Speaker 1: Uh, check check. Yeah, you are listening waiting on reparations productions.
Speaker 1: I heart radio Yo coming and spitting like a bat
Speaker 1: of the hell a lot of all right, we want
Speaker 1: to see the mac of the cell. But they aren't right.
Speaker 1: What they try happen to fail and they can't keep up,
Speaker 1: so they tattle the tail. But they are stupid. I say,
Speaker 1: all nuclear hits the law with a jupan and take
Speaker 1: a school to the Jupiter. What the hell is that mean?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I go slow, yellow, angry mellow
Speaker 1: athlete cross legs in the folk arms. But they have
Speaker 1: a conversation with soul conte knife lingua Franca's volte tron
Speaker 1: Ya ain't never heard ship Yo holds on Yo. It's
Speaker 1: dope knife Franca and we are waiting our reparation. I
Speaker 1: had to I had to throw that in there in
Speaker 1: the spirit of our topic today. Yeah, I know you
Speaker 1: beat me to the punch because I was gonna like
Speaker 1: throw in one too, but yeah, yeah, So to this week. Well,
Speaker 1: before we get into the topic of this week, how
Speaker 1: are you, what's good? What's going on? I'm good, I'm good. Um,
Speaker 1: you know I can't complain about much, just super busy,
Speaker 1: but otherwise, you know, life is life is treating me
Speaker 1: pretty here in the process of opening a studio. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm you know, I got myself a little studio space,
Speaker 1: so I'm like still in the process of getting all
Speaker 1: the equipment in and stuff like that. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's just you know, just doing a little little side
Speaker 1: projects things. I started working on a new album too,
Speaker 1: but fantastic yea, you know, all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: But we we have a extremely stacked episode and one
Speaker 1: that I'm pretty excited to deliver, so I think we're
Speaker 1: just gonna get into it today. We're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about aspect of this hip hop thing that we both
Speaker 1: have some experiencing. We might have mentioned it once or
Speaker 1: twice or a million times on the show before, but
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about the art of battle rap,
Speaker 1: being should I say, the culture of battle rapping of
Speaker 1: one of the two The lines are they're kind of blurry,
Speaker 1: but um, there's there's there's a lot of things, you know,
Speaker 1: when it comes to to doing hip hop and also
Speaker 1: being I hate using the word conscious, but being you know,
Speaker 1: involved or aware of politics in your case, involved in politics,
Speaker 1: like directly you come across a lot of aspects of
Speaker 1: it um that are kind of ingrained in the culture
Speaker 1: as it exists now that don't necessarily vibe with who
Speaker 1: you are politically or ideologically. We kind of touched on
Speaker 1: this in the more Money, More Problematic episode, but um,
Speaker 1: I would say, and and we probably haven't experienced that
Speaker 1: as much, but because we know we're both on the
Speaker 1: more on the recording performing side of things, but we have, like,
Speaker 1: you know, background dabbling in battle rap. But the aspect
Speaker 1: that I think would probably find you conflicting with that
Speaker 1: the most would probably be battle rap, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Yeah, akin to the momenty more Problematic episode
Speaker 1: where we talk about like club bangers that you put
Speaker 1: on you kind of ignore their lyrical content because it's
Speaker 1: so fine, but like you just you just get in
Speaker 1: the moment, I think battle rap culture and then like
Speaker 1: the cipher as a space UM is another place where
Speaker 1: like you kind of have to leave your your moral
Speaker 1: your your moral compass at the door, you know. And
Speaker 1: so we're gonna talk a little bit about that today.
Speaker 1: It's like, um, you know, some a wise m C
Speaker 1: once told me when I was first starting, he was like, uh,
Speaker 1: finding your voice as like a rapper, it's all about
Speaker 1: finding who you are. It's like who you are in
Speaker 1: real life, but with the volume turned way up, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. And like the battle rap when
Speaker 1: you get into battle rap mode, when you do it seriously,
Speaker 1: when you're like just you know, messing around with your friends,
Speaker 1: it's one thing. But when you're like doing it in
Speaker 1: a competition format where you actually really want to win,
Speaker 1: that's when that like character mass comes on and you're like,
Speaker 1: you're not You're not Kendrick Mac anymore. You know, because
Speaker 1: anybody who knows me personally like I'm I'm always smiling
Speaker 1: and ship, you know what I mean. But it's like
Speaker 1: in battle mode, you're like in a fugue state of
Speaker 1: of of wrap in in like lyrical sparring that It's
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to describe. So we're gonna get
Speaker 1: into that, and we're going to be talking about that
Speaker 1: very subject with um battle Rapper Extraordinaire and left this
Speaker 1: activist soul con who's gonna come up. We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about how he deals with that conflict as well as
Speaker 1: his background and hip hop and how he got into
Speaker 1: battle rap and just how he's witnessed. It evolved through
Speaker 1: through the through the days. So getting into things. Battle rap,
Speaker 1: you know, more or less is believed to have started
Speaker 1: in the East Coast of New York back in the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. But Mariah, if you had to describe to somebody,
Speaker 1: like if if someone you know had hadn't even seen
Speaker 1: eight lile, like someone coming in that blind, if they
Speaker 1: just like asked you, what is battle rap? I heard
Speaker 1: of it? How would you describe it to them? Well,
Speaker 1: I feel like someone might be familiar with the concept
Speaker 1: of freestyle, but ahead of their awareness of some of
Speaker 1: the some of the conventions of battle rap as a
Speaker 1: subgenre within that general style. And so with freestyle, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're imp it's improvisation, it's metered, it's rhymed um. But
Speaker 1: within battle rap, it's it's a contest. And so it's
Speaker 1: drawing on anything from the physical mannerisms and manner of speech,
Speaker 1: the per where someone's from of your of your content,
Speaker 1: if your fellow contestant, of the person who stepped into
Speaker 1: you in that space, um to determine who has not
Speaker 1: only the best lyricism with regards to like metaphors and
Speaker 1: analogies akin to the way we might um evaluate rap
Speaker 1: for large but I think there's particularly a comedy component
Speaker 1: that you don't always see in a lot of other rappers.
Speaker 1: I mean you see a little bits here and there,
Speaker 1: but particularly like making jokes on someone and making the
Speaker 1: crowd laugh, like you know, making like making the crowd
Speaker 1: like freak out with um your your quick thought, but
Speaker 1: particularly like bringing someone down to peg with you know,
Speaker 1: references to what choose their wear and what have they
Speaker 1: got on that something a girlfriend, but that that sort
Speaker 1: of things like the punchline a peg is a little
Speaker 1: bit of an understatement. You're trying to bring them down
Speaker 1: like a whole, a whole like of bringing them down,
Speaker 1: you're trying to make it so that they never returned
Speaker 1: to that venue again, exactly. Know, I I agree with
Speaker 1: like that description is like spot on. I think it's like, uh,
Speaker 1: it's like a when you get past the musical element
Speaker 1: of it, and we're gonna get a little bit into
Speaker 1: that too. But when once you get past the musical
Speaker 1: element of it, that it's you know, rapping and uh,
Speaker 1: you know over a beat, it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: battle of wits, you know, especially when you get into
Speaker 1: the freestyle zone, it's like who you know, because you
Speaker 1: can come in with stuff prepared or things in mind,
Speaker 1: but when you're reacting off of what the person said,
Speaker 1: and when that person is reacting off of what you said,
Speaker 1: or you're reacting off things that happened during that day,
Speaker 1: and you're bringing it up in the battle, like all
Speaker 1: of those things add to it, but you're bringing up
Speaker 1: the comedic element. That pretty much is the key. That's
Speaker 1: like the strategy to like winning of battles is if
Speaker 1: you're funny and if you make people laugh at your opponent.
Speaker 1: You know that that's kind of the goal right there.
Speaker 1: So however you can do that, I know some people
Speaker 1: that are able to do that in like a a
Speaker 1: very self apprecating Seinfeld sort of way. There are people
Speaker 1: who were able to do that in like a tough
Speaker 1: guy screaming sort of way, and and everything in between.
