Speaker 1: So look, I'm recording this the first week of August,
Speaker 1: and this week we saw some big deaths. Man, pee
Speaker 1: wee herman. That's crazy, that's you know, a deep cut
Speaker 1: from my childhood, so that I was painful to little
Speaker 1: hommy from euphoria, apparently as a drug overdose. But I'm
Speaker 1: a zero win on the death of Shnead O'Connor. Why
Speaker 1: am I bringing up Shonad O'Connor on a podcast called
Speaker 1: hood Politics mainly because Chuck d from Public Enemy posted
Speaker 1: this lovely tribute to her about a moment in time
Speaker 1: and following her, you had iced tea, you had questlove
Speaker 1: of the roots. All these rappers posting about Shnado O'Connor,
Speaker 1: which should, if you pay attention, be like, huh, here's
Speaker 1: a crossover. I didn't expect the girl, the ball headed
Speaker 1: girl from Ireland that was doing all the visuals standing
Speaker 1: up in protests against the pope and all of the
Speaker 1: child molestation charges in the Catholic Church in Ireland. You know, Nah,
Speaker 1: thing compares, Nah compares to you. I sound just like her, right,
Speaker 1: one would ask why will all these old school rappers
Speaker 1: be posting these tributes to Sinead O'Connor, Well, if you
Speaker 1: look at Chuck D's post, there's this moment where she's
Speaker 1: performing at what turned out to have been the Grammys,
Speaker 1: and on the side of her head is this painted
Speaker 1: circle with a bullseye on it, just right on the
Speaker 1: side of her head. And the bullseye, though, has a
Speaker 1: silhouette of a man in what we know as the
Speaker 1: bee boy stance, which is basically his arms folded right
Speaker 1: and he's got his kind of a cowboy hat on
Speaker 1: because he's a bee boy. This is like real eighties
Speaker 1: hip hop type thing. And that logo for anybody, or
Speaker 1: that symbol for anybody who loves hip hop would know
Speaker 1: that's the public enemy logo as in nine to one
Speaker 1: one is a joke, as in fight the power, as
Speaker 1: in shut him down, as in welcome to the Terror Dome,
Speaker 1: one of the most politically charged resistance driven I mean,
Speaker 1: you think killer Mike, don't play, y'all, you need to
Speaker 1: do your homework if I out who public Enemy is. Chuck
Speaker 1: D in Flavor Flave. Y'all know Flavor flav differently, But
Speaker 1: there was a reason why she he had that logo
Speaker 1: painted on the side of her head. So by the
Speaker 1: time this historical iconic photo was taken, rap was a
Speaker 1: multimillion dollar industry. Wasn't always, but at this point it
Speaker 1: absolutely was. Rap's been around for gosh, probably almost twenty
Speaker 1: years at this time. Full industry in this photo is
Speaker 1: people you may or may not know, but I can
Speaker 1: run it down for you. It's a black and white photo.
Speaker 1: You got right in the front young man that you
Speaker 1: may know of from a reality show called Flavor of Love,
Speaker 1: but we know him as Flavor Flav as one of
Speaker 1: the members of a group called Public Enemy. You have
Speaker 1: his arm around a woman known as Salt who was
Speaker 1: a member of Salt and Peppa. So right behind is
Speaker 1: Pep and DJ Spinderella. You got behind them. You got
Speaker 1: will Smith, who we knew of as the Fresh Prince.
Speaker 1: You got Jazzy Jeff. You got in the way far
Speaker 1: back Chuck d. You could see the flat tops of
Speaker 1: Kid and Play. You could see Slick Rick the ruler,
Speaker 1: and the photo gets blurried towards the back. But there's
Speaker 1: two other people in the picture that I might even
Speaker 1: be too young to be able to just spot by face.
Speaker 1: I would have to do some research for it. I
Speaker 1: think it's Tetsosnic Daddy O and Anyway. I might be wrong,
Speaker 1: but I think it's them. But the point of this
Speaker 1: picture was in nineteen eighty eight, the Grammys were going
Speaker 1: to for the first time give their first ever Rap Award,
Speaker 1: and three of the five categories decided to boycott the show.
Speaker 1: And you know, of the people that were nominated, this
Speaker 1: is going back to Cali by. Are the songs that
Speaker 1: were nominated? Artists going back to Cali by ll cool
Speaker 1: J Right, parents just don't understand. From Fresh Prince, DJJZ,
Speaker 1: Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Salt and Peppers, Push It
Speaker 1: jj Fads, Supersonic, at Cool mo d Wild Wild West,
Speaker 1: they were nominated for the Grammys. The only problem was
Speaker 1: the Grammys didn't recognize rap or hip hop as legitimate music.
Speaker 1: What do I mean by that? We're saying this is
Speaker 1: a wildly popular genre of music. Right came out of
Speaker 1: a culture that they have been fighting for recognition for
Speaker 1: since nineteen eighty four. The Grammys had never acknowledged rap
Speaker 1: as a legitimate music and now that they will finally
Speaker 1: doing what they said was they wanted Will Smith to
Speaker 1: write like this cute little rap about the Grammys and
Speaker 1: then present the next award, But the Rap Award wasn't
Speaker 1: even going to be on TV. They weren't even gonna
Speaker 1: telecast it. It was gonna be one of the pre things.
