WEBVTT - What's Law Got to Do With It? 0:00:01.160 --> 0:00:04.680 Yo yo, check check you're listening waiting our reparations the 0:00:04.720 --> 0:00:07.640 production of I hear rating microphone check, want to want 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:13.920 to where's my snare? We go into the next episode. 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:17.120 Now I gotta go and just give you our special flow. Oh, 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:20.400 better each vitamins and vegetables, because we're about to go 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:22.840 and make you shrivel like a decimal. Oh it's the 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:25.680 dope knife sitting with the Lingua franca. We got a 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:28.080 bunch of dope styles and we gotta thank you for 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:30.920 tuning into you know, we gotta give it every time 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:33.360 that were wrapping the Dishan is just so exquisite. It's 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:36.480 sitting on your dinner plate. Never ever been afraid, never 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:38.959 sitting with them, whadcast because they've been a flake, has 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:41.400 been a fake, sitting right there when we break them. 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:44.239 We're about to just grab that fucking rocking. We shake up, 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:47.519 grabbing that rocking and we shake up. We're about to 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:49.919 do it like we were coming out of Jamaica. We're 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.520 gonna get the corn like us. And you see real 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:54.360 if you want to get in this ship, you know, 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:57.400 but we Sitiou is doing it imperious. Then we got 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:00.720 to stop. Pio Let me were us station. Everybody know. 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:04.559 We up in the studio waiting no preparations, linka franca 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:07.200 dope knife, and we're about to break up in the 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.399 a M and lace my boots. Add enough sleep, figure, 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:13.360 it's too late to snooze. I came to move self made. 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:16.200 I paid my dudes. Love to win, not as much 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:18.480 as I hate to lose. Dudes laps. I could be 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.319 the unadmission to defeat them. When you on top, they 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:23.839 want the position that you be in. Don't worry about 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:26.000 the past, because that's in the different season. They say 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:28.400 we are the best. If you listen to him speaking, 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:30.800 that be the quest. I mean to be the best. 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:32.840 The day I see the bench, that's the day I 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:40.400 see a rap hey hey, waiting a reparation, talking about 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:43.280 how the rap music is political. When you got these 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:45.720 cities fold, when you got these prisons full, when it's 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:49.280 looking pitiful all over the city's fool. Everybody knows you 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:56.280 gotta get in. It's been a rimes, but not alright. 0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:03.160 This is dope night. We are waiting on parations, all right. 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:06.120 So we have a lot to cover today. So we're 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:07.840 just going to get into it. And this week we're 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:15.240 gonna be talking about the question what is political hip hop? 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:22.760 Doubles Does hip hop have to have overtly political statements 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:24.720 in the sense that we would think about it right 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:30.400 left Republican Democrat arguing up for a particular political party 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:33.200 or political leaning in order for it to be considered 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.280 political hip hop. And that is a question, because if 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:38.440 that's not the case, then there's lots of hip hop 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:41.440 that's out there that has existed that you could put 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:44.160 under the banner of having a sort of political leaning 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:46.440 or giving you some sort of political insight. And I mean, 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:48.120 what I would argue is that, like when you look 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:50.320 at the history of where hip hop came from and 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:53.720 like what forces or lack of force that kind of 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:57.120 gave its space to exist. You know, we talk about 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:01.079 the decline or like the withdrawal of the civil rights 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:05.000 movements and the black power movements during the nineteen um seventies. 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:08.080 It kind of created the civic vacuum in inner cities 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:10.040 that like had to be filled by something, and there's 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:14.680 all this this unrest because you know, unemployment rates going up, 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:19.400 affordable housing vanishing programs cut, all sorts of welfare programs 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:22.480 cut under Reagan and Nixon, there was this need for 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:24.920 people to reclaim their space in a way much like 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:28.240 people were taking the streets previously with like protests, um 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:31.560 civil disobedience of other kinds. People were kind of organizing 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:33.840 themselves around this new form of civil disobedience is like 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:36.160 claiming their blocked back by having these block parties, by 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:38.400 having these dance battles, by taking to the streets, and 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:41.280 like stealing power from the power grids to you know, 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:45.320 power their they're like sound machines that they were building 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:50.080 at home, like poor economic and social conditions that you're 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:53.520 into being a positive exactly, Yeah, which I would say 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.200 is inherently political, whether or not you know, I'm down 0:03:56.360 --> 0:04:01.040 street the basketball court. It's like specifically like a political statement. 