Speaker 1: But that's kind of the goal of it, I think.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's I will never forget this picture rap
Speaker 1: bottle I was in where um uh, this m C
Speaker 1: I was up against won the battle by taking away
Speaker 1: everything I could possibly say about him. I was up
Speaker 1: against this like short white guy and everyone always made
Speaker 1: fun of him for being short and white and like
Speaker 1: you know, imminent comparisons, and like he got out there
Speaker 1: and was just like super self deprecating and had everybody
Speaker 1: roll it, losing their minds laughing, and I had nothing
Speaker 1: left to make a joke about him about because like
Speaker 1: what am I gonna call him short again? Like what
Speaker 1: am I gonna you know, like call of the keepler elf?
Speaker 1: He just he literally just did that. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: there's you can't flip it on your head. But mostly those,
Speaker 1: you know, slights are aimed at your opponent. But I
Speaker 1: think I think where this intersect with like On's person
Speaker 1: politics is like you're discursively positioning yourself in the space
Speaker 1: and a hierarchy of skills, the guardsire, linguistic dessarity, um,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But in the joke making aspect, you're also
Speaker 1: positioning yourself in hierarchies alongline race, gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality,
Speaker 1: street affiliation. Um. So you're putting somebody down like, oh,
Speaker 1: like you know, you ain't really black, or you're a woman,
Speaker 1: or you're gay, or you're or I think you're gay,
Speaker 1: or oh you're Mexican, or your Latine or your Latino,
Speaker 1: You're Asian as a way of like through the word
Speaker 1: play creating a hierarchy you know, based on like the
Speaker 1: black the straight black male is at the top of
Speaker 1: the hierarchy in in a battle wrap space, and everybody
Speaker 1: else like whether real or perceived, UM, trying to put
Speaker 1: someone on you know, a lower rung than you, and
Speaker 1: so whether or not that actually aligns with your politics
Speaker 1: outside of that space, you know, whether or not you
Speaker 1: really like think lead of of less than you or
Speaker 1: you really want to go around making jokes about LGBTQ people.
Speaker 1: Um is where there's where like the the moral rug
Speaker 1: gets a little slippery under your feet in the space,
Speaker 1: and I guess like something that we want to kind
Speaker 1: of unpack today. UM. I've definitely um been in some
Speaker 1: circles where I've been in you know a lot of
Speaker 1: odd hip hop circles, but I've been in a lot
Speaker 1: of battle spaces where you know, it's in real life,
Speaker 1: it's like all all sorts of people who are there
Speaker 1: on all different you know, from all different walks of life,
Speaker 1: but within the confines of the arena of battle rap,
Speaker 1: there's kind of like that understanding amongst everybody that you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's just battle rap, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So from that aspect, people don't really people who are
Speaker 1: in those spaces don't really take it that way. But
Speaker 1: to like to an outsider being in there, it's like
Speaker 1: you're look, you're listening to You're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: can you believe that person said x y Z? And
Speaker 1: can believe that other person said x y C. This
Speaker 1: is this is crazy? And then the two of them
Speaker 1: were like shaking hands and getting a drink and like
Speaker 1: smiling afterwards, and you know, it's exactly exactly yeah. And
Speaker 1: I often referenced that aspect of battle rap. It is
Speaker 1: like very formative for like how I operate within the
Speaker 1: puddle sphere and why I think that battle rapping and
Speaker 1: free styling activities like that actually gear people up for
Speaker 1: like civic leadership into this weird way because like when
Speaker 1: I go to a meeting at city hall, I can
Speaker 1: like be yelling until I'm spinning in people's face, but
Speaker 1: afterwards like, oh, you know, have a you know, have
Speaker 1: a good have a good night, Mike, I You'll have
Speaker 1: your wife and ship. Um, just like in a in
Speaker 1: a battle when someone come at me like oh you're
Speaker 1: left being you don't shave your legs and your hand
Speaker 1: nappy a lot and the like. But at the end
Speaker 1: of it, like you you dap and you have a
Speaker 1: shot together and it's like all good or not. Chill
Speaker 1: um regularly with yeah, sorry, yeah, I go friend, no no, no,
Speaker 1: I have a good story about telling. I'll tell it
Speaker 1: at the end of it. Um. But yeah. So so
Speaker 1: let's uh, let's get into some of the earliest references
Speaker 1: to battling. So so, yeah you brought up the better
Speaker 1: rap started with East Coast hip hop during the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: But really, this this ritual or this tradition of ritual
Speaker 1: insult go it within the black community goes back. You know.
Speaker 1: It was first documented by the psychologist John Dollard in
Speaker 1: nine UM when he was taking a look at the
Speaker 1: way people played the dozens so trading verbal insults in
Speaker 1: a joking manner before an audience of associates, you know,
Speaker 1: jabbing the people about hygiene or sex, homosexuality, ugliness, intelligence,
Speaker 1: your mama, etcetera. Goes way, way, way way back in
Speaker 1: just like Black vernacular culture generally. But then as we
Speaker 1: found our voice musically, um, with hip hop in the
Speaker 1: eighties nineties by it sort of got retooled as a
Speaker 1: way of resolving beef, a way of showing your linguistic dexterity,
Speaker 1: the way that you would do the same over a
Speaker 1: beat in a non like competitive manner. But yeah, so
Speaker 1: it has deep, deep roots in just the way that uh, like,
Speaker 1: I guess, like black culture's love of language play and
Speaker 1: also the like kind of working with each other in
Speaker 1: playful way. Yeah, some of you out there you might
Speaker 1: have heard, you know, your experience with battling, if you haven't,
Speaker 1: like checked out some things on YouTube, you know, perhaps
Speaker 1: you know about the new renditions of battling, which involves
Speaker 1: two people reciting I mean, I guess you could say
Speaker 1: it's like almost poetry in a way, like spoken word
Speaker 1: rhyming poems that are you know, with the same sort
Speaker 1: of intent that battle rap has, but it's over no music,
Speaker 1: and you know, one person takes a turn, the other
Speaker 1: person takes a turn, and it's pre written and they
Speaker 1: memorize it before they go in. And there's an art
Speaker 1: in a whole culture to that in itself. Um, the
Speaker 1: battling that I'm used to is, I guess at this
Speaker 1: point is a traditional I guess it's considered, but it's
Speaker 1: the freestyling off of the top of the head. You know,
Speaker 1: one person goes for forty five seconds or something, the
Speaker 1: next person goes for the same and maybe you do
Speaker 1: two rounds of that crowd and some judges determines the winner.
Speaker 1: What do you what do you think about the new
Speaker 1: style of battling. I guess it's not into it. I mean,
Speaker 1: like I feel like, you know, people, people older generations
Speaker 1: are always hating on the new thing, right, so like
Speaker 1: hip hop in general isn't as good as it used
Speaker 1: to be, Like you hear old Head say, and so
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to be that person and being like,
Speaker 1: oh that's not real bad rap, that's not what it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be. But I came up. I I personally
Speaker 1: disvalue the ingenuity of improvisation over he wrote some ship
Speaker 1: down to ahead of time, and like I was looking
Speaker 1: at somebody's Facebook page for months, like checking out who
Speaker 1: their girlfriend is, where they were, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: And like, yeah, I like for me. I'm also I
Speaker 1: like music, you know, And there's the element of like
Speaker 1: the fact that battling is like a musical was always
Speaker 1: a musical. Competition to me, is what was appealing in it, Like,
Speaker 1: no disrespect, but I'm just not like, I'm not the
Speaker 1: sort of cat who goes to like slam poetry events
Speaker 1: because it's just not my jam, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So the acapella battling kind of has that vibe to it,
Speaker 1: you know, if it feels to me like you you
Speaker 1: just kind of have to be dope with words, which
Speaker 1: is a whole skill and discipline in itself. But I
Speaker 1: don't think you necessarily have to be a good rapper
Speaker 1: to be good at doing that stuff, you know. And
Speaker 1: I talk about all the sort of things with so
Speaker 1: Con too. By the way, you um that it's pretty long.