Speaker 1: And we're saying, these are multi these are platinum selling
Speaker 1: artists with the fast in the fastest growing genre of music,
Speaker 1: and you're not even gonna put it on TV. And
Speaker 1: what Will Smith was quoted to say was, dang man,
Speaker 1: you go to school for twelve years and then denied
Speaker 1: the right to walk across the stage with your diploma.
Speaker 1: And what did hip hop do? They said, who give
Speaker 1: a fuck about a Grammy anyway? Protest that none of
Speaker 1: them came and check this out. In solidarity for this protest,
Speaker 1: Sinead O'Connor painted Public Enemies logo on her head. She
Speaker 1: a real one, you find it. She cut from the
Speaker 1: same cloth, right, It's the same energy, and that's why
Speaker 1: she resonated with all these ogs. You ever wondered why
Speaker 1: people that are in the punk somehow start loving underground
Speaker 1: hip hop, it's you're cut from the same cloth. Because
Speaker 1: it's always been about a protest, and I think it's
Speaker 1: important to not only acknowledge this moment just because she
Speaker 1: passed away, but because this year is hip hop's fiftieth
Speaker 1: anniversary and why I'm bringing it up for hood. Politics
Speaker 1: is politics and protests has always been a part of
Speaker 1: hip hop. You may know it as just like wrap
Speaker 1: and streetwear, but it's always been a protest. It's always
Speaker 1: been about fighting the power. Happy fiftieth anniversary, let's talk
Speaker 1: about it politics, y'all. Man, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome. This show
Speaker 1: might be really educational for y'all, or this might just
Speaker 1: be kind of a break. I know the news cycle
Speaker 1: has been crazy, but we're gonna get to that, you know,
Speaker 1: especially how it must absolutely feel horrible to be getting
Speaker 1: your ass kicked just slacing the polls by a dude
Speaker 1: who faced it over seventy years in prison and will
Speaker 1: probably be out on bail while y'all on the campaign
Speaker 1: trail and got impeached twice and you're finna lose to
Speaker 1: this nigga. That's gotta feel awful. Anyway, we'll get to that,
Speaker 1: but I want to back up and just kind of
Speaker 1: like give y'all a little education as to like what's
Speaker 1: what's really going on as we celebrate hip hop's fiftieth anniversary.
Speaker 1: Back to Sinead O'Connor, I told y'all a long time ago,
Speaker 1: back on the Bastards pod that, like when we was
Speaker 1: doing the race drafts, like I'm telling you, y'all should
Speaker 1: have Iris should have stayed black. Y'all should have just
Speaker 1: gone been black with us. It's listen anyway, Snat O'Connor
Speaker 1: man rest in peace to the g and a lot
Speaker 1: of people like read her wrong because he looked at
Speaker 1: it with her ball head. They thought she was like,
Speaker 1: you know, skinhead, like she fighting the power. Homie down
Speaker 1: for the calls. The way I want to set up
Speaker 1: this thing is as I want to situate your minds
Speaker 1: and brains into what I mean by like, hip hop
Speaker 1: has always been political, okay, But the only way for
Speaker 1: you to understand that is, first of all, I need
Speaker 1: to situate hip hop in the broader history of black
Speaker 1: music and the tradition of black music, and that black music,
Speaker 1: at least in America, is inseparable from geopolitics. I'm going
Speaker 1: to lay out the idea of the commercialization and how
Speaker 1: commodified and even the complex relationship hip hop has with capitalism,
Speaker 1: and then I want to teach you how to like
Speaker 1: see it happening. Now, do that makes sense? Okay, Well
Speaker 1: I asked a question again as if you can answer me,
Speaker 1: I'm going to assume it makes sense. Yo. So look, so,
Speaker 1: since we can't get any clearance for any songs except
Speaker 1: for my own songs, I'm gonna go ahead throw to
Speaker 1: get a little Spotify playlist to hear some like Harlem
Speaker 1: Renaissance stuff, some like you know, Negro spirituals, some soul music,
Speaker 1: just so you can hear what we trying to say,
Speaker 1: all right, And I think Matt's kind of doing his
Speaker 1: best to I haven't heard this completed thing yet because
Speaker 1: I'm recording myself right now. I think Matt's kind of
Speaker 1: doing his best to try to create some sound from this.
Speaker 2: But you.
Speaker 1: Guys seen Matt. It's not a dystomat. It's just you know,
Speaker 1: he doesn't come from a seasoned, chicken washed legs history. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I love you, Matt. So the first thing I want
Speaker 1: to do is again situate you into the river of
Speaker 1: the tradition of black music and black creation. And the
Speaker 1: best way for me to start that is because I'm
Speaker 1: talking about a uniquely American experience. Remember that I'm not
Speaker 1: talking about our tribal traditions per se, although they influence it.