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:03.920 What the act of organizing in that way is always 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:07.760 political to me. Gee, It's almost as if hip hop's 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:11.200 birth was a reaction to funk up right wing policy. 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:23.839 Weird Yeah, yeah, from the gym. So, I mean I 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:25.800 want to go ahead and say that, like we could 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.440 very easily start in Africa. We can start in the Caribbean, 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:31.799 and we can talk about the way that the ds 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:38.320 Bora and like black folks come around the globe influence 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:40.320 hip hop and like in a way that predates what 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:42.960 are common understanding is. In terms of the genesis of 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:44.479 hip hop. A lot of people think of New York 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:47.320 in the nineteen seventies, and I definitely think it's worth 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:49.719 getting into and we will absolutely get into that in 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.159 the future episode. But to start out where people might, 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.120 you know, base their common understanding of the birth of 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:57.680 hip hop, I wanted to talk a little bit about 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:01.800 the nineteen seventies, particularly the way that like hip hop 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:04.120 was born into this power vacuum that was left by 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:07.840 the civil rights and black power movements. UM. Previously, people 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:10.640 had been gathering in the streets to agitate full civil rights, 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:14.359 to agitate for voting rights, agitate for equal education, for 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:18.600 adgocate for jobs, all of these things, and um, as 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:22.640 those moments began to recede, something needed to feel its play, 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:24.880 Something needed to take over that same sort of space, 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:27.440 both physically in the streets of these cities and also 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:30.559 in the imagination of the young folks that were maybe 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:33.080 too young to take part of those movements but saw 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:36.960 mass organization perhaps is like a way for them to 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:40.640 take control of their the conditions of their lives, and 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:43.320 so rather than marching, you know and picketing in the 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:46.360 streets for equal rights and things like that, people started 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:49.640 to organize themselves around hip hop, and so hip hop 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:52.320 in the sense became like the new Civics. It was 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:54.719 inherently political for folks to take to the street for 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:57.720 these block parties in the ways that previous generations has 0:05:57.720 --> 0:05:59.720 taken to the streets and the struggle for civil rights, 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.400 um literally like stealing power off of the grid to 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:07.640 power their you know, home built sund systems. So they 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:10.400 were deejaying on in the middle of the street. Like 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.080 it was a new kind of community organizing in a 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:17.799 certain sense. And I think acknowledging that, uh, those roots 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:19.880 the way that like the tides of the civil rights 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:22.760 and black hard move was receded and the new tides 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.880 of the hip hop hip hop culture kind of hit 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:28.760 the shores of New York and eventually, you know, America 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:35.240 is like where political hip hop in its political faces 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:39.080 like has its genesis. Do you think from a cultural 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.960 standpoint that some of those skills and organizing we're just 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:45.520 kind of naturally picked up. I mean I think yeah, 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:48.880 like the black radical tradition I think was in was 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:51.400 alive in this to a certain extent, even if he 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:53.640 wasn't telling people could consciously aware of the stuff that 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:55.680 they learned from their aunties and their fucking cousins and 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:59.200 their uncles and their pastors in terms of like these 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:03.680 orc these oratory styles and these ways of dealing of 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:09.680 like you know, using verbal um illusion and rhyme and 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:13.920 the circumlocutions as a way to like argue for your 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:16.200 place in the world. Those things have been long standing, 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:19.480 and like the black rattical tradition, the black like oral tradition, 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:21.400 and so yeah, I think they were alive in hip 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:23.760 hop in this time too, well, like in in nineteen 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:27.280 seventy three in the Bronx, like DJ cool Hirk through 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:30.520 what many believe to be the first ever official hip 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:32.920 hop party, where they're like utilizing all the things that 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:36.480 you were saying, um. And you know, ever since then, 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:39.680 you know, you do, some fast forwarding hip hops will 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.840 come like a global phenomenon and now dominates the charts. 