Speaker 1: You think we should get it started. Yeah, it's happened
Speaker 1: to it. All right. We're gonna be back with leftist
Speaker 1: activists and battle rapper extraordinaire soul Con right after the jump. Alright, y'all,
Speaker 1: So we are about to chat with someone who I'm
Speaker 1: a huge fan of. He is a m C of
Speaker 1: the highest caliber and also an activist. It's my homie,
Speaker 1: soul Con. What's up, man. Pleasure to be here, Pleasure
Speaker 1: to be here. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate
Speaker 1: you taking the time to come talk with you. Man. So,
Speaker 1: how's how's life been treating you in this this crazy
Speaker 1: world the last year two? I think it's okay. I
Speaker 1: mean it's uh. I would say that I am encountering
Speaker 1: more as men the last year. I've encountered more hurdles
Speaker 1: than some and far fewer than others, both a lot
Speaker 1: of it having to do with just the emotional toll
Speaker 1: and physical toll of living in a in a much
Speaker 1: less connected physically connected world, especially because I live in
Speaker 1: New York City and that is a and and one
Speaker 1: of the reasons I love it is what's usually the
Speaker 1: life of the city and how many people are always
Speaker 1: here and moving and engaging with each other, and you know,
Speaker 1: at all sorts of hours, and seeing that necessarily contract
Speaker 1: and the name of public health goals. It's been tough.
Speaker 1: It's been tough. It's really tough. For the first couple
Speaker 1: of months of the pandemic, I did not leave a
Speaker 1: ten block radius basically except for a couple of times. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel you on that. I was the same exactly
Speaker 1: way so, but I'm you know, things are they're nice
Speaker 1: developments in my personal and professional life, and got new
Speaker 1: music on the way too. And that's so I'm you know,
Speaker 1: and and there's an a very energized though in reasonably embittered,
Speaker 1: uh left wing in America. That's that's fighting for what
Speaker 1: they need to. So that's also good. Well, that's I
Speaker 1: want to like delve into a lot of that with you,
Speaker 1: like heavy, but I guess let's h let's get some
Speaker 1: of the the burning questions at the top of my
Speaker 1: brain out of the way first. So when how did
Speaker 1: you get into hip hop? I got into hip hop because, um,
Speaker 1: of two things at once, basically, one of which was NTV,
Speaker 1: which I was not supposed to watch when I was
Speaker 1: a young kid. Um, not that I think that there
Speaker 1: was a I think if I were to not if
Speaker 1: I was back then, if there were reasons to not
Speaker 1: watch MTV, it wasn't for the reasons that you think
Speaker 1: it might have been, because like at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, was like them just selling people stuff. That's
Speaker 1: that's commercial television. But I think my my family daughter
Speaker 1: might be like two adults or whatever, but like it
Speaker 1: was fine. Um, but it was MTV in tandem with
Speaker 1: my mom's selection of radio stations in the morning, which
Speaker 1: she take me to school. She would always you know,
Speaker 1: listen to either like Boldies News or Rapid Fan. She
Speaker 1: is to a lesser extent than I am, but but
Speaker 1: she's you know, both as a result of what I
Speaker 1: got into and where I went with my music and
Speaker 1: who I worked with. You know, she she has sustained
Speaker 1: her you know, connection with the music as a listener.
Speaker 1: So that's how you got into it. But at what
Speaker 1: point or what prompted you to start wanting to make it?
Speaker 1: I started rapping when I was about thirteen years old. Um, badly,
Speaker 1: very badly. Yeah, but like it's there. You know, I
Speaker 1: was whatever a wonder kind is, I was the opposite
Speaker 1: of it. I got under kind or something. I was
Speaker 1: just I was dreadful and I didn't I was always
Speaker 1: trying to sound like someone else. Um. And I really
Speaker 1: have a real sense of my actual voice and my
Speaker 1: distinct voice. Then I was also a teenager and that
Speaker 1: it was this way for a long time. Um, and
Speaker 1: I you know, like ciphers in high school and middle
Speaker 1: school and or in high school that I'll be like
Speaker 1: high school and uh, you know when I went to college,
Speaker 1: you know, and I periodically go to places like Project
Speaker 1: Blown because I was in l A. You know, it
Speaker 1: was like a bi zillion year ride from my corner
Speaker 1: of the valley to there, or like go to like
Speaker 1: the other events and stuff plays like the basement there,
Speaker 1: you know, so it's there. I I had a a
Speaker 1: somewhat if not a tenuous, sort of like corporeal connection
Speaker 1: to hip hop community in l A. It just was,
Speaker 1: you know, because of geography, Um it was. It was
Speaker 1: very limited. Um and I didn't drive at all in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, which is that will make it hard to
Speaker 1: get around. Yeah. I rely on the kindness of friends
Speaker 1: and you know, so if I wanted to go anywhere
Speaker 1: to see anything and would have to be either because
Speaker 1: you know, my mom felt find it drive me there.
Speaker 1: She always was supportive of just you know, time she
Speaker 1: was basically by in my teens she was a single
Speaker 1: mother and me she was a library clerk, and she
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, given the quality of the father ing
Speaker 1: in my household, she was kind of a single parent
Speaker 1: the whole time in most regards. Uh so yeah. So
Speaker 1: but like I you know, and when I got to college,
Speaker 1: I uh you know, had a informed a rap groom,
Speaker 1: me and a couple of friends and as I approached
Speaker 1: the end of college. One of my friends, you know,
Speaker 1: talking to me about what we were going to do,
Speaker 1: you know, what everyone's plans were. And one of the
Speaker 1: one of the kids, it was younger by a couple
Speaker 1: of years in me. Um, you know, I told him, I, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I think probably gonna like working like a
Speaker 1: congress person's office or something. You know, that was going
Speaker 1: to be the trajectory and then we'll see what goes
Speaker 1: where we go from there. And they said, well, that
Speaker 1: type of job will be around for a little bit
Speaker 1: at least there are rats to get it into it.
Speaker 1: It was very like insightful, uh, you know, take from
Speaker 1: a twenty year old and uh they said, you know,
Speaker 1: rapping might not be um and back then, you know,
Speaker 1: these are the early aughts, the age uh stigma was
Speaker 1: just wildly in effect still, you mean the age stigma
Speaker 1: in terms of like, you know, I think I can't
Speaker 1: be a thirty year old like and that's now we
Speaker 1: know one kids a damn about that, which is is beautiful. Um.
Speaker 1: I think that actually there are there are factors behind that.
Speaker 1: It was really bad back every I mean everybody was
Speaker 1: setting that deadline on themselves like cats that were that
Speaker 1: are dope. We're like, yeah, man, I just got two
Speaker 1: more years in the game. And it's mad funny when
Speaker 1: you think that, like some of the motherfucker's just dropped,
Speaker 1: like an album like Yesterday, and like and and Beer's
Speaker 1: you know, two chains blew up finally at the age
Speaker 1: of thirty six, like what I mean, obviously play a circle,
Speaker 1: but like the the explosions like thirty six years old, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're there are adults ca yeah who is and
Speaker 1: also shot out to god dear man who is obviously
Speaker 1: doing uh he's done great work and professionally as a
Speaker 1: musician outside of music too. Um, but yeah, the longevity
Speaker 1: is that, you know, I think hip hop grew up.
Speaker 1: I think a lot because of the fans grew up
Speaker 1: two and they recognize and also a lot of even
Speaker 1: the I feel like at a certain point, um, all
Speaker 1: of the because the music industry fell apart and all
Speaker 1: the people who used to be just like chasing the
Speaker 1: next new big thing couldn't dictate the terms of everything
Speaker 1: that will blow up. Um, other voices and other people's
Speaker 1: tastes were able to uh, you know, people who value talent,
Speaker 1: regardless of the age, were able to say like, no, this,
Speaker 1: this is still worth it if you don't have to,
Speaker 1: you know, to try to chase what the kids are into.
Speaker 1: We're not kids, get over it, like exactly. It's like
Speaker 1: it's not this, yeah, and it's probably best reserved for kids.