Speaker 1: But that's more of an origin story pod. This is
Speaker 1: about jumping into the stream as far as African American music,
Speaker 1: and the best place to start is Negro spiritual. Now,
Speaker 1: if you don't know what a Negro spiritual is, it's
Speaker 1: gospel before we knew it as gospel. Obviously, at some point,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, a lot of African American slaves latched
Speaker 1: onto the Christian faith. Now, don't let nobody tell you
Speaker 1: that we were only Christian because the white man gave
Speaker 1: it to us, Because you don't even get out of
Speaker 1: the Book of Acts. So really, after Jesus died, and
Speaker 1: if you follow in the Bible story, after Jesus died
Speaker 1: and resurrected, I'm just quoting the book. Okay. The next
Speaker 1: book after that is this Book of Acts, and it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be about how the church or the Gospel,
Speaker 1: if you will, is spread across the world. And before
Speaker 1: you even get to Paul, Paul's the dude that writes
Speaker 1: pretty much the rest of the New Testament because he
Speaker 1: takes the Gospel to Asia Minor, right, which is you know,
Speaker 1: Turkey and just cesarea Greece, right, all that stuff. Before
Speaker 1: you even go there, you have this guy Philip who
Speaker 1: meets an Ethiopian eunuch. He, according to the Bible, worked
Speaker 1: for the king and queen of Ethiopia. This and in
Speaker 1: the story, he's reading one of the Jewish scrolls, the
Speaker 1: Book of Isaiah, about the promise coming Messiah, and Philip
Speaker 1: is like, yo, you want to know what that's about.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, I want to know what that's about. Apparently,
Speaker 1: and on the side of this road he gets baptized.
Speaker 1: And according to this, the Gospel goes to Ethiopia, goes
Speaker 1: to Africa first. But this isn't even the first inflection point.
Speaker 1: You got to go all the way back to King Solomon,
Speaker 1: even where we get these ideas of Rastafarianism and Holly Selassie,
Speaker 1: and so the Queen of Sheba meets King Solomon and
Speaker 1: is totally impressed by his empire. So the point I'm
Speaker 1: trying to make is the Jewish Judeo Christian, not the
Speaker 1: way these white people talk, because I don't want you
Speaker 1: to get triggered by these words. But the faith, the
Speaker 1: Christian faith was African four hundred years before it was
Speaker 1: European right, So don't let nobody tell you not a
Speaker 1: white man gentrified it like they always do, right, but
Speaker 1: out the box. Look, don't let them tell you. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying now. Granted, this African version I'm
Speaker 1: talking about is East African, while most slaves were West African.
Speaker 1: The point I'm trying to make is, don't let nobody
Speaker 1: tell you that they gave it to us. Now, we
Speaker 1: gave it to them anyway, and they did what they
Speaker 1: always do, Columbus in and gentrified anyway. That being said,
Speaker 1: slaves were given these versions of the Bible, which they
Speaker 1: made the mistake because at first they gave us the
Speaker 1: whole Bible. And when they gave us the whole Bible,
Speaker 1: we read the book of Exodus and saw Moses and
Speaker 1: was able to look at these children of Israel being
Speaker 1: slaved and looking as if, now, if you're reading the book,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be like, damn. It seemed like this God
Speaker 1: and the central figure in this story is always on
Speaker 1: the side of the oppressed and not the oppressor. I
Speaker 1: don't know why these people giving this to us, because
Speaker 1: it sounded to me like they finna get judged according
Speaker 1: to their own book, right, that's what we saw, right,
Speaker 1: So we latched onto the Moses theory. We latched onto
Speaker 1: the Promised Land. So that's why a lot of liber
Speaker 1: racial theology, why black churches we don't be won't be
Speaker 1: talking about Paul Like y'all we talked about Moses. We
Speaker 1: talk about a deliverer God, Jesus is our savior. He's
Speaker 1: our deliverer. You understand I'm saying we fit to get
Speaker 1: out of this bondage cause blood gang banging. Now that
Speaker 1: being said, we used a lot of our chants because
Speaker 1: that's the way we already we already because again we're Africans,
Speaker 1: we already sang collectively and had a lot of call
Speaker 1: and response in our music right in the way that
Speaker 1: we sang. Now, what Negro spirituals in some cases became
Speaker 1: were codes. There were codes for the underground railroad. There
Speaker 1: were codes for when we were going to leave, when
Speaker 1: we was gonna get off this thing. They were codes
Speaker 1: for when the master was coming. They were codes. So
Speaker 1: because they didn't want slaves to talk, but we could sing,
Speaker 1: and if we coded it in language, they understood that
Speaker 1: sounded like we just singing worship songs, whereas we was
Speaker 1: really commune de cating to each other. Do you see
Speaker 1: what I'm saying? Our music has always been a protest.
Speaker 1: It's always been political. Y'all got them category. Our music
Speaker 1: always been political because our music has always been about
Speaker 1: our experience. So Negro spirituals in a lot of in
Speaker 1: a lot of situations were codes for when we was
Speaker 1: gonna leave this goddamn plantation. You're following me, so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna situate you in that river. We were always talking
Speaker 1: about our experience, and our experience, unfortunately in America, was
Speaker 1: never for us to just freely flourish and have joy
Speaker 1: for ourselves. It was always tied to what we was
Speaker 1: going through. Because the next thing I'm gonna talk to
Speaker 1: you about is the blues. Now, why the blues became
Speaker 1: what it was was these these spots called jupe joints,
Speaker 1: now the juke joints. You have to remember when we
Speaker 1: was making our music, every musician came from playing the church, right,
Speaker 1: But everybody don't want no church music. Sometimes we want
Speaker 1: to bump a grind. Yeahdam what I'm saying. Then you
Speaker 1: got people like Maul Rainey. You feel me that you know? Uh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna fast forward to like Ray Charles. Like people
Speaker 1: didn't like what Ray Charles was doing because he was
Speaker 1: he was singing these songs that sounded gospel, but he
Speaker 1: was singing them in the club because we all came
Speaker 1: from singing gospel music, right. So anyway, so the blues
Speaker 1: was played inside of these these little clubs we had. Now,
Speaker 1: after a while, after you started getting good at these clubs,
Speaker 1: you started playing what was called the Chitlin circuit. Now,
Speaker 1: the Chitlin circuit is only exists because segregation. We weren't
Speaker 1: allowed into these white venues. So we was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I guess it is what it is. You could be
Speaker 1: a star. You could be a star among what's called
Speaker 1: the chittling. Sir, you wasn't making a lot of money,
Speaker 1: but you could be a star among those things. If
Speaker 1: you were gonna play this, y'all don't notice. If you
Speaker 1: was gonna play these integrated clubs, they weren't really integrated.