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:46.200 It is the music, yeah, it's pretty much default music, 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:49.679 you know. Yeah, And so you know, nineteen seventies, people 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:54.000 are trying to find a new way to organize their communities, 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:57.720 and like argue for their self worth and then find 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:00.520 a place for themselves in the world that is increasingly 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:03.840 against them. Um So the nineteen eighties in area at 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:05.560 like the beginning of the Reagan era, so like to 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:08.960 the nineteen fifties, into the nineteen seventies, the federal government 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:10.960 have been giving out hundreds of millions of dollars to 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:14.480 cities to urban Renewal acts to provide alliance downtowns. By 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:16.720 the end of the nineteen seventies, federal funding for these 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:19.720 programs begin to dry up, leaving many social services and 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:23.400 programs in these cities fucking belly up. They were vital 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:25.960 at one point to the redevelopment of inner city neighborhoods, 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:28.480 but then they were scrambling to find new funding or 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:32.840 substantially cutting back services. So many government programs saw almost 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:36.199 their entire budget taken away under the Reagan administration, forcing 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:38.880 many agencies to shut down. So where they were once 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:42.800 providing services like job skills training for unemployed city youth, 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:45.360 our college loans for struggling working class, film is care 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.760 assistants for single parent homes, they're funding all just got 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:53.079 fucking yanked, all fucking yank and leave and just left folks. 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:57.600 Fuck fuck folks, Broyly fucked man didn't that didn't like 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:01.560 So that like cut back on like after school program 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:04.559 music programs where they get their art and culture from. 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:07.120 Now exactly what I mean, Well, that's the whole spirit 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:09.679 of the ship is like, if you ain't gonna give 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:12.719 it to us, then we're gonna take it. You're to 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:14.439 take it on our own. So it's like if if 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:18.839 kids can't if kids can't take piano lessons or take 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:23.280 guitar lessons or violin lessons, then they're gonna learn how 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:26.640 to make their own music on turntable scratching and sampling 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:29.680 and cutting and things like that. So, I mean eighties 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:32.400 fucking poverty. Raid for minorities grew every single year in 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:35.800 the nineteen eighties, and many cities faced record levels of crimes. 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.880 Gangs began to flourish. I mean this, and this also 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:41.240 was a way of re organizing our community as the 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:43.440 new civics in the sense of like what who are 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:45.600 your affiliations and how are you getting by? Who can 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:50.720 you rely upon? So gangs taking providence and taking over neighborhoods, 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:55.040 um New York. They were like, there's so many Burrows 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:59.920 played with youth gangs, including the South Bronx where Africa 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.040 Otta was actually the gang leader of the Black Space 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:06.000 Gang and the Bronx River Projects, and he decided to 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:08.440 use his leadership for something positive after taking a trip 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:10.680 to Africa. So by some port, we gotta talked about 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:13.719 Africa at some point it's podcast, Yeah for sure, sure, Um, 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:15.360 you know I want to talk about Africa with my 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:18.320 African ask um just for some context for the people 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:23.440 who don't speak rap Africa. Bambada's DJ and producer and 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:26.360 like I guess you could say, community organizer, the head 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:30.480 of the Zoo Nation. He's very much considered one of 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:34.560 the key early influencers of hip hop, and in recent 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:38.960 years there's been allegations level that's a whole another episode 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:41.840 right now, we're just talking history, my bad gone. But Um, 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:44.960 instead of having rival gangs battled each other through violence, 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:48.240 like actually sucking each other up, uh, he organized parties 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:50.880 where rival gangs battled each other through b boying, deejaying 