Speaker 1: And that's like like there there can be I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's just like I don't know why anyone, if those
Speaker 1: people even still out there, but I don't know why
Speaker 1: anyone has that sort of view that like hip hop
Speaker 1: has to be like this homogeneous thing. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: like there should be adult oriented rap music and you know,
Speaker 1: young adult there should be like Harry Potter version young
Speaker 1: adult novel wrapped in you know, like wild clubs that
Speaker 1: you know, there should be room for all of that.
Speaker 1: I think I think people sometimes almost like do a
Speaker 1: straw man of trying to say that, oh uh, why
Speaker 1: why are you guys or why heads who are like,
Speaker 1: you know, more along the lines of like that that
Speaker 1: sort of quote unquote true school, old school, you know,
Speaker 1: vein of things. It's not necessarily that the diversity in
Speaker 1: styles and stuff is an issue. It's just merely like
Speaker 1: it's more of a media criticism in terms of like
Speaker 1: the balance and what gets exposure and what doesn't you know, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and it's funny I was thinking that, Well we talked
Speaker 1: more about later, but like this is I did think
Speaker 1: a lot about that, about who sets the parameters for
Speaker 1: who becomes famous, and just thinking about how even because
Speaker 1: the other day, like I tweeted like it was really
Speaker 1: you know, no one said as rapid or widely celebrated
Speaker 1: of of an ascendance as DMX did. And it's crazy
Speaker 1: to think that even act then a very like major
Speaker 1: label driven thing like his his like prime era. UM,
Speaker 1: it felt almost like more authentic then then a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff does now because it was out in the
Speaker 1: open and they were like, yes, Death Jam Records wants
Speaker 1: you to listen to d m X versus. Now it's like, uh,
Speaker 1: an independent team that secretly was programmed by you know,
Speaker 1: a PR agency UM and a brand partnership with you know,
Speaker 1: of average company is organically suggesting that you get into
Speaker 1: this cool new artist that totally isn't a product of
Speaker 1: engineering that we did. Like that's it's very you know
Speaker 1: that and very there's a there's a plastic nous ship.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I had not to go to
Speaker 1: wild all over the place. But I find it is
Speaker 1: in like a lot of entertainment video mediums where it's
Speaker 1: just like there's this aura of like and it almost
Speaker 1: feels like it's the eighties, Like it feels like a
Speaker 1: like a parody of like somebody making fun of how
Speaker 1: the eighties were, where it's like everything is just really
Speaker 1: like soulless and the the the there is no pretense
Speaker 1: that capital is the biggest motivating factor. Everything exists absolutely,
Speaker 1: and and and and then there's they still try to
Speaker 1: put on the veneer of relatability, like you know, the
Speaker 1: classic example being brands tweeting brand the tweets is the
Speaker 1: is the real soul of you should if you watch
Speaker 1: like a making of on like a DVD that was
Speaker 1: made in like two thousand seven, and then you watch
Speaker 1: the making of for a movie that was made like
Speaker 1: two years ago, just look at the difference in what
Speaker 1: their person that in you is, like the behind the
Speaker 1: scenes look. It's like like one of them is clearly
Speaker 1: like a reality show fake shit. Hell yeah, really weird.
Speaker 1: That's a good challenge. I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: pick a good pick a real good one and just yeah,
Speaker 1: no now I'm hype for that. Okay, so I'm sorry
Speaker 1: not to And so what was the name of your
Speaker 1: rap group? Oh? Back then it was called VPM. Was
Speaker 1: what did that stand for? Oh my god? It was
Speaker 1: beat People's Movements? Like, yeah, I mean it's not the word,
Speaker 1: but it sounds. I mean, someone could also have mistaken
Speaker 1: it for us, saying like being like a paramilitary or something,
Speaker 1: or an attack squad um, you know, like the but
Speaker 1: but we yeah, it was like beats it beats you know, Uh,
Speaker 1: it was, and I think it was. It was sort
Speaker 1: of one of those reverse engineered things where we thought
Speaker 1: like it would be cool to call ourselves VPM. Hey
Speaker 1: what does BPM stand for? And for? We've got coming
Speaker 1: up with the reading afterwards? Absolutely, and that's that's fine,
Speaker 1: you know. By some of my first tattoos kind of
Speaker 1: have that sort of a good Yeah. I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's it's it's sort of like and it's sort of
Speaker 1: like that. That's also true that the spirit of songwriting
Speaker 1: in some cases where you like the way some words rhyme,
Speaker 1: and then you're like, what do I have to say
Speaker 1: that will make these words make sense? Yeah, that's how
Speaker 1: good it happens. All the time. I think we don't
Speaker 1: want to do it too often because it feels like
Speaker 1: you can tell. You can tell when somebody is doing that,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, oh yeah, it's usually glaring. If they're not
Speaker 1: like a really good rapper, then cover it up. Um.
Speaker 1: That's sometimes it's the worst, just sitting with a couplet
Speaker 1: or like a rhyme scheme or like I could if
Speaker 1: I make this happen, I've I've triumph, I've I've conquered
Speaker 1: rap sit there for twenty minutes, You're like, Oh, let's
Speaker 1: think of something else. Let's let's try something else. Otherwise
Speaker 1: I'll hate my life, myself and this art form that
Speaker 1: I'm trying to be still a tribute to himself. You know,
Speaker 1: the way that I heard of you was through the
Speaker 1: battle scene, and this is like I wanna if I'm
Speaker 1: going back to win. Like the first video that I
Speaker 1: can recall seeing if you, I mean it must have
Speaker 1: been like two thousand nine was when my first one came.
Speaker 1: It was around two thousan is I think I saw
Speaker 1: like grind time stuff. You see, It's like I have
Speaker 1: I have a a nuanced relationship with that style of
Speaker 1: battling because the scene that I came up in was
Speaker 1: the freestyle scene, absolutely, and there's still like run there
Speaker 1: was an overlap there. Yeah, and then that at that
Speaker 1: time period, there was like I like I had missed
Speaker 1: out because my father worked for the State Department, so
Speaker 1: I grew up overseasons. So by the time I had come,
Speaker 1: you know here to go to college, sucking, you know,
Speaker 1: scribble Jam and stuff like that was going on, and
Speaker 1: I wasn't like established enough to get into that scene.
Speaker 1: So when that started dying out is when the grindtime
Speaker 1: stuff started kind of rising. And did you do both?
Speaker 1: I actually did because there was no New York I
Speaker 1: think I either missed or there wasn't a New York
Speaker 1: City Scribble Jam qualifier in two thousand seven. And so
Speaker 1: I went to Traverse City, Michigan by myself, which is
Speaker 1: a weird thing to do, and I did the scribble
Speaker 1: prelimbs there and I was in the semifinal. I was
Speaker 1: in the finals of the Scribble Prelimbs for Michigan, which
Speaker 1: is hilayer for Traverse City. I don't know if there
Speaker 1: was a Detroit one, which is wild to think about.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm messing up because so we don't be
Speaker 1: too insider. Yeah. So Scribble Jam was a huge hip
Speaker 1: hop festival in the you want to say, late nineties
Speaker 1: early three thousands, and he started in Ivink nineties six.
Speaker 1: I think, okay, so yeah, and I mean it's it
Speaker 1: has a huge legacy. For example, the most famous one
Speaker 1: is eminem Uh came in second place a scribble Jam,
Speaker 1: and I guess he handed off his debo or at
Speaker 1: least the legend goes or some something like that. But
Speaker 1: Scribbles it's it's a really Olympics is where he did,
Speaker 1: I think, really really blow up um and and Scribble
Speaker 1: Jam though, was a big, big moment with him versus Juice. Uh,
Speaker 1: did you did you freeze? Did you do freestyle battle?
Speaker 1: And so obviously if you were in so it was
Speaker 1: freestyling on grind Time for the first couple of battles
Speaker 1: with maybe some like premeditated stuff. I didn't write anything
Speaker 1: down because I thought, oh, that's cheating, and every still freestyling,
Speaker 1: except for maybe the people who did raps that were
Speaker 1: like more general and weren't personal. Um And when I
Speaker 1: found out that everyone was writing after my first battle
Speaker 1: that I lost in Grindtime, I was like, oh, whoops, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lose another one. We're done with that.
