Speaker 1: out of the same water fountains and other exact Nazis
Speaker 1: for goddamn uh. Well, So we believe you can in
Speaker 1: police brutality in our black community by organizing black self
Speaker 1: defense rooms that are dedicated to defending our black community
Speaker 1: from racist police depression and brutality. The Second Amendment of
Speaker 1: the Constitution of the United States gives us the right
Speaker 1: to bear arms. We therefore believe that all black people
Speaker 1: should arm themselves for self defense. I'm sure Ben Shapiro
Speaker 1: agrees with that. One friend Shapiro loves that. Sure Ben Shapiro.
Speaker 1: Stephen Crowder definitely agrees with that. I'm sure yeah, in
Speaker 1: rates all up on him. Yeah, looking forward to that,
Speaker 1: like like to use tenants of the US Constitution too,
Speaker 1: like to bolster revolutionary claim like that in themselves or
Speaker 1: like in their broader ideology challenge the legitimacy of that constitution.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? So like the idea that like
Speaker 1: white men don't have any right to be saying like,
Speaker 1: you know why yo, white man won't give us housing.
Speaker 1: White men you know, be killing us, white men, like
Speaker 1: taking our labor to build this country and the you
Speaker 1: know upon which upon you know, who's founding is builds
Speaker 1: upon this constitution. But because the constitution says we can
Speaker 1: bear arms, We're gonna like stick that in there because
Speaker 1: that you guys, you know, because at least you will
Speaker 1: give a shoot about the constitution. So like maybe you'll
Speaker 1: listen to when we like use your own words back
Speaker 1: at you. I don't know, I don't like. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's like it kind of strikes me as
Speaker 1: sort of um contradictory. Get it, like use their own
Speaker 1: arguments for why you should do the thing. This is
Speaker 1: cool reading This is because have you you know, I,
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, I haven't seen the Judas in
Speaker 1: the Black Messiah movie, but I have seen the Black Panthers,
Speaker 1: the Panther movie that was made in No No, No
Speaker 1: No in in ve or ninety six. Mario Van People's
Speaker 1: who directed New Jack City, he directed a Black Panthers
Speaker 1: movie that was more it was more like about like
Speaker 1: you know, the Rise and Fall of the Black Panthers.
Speaker 1: I don't remember whether that movie was good. I think
Speaker 1: it was. I think it was just that I know
Speaker 1: it was one of those movies where like damn near
Speaker 1: every black actor except Desoe Washington was in it. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. It was one of those like
Speaker 1: huge ensemble movies. But it's just I remember some of
Speaker 1: the dialogue that you know, the actor who played he P.
Speaker 1: Newton would say, and it's just like it's like a
Speaker 1: ripped right out of these these pillars that we're reading
Speaker 1: right now, like straight up, we believe that all black
Speaker 1: people should be released from jails and prisons because they
Speaker 1: have not received a fair and impartial trial. And in
Speaker 1: I mean nineteen sixty six, I understand why he's saying that.