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.240 and him sing yeah that it was like on some 0:10:54.320 --> 0:11:02.720 real West Side story type when reject all the way, 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:08.920 beat it, Oh my god, beat it. Yeah. The aesthetics 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:12.760 that they're trying to capture and that yeah, um yeah, 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:15.240 And so that's kind of how hip hop was born, 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:18.800 a truncated version of its history. Trust me, we're going 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:22.200 to get into a lot more specific of like years 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:27.120 of specific people, of specific subgenres, specific policy issues that 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:30.600 were really prevalent at these times in upcoming up set 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:33.440 of the podcast. You know, hip hop had always had 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:35.960 like a since its inception as far as the rap 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:38.079 element of hip hop. You know, we've got to be 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:41.720 clear because it feels so weird having to retell this. 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.000 But you know, I do imagine that there's probably like 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:47.679 a whole like swath of people who may or may 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:51.400 not know stuff like this. But okay, so hip hop 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:55.720 is comprised generally four different I guess we have to 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:57.840 I mean, hey, you never know, some people don't know this. 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.280 So like, of those of those four elements of hip hop, 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:04.120 and even that number four is debatable, But of those 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:09.000 four elements, you've got break dancing, you've got graffiti, you've 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:13.680 got deejaying, then you've got the m C. Now, when 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:16.200 I was coming up, I learned that, you know, there 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.800 was there was like a debatable element of is BeBox 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:22.720 and the element or his knowledge of self and element exactly. 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:24.840 You know, so I would just go ahead and tack 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:27.599 both of those on. And they say that there's the 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:31.200 six of them that would just be me personally. But generally, 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:34.040 you know, the the m seeing and the rapping is 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:38.320 just one aspect of hip hop yea. And in that aspect, 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:42.120 since that aspect, you know, came to dominate the art, 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.440 the culture, and you know, it was the the most 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:48.120 visible part of the culture that people saw that could 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:53.439 be commodified. Um MC has always been dropping lines of 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:57.640 the socially conscious rhymes or socially conscious bars and stuff 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:01.800 like that, but it really wasn't two is the message 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:07.160 by um Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. It was 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:12.160 the first like really successful socially conscious or you know, 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:16.920 socially messaged hip hop song. Don't care, I can't take 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:19.520 you can't take the noise, got no money to move on? 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:23.640 I guess I got no choice threats in that kind 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:27.880 of open everybody's eyes really as to what potential hip 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:31.760 hop could have with like having direct messaging up until that, 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.920 you know, prominently, you know, when you think of hip 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:36.679 hop at that time, when people think of hip hop, 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:38.960 when it first started. You know, you might think of 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.400 like the Sugar Hill Gang, you know, like hip hop 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:44.960 hip hip to the hip hip hop and you dump 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:52.880 shot the rhythm and in Curtis Blow you know all that, 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:55.920 you know, all that party stuff, you know, like one 0:13:55.960 --> 0:14:00.040 thing and there's and that definitely was the case, and 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.200 that never stopped obviously, but once the message came out 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:06.040 had started like oh you can do that, Yeah, you 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:09.440 can do that, you know like broken glass everywhere, like 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.800 I think there's even there's like a legendary artist. Carreras 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:16.840 One once said he was talking about Melli Mell like 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:19.320 lyrics in the song. He was like he lives somewhere, 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:23.000 and where he lived he described, and what was where 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:25.880 I lived? And that was the connection. So it was 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:29.480 like something that was so visceral where he was describing, 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:35.640 you know that urban decay, young black city, you know, 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:40.360 urban paranoia. He was describing that, and it like influenced 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:43.800 MCS for just the rest of the the time. And I 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:47.600 think it speaks to like how pivotal is for a 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:52.000 marginalized populist to like season narrative for themselves and start 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:54.120 telling their own story because like so many people want 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:57.440 to tell people tell us like what our lives are, 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:01.280 like how we