Speaker 1: We're described to the listeners. Right, there's there's two different
Speaker 1: battle I guess is would would the word be scenes
Speaker 1: or styles? It's both because they there's regional There was
Speaker 1: definitely a regional difference in in regional emphasis on spontaneous
Speaker 1: freestyling in the West Coast more so I'm not saying
Speaker 1: it wasn't a president at all, and also in like
Speaker 1: the Midwest, um, whereas in New York it would be
Speaker 1: more about like honestly having a zero personally living material,
Speaker 1: but like relying largely of stuff. It's like because there
Speaker 1: are the DVD battle scene, it was really big in
Speaker 1: New York in the East Coast. But describe the difference
Speaker 1: the differences, the differences like between freestyling on beat, so
Speaker 1: spontaneous wraps about and against your opponent over a beat
Speaker 1: that you both get to wrap over taking turns um
Speaker 1: usually like thirty seconds to a minute per round um
Speaker 1: and the other style at the time, which is prevailed
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways like these basically people wrapping
Speaker 1: acapella for several minutes at a time, basically doing verses
Speaker 1: like they could be like, uh, there there was a
Speaker 1: rap battle, but like you could view for the moment.
Speaker 1: For a lot of cases, you could have used their
Speaker 1: verses against one person, interchange on a song, or against
Speaker 1: anybody else they face. Um, And it's just sort of
Speaker 1: a wrap contest, like how well someone can wrap versus
Speaker 1: how well versus the freestyle one, which is a lot
Speaker 1: more about like how well can you dis your opponent
Speaker 1: directly in a relevant way to them. So I've I've
Speaker 1: always had this analogy that I've made with it that
Speaker 1: I'm sure somebody who is as accomplished as you are
Speaker 1: in the written battle scene is, but I want to
Speaker 1: I want to share it with you anyway, just to
Speaker 1: see what you think of it, Right, So I always
Speaker 1: kind of looked at it as freestyle battling and the
Speaker 1: pre written battling. It's like the difference between UFC and
Speaker 1: w W E. Yes, when you watch a UFC match,
Speaker 1: you honestly can see anything. It might be the greatest
Speaker 1: fight you've ever seen, or somebody might get knocked out
Speaker 1: in the first five seconds, or like anything can happen,
Speaker 1: Like somebody might be nervous and mess out and get
Speaker 1: knocked out and whereas with like a w W E match,
Speaker 1: it's like it's all it's all choreographs so that you
Speaker 1: the watcher are entertained. Note like everyone's gonna get to
Speaker 1: do their moves. You're gonna you know, you're gonna get
Speaker 1: to see everybody like perform and show out, and then
Speaker 1: you know the like the winner is determined later. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And I think people like, yeah, I think wrestling fans
Speaker 1: care less about like w W fans care less about
Speaker 1: outcomes than performance. They care less like who won the
Speaker 1: match versus who who did the coolest ship stuff? That's it,
Speaker 1: that's what matters. And I feel like that, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a good analogy obviously, Like there there are technically winners
Speaker 1: and losers, and times they'll judge battles in written battles.
Speaker 1: They used to judge them more. Um, But you know,
Speaker 1: I I got over the whole non judge battle hang
Speaker 1: up that I used to have once I did a
Speaker 1: non judge battle, like, oh, no one cares, So did
Speaker 1: you did you? Like? Stop? I mean I know you
Speaker 1: you like I guess you didn't do battles for a
Speaker 1: long time and then you came back and did a battle.
Speaker 1: I did a battle not to like a year or
Speaker 1: two ago. Yeah, And it wasn't a very auspicious return
Speaker 1: because I think I just I was doing too much
Speaker 1: other stuff and like I was coming off of a divorce,
Speaker 1: a difficult work year, and like transitioning to different medications,
Speaker 1: like it was a it was a rough time, and
Speaker 1: like it was like in a super healthy relationship. Um
Speaker 1: so I ate ship as far as I'm concerned in
Speaker 1: that return battle against disaster, and I have always owned
Speaker 1: that there were some glimmers and flickers. I think they
Speaker 1: would be better. But like I flew directly from like
Speaker 1: a work evan to go to Oakland. I was like
Speaker 1: nauseous the whole time because I had I was like
Speaker 1: transitioning back from trinteleics to will beutran Um, and I
Speaker 1: just was not ready, you know. And I was just
Speaker 1: misallocating my time, both in terms of the prep that
Speaker 1: I was doing and just the time between deciding how
Speaker 1: much time I was been preparing versus not preparing, you know.
Speaker 1: And I'd been off on Chew. I thought that I
Speaker 1: was writing something that would fill up. I think if
Speaker 1: I wrapped it at normal speed, my my return battle
Speaker 1: versus would have built like maybe twenty minutes instead of like, um,
Speaker 1: but I was like sort of mentally stuck trying to
Speaker 1: remember all my stuff basically doing like like something that
Speaker 1: was just like a speech at a certain point, and
Speaker 1: I hated it as it was happening. Um and killed
Speaker 1: me to like be in the moment and feel that.
Speaker 1: Like I it was fun and it did did really well,
Speaker 1: except for the material that was unnecessarily problematic because he
Speaker 1: would have won without it easily. Um So, I mean,
Speaker 1: do you think you're gonna take another shot? There are
Speaker 1: a couple of impediments to that, one of which is that,
Speaker 1: I it's just so much time and attention and energy.
Speaker 1: Um Like, I don't. I don't even know exactly what
Speaker 1: the full story is behind why you left. Actually, I
Speaker 1: was like there was a stigma that and there isn't now,
Speaker 1: I don't think really like you can if a new
Speaker 1: battle rapper can drop music, and granted, it'll be tougher
Speaker 1: to get it out there without having some of the
Speaker 1: music only platforms pushing you, um like, if you're not
Speaker 1: on any blog, serves playlists or whatever, like, it will
Speaker 1: be tough. You can't just do it via battle rap
Speaker 1: unless just the algorithm blesses you. Yeah, or we have
Speaker 1: like a publicist working with But then in two thousand
Speaker 1: and ten, and the less I battled and the more
Speaker 1: I distanced myself from it, the more music opportunities came
Speaker 1: my way like a switch flipped. And it was not
Speaker 1: fair like that, doesn't I think folks Scott took that
Speaker 1: personally battle fans and battlers and that it was too
Speaker 1: good for It's like, no, I just I had a
Speaker 1: different priority. I went for that and it wasn't anyone's
Speaker 1: fault that. That's how the market and the climate was then. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's a lot more rewarding to do both like
Speaker 1: monetarily and and terms of energy that you put into it.
Speaker 1: It's a lot more rewarding to make a song that
Speaker 1: you can perform over and over and over again, or
Speaker 1: have people play over and over and over again in
Speaker 1: a variety of settings, um, than it is to do
Speaker 1: a battle. That's so much more writing that has one use. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I don't I could, you know. So it's a
Speaker 1: lot of time, there's a lot of energy to put
Speaker 1: into it, and I would I could do it. I
Speaker 1: think I could do it. I could make up for
Speaker 1: my performance the first time around. The Other issue is that,
Speaker 1: like I think a lot of battle rap hers and
Speaker 1: fans I think are mad at me because of like
Speaker 1: a Twitter controversy like a year ago. Um elaborate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, because I think it's important to explore because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of misconceptions about it and like opportunistic
Speaker 1: people who just don't like me or standing for anything
Speaker 1: and actually living up to it. Um who likes snats
Speaker 1: jumped upon us, like a lot of rap floggers and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, a rap floggers and stuff. Is this
Speaker 1: something that would that that would be better prefaced by
Speaker 1: us talking about some of your activism work. No, I
Speaker 1: think it's fun. I mean, like just so people know,
Speaker 1: like I just I've always been a leftist, but I
Speaker 1: haven't always embodied those principles. And when it came to
Speaker 1: my art, both battling in music, I'd have content that
Speaker 1: was you know, misogynistic, homophobic, like racially insensitive, you know,
Speaker 1: basically all stuff that like on a level of like
Speaker 1: a stand up comedy thought was okay as a thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I was like buying into that because I thought
Speaker 1: it's just a joke or it's just a line and
Speaker 1: you know, I I wrapped with that, and I've spent
Speaker 1: a decade reckoning with that and still reckon with it
Speaker 1: publicly and privately and with anyone I meet who discovers
Speaker 1: that I have wrapped in any of these settings. And
Speaker 1: I could be doing that for rest of my life.