Speaker 1: I'm tally saying that ship now. But but then that
Speaker 1: that transfers into this ninth one, which is we believe
Speaker 1: that the courts should follow the United States Constitution so
Speaker 1: that black people will all receive fair trials. The fourteenth
Speaker 1: Amendment of the Constitution gives a man the right to
Speaker 1: be tried by his peers appear is a person from
Speaker 1: a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, geographical, environmental, historical, and
Speaker 1: racial background. To do this, the court will be forced
Speaker 1: to select a jury from the black community from which
Speaker 1: the black defendant came. We have been and are being
Speaker 1: tried by all white juries that have no understanding of
Speaker 1: the average reasoning, reasoning man of the black community. Again,
Speaker 1: no lies, no lies, no lies. I think citing what
Speaker 1: appear it means and like inciting like economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical,
Speaker 1: in racial background. But to sort of flattened all of
Speaker 1: that into like, oh, we should be you know, tried
Speaker 1: by a jury from the black community and was like, well,
Speaker 1: there's black people in various geography, is, various religions, various
Speaker 1: economic situations. To problematize that someone, Yes, there's definitely a
Speaker 1: documented issue with all juries to this day, like they're
Speaker 1: diagnosing ills that's continue to plague us um. But it's
Speaker 1: kind of depressing to hear the like this issue just
Speaker 1: never never got better, never got bad. When in the
Speaker 1: course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people
Speaker 1: to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another,
Speaker 1: and to assume among the powers of the earth the
Speaker 1: separate and equal station to which the laws of nature
Speaker 1: and nature is God entitle them. A decent respect to
Speaker 1: the opinions of mankind. Requires that they declare the causes
Speaker 1: which and tell them the separation, you know, a especially
Speaker 1: now because there seems to be a little bit of
Speaker 1: a movement on at least the online left select people
Speaker 1: who are suggesting that there's some solidarity to be found
Speaker 1: between leftists working with like the far right and pretty
Speaker 1: much fascist as if there's like, hey, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, we have like a mutual there's there's there's
Speaker 1: mutual goals that can be found there and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: People have been name dropping Fred Hampton in that ship
Speaker 1: pretty much like not to beat around the bush. There's
Speaker 1: certain people in the American online left who are suggesting, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, like progressives should work with the Booglee Boys
Speaker 1: or like Proud Boys and fine solidarity because we both
Speaker 1: hate corporations, right, And it's like it's it's not really
Speaker 1: that simple. But then they're like, well, I mean keep
Speaker 1: saying we need sorry, but then but then they'll bring up, hey,
Speaker 1: but Fred Hampton, uh was like a class reductionist and
Speaker 1: he knew it was all about class and that he
Speaker 1: found solidarity by working with racists and stuff too, And
Speaker 1: it's like no, no, he didn't, like what what do
Speaker 1: you what are you talking about? Like not, that's not there.
Speaker 1: There is no context in which that was like a thing,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, And we're going to get
Speaker 1: into that too, because we actually are going to like
Speaker 1: cover what that actual outreach was. But there's a there's
Speaker 1: a speech that he made once where he was pretty
Speaker 1: much talking about like how the whole plan of the
Speaker 1: establishment is to get poor white people and poor Black
Speaker 1: people and poor brown people and to get us all
Speaker 1: in fighting amongst each other so that we don't unite
Speaker 1: in coalesced to go against the bigger issue. That's a
Speaker 1: completely different thing from saying that Fred Hampton was advocating, Hey,
Speaker 1: we should reach out to the clan, because you know,
Speaker 1: like that's not what was going on at all. But
Speaker 1: I think that that last tenant, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: what he was getting at is kind of that solidarity
Speaker 1: and uh, just poor people as opposed to on a
Speaker 1: on racial lines. So in nineteen Hampton would join the
Speaker 1: Black Panthers Party. He he would join their h Not
Speaker 1: Sent Illinois chapter the following year, and he would embark
Speaker 1: on what would be one of the greatest runs of
Speaker 1: activist and activists has had, emphasizing that racial conflict only
Speaker 1: leads to poverty. He successfully brokered a non aggression pack
Speaker 1: among Chicago's most powerful street gangs. He taught political education
Speaker 1: classes every morning at six in the morning. Project UM
Speaker 1: and started a Project Community Supervision of the Police program
Speaker 1: where they would monitor police and like follow the cops
Speaker 1: while they were on duty to make sure that they
Speaker 1: weren't harassing people and beating people up and ship he
Speaker 1: also went. He was also key in the Black Panthers
Speaker 1: Free Breakfast program, inspired by contemporary research about central roles
Speaker 1: of breakfast and optimal schooling, and the Panthers would cook
Speaker 1: and serve food for poor people in inner city youth
Speaker 1: in the area did they did this like all across
Speaker 1: the nation. Perhaps one of the biggest achievements for Hampton
Speaker 1: and the Panthers at the time was forging a class conscious,
Speaker 1: multi racial alliance between the Panthers, the Young Patriots, which
Speaker 1: was a leftist organization made made up mostly of white Southerners,
Speaker 1: and the Young Lords, a street king turned civil rights
Speaker 1: UM civil human rights organization that fought on behalf of
Speaker 1: Latinos here at Puerto Ricans and commonized people. This you
Speaker 1: didn't lead to the formation of the Rainbow Coalition, not
Speaker 1: to be confused with Jesse Jackson's culture the same nay
Speaker 1: okay Um not only girl and it grew more and
Speaker 1: more its various radical socialist community groups joined their ranks.