got here, what we deserve, and so 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:04.760 for us to like factually report all the conditions we're experiencing, 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:07.720 like it has such residence and are had such residents 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:09.160 at this time and still does a lot of hip 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:12.080 hop listeners. But like yo, I feel that, like, yeah, 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:14.320 I live where you live, Like I I know what 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.920 you know, like I've been there and and but not 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:20.120 just on a person to personal levels, Like that's the 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:22.800 political power of hip hop of like telling our own 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:26.320 story in a world where people want to tell our 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:29.680 story for us. And it's like if we're looking at 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.000 politics in terms of like wielding power, that is like 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:34.760 a pretty powerful act. I think that's like something that 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:38.120 is even kind of like inherent in hip hop music 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:43.120 is like being able to put forth like a message 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:47.000 that people can potentially identify, you know with like on 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:49.960 a personal level. And you know, some people can like 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:52.760 wield that to a political end, I think, and some 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:57.440 people cannot choose not to, but it's like just as 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.120 a tool to get those messages out. I think that, 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:04.040 you know, when people do decide to use hip hop 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:06.960 to like get out political messages, I feel like because 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:08.960 of the power of hip hop and makes it just 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:11.880 that much more potent to get like a message out totally. 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.320 Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. I mean, like the the rhythmicity 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:17.120 of it. I made the word up, but I needed 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:24.440 to should call and response, you know, the cadences, like 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:28.200 the upfrontness of the language. All these things like are 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:31.160 like they make for a powerful oratory. They make for 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:35.640 powerful oratory, so like you know, and powerful orators orators. Indeed, 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:37.640 so it's older heads. We tend to have a lot 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:40.760 of nostalgia about the hip hop that was. We go 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:43.440 back and we talk about the message in nine two, 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.520 we talk about the birthplace of hip hop and like 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:50.520 its reaction as like a movement against depression in this 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:54.400 like Reagan era where everything fucking sucks, right, And I mean, 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:58.760 I think that's really typical among um, the older generation 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.760 of hip hop came up with it, you know, more 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:03.640 so than the folks say, you can't imagine a world 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:06.600 without it. Um. And a lot of my research as 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:11.920 a like a hip hop scholar and educationist and educationist, 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:14.560 you see times where like these people who want to 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:17.520 use hip hop in the classroom will bring in older 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.560 hip hop or like progressive hip hop to the kids. 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:22.159 They're like, yeah, I'm gonna use this to teach, and 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:24.600 the kids don't give a fuck because it's not really 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:27.919 reflecting the trends of music right now. And so, I mean, 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:31.760 I think that kind of thinking, this nostalgizing of the 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:35.399 music is just like really typical of of of a 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.720 certain age of listener. We think of the place where 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:43.520 hip hop started off as defining essentially what hip hop 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:49.439 is in in in blindness, with blindness towards what it 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:52.359 has the potential to become, which is not you know, 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:57.360 not aligned with a movement of resistance and the progressive, 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:00.320 in a progressive what you can resist without being if 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:02.320 you can burn it all down without having a vision 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:12.000 for what you wanted to be exact. Yeah, Well, why 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:14.600 do you associate hip hop and politics? Well, I mean 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.360 because for me, like if if you know, hip hop 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:20.320 gets a lot of credit a lot of times for 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:23.919 being blunt and honest and open and like a true 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:28.680 um manifestation of people's like actual thoughts. If politics affect 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:33.480 us in our everyday life all the time, then it 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:35.600 just makes sense to me that it doesn't matter what 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:38.200 type of rap song that you're listening to. I take 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:41.960 hip hop. I take politics, politics and hip hop as 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:45.840 pretty much being anything that gives you insight into what 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.679 somebody really thinks and what the artists or the rapper 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:53.080 really thinks, because at the end of the day, that's 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:56.439 that's politics. I hate to do this, but to quote 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:02.760 Marco Rubio, Yeah, so Margot Rubio um in a crowded 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:06.720 bar on Capitol Hill at the inaugural BuzzFeed Bruise event, 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:10.080 told a crowd that in some ways, rappers are like reporters. 