Speaker 1: If Lena Horn, people like Lena Horn, they you know,
Speaker 1: these these these iconic black artists. You'd have to come
Speaker 1: into the to the club via the kitchen or the
Speaker 1: or the back door, and the room that you were
Speaker 1: performing to there was a rope in the middle of
Speaker 1: the room that had the side with white people on
Speaker 1: the side with black people, because you know, we wasn't
Speaker 1: posted to mix, so you we could we could sing
Speaker 1: to y'all, but we can't dance among you. So obviously
Speaker 1: that cleared that colored our experience, and obviously if you
Speaker 1: were willing to play for these clubs, guess what that did.
Speaker 1: That made it divide among black artists where it's like,
Speaker 1: why you're gonna shuck and ji for the white people.
Speaker 1: Then there was these things called minstrel shows, which is
Speaker 1: where we got the idea of black face, or where
Speaker 1: the culture gets this idea of black face. You know
Speaker 1: what black face is, it's white people pay their face
Speaker 1: with these dark black things and pretending to be black people.
Speaker 1: They would try to sing our songs, they would try
Speaker 1: to dance like us, but they would put on these
Speaker 1: shows that were absurd. Right, You have characters like step
Speaker 1: and Fetch. You know that we felt like these were
Speaker 1: black people taking on these offensive personas for their money.
Speaker 1: That's our art being commercialized. It's been going on for
Speaker 1: a long time, right anyway, So now you take these
Speaker 1: characters like the you know, the eye line buys like
Speaker 1: them fools, and in some ways, somebody like a Takashi
Speaker 1: six ' nine. Unfortunately, what like vanilla ice came to
Speaker 1: symbolize to where it's like these fools are playing dress up,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, like and it's almost like
Speaker 1: you're making fun of us. That's kind of what it
Speaker 1: comes off as. You know, it feels like, you know,
Speaker 1: a menstrual show, and then when you get black artists
Speaker 1: participating in it, it feels even worse. Move forward to
Speaker 1: the Harlem Renaissance. Now this is the birth of jazz.
Speaker 1: Now this is really interesting to me because this is
Speaker 1: almost like you can make a direct correlation between jazz
Speaker 1: and hip hop. Jazz happened in Harlem. I'm gonna, I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna situate us in the Harlem Renaissance. Right, So
Speaker 1: in Harlem again, we're still talking about the segregated world
Speaker 1: that we were in. I know that's up north. You
Speaker 1: under see what I'm saying, But don't let you a
Speaker 1: little like history not that clean. You know, the Cotton
Speaker 1: Club was a black club. Harlem used to be all
Speaker 1: black because even though you may not have had Jim
Speaker 1: Crow laws, you had Jim Crow practices. Don't act like
Speaker 1: the North wasn't racist. It was absolutely racist. So anyway
Speaker 1: up there, what was happening. The Burroughs weren't necessarily connected
Speaker 1: necessarily right then a train was built, right, and a
Speaker 1: train that connected uptown to midtown, a train that connected
Speaker 1: us to the boroughs. So now families were able to
Speaker 1: work in the city and kind of go back home.
Speaker 1: So now that we're able to work in the city
Speaker 1: and you could go back uptown, now we got a
Speaker 1: little more money. Right now, some of us have some
Speaker 1: liquid some liquid capital. And these people that have now
Speaker 1: liquid capital, they need entertainment. So we started having our
Speaker 1: own club, our own dance things, our own our own stuff.
Speaker 1: That wasn't so southern. I remember, like the Southern that's
Speaker 1: that's the blues, that's them juke joints. They hot and
Speaker 1: sweaty up here. You know what I'm saying. You got
Speaker 1: the Nicholas Brothers, you got, you got you know, cab Calawas.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, It don't mean the thing
Speaker 1: if it ain't got that swang right, and philosophy came
Speaker 1: out of that. Poets Blanston, Hughes and him. You got poetry, music, art,
Speaker 1: philosophy all was coming out of this moment that happened
Speaker 1: because in a lot of ways, we took a situation
Speaker 1: that we had no control and we made it beautiful
Speaker 1: and we made it ourselves. And guess what happened. Powers
Speaker 1: that be looked in there and was like, damn, that
Speaker 1: looked fun. Can we do it? And we was like,
Speaker 1: well no, because you haven't gone through what we're gone through.
Speaker 1: And you know what they created? Swing dancing, Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: your little sockops, your little swing, your little swing dancing stuff.