Speaker 1: And that's the onus that one has when they do
Speaker 1: something that has consequences like that, regardless of my intentions.
Speaker 1: And you know that being said, there was back when
Speaker 1: and then you know, I'll say this, I was. I
Speaker 1: recognized where I aired on this totally, but there are
Speaker 1: places where I did not, where I was miscast by
Speaker 1: a lot of opportunistic folks. UM. It's like right after
Speaker 1: UH Kobe Bryant passed away UH in that tragic helicopter
Speaker 1: accident and his daughter and I saw so a lot
Speaker 1: of there are a lot of There are a lot
Speaker 1: of folks, dear to me, who were UH survivors of
Speaker 1: sexual assault. And at the time there was there were
Speaker 1: folks who wanted to even talk about that. To mention
Speaker 1: of Kobe Bryant's life, UM, not necessarily, not not since
Speaker 1: like perpetually condemn him, but to like be mindful of
Speaker 1: how it might impact other people who are survivors of
Speaker 1: sexual assault, and not to like relitigate it even but
Speaker 1: just to like not erase it. Yeah, and especially given
Speaker 1: the fact that he himself made efforts to reckon with
Speaker 1: this and and which is rare, which is very rare
Speaker 1: for someone of his prominence. Um. And I said, I
Speaker 1: initially tweeted something the effect of, like, you know, people
Speaker 1: are saying it's it's it's offensive to mention sexual assault,
Speaker 1: So how offensive is sexual assault itself? You know, like
Speaker 1: people were getting more offended about the mention of the
Speaker 1: thing than the thing itself being overlooked or being and
Speaker 1: like so like a couple of places where I sucked
Speaker 1: up is like timing wise, Uh, you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: like the day after it happened. And I think I
Speaker 1: was just very reactive and raw and feeling sad seeing
Speaker 1: my friends of different gender racial backgrounds who had experienced
Speaker 1: sexual assault. UM, feeling like diminished um. And there are
Speaker 1: ways to not diminish them or that issue while still
Speaker 1: recognizing the many uh you know, accomplishments and virtues and
Speaker 1: and and Kobe Bryant morning him and I sort of
Speaker 1: like got people's responses to me aside from just like
Speaker 1: being a set of timing where also people trying to say,
Speaker 1: like all this stuff never happened. You're like trying to
Speaker 1: you know that they're like comparing what I was saying
Speaker 1: to like him until and I was like, yo, I
Speaker 1: don't I first like and people like, oh, you're trying
Speaker 1: to be like you know he was you know, found
Speaker 1: not guilty in courts, like the court system doesn't do anything.
Speaker 1: It's like, I don't believe in the court system. Like
Speaker 1: I think people got a twisted they thought, like I thought,
Speaker 1: we're saying the dude should have gone to jail, and
Speaker 1: I don't believe in jail. I don't believe in police.
Speaker 1: I don't believe in prisons. I don't think most they're
Speaker 1: held a lot of survivors of sexual assault don't believe
Speaker 1: in that stuff or don't think that they'll find healing
Speaker 1: and that stuff, largely because they don't even when it's
Speaker 1: actually addressed by the by these systems. Um So, like
Speaker 1: I was just I was talking about sort of like
Speaker 1: my whole comment an issue is just about like public
Speaker 1: record and discourse and and and sort of talking about
Speaker 1: an issue, and it got buried in like issues of
Speaker 1: like insensitivity about the timing of the tweet, and then
Speaker 1: like my defensiveness against people. Uh and and you know,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, there are a lot of battle
Speaker 1: rap folks who were like like fans, battle rap fans
Speaker 1: will probably never listen to my music or anything and
Speaker 1: probably never read anything. They probably you know, probably only
Speaker 1: started paying attention to me again because of my coming
Speaker 1: back to battling. We're like just not in good faith
Speaker 1: dealing with what I said or my attempt to address
Speaker 1: it at just trying to make it the worst possible.
Speaker 1: So there's a YouTube video someone saying like soul concept
Speaker 1: like some battle rap blogger and wrap the blog by
Speaker 1: other stuff too, like this is like soul con says
Speaker 1: that morning Kobe is disrespectful to sexual salt picked. It
Speaker 1: was like I literally never said but that was like
Speaker 1: the tent, Like I literally there's a tweet that says
Speaker 1: I didn't say that you shouldn't mourn this man. I
Speaker 1: did not say, Like there's nowhere I said that said
Speaker 1: that whatsoever. Um hell, they were like even some like
Speaker 1: sort of legitimate journalists who I know who were like
Speaker 1: trying to like milk this for like clicks and likes
Speaker 1: and it's it's embarrassing and you know what it's And
Speaker 1: the funny thing at the end of the day is
Speaker 1: people like to pick and choose what they're offended by
Speaker 1: or what they find to be outrageous. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: because I never you know, and then finding ironically I
Speaker 1: had a line in the battle about like when I
Speaker 1: diss do Fox, I basically said that he would like that.
Speaker 1: People say, look like Kobe, but who's actually the one
Speaker 1: who was getting a paraphrase assaulted in this just tear
Speaker 1: you know, it was terrible then, but these people were
Speaker 1: going nuts for that. These same folks probably were losing
Speaker 1: their mind. And my biggest battle three million views, never
Speaker 1: as anyone at that time, and that was years. That
Speaker 1: was several years after the the you know that that
Speaker 1: case and what what it was that was that Okay,
Speaker 1: where are the where were the comments? Then I'm not
Speaker 1: saying even that that like you can't change your mind
Speaker 1: about things that I'm or change your mind about how
Speaker 1: you react to things, or you know, I'm living proof
Speaker 1: of that. And everyone should evolve and everyone should should
Speaker 1: think about these things in an act involved a way.
Speaker 1: But no one cared bad um, No one cared when
Speaker 1: like Diz in the movie bodied even you know, it's
Speaker 1: like the battle rap movie post eight miles. It's interesting,
Speaker 1: it's it's I mean, Joseph Cohn, the guy who made it,
Speaker 1: is a real is a is a knob head. He
Speaker 1: sucks but like based on is really shitty. Uh all
Speaker 1: lives matter, wish attitude about everything that's him uh swollen recently.
Speaker 1: But this has a lot and I'm not this is
Speaker 1: not me being like to knock Diz, but just rather
Speaker 1: like no one. There was no outcry when this movie
Speaker 1: came out only a few years ago where he brought
Speaker 1: this up earnestly, not like with a wink, like oh,
Speaker 1: he didn't do it like that. He said a line
Speaker 1: that has premised on the assumption that that you think
Speaker 1: that this man is referred to did the sexual so
Speaker 1: you know, like so people pick and choose. I mean,
Speaker 1: like Ron had a line about Eric, like calling big
Speaker 1: t like Eric Garner like mirror years like and and
Speaker 1: that's again he can move past the eye, but he
Speaker 1: regrets it. I'm almost sure of it. But people really
Speaker 1: just I think people wanted a reason to get me
Speaker 1: out of here or whatever they want to do. A
Speaker 1: battle rap. You know, Childish Gambino had a trade online. Ohn,
Speaker 1: yeah it it's it's and I think he said I
Speaker 1: would die for yeah, like that's and that's and and
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're in his mind. Then he was like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, that's really powerful. There's no there's no problem here.