Speaker 1: This is roughly the end. In nineteen sixty eight early nine,
Speaker 1: they like joined Action against poverty, corruption, police brutality, and
Speaker 1: substandard house and the various groups supporting each other a protests, strikes,
Speaker 1: and democratic and demonstrations where they had common cause. But
Speaker 1: this is not to be confused with the Rainbow Coalition.
Speaker 1: Alice was co opted over the years by referend Jesse Jackson,
Speaker 1: not as the point of insult, this as a fact
Speaker 1: he you know, eventually appropriated the name and for me
Speaker 1: its own more moderate coalition. So what you think about that?
Speaker 1: It's fucking dope. What you love to see brout here?
Speaker 1: Kill them out here, getting the white people and the
Speaker 1: Latinos and the motherfucking just like everybody together. That's what
Speaker 1: people are saying. People are like, yeah, people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: he he worked with that leftist white Southern group that
Speaker 1: might have I think they might have adorned the rebel
Speaker 1: flag maybe, but it's like, that's that's not the boogaloo. Boys. Man,
Speaker 1: you will you will humor me for just a second.
Speaker 1: This reminds me of this clip from Vince Staples. Let
Speaker 1: me talking about him a lot this episode at Coach
Speaker 1: tell him talking about his coalition. He wants to build
Speaker 1: for somebody. He knows it's funny, Digger, but I'll be
Speaker 1: there seres. But you know now, I'm gonna do something
Speaker 1: for like the kids I might. I'm trying to get
Speaker 1: the world to goose their own missions. I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: all the missions out of North Long Beach, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get all of the fossil fuels out of normal
Speaker 1: holds on. How are you getting all the missions out
Speaker 1: a Long Beach? I would love to help with this mission.
Speaker 1: That's what we're gonna do. We got a lot of
Speaker 1: horror fineries, right, the master gist be tripping the masscause
Speaker 1: the agents got a race ward has been going on
Speaker 1: to the nineteen twenties. I'm gonna stop the race war
Speaker 1: right and be like we really gotta be for the
Speaker 1: world companies growing withth part grenading and suicide bomb and
Speaker 1: the or refineries boom boom. When we got a big
Speaker 1: gay population in Long Beach, right, but we only got
Speaker 1: one whole foods. One thing I learned from my gay
Speaker 1: parts is that whole foods and like like orse, the
Speaker 1: coffee breweries, and seemed like that they like that kind
Speaker 1: of ship. They like they like that kind of ship.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna call my boy Lloyd. Shout out Lloyd,
Speaker 1: Lloyd gonna help me get the gay community all the way. Right,
Speaker 1: we got a gay Latino mayor, right, boom, we get
Speaker 1: killed two buds once. I'm get a system here. We
Speaker 1: got the gay Latino mayor and then the black um
Speaker 1: um and we're gonna get everybody together. We're gonna throw
Speaker 1: the Asians in there somehow are. We're gonna get the
Speaker 1: oil frimaries out of there. We're gonna build the Tescla
Speaker 1: factory on the east side. What does Elon must know
Speaker 1: about this? You see them rap get out of here. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's talk about like, Yeah, we're gonna get the Latinos.
Speaker 1: You don't get the Asians, you don't trot the gays
Speaker 1: in there. We're gonna get the oil refineries. That a
Speaker 1: lot of the right attitude. This is like Modernday. But
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's kidding. I mean, hey, I
Speaker 1: hope I hope that he's that kid. I don't know
Speaker 1: about that Elon musk Tesla ship though, that's that's that's
Speaker 1: just me. So again back to Fred Hampson with his
Speaker 1: uh with his leadership skills, and if we can keep
Speaker 1: it real, the FBI at this point had decimated the
Speaker 1: Black Panther Party's ranks with assassinations and imprisonments and sabotage.