Speaker 1: That is just the white version of jazz. That is
Speaker 1: a commercialized, clean version where the economics of it all
Speaker 1: took what we made and commodified it and then didn't
Speaker 1: let us be a part of til much later. I mean,
Speaker 1: we could do the same with rock and roll. Y'all
Speaker 1: have to remember rock and roll was black Fats Domino,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, and all of yr Elvis songs,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know if y'all saw that WEIRDO Elvis movie,
Speaker 1: It was very weird. But the lesson you should pull
Speaker 1: from that is that Elvis was copying black music. He
Speaker 1: was a white dude doing black music, and it just
Speaker 1: our stuff. Has been commodified and gentrified the whole time. Now,
Speaker 1: it's also complicated because some of us were us. As
Speaker 1: in the culture where passive participants, some of us were
Speaker 1: active participants. And can you blame poor people when they're
Speaker 1: dangled real money right and a real job? Like sometimes
Speaker 1: you can't. It ain't gonna always be about you know,
Speaker 1: you're fisted up, But the fisted up person has continued
Speaker 1: throughout the history of black music, whether it's your Nina
Speaker 1: Simon's Other World. You have to remember Ray Charles was
Speaker 1: the first person to own his masters. I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: that again. Ray Charles was the first person to own
Speaker 1: his masters. Nobody else owned their masters. Gon google what
Speaker 1: that means in the music industry. Songs like say It Loud,
Speaker 1: I'm Black, and I'm Proud, these are protests, they and
Speaker 1: they only exist because of the politics of the time.
Speaker 1: Right now, you can put on Marvin Gaye's What's going On,
Speaker 1: which was about the Vietnam War in the sixties. You
Speaker 1: could play it now and be like, damn, I feel
Speaker 1: like he wrote this mug today Because even within the industry,
Speaker 1: even within these successful careers, our participation has always been
Speaker 1: tied to our power. There's a group called the Last
Speaker 1: Poets and Gil Scott Heron, y'all remember a long time
Speaker 1: ago when I first started the show, I did an
Speaker 1: episode called white He's on the Moon, and I read
Speaker 1: the lyrics of white He's on the Moon Gil Scott
Speaker 1: Heron in the Last Poets. What he's saying in that
Speaker 1: was like, y'all got money to build these rockets. Meanwhile
Speaker 1: we're starving in the streets. We just got civil rights,
Speaker 1: y'all done killed all of our leaders. But you know what, though,
Speaker 1: White He's on the Moon, y' you feeling me? And
Speaker 1: one of the biggest songs that Gil Scott has has
Speaker 1: is the revolution will not be televised, and that was
Speaker 1: happening during the time of the Black Panthers. So Nina Simone,
Speaker 1: so all these artists, they're what we choose. It whyatt
Speaker 1: always resonates and why it stands to test the time
Speaker 1: is because it was not a product of an industry.
Speaker 1: The industry was made around what was authentic, but it
Speaker 1: was always side to politics. It was always side of think.
Speaker 1: Now let's get to hip hop right after this break?
Speaker 1: All right, we're back. This is so interesting to me
Speaker 1: because y'all remember Cracktoberfest and the Iran concert scandal, cocaine
Speaker 1: being flooded into our streets. You guys remember us talking
Speaker 1: about that these were huge, huge, huge geopolitical, cultural, ginormous moments,
Speaker 1: but they were the goulagh that brought us the culture
Speaker 1: of hip hop as we know it. And follow me
Speaker 1: when I say this, but before I get into that,
Speaker 1: I need to take y'all back to the Warriors movie. Warriors,
Speaker 1: come out and play. Now. What happened in that flick
Speaker 1: is based on actual things that happened. Hip hop, if
Speaker 1: you don't know, started in the Bronx, And in the
Speaker 1: Bronx around this time that this movie takes place, is
Speaker 1: there was this ginormous city wide blackout because the city
Speaker 1: was just absolutely bankrupt. It was like a shithole. Let's
Speaker 1: not lie. It was miserable to live in the Bronx.
Speaker 1: Part of what made it so miserable was the rent
Speaker 1: got so bad, The buildings were so dilapidated, the money
Speaker 1: was so drained, right because of Nixon, Because because of y'all. Listen,
Speaker 1: do you remember when I did the Economics one, The
Speaker 1: economics thing about about the changing of like world revolutions
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. When Nixon tried to stop inflation,
Speaker 1: but he did it wrong. You got to go back
Speaker 1: and do this. What that did was it bankrupt the Bronx.
Speaker 1: And once the Bronx got bankrupt, if you owned a building,
Speaker 1: a tenement of housing project, it would be better for
Speaker 1: you as the owner. This is where you get the
Speaker 1: term slum lords. You just didn't fix the building because
Speaker 1: the rent was paid by Section eight. And if the
Speaker 1: city stopped paying Section eight, rather than fix the building,
Speaker 1: you just destroyed it and you just collected on the insurance.
Speaker 1: So you had where you get the term rubble kings.
Speaker 1: It's because there was abandoned buildings that destroyed, dilapidated, broke down,
Speaker 1: just piles of rubble everywhere in the Bronx. We created
Speaker 1: beauty somehow, how you create beauty? Oh clack clacks started
Speaker 1: painting murals, repping your territories and inside of that rubble.
Speaker 1: During that time, you got to remember the schools are terrible.
Speaker 1: Ain't no money, ain't no jobs. And if you as
Speaker 1: a kid, you could either a start selling some drugs.