Speaker 1: Um but yeah, so like that happened, and I think
Speaker 1: I probably you know, there was talk about me. I
Speaker 1: feel like that might be one reason might not get
Speaker 1: booked again by a lot of folks. And that's but
Speaker 1: you think if they're not going to book me based
Speaker 1: on that, that's fine. My Spotify numbers didn't go down
Speaker 1: at all. My YouTube subscribers didn't go down. My my type,
Speaker 1: you know, the music fans stayed as I always have,
Speaker 1: even though I'm a turtle about releasing things. So that
Speaker 1: whole controversy, I like dipped off Twitter for a couple
Speaker 1: of months, just like let people be like. I just
Speaker 1: I got off you know, of Twitter for a little
Speaker 1: bit after that and Instagram just because I thought, let
Speaker 1: people not have to see my face and get read
Speaker 1: re aggravated. It wasn't about me, like because I mean,
Speaker 1: how I do get some death threats, which sucked. But
Speaker 1: like you know, I'm always legally armed, So like, I
Speaker 1: don't really sweat it too much. I don't believe it
Speaker 1: mysterious as to what that means exactly, but there's a
Speaker 1: I think I think they're like, it just wasn't It
Speaker 1: wasn't It felt like no one would get a chance
Speaker 1: to get over it. And I mean that like, uh oh,
Speaker 1: just get over me, but like to really genuinely like
Speaker 1: not have to. People were upset about his death, I
Speaker 1: don't need to. They don't need frustration to be compounded
Speaker 1: with it. Um. So I was like, all right, I'm
Speaker 1: I'll be out for a little bit. Um. So you
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier, um that not at all time. You know,
Speaker 1: you've always been a leftist, but you that hasn't always
Speaker 1: been reflected in your art or how you So, how
Speaker 1: do you find like recon eiling your leftist principles with
Speaker 1: not only the art that you make, but just the
Speaker 1: genre that you're involved in. I mean, just earlier you
Speaker 1: know this is definitely a leftist podcast, but you know,
Speaker 1: just earlier, me and you were kind of reminiscent DMX.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. If you go through d
Speaker 1: m X catalog you're gonna find a lot of ours
Speaker 1: here and there that aren't, you know, especially in Yeah,
Speaker 1: You're gonna gonna be looked at as quote unquote problematic.
Speaker 1: So like, how do you reconcile that? I think it's
Speaker 1: it's for my just from my part, like my contributions. Um,
Speaker 1: I just for the stuff I've already done that I
Speaker 1: don't approve of. I just for the most part, I
Speaker 1: just sort of like have a general overall disclaimer for
Speaker 1: it that you know, I regret a lot of it,
Speaker 1: and if someone wants to talk about it and air
Speaker 1: what they're feeling about it, I will always be receptive
Speaker 1: to that. As my responsibility anyone who is hurt by
Speaker 1: directly or indirectly anything I've ever wrapped it is. It
Speaker 1: is there for the criticizing, as I think any art is.
Speaker 1: But like, as the artist, I encourage people how they
Speaker 1: usually take me up on this, But like because I
Speaker 1: think you can tell, like I'm earnest about it. But
Speaker 1: if someone feels if someone feels like there's something I
Speaker 1: haven't addressed in my that catalog, whether songs or battles,
Speaker 1: that is screwed up, then I'm fine. I'm fine addressing
Speaker 1: that and not you know, like, oh, I'm sorry you
Speaker 1: were offended way, but in a in a way that
Speaker 1: hopefully affirms their experiences and their feelings and shows that
Speaker 1: I sincerely learned from it and that it's it's it's
Speaker 1: hopefully I wouldn't repeat such indignities. And there might be
Speaker 1: stuff that I've I've dropped on my last project, you know,
Speaker 1: this past year, that I'll regret in a little bit too.
Speaker 1: I don't think so, like I even like change. There's
Speaker 1: some stuff I changed going in, Like I had one
Speaker 1: line about like um, I said, like all right, like
Speaker 1: would you stand up or just stare at your feet
Speaker 1: embarrassed a something like embarrassed too scared to compete? And
Speaker 1: its like before the lines, this is like like when
Speaker 1: I first read this old not old verse, but I've
Speaker 1: repurposed older verse from like a little while ago, not
Speaker 1: like a decade ago. But I said like stare at
Speaker 1: your feet or like remain in your seat like a paraplegic.
Speaker 1: And it's sort of like the rhyme scheme sounded dope,
Speaker 1: but like it basically was inadvertently kind of he was
Speaker 1: ablest you know, like like likening arab apolegism and and
Speaker 1: and and a disability to a like a lack of
Speaker 1: courage basically in the context that one like lining standing
Speaker 1: up as they you know, which I mean remain in
Speaker 1: your seat still. Maybe like that's a stretch with the depot.
Speaker 1: But the fact that I got outright had it, like
Speaker 1: the word paraplegic in there, it was like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I don't need it, and so like like what when
Speaker 1: I had the chance to like redo this song for
Speaker 1: this project, it was like, that's going to change. It's interesting,
Speaker 1: you know. I was I was talking to a Mortal
Speaker 1: Technique a couple of weeks ago, and he saying that
Speaker 1: he was on the show and he was saying that
Speaker 1: on his next album in the middle passage whenever that
Speaker 1: comes out, he said, he doesn't use the N word
Speaker 1: at all, Like he's like that's taken. He's like that's
Speaker 1: out of his vocabulary even in regular life too. So
Speaker 1: that was you know, people, people change all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fair to admit, it's fair to I think it's
Speaker 1: just if people are honest about it. That's what matters.
Speaker 1: If you're honest and open to to to have like
Speaker 1: a good faith talk about it and and grow from it.
Speaker 1: That's that's what matters. If I don't think the point
Speaker 1: is to like perpetually self flagellate and perpetually get like,
Speaker 1: I think that we also need to have a society
Speaker 1: where people can not just to be rewarded for their growth,
Speaker 1: but where they aren't perperpetually you know, condemned for it,
Speaker 1: you know. And unfortunately the Internet doesn't help with that.
Speaker 1: And this isn't about like cancel culture. It's rather about
Speaker 1: like the unproductivity of accountability culture. Sometimes because of the
Speaker 1: fact that like pears cyclically, someone will like discover a
Speaker 1: bad media moment for the first time from someone who's famous,
Speaker 1: even though it's already been litigated before years ago, over
Speaker 1: and over again, and we there has to be some
Speaker 1: more raise or or sort of norms around that. It's
Speaker 1: not can't be formalized because that sort of thing isn't
Speaker 1: thing you can really formalize, but things need to sort
Speaker 1: of promote the idea that if X person who did
Speaker 1: why bad thing makes earnest amends that we don't forget
Speaker 1: about everything. What's the point of amends If it's forgetting you,
Speaker 1: You don't learn something from that. But people can feel
Speaker 1: like they have the room to go on and we don't.
Speaker 1: And the problem is it's funny that the people complain
Speaker 1: most about like cancel culture and like usually conservatives who
Speaker 1: helped build such and sustain a very punitive society, you know,
Speaker 1: and the ones who are always like, if they didn't
Speaker 1: create this punitive society, then they wouldn't have punitive judgmental
Speaker 1: norms around everything, and that make them afraid. It's like
Speaker 1: the whole ideas, like it's the irony of like if
Speaker 1: Brett Kavanaugh hadn't been part of the world, then Brett
Speaker 1: Kavanaugh built, he might have there might have been a
Speaker 1: restorative justice space for everything that he did, you know,
Speaker 1: but there isn't because of men like him. Yeah, why
Speaker 1: you know, and that I think that that that the
Speaker 1: same goes for like the anti PC culture folks, Yeah,
Speaker 1: anti s JW tis Yeah, yeah, you know if they
Speaker 1: they in other aspects of life, are very punitive, are
Speaker 1: very you know, love to shut down stuff that they
Speaker 1: don't like, so they're helping. I mean, that's like the
Speaker 1: whole chief organizing principle of their ship is to shut
Speaker 1: down stuff that they don't like. It it's a fascism shuffle,
Speaker 1: is it's strictly just like what what is it that
Speaker 1: they like, you know what I mean, It's like they
Speaker 1: don't they don't even they literally don't even view it
Speaker 1: that way. It's like they have a blind spot in
Speaker 1: their mind that they can't even put that into a context.