Speaker 1: Fred was well on his way to becoming appointed the
Speaker 1: party's Central Committee Chief eef of staff, had he not
Speaker 1: been murdered in the Hill of Chicago pe d bullets
Speaker 1: and what you know, a scene that was chillingly similar
Speaker 1: to the Brianna Taylor murder. But you know, at this point,
Speaker 1: if we were gonna go on and do like a
Speaker 1: whole the whole you know, life story of Fred Hampton,
Speaker 1: you know, this would be around the part where we
Speaker 1: would start talking about cointel pro and j Edgar Hoover
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. But again, I feel that this
Speaker 1: is information that's ample ee out there, and there's a
Speaker 1: new movie out about it, so you know, you check
Speaker 1: out the second episode about So if you want to
Speaker 1: put this situate this in the context of the surveillance
Speaker 1: and sabotage that the FBI was doing to black liberation
Speaker 1: in black radical groups at large across country during this
Speaker 1: time you can get plugged in there and a little
Speaker 1: bit more about it that way. So overall thoughts on Freddy, Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, as I said a little bit earlier, like
Speaker 1: as a politician, like I regularly get calls from people
Speaker 1: about things that have to do with like private property issues,
Speaker 1: or like follow activists in the community who are just
Speaker 1: like organizing outside the state. Particularly under covid UH, the
Speaker 1: idea of mutual aid has gained attraction with people that
Speaker 1: might have previously organized around the policy advocacy, legislation, elections. Um,
Speaker 1: but now it's just like, yeah, we just gotta feed
Speaker 1: our people and make sure people are warm, make sure
Speaker 1: people have somewhere to live because the state won't provide
Speaker 1: for us. And like I feel that, and it's like
Speaker 1: an interesting thing for me to think about, like bouncing
Speaker 1: my role as like I do have electoral power, where
Speaker 1: like I can allocate budgets and pass laws and ship
Speaker 1: but like, but like I value organizing outside the state
Speaker 1: and like self determination of communities, like people coming together
Speaker 1: to like feed their kids and to like you know,
Speaker 1: make sure the homeless and warm and just doing it
Speaker 1: autonomously without getting permission from the government, Like yo, here's
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars to do it. Like, Yo, we just
Speaker 1: did it ourselves. We ain't wait around for y'all to
Speaker 1: like take a gear to pass the park. We just
Speaker 1: want did it. And so, um, just seeing seeing the
Speaker 1: like mainstreaming for for for what to me seems like
Speaker 1: the mainstreaming of the idea of mutual aid under COVID,
Speaker 1: but like remembering its roots in projects like you know,
Speaker 1: the free breakfast program of the Black Panthers all the
Speaker 1: way back then and like reclaiming what is revolutionary about
Speaker 1: just taking care of our communities. And I think it's
Speaker 1: like something that really resonates with me in revisiting some
Speaker 1: of Fred Hampton's work. Um, because we talked about the
Speaker 1: policy on the show a lot. We talk about laws,
Speaker 1: we talk about the judicial system, we talk about legislation,
Speaker 1: but like politics is bigger than that. Politics is also
Speaker 1: just the way we organized power, and like being fed
Speaker 1: is power, and having a point to sleep at night
Speaker 1: is power, and like knowing your neighbors and being able
Speaker 1: to provide for them that is power as well, and
Speaker 1: that's politics as well. And so to sort of like
Speaker 1: step back from our usual framing of like public policy,
Speaker 1: like laws, and like politics is is something people enact
Speaker 1: in the every day. I think it's something that we
Speaker 1: can take away from the work of Black Panthers and
Speaker 1: Fred Hampton Um and like not waiting around for people
Speaker 1: to give us what we want, just taking it or
Speaker 1: making it for ourselves in our own communities. Stated perfectly. So,
Speaker 1: we are going to get into a little mini review
Speaker 1: of the soundtrack to Judas and the Black Messiah after
Speaker 1: the jump, all right, So for the music discussion, we
Speaker 1: are going to be talking about the soundtrack to the
Speaker 1: new motion picture Judas and the Black Messiah. What can
Speaker 1: we say about this? I feel like, you know, I've
Speaker 1: listened to this three times in the last two days,
Speaker 1: and I feel that this project has to kind of
Speaker 1: be judged with two different ears from me. On one hand,
Speaker 1: you who can judge it as just a compilation rap album, right,
Speaker 1: and then on the other hand, you can judge it
Speaker 1: as a conceptual album about this movie. And the reason