Speaker 1: But sometimes you need other outlets. And part of our
Speaker 1: other outlets, part of our protests, these black and brown kids,
Speaker 1: these black and Puerto Rican kids inside the Bronx. Part
Speaker 1: of they protest was they would just throw parties, basement parties,
Speaker 1: park jams. What you would do is you would plug
Speaker 1: you climb a light pole, plug your sound system into
Speaker 1: the outside light pole, and you would just throw parties
Speaker 1: and people would hang outside of their buildings. You'd listen
Speaker 1: to the music, listen to the DJs, and what would
Speaker 1: the DJs play? They would spend their records? What records
Speaker 1: would they spend the records that their parents had. And
Speaker 1: then one day somebody thought of the Merriagro round? What
Speaker 1: is that? Well, because you trying to dance and the
Speaker 1: people that were trying to dance, it would be the
Speaker 1: beginning of the song to do do and then the
Speaker 1: song would start. Somebody decided, if I got two of
Speaker 1: those same song and I kept restarting it to where
Speaker 1: Luke he used to call it the Merry Go Round,
Speaker 1: you would create the break. Y'all, y'all follow him here.
Speaker 1: They discovered you could loop tracks by just playing with
Speaker 1: their parents' funk records. Now downtown was disco. Disco was
Speaker 1: full of cocaine. That's where the rich white folks were
Speaker 1: we wouldn't welcome down there, right, that's where the industry was.
Speaker 1: That's not where we were. We was up in the Boroughs.
Speaker 1: So when the Burroughs they discovered this is how you
Speaker 1: make loose, and they would throw these parties. There was
Speaker 1: a man named Cool Hurt, DJ Cool Hurt, and what
Speaker 1: DJs would have is a guy on the mic just
Speaker 1: kind of calling the shots like and all the DJ
Speaker 1: would do or and that guy that was calling the
Speaker 1: shots was the MC, the master of ceremonies, and all
Speaker 1: he would do is shout out the DJ, yo this
Speaker 1: brand Maath cast giving you live with DJ cool Hurt,
Speaker 1: bring it up. So that's why all of your original
Speaker 1: rap groups were DJ and a rapper, Eric being Rock him, DJ,
Speaker 1: Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Pence because Eric b was first.
Speaker 1: Because the DJ ruled the world and the MC was there.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, just to keep the party live.
Speaker 1: But you have to remember that happened because of geopolitics.
Speaker 1: Now this is nineteen seventy three. Then you get groups
Speaker 1: like you get Cowboy, you get groups like the Cold
Speaker 1: Crush Brothers, you know what I'm saying, Get you get
Speaker 1: the Furious Five, You get all these get you get
Speaker 1: this massive boom that just started in the bronx of
Speaker 1: these parties that kids are going to and everybody's no
Speaker 1: matter what's happening in the world, we're able to find joy.
Speaker 1: Then somebody from Manhattan comes and sees, man, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of money to be made out here, Like, we
Speaker 1: don't hear none of this stuff on the radio. How
Speaker 1: do we get this on the radio? You can't put
Speaker 1: a party on the radio, Like that's too much. Nah,
Speaker 1: we already got DJs. We can't do that. But the
Speaker 1: dude talking and the songs that they're producing, oh we can.
Speaker 1: We can put that on the radio. Well, you need
Speaker 1: to sign a group. And in nineteen seventy nine, Grand
Speaker 1: Master Kaz and a group called the Cold Crush Brothers
Speaker 1: had these bodyguards, right, and these bodyguards found out about
Speaker 1: this audition for this rap group that this record label
Speaker 1: was going to start. But you had to go auditions,
Speaker 1: so you had to go be able to show your raps.
Speaker 1: So one of those brothers asked Grand Master Kaz to
Speaker 1: write him a rap, and he was like, all right,
Speaker 1: I guess I'll write you a rap. And then the
Speaker 1: dude wrote the rap performed it for this person and
Speaker 1: they were able to form a group. And do you
Speaker 1: want to know what that rap sounded like? What that
Speaker 1: rap was that Grand Master Kaz wrote, I said, a
Speaker 1: hip hop a hippie to the hippie to hip hop,
Speaker 1: the dov don't stop to rock it to the bang
Speaker 1: dang boogie up chump the boogie to the rhythm of
Speaker 1: the boogey b he wrote, Rappers delight and those guys
Speaker 1: that were just bodyguards with sugar Hill Gang, who the
Speaker 1: rest of the industry believes were the first rap group.
Speaker 1: Guys that was six years later because the industry economics
Speaker 1: always steps in. But then you got people like Russell
Speaker 1: Simmons right, who's from the culture part of the culture right.
Speaker 1: And then you got dudes like Rick Ruman, right, Eastie
Speaker 1: boys there was from Long Island. There was these like
Speaker 1: rich Jewish kids who were in the punk music. And
Speaker 1: like I said, punk music has always resonated with hip
Speaker 1: hop because we got each other. They all kind of
Speaker 1: connected together. Now, remember h Russell Simmons had a little
Speaker 1: brother who was came to be known as Reverend Run.
Speaker 1: So now you got run DMC right and run DMC
Speaker 1: out in Queens, right and Hollis Queens. There was another
Speaker 1: young man who was super talented rough Ruggin and Roy.
Speaker 1: His name was ll cool J. Right, so now we
Speaker 1: have a chance to start a label, right, but it's
Speaker 1: a label put together by us. But listen, run DMC
Speaker 1: started making money. They had an idea of like, yo,
Speaker 1: whyon't we do this crossover? They was listening to this
Speaker 1: Aerosmith song.
Speaker 2: Righter Burn Wow why and you know what, Stephen Tyler
Speaker 2: and them hated it at first.
Speaker 1: Then they went to go hang with him and they
Speaker 1: was like, actually, shit is hard, and there's the first
Speaker 1: crossover rap song, and an industry was born. But that
Speaker 1: was born out of like real rappers, right, oh man.