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:13.080 Do you like gang wars, racial tension? And they were 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:17.520 reporting on that, you know, Margot fucking Ruby, don't give 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:21.000 me that face. Yeah, yeah, So the reporting on the 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:23.760 material conditions, the live realities of folks that are like 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:27.520 living on the ground, which are inevitably shaped by political forces. 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:32.879 And so I think that to create, to like speak, 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:37.400 a narrative that is born from that place is inherently 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:39.680 a political act because like, there's so many other people 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:42.000 who want to tell us how we're living. There's so 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:43.520 many other people who want to tell us what our 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:47.440 lives are like and um conjecture about how we got 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:49.840 this way. But when we actually speak up for ourselves 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:52.040 and be like, yo, this is what act is actually happening, 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:54.840 Like that is a political act to sort of like steal, 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:59.240 like rest the narrative back from people that want to 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:02.280 to paint a picture that does not serve art needs 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:08.080 or interests. I somewhat agree, but I somewhat think that 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:13.040 that's a generous assessment. A lot of things we have 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:15.720 to be honest in like saying that, like a lot 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:19.359 of this stuff, I don't think cats are thinking about 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:21.760 it that deep, and I don't think it's meant to 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:25.240 be taken like that deep, Like it's an inherently political 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:28.119 thing just because I exist there, just because I exist 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:30.919 in this space. I mean, at least at least not 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:34.520 if that's not your intention at all, you know what 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:36.840 I mean. So I have an aversion to that. But 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:42.800 you bring it in, people bring into it. But but 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.919 you you bringing up the Marco Rubio quote though, just 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:49.960 kind of opens up like do you think that Marco 0:20:50.040 --> 0:21:00.280 Rubio cares about yeah, or hip hop or hip hop culture? No? No, no, Well, 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:02.280 I mean this is like pretty much what I was 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:06.240 saying last week with the Donald Trump ship, Like it 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:09.640 makes me feel some kind of way that thirty years 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:13.280 ago there was a teenager who was listening to all 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:15.760 the even the dope stuff that I would consider. There 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:18.280 was a teenager somewhere who was listening to Wu tang 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:22.879 in In n w a in in in Tupac and 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:25.320 Public Enemy and all that ship, and he grew up 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:28.440 to be Marco fucking Rubio. I mean, I will say that, like, 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:31.440 as someone that studies a pop there is a tendency 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:34.840 for folks who want to like progressive e its like 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:39.920 a lot of it's um talking about like the egalitarian 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:42.399 nature of a cipher where anybody could step in and 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:45.360 have their turn, and like it's very democratic, and it's 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:49.480 very like flattened hierarchy, and like it's very participatory and 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:52.439 all this stuff, and like the way that you know, 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:54.480 like I've been talking about, like it's this way for 0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:57.119 us to see the narrative and speak our own truths 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.600 rather than have Fox News to tell report I'm happening 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:03.000 in our communities. Yeah for sure. But I mean it's 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:08.000 just like, even especially now, I like to be very 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:12.840 very careful with just lumping everything in together, you know, 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:15.600 with everything going on now, I think people have a 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:19.080 tendency to think that being black in of itself is 0:22:19.119 --> 0:22:23.440 a progressive political stance. I mean, you gotta understand black 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:28.719 people historically vote for Democrats because the Republican party platform 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:32.240 has more or less been Yeah, we know slavery is bad, 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:36.760 but so it's just I think it's important that people 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:41.200 know that racism being a factor is a huge unifying 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:46.000 force amongst black people. Without it, without like naked open 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:49.040 racism in the American right, I think you would have 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:53.080 a lot more Black people that would be comfortably conservative 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:56.280