Speaker 1: that I feel that it's fair to judge them for
Speaker 1: both is because it's actually labeled on the cover that
Speaker 1: all of the songs on the soundtrack are inspired by
Speaker 1: the motion picture. I'm just taking them at their word,
Speaker 1: taking them literally, you know what I'm saying. So from
Speaker 1: the context of a rap compilation, this project works really well,
Speaker 1: Like it's a really dope rap album and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of really good songs on there. But I feel
Speaker 1: from the concept of inspired by the motion picture, a
Speaker 1: lot of misses, you know, like just like real talk,
Speaker 1: it's it. It doesn't have that consistency that immerses me
Speaker 1: in the subject matter of what they're talking about in
Speaker 1: the movie. It starts off strong. The opening track you
Speaker 1: have like really cool soul style beats, soul sample, old
Speaker 1: school he beats that that definitely fit the vibe in
Speaker 1: the tone of the movie. So like the first two tracks,
Speaker 1: they're giving you those those like soul, that soul style,
Speaker 1: and it's definitely it sounds like the images that you
Speaker 1: see when you see the movie. It's you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like when you watch the trailer, when you
Speaker 1: see the film, it it sounds like, hey, this is
Speaker 1: like inspired by some sixties seventies era stuff. But quickly
Speaker 1: that kind of falls the wayside. So the opening track,
Speaker 1: you've got Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. Fred Hampton's son, and
Speaker 1: he's kind of giving like a rundown of what Fred
Speaker 1: Hampton was about what the Black Panthers were about, how
Speaker 1: what we can do moving forward, and it's got a
Speaker 1: really cool, you know, soul behind it, soul beat and
Speaker 1: it's awesome. The next track that the transitions to is
Speaker 1: a track by the artist Her and this is called
Speaker 1: a Fight for You and that one's dope too. It
Speaker 1: fits along the same lines. And then the third song
Speaker 1: is instantly what takes me out of that mindset, not
Speaker 1: that it's a bad song. The third song is called
Speaker 1: E p M D. By Nas. It's a really fucking
Speaker 1: dope song, but that's it. It's a dope Nas song.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. He's like name dropping like
Speaker 1: Amazon and Nike, and you know what I'm saying, It's
Speaker 1: just it just takes you out of the period aspect
Speaker 1: that you were in. And the the album kind of
Speaker 1: follows that trend as you go on, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: like rappers are talking about, hey man, I'm getting a Grammy.
Speaker 1: I'm making stacks yo. Man, we we we we we
Speaker 1: I'm a rich nigga. Like there's a song by Asy
Speaker 1: Rocky called rich Nigga Problems that's just about him, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's like just the Si Rocky song.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a little Dirk song on there where
Speaker 1: he's you know, talking, but like literally the first thing
Speaker 1: he says is, I wrote this after the Grammys, and
Speaker 1: it's like, it's just it doesn't make me feel like
Speaker 1: Judas and the Black mist. I I have a hard
Speaker 1: time really believing that all of these songs were inspired
Speaker 1: by the by the movie. Now some of them are,
Speaker 1: and those are definitely the standout tracks that we're gonna
Speaker 1: take a little bit snippets from some of them. Definitely
Speaker 1: you can hear that. It's like, hey, man, this is
Speaker 1: whichever artists they watched the film and then they went
Speaker 1: in the studio or whatever. But then there's a lot
Speaker 1: of songs on here that that definitely sound like, hey,
Speaker 1: we we have this extra g Herbo track that's hot,
Speaker 1: the excuse to use it, Let's put it on the soundtrack.
Speaker 1: And it's just the regular g Herbo trap drill song,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And also the sonic sonically,
Speaker 1: I feel that the inconsistency in the beat choices, how
Speaker 1: at some elements, at some points it's really like period
Speaker 1: esque and it's really soul sample old jazz samples and
Speaker 1: then it'll go straight up into something that sounds, you know,
Speaker 1: like it was made yesterday. You know that that was
Speaker 1: kind of taking me out of it. I feel like
Speaker 1: saying that, like I mean, ultimately with the soundtrack, like
Speaker 1: I think back to like the Black Panther soundtrack as
Speaker 1: like a movie soundtrack. I like the uh that like
Speaker 1: thematically had very little to do with like uh, the
Speaker 1: plot or characters or you know, anything with the movie,
Speaker 1: but aesthetically captured the same vibe. I felt like where
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, like afro a Futurists to three
Speaker 1: kind of ship and so I feel you though I was.