Speaker 1: Out of that, you get your Queen Latifas your money
Speaker 1: loves You're just and then Tribe and you know and
Speaker 1: and and day La Soul and the Boom Bip and
Speaker 1: the Flower like just the Jungle Brothers. Just amazing, amazing
Speaker 1: stuff happened. However, at the same time, guess what happens
Speaker 1: the crack attack ooh boy. Right. So, now as you're
Speaker 1: listening to stuff like check yourself for you wreck yourself, right,
Speaker 1: you're listening to you know, self destruction. You're listening to
Speaker 1: We're all in the same gang. Once it came west,
Speaker 1: right now, once it came west, guess what happened? Fuck
Speaker 1: the police. Gangster rap happened? Now, why the gangster rap happened?
Speaker 1: Because of the crack attack? Like it's all listen, gangs
Speaker 1: it because of listen. It's always tied to politics. We were
Speaker 1: always telling a story that had to do with what
Speaker 1: we were going through. Now at the same time, you
Speaker 1: have your more polished radio versions, right because the industry
Speaker 1: is always looking for ways to make their money, and
Speaker 1: who can blame them? Now, I haven't even gotten into
Speaker 1: the women in hip hop history right that matter of fact,
Speaker 1: the first rap group that was on SNL was with
Speaker 1: I think it was Shante I forget homegirl name. But
Speaker 1: there's a Louder than a Riot. On NPR, they have
Speaker 1: a show about a series on women in hip hop.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting, right because now it's the time that
Speaker 1: I'm like a little infinite toddler. I'm hearing stuff like,
Speaker 1: you know, go see the Vapors with Biz Marquee. I'm
Speaker 1: hearing stuff like the JJ fads, the rock Sanne Chante's
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, like, so I'm hearing that
Speaker 1: stuff kind of in the background as I'm discovering what
Speaker 1: it means to be from La and all this stuff
Speaker 1: I'm looking. I'm going down to Venice Beach seeing these
Speaker 1: guys spinning on their head. You under see what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Because of movies like Breaking and Breaking Too, now you
Speaker 1: have a burgeoning business happening because you can make full
Speaker 1: length movies that are based around the concept of hip hop.
Speaker 1: You following me, this is the industry happening. And during
Speaker 1: all of this time, you have people that still come
Speaker 1: from the tradition of the music that it came from.
Speaker 1: So you have people like Public Enemy, whose movement was
Speaker 1: always about destroying the system. Chuck D was all Chuck
Speaker 1: D and welcome to the Terra Dome. And nine to
Speaker 1: one one is a joke in Yo town, get up
Speaker 1: and get what he's talking about in nine to one
Speaker 1: one is a joke. Is that like they don't come
Speaker 1: to the hood. We've always been talking about our political
Speaker 1: situation and even us talking about being flashy and flassing
Speaker 1: when you start getting into the South, and it was
Speaker 1: just about like, you know, Big Coop de veils and
Speaker 1: Rowland lolos and tipping on Fox fos. We have to
Speaker 1: understand this was also protest that we are able to
Speaker 1: make joy from the situations that we're in. I haven't
Speaker 1: mentioned so far because this is just be too long
Speaker 1: a of a of a thing, but that what you
Speaker 1: guys call street art, what is what we knew as
Speaker 1: graffiti and vandalism, which came from again us being like,
Speaker 1: fuck the system, we don't have no art programs, right,
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna beautify our own hoods. And then
Speaker 1: you started putting them on T shirts, right, But that
Speaker 1: came from it. And it's not to say that if
Speaker 1: you're wearing a grap a graffiti T shirt or any
Speaker 1: sort of streetwear that you're somehow selling out. No, it's
Speaker 1: an evolution of the stock. And then at some point,
Speaker 1: because what made more money what you can commodify was
Speaker 1: the rapper. You can't commodify the DJ, right, So that's
Speaker 1: when the rapper became the forefront. But the basic four
Speaker 1: elements of hip hop, and some would argue five sound like,
Speaker 1: ohhad is you have breakdancing, DJing with records, m seeing, rapping,
Speaker 1: and graffiti, right, And then some would say The fifth
Speaker 1: one is the philosophies, because again, hip hop's always been political,
Speaker 1: So now I don't know if he was able to
Speaker 1: follow that, but I was trying to make a case that,
Speaker 1: like politics has always been about the story of hip hop.
Speaker 1: And then obviously, now this is a global phenomenon. It's
Speaker 1: it has reigned supreme in almost every element of culture
Speaker 1: around the world. It's it's so amazing what it's been
Speaker 1: able to become in fifty years. But now I want
Speaker 1: to talk about some of the questions we still have
Speaker 1: to answer because ultimately hip hop is still pretty young.
Speaker 1: Because fifty years for a musical genre, especially compared to
Speaker 1: something that started in the thirties like jazz. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, it's still pretty young. Pretty young genre
Speaker 1: means that we don't we have very few elders who
Speaker 1: are able to age well and reach levels of like Bono.
Speaker 1: And the only one I could think that reach the
Speaker 1: level of like Bono is Jay Z. It's Hove, where
Speaker 1: he's gotten to this area of transcendence that I don't
Speaker 1: think anybody in hip hop has ever like, there's no
Speaker 1: other we have one. We have one Bono, It's Hove.