Speaker 1: I was about to ask, like, even if it is
Speaker 1: a soup racking rapping about how we just left the Grammys,
Speaker 1: like does it feel no? No? Because what because what
Speaker 1: I'm saying is like if you took the ASoP rocky
Speaker 1: song Rich Nigga Problems off of this and put it
Speaker 1: on his album, it would be fine, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, And I think I don't. I'm not even
Speaker 1: saying like that's an issue like yo, that's why the
Speaker 1: song is bad or oh that makes the album bad,
Speaker 1: But it's just like it just doesn't feel like inspired
Speaker 1: by the movie, which is a very you know, specific critique,
Speaker 1: but the thing does say inspired by the motion picture
Speaker 1: on on the front of it, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: And it's it's it's because of because the movie is
Speaker 1: more serious. It's not like there's the famous soundtrack for
Speaker 1: like Tim Burton's Batman, which is pretty much just like
Speaker 1: a Prince album, you know what I'm saying. It has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with Batman at all, but it's just
Speaker 1: like it's Batman. So it's not like a weighty sort
Speaker 1: of thing like that where you're necessarily going in there like, hey,
Speaker 1: is Prince about to make ten songs where he's singing
Speaker 1: about Batman? Whereas with this, yeah, I kind of do
Speaker 1: expect to listen to songs that are about the movie
Speaker 1: that I saw, and there's twenty two songs on it
Speaker 1: that's already way too long. It's like a fucking gets
Speaker 1: the hour and some change along. I feel like you
Speaker 1: just if you go and isolate the ten or find
Speaker 1: songs on here that are actually inspired by the movie,
Speaker 1: I think you have a much stronger project. Let's get
Speaker 1: into some of these tracks. Um, if you could get
Speaker 1: on the YouTube Machine. So the first one that I
Speaker 1: wanted to bring up, and this is also going to
Speaker 1: be a change of pace for me, because I think
Speaker 1: the songs that best illustrate and keep consistent the vibe
Speaker 1: that I'm talking about are not rap songs. They're like
Speaker 1: the it's like the R and B jams, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, that really get that vibe. So the
Speaker 1: first one is fight for You by her Blood fil
Speaker 1: Hair I'm Hellas, mostly because as we listen to it,
Speaker 1: I frantically try to figure out what the sample was,
Speaker 1: and I don't think it is one uman. It sounds
Speaker 1: almost like it's an interprelation of Curtis Mayfield's but I
Speaker 1: don't think that's what it is. I think it's just
Speaker 1: like you know, it's I don't think it's like a
Speaker 1: direct sample. But again, just using that that that melody
Speaker 1: that you know, at the very least, it kind of
Speaker 1: starts off that way, and I think using that metally
Speaker 1: that melody instantly puts you in the period of the
Speaker 1: movie is you know what I'm saying. So it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like it's trying to be a retro beat or
Speaker 1: anything like that, but just musically and sonically, Like, again,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen the movie, but I feel like I
Speaker 1: could take that. I could take the trailer, mute the sound,
Speaker 1: and just play the trailer for Judas in the Black
Speaker 1: Messiah with that song, and it works perfectly, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Yeah, I mean even even like in
Speaker 1: the pre course we're talking about freedom from my brothers,
Speaker 1: because I just freedom from the others, credo from the
Speaker 1: leaders they're keeping us. I'm gonna keep us strong, like
Speaker 1: you know, talking about these themes of liberation. And then
Speaker 1: a little bit later on um where is it? Um
Speaker 1: punched myself in the eye? Uh Um, will they knock
Speaker 1: on your door? Will you be ready for war? Kind
Speaker 1: of like echoing the knock at the door that they
Speaker 1: got from the FBI. That's a full night, you know,
Speaker 1: and like are you you strapped up to defend yourself?
Speaker 1: So like thematically, it's even got some echoes from like
Speaker 1: aspects of the film. So I think of the tracks
Speaker 1: on the album just might do it the film the most,
Speaker 1: like Justice Justice. Yeah, because hip hop especially you know
Speaker 1: when you get into like heavy wrap stuff, it's so
Speaker 1: direct and it's such a you know, it's such a
Speaker 1: direct way of expressing an idea, and sometimes, especially when
Speaker 1: movies are like good, subtlety is is usually the order
Speaker 1: of the day, you know what I'm saying. So it's
Speaker 1: like I feel that, you know, you just using any
Speaker 1: old rap song for your movie can sometimes kill some
Speaker 1: of that subtlety, especially if the rap like it can
Speaker 1: do that even if the rapper is rapping about the
Speaker 1: subject matter at hand. So when the rapper is not
Speaker 1: rapping about the subject matter hand, it really can like,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of break that fourth wall of like
Speaker 1: getting yourself lost in the ship. And that's what I
Speaker 1: like about this song is like obviously she's wrapped. She's
Speaker 1: singing about you know, freedom for each other, freedom, justice,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. But it's just obscure and vague enough,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying that it doesn't like it's
Speaker 1: not like hammering it. It's not like she's singing yes.
Speaker 1: And Fred Hampton was a real good man and I
Speaker 1: loved him, and he had this guy who was spying
Speaker 1: on like you know what I mean. It's like it's
Speaker 1: not just like a retelling of the plot of the
Speaker 1: movie or something like that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Some people don't even it. It doesn't get into the
Speaker 1: it doesn't get into like the corny nous, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, doesn't feel like after school special thing.
Speaker 1: And that kind of brings us to what I thought
Speaker 1: was the next standout track, which is Plead the by
Speaker 1: Smino and Saba. Do you see what I mean though,
Speaker 1: by the like the way that he's the way that
Speaker 1: he's rapping, just the style in which he's like approaching
Speaker 1: the content like it's not it's just it just feels like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it just has like again it's maybe
Speaker 1: I'm not articulating apathetically complimentary. It's like the same way
Speaker 1: that you see like red and yellow together, like oh,
Speaker 1: let's go together. Those are different colors, but like I
Speaker 1: can see what you're trying to do there. Like I
Speaker 1: have no idea that if the song was made for
Speaker 1: the movie, you know, like all that stuff that's saying
Speaker 1: about how I feel some of them were and some
Speaker 1: of them weren't. I can't say definitively that this one was,
Speaker 1: but it could be because it's got that that right
Speaker 1: amount of subtlety to its approach that you could apply
Speaker 1: it to whatever. You know what I'm saying. Um and
Speaker 1: the third and last one that we are going to
Speaker 1: check out. It was a rough one, you know. I
Speaker 1: do want to give a notable mention to Welcome to
Speaker 1: America by Black Thought, C. S. Armstrong and Angel Hunt.