Speaker 1: And then we don't have no Arnold Schwarzenegger's or Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan's who like, meaning these artists who became politicians at
Speaker 1: that level. The closest we have is Killer Mike. And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say me, but really Killer Mike, right, the
Speaker 1: closest we have Again, protest has always been a part
Speaker 1: of politics, has always been a part of hip hop.
Speaker 1: Is for somebody to move into politics the way that
Speaker 1: Killer Mike has. So we got two examples. And the
Speaker 1: question has always been since hip hop's in its what
Speaker 1: role does white people money play? Are we here to
Speaker 1: destroy the system, to create our own system, or to
Speaker 1: take over the system that's already there? But that's not
Speaker 1: just the question in hip hop? What are we here for?
Speaker 1: Are we here for Drake to party? Are we here
Speaker 1: for the dirks? Are we here to just talk about
Speaker 1: our experiences where there is a lot of murder and
Speaker 1: hoes and bitches? Are we here for that because we
Speaker 1: just turn it up we party in? Are we here
Speaker 1: for the j Coles of the world to where we're
Speaker 1: trying to be better? We're trying to treat our women better,
Speaker 1: Like sometimes you don't want to be on that revolutionary shit.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you just want to drink in pop Molly's. But
Speaker 1: then there's this question that are we being responsible because
Speaker 1: the who's footing the bill for all this incredibly derogatory
Speaker 1: destructive content in music. It's not so much that you know,
Speaker 1: we making it, because sometimes we are ratchet, but why
Speaker 1: is that on the radio all the time? Who paying
Speaker 1: that bill? It's hard to not think that, like there
Speaker 1: might be some sort of conspiracy going on here that yes,
Speaker 1: you like pumping our you know, veins with this really
Speaker 1: destructive stuff. On the other hand, you have us like
Speaker 1: really explaining our stories. The question about it is always like,
Speaker 1: is the answer to white racist capitalism? Black capitalism? And
Speaker 1: there is a quote from jay Z where he was like, man,
Speaker 1: y'all talk about capitalism like it's a bad thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I from JAYZ was drug deal like this, I'll make money.
Speaker 1: How he was like, we can't have freedom if we
Speaker 1: don't control our dollars. I don't understand what the problem is.
Speaker 1: And then some critiques on that is like, well, no,
Speaker 1: you're the problem is capitalism itself. Right. You have people
Speaker 1: like I Mortal Technique who's like, no, it destroy it all,
Speaker 1: burn it all down, Like I don't know now does
Speaker 1: he disagree with jay Z Well, I don't know a
Speaker 1: mortal technique to know him well enough. I just know
Speaker 1: his answer. Burn the whole thing down. You have people
Speaker 1: like Killer Mike that's like, no, you invest in your
Speaker 1: own you do you support black businesses, you only buy
Speaker 1: black you put your money in black banks, And you
Speaker 1: tell these politicians that I'm only voting for you if
Speaker 1: you do shit for my community. This is transactional. I'n
Speaker 1: fuck about who you are. Are you doing this for
Speaker 1: black people? I don't care about nobody listen. Are you
Speaker 1: gonna raise our community? Then yes, I'm damn If you're
Speaker 1: not gonna raise our community, I don't want to hear shit.
Speaker 1: You got to say, I'm gonna vote you out. I
Speaker 1: will sit down with anybody that's gonna advance the black community.
Speaker 1: That's Killer Mike's answer is that it's and what I'm
Speaker 1: arguing is that's I mean, they're both a tradition of
Speaker 1: hip hop because you can't separate them from politics. We
Speaker 1: used to make bars about Donald Trump. Then why Z
Speaker 1: and Nipsey had a song called Fuck Donald Trump? Because
Speaker 1: it's always been about politics, It's always been about fighting
Speaker 1: the power. The question still remains, do you fight the
Speaker 1: power from within or without? How can we continue to
Speaker 1: fight if we keep talking about our women the way
Speaker 1: we talk about it? Do you stop talking about the
Speaker 1: streets you only do the positive shit? I don't know.
Speaker 1: All I know is I'm just happy hip hop is
Speaker 1: here because it changed my life. Hood politics, y'all. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know why I ain't thought of this before,
Speaker 1: but you know you could use promo code Hood for
Speaker 1: fifteen percent off on terraform colbrew dot com. Like I
Speaker 1: forgot I own that company and this is my pod, y'all,
Speaker 1: go ahead and bunch it. Promo cold Hood if you
Speaker 1: in the cold Brew, get you some cold Brew, Gonna
Speaker 1: get you some coffee. Yeah, Like, I can't believe I
Speaker 1: ain't think of this still right.
Speaker 3: Now, yo, y'all.
Speaker 1: This thing right here was recorded by Me Propaganda and
Speaker 1: East Lows, boil Heights, Los Angeles, California.
Speaker 3: This thing was mixed, edited.
Speaker 1: Mastered, and scored by the one and the only Matt Awsowski.
Speaker 1: Y'all check out this fool's music. I mean it's incredible.
Speaker 1: Executive produced by Sophie Lichterman for Cool Zone Media. Man
Speaker 1: and thank you for everybody who continue to tap in
Speaker 1: with us, make sure you leaving reviews and five star
Speaker 1: ratings and sharing it with the hommies so we could
Speaker 1: get this thing pushed up in the algorithm and listen.
Speaker 1: I just want to remind you these people is not
Speaker 1: smarter than you. If you understand city living, you understand politics,
Speaker 1: We'll see you next week.