Speaker 1: And what else was there? There was I Declare War
Speaker 1: by Nardo Wick. That was that was cool. It was
Speaker 1: a bit trappy and from the sound kind of took
Speaker 1: me out of it. But but I subject matter though
Speaker 1: it was cool. And then also Revolutionary by g Herbo
Speaker 1: and Bumpy j. Those are good tracks too. I feel
Speaker 1: like those three that I just said, in the first
Speaker 1: three that we've listened to, or the first two that
Speaker 1: we've listened to, I feel you put those together, You've
Speaker 1: got like nine songs that are really like reflective of
Speaker 1: this movie. But the last one that we're gonna get
Speaker 1: into something ain't right. Jeddine Rhapsody, did the Sea like
Speaker 1: a lips blood dye episodes of Black Men. I think
Speaker 1: I think this is like a This is a great
Speaker 1: example of Tod on the line of like impressionistically capturing
Speaker 1: some of the themes of the film. They talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, looking for fellowship. Um, we call the coons
Speaker 1: and the government come correct the correction break the racial
Speaker 1: construction that you than up in the spirit of liberation,
Speaker 1: like without being too heavy handed like hered Hampton was Born,
Speaker 1: which I possibly do in this episode. It's just like lightly,
Speaker 1: you know, just like sprinkling in a little bit of
Speaker 1: historic historicity of just like, yeah, this is like the
Speaker 1: real ship and this is what is really about. And again,
Speaker 1: just to to keep the nerd vibes going, I'm stressing
Speaker 1: that it's just like in the context of the movie,
Speaker 1: this works better for a movie, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's I just like like these songs just um. To
Speaker 1: to make a last point to illustrate what I mean
Speaker 1: is um, I remember when I went and saw Djengo
Speaker 1: the first time. Um, a movie that not necessarily my
Speaker 1: favorite Tarantino movie, but anyway, I remember when I went
Speaker 1: and saw Djengo the first time, and I normally love
Speaker 1: how Quentin Tarantino uses music and utilize especially like contemporary
Speaker 1: music within his movies and stuff like that, and it's
Speaker 1: like it's very you know, he makes very good choices
Speaker 1: with his music. But I remember how everybody thought the
Speaker 1: scene where the Rick Ross song played in Djengo, and
Speaker 1: everyone was kind of like, oh, man, that's really cool,
Speaker 1: And for me, it probably was, like the point where
Speaker 1: I stopped enjoying the movie is when that song came
Speaker 1: in because it's like, it's a Rick Ross song, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It's just like a regular ass
Speaker 1: like Rick Ross song. And that's not that's like nothing
Speaker 1: against Rick Ross. But it's like like if I was
Speaker 1: watching it and then beat It started playing, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, I would not be able to watch
Speaker 1: the movie without thinking us beat It in the middle
Speaker 1: of them in the middle of the movie. For like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like how does that work? But again,
Speaker 1: I feel like you can get into that that line
Speaker 1: with hip hop a lot. So I just appreciate, you know,
Speaker 1: the fact that this album has so many songs on it.
Speaker 1: I feel that I heard enough songs that were like
Speaker 1: that that that it has been scratched and satisfied, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. But if this had just been
Speaker 1: a ten song album, some of these some of the songs,
Speaker 1: for real, like some of them are kind of unnecessary
Speaker 1: for real, it makes it makes this project sound like
Speaker 1: a really really good DJ Clue mixtape in less like
Speaker 1: a serious conceptual soundtrack inspired by a serious movie. Well
Speaker 1: it makes sense speaking of things that have gone on
Speaker 1: for far too long. This episode is going to be
Speaker 1: a monster. It's two o'clock in the morning and I
Speaker 1: am going to go counter right. Well, just mustard up,
Speaker 1: muster up, just the reserve bit of strength, because I
Speaker 1: want to hear some bars for you. We didn't get
Speaker 1: any last week before before she passes out, Joel, drop
Speaker 1: a beat. We're the sole infinitely older than this. Twenty
Speaker 1: one years Chairman Hampton wasn't running for fear, not with
Speaker 1: a gun in this here defend the neighbors from the
Speaker 1: government's gears when they're winding up on your block, and
Speaker 1: started blooding your peers. With care for his community and
Speaker 1: having dutifully studied the leader's revolution as his motherless fears,
Speaker 1: he let him movements so huge that they had to
Speaker 1: go shoot him. But not before we spoke the truth
Speaker 1: of numberless years and say that it's a Bible of
Speaker 1: the fittest. So they pit us like kids in a
Speaker 1: different and pigment of the skin, but hand the piggin.
Speaker 1: But simberland a Mexicans and left the sand the niggers.
Speaker 1: We get all together to endeavor for bigger vision. We
Speaker 1: could free all of us siblings from the prison, gets
Speaker 1: some house that fits to live, and get some breakat
Speaker 1: Flippits and get to educate us children. Get the pencil
Speaker 1: paper stealing all the labor from the millions women's labor.
Speaker 1: Him before us to killed, before we got the chance
Speaker 1: to build it. Now it's up to us to fulfill it. Hey,
Speaker 1: my name's Doe Night, I'm lingal Franca and we are
Speaker 1: Waiting on Reparations. See you next week. Waiting on Reparations
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio. Listen to Waiting
Speaker 1: on Reparations on the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.