Speaker 1: How how they're like actually the biggest cancelers anybody in
Speaker 1: the country, and they and it its the ultimate the
Speaker 1: ultimate conclusion is like just like violent fascism, but like
Speaker 1: one of the places they go is like you end
Speaker 1: up with someone like Stephen Crowder who's like wandering around
Speaker 1: a different planet fitnesses or crunch Fitness or wherever, uh,
Speaker 1: pretending to be a trans person uh, and just being
Speaker 1: obnoxious just for any gender uh. And and mean like
Speaker 1: oh look they're just you know, like like these stunts
Speaker 1: and because they don't actually have any positive vision of
Speaker 1: what life could be and wow, it could be better.
Speaker 1: Crowder reminds me like there was this about when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, there was this comic book. It was
Speaker 1: like a Superman story where like Superman landed in communist
Speaker 1: Russia and Red instead, yeah, Red Sun, and he grew
Speaker 1: up to be like Stephen Crowder is like if Jim
Speaker 1: Carrey's shuttle that brought him to earth like landed in
Speaker 1: Russia MBOs Yard and he absolutely, yeah, No, that's a great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's weird because you have these folks who
Speaker 1: just because they either didn't get or they rejected an
Speaker 1: intellectual cultural framework of like rational like modern thought thought. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they they're stuck with this ship. They're trying to fit,
Speaker 1: you know, a critique of modern ship into a very
Speaker 1: old fashioned, narrow minded and uncreative Hey, they can hold
Speaker 1: and they can't do it. They can't square it because
Speaker 1: it is not built for that. I mean, like you
Speaker 1: have people like you have, they're like anti postmodernism, even
Speaker 1: like people like which doesn't you can't, you can't compete critically.
Speaker 1: Then if you think things like that, there's nothing like
Speaker 1: hearing somebody who's obviously stupid talk say stuff like postmodernism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, like like seeing something like neck Beard anti
Speaker 1: s JW YouTuber like cultural Marxist post model, like you
Speaker 1: shut the funk up. And if if people haven't watched,
Speaker 1: I think the best um sort of video exploration of
Speaker 1: this issue is Natalie wins Uh ContraPoints video about Jordan
Speaker 1: Peterson recommended. It's like that. It's it really delves into
Speaker 1: how it's a whole movement that is predicated on having
Speaker 1: basically not done the reading you really have to like,
Speaker 1: and that happened when when slavo Zek and Jordan Peterson debated,
Speaker 1: you could tell that, yeah, blood bath, it was terrible.
Speaker 1: It's like you, you know, these these right wingers, especially
Speaker 1: like these YouTube proud and like the Internet era folks,
Speaker 1: they tend to be very uninformed and or just order
Speaker 1: wholly misinterpreted really like like the whole cannon that they
Speaker 1: think that they know they don't understand you, and it's
Speaker 1: it's but you know, to be fair, a lot of
Speaker 1: them wouldn't think the way they do if they I
Speaker 1: did understand it, that's the problem. And whereas there are
Speaker 1: other folks who do understand this stuff and they don't
Speaker 1: care and they don't try to have the veneer of like, no,
Speaker 1: my vision of society is better for everybody. It's I
Speaker 1: don't care if my vision of society is better for everybody.
Speaker 1: That's not the point of society to me or this
Speaker 1: point of life. That that type of conservative or or
Speaker 1: or right that's I think that's starting to be the
Speaker 1: dominant form, like that they're coming back there, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: that was the thing. And I think that that even
Speaker 1: Trump folks try to life. They want to feel good
Speaker 1: about themselves as people. I think everyone wants to, but
Speaker 1: like they like want to talk about how Trump like
Speaker 1: hell black people, for instance, like this is the lowest
Speaker 1: black unemployment ever. I think there's a conservative strain that's
Speaker 1: like who gives a ship? They don't care about that either,
Speaker 1: and they are going to be more openly genicidal in
Speaker 1: their rhetoric. Rhetoric. Yeah, and also right now, I think
Speaker 1: like their their game is pretty much about like securing
Speaker 1: the bag first. Like I think they're trying, they're trying
Speaker 1: to be they're trying to be more inclusive as long
Speaker 1: as everybody's under the umbrella of fascism, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So it's like, yeah, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: You kind of zones? You black? But you fascists all right?
Speaker 1: You're cool? What are you doing? Milo? You're gay? But
Speaker 1: are you fascists all right with us? You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I think they're at that stage now, and
Speaker 1: then if they were to get their way, then they
Speaker 1: would worry about the particulars afterward. Yeah, then yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: That that's that is the that's been the game, and
Speaker 1: I think people will need to look at that's when
Speaker 1: when you know, I caution friends of mine and would
Speaker 1: be like, oh, you know, like when gay marriage became legal,
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, that's amazing that things are gone the
Speaker 1: way are are to a brighter future, and like there
Speaker 1: are like active like LGBT ashists in Europe prominent, and
Speaker 1: that's and then fast forward, we got my low fastward,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's not a we need to chill
Speaker 1: on the whole, like premature congratulations on a brighter tomorrow
Speaker 1: because we're not there yet. And it adapts like a
Speaker 1: capital can co opt anybody, fascism could co opt, and
Speaker 1: like anyone could be co opertive. No one's immune to that.
Speaker 1: So can you talk to us a little bit about
Speaker 1: well not even a little bit, but like, can you
Speaker 1: talk to me talk to us about some of your
Speaker 1: activism that you do. Sure, I like, what's your what's
Speaker 1: your what what's your flavor of active? Yeah? Yeah, So
Speaker 1: there's a couple of things. Um My, my nine to
Speaker 1: five is like supporting advocacy for immigrant rights in New
Speaker 1: York State and City and also a little bit of
Speaker 1: the federal stuff. I'm I'm a I'm a happy cog
Speaker 1: in the operation. Um, but you know, I also like
Speaker 1: no my lane. I like as I, as a white man,
Speaker 1: would feel very weird taking like a front row role
Speaker 1: or whatever like alter. You know, so happy to be
Speaker 1: a operations and logistics type of that's that's very happy too.
Speaker 1: But then you know, and contribute my thoughts as needed. Um,
Speaker 1: what brought you into that? Like? What was I was
Speaker 1: in another job that was not cool. It was like
Speaker 1: just a desk thing that was not me. Um, and
Speaker 1: I got laid off and one of them and someone
Speaker 1: who I met in my activism with the Democratic Socialist
Speaker 1: in America, you know, recommended me for this job. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know at d s A is I work with
Speaker 1: them a lot. I was uh member of the South
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Organizing Committee of d s A for a couple
Speaker 1: of years. I you know, have been uh you know,
Speaker 1: part of its electoral field operations before, Like I trained
Speaker 1: hundreds of camvusers before for different candidates. We've endorsed, and
Speaker 1: I've done you know, like martial and public safety, you know,
Speaker 1: work with their with the d s A marshaling like
Speaker 1: organization or you know something that I already call it. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so I do stuff like you know, getting I'm
Speaker 1: involved in like street protests for like uh, anti police,
Speaker 1: anti racist stuff too. That's that's another another thing I do,
Speaker 1: UM and trying to think through how to do that
Speaker 1: in a productive, safe way safe for the protesters. I
Speaker 1: don't give a ship about safe for the cops or
Speaker 1: property that can whatever. So UM, I imagine you've been
Speaker 1: really busy with that stuff this last year. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: initially I had to, like when it first really really
Speaker 1: blew up in the early summer because of COVID, because
Speaker 1: like I just didn't know what was up and what
Speaker 1: I had. I liked my mom was very very vulnerable,
Speaker 1: uh through to her health, and like I just I
Speaker 1: guess I was still in that like ten block bubble,
Speaker 1: very limited sort of life. I kind of waited a
Speaker 1: little bit, like several weeks after the first initial like
Speaker 1: a bunch of protests, to be like, are people getting
Speaker 1: COVID from this, because like it'd be one thing for
Speaker 1: me to risk myself. I can't, you know. But like
Speaker 1: then I was like helping my mama's stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: like this is when we didn't even know whether like
Speaker 1: surface transmission wasn't an issue yet for COVID, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, I you know, got in and started going
Speaker 1: to actions and marches, and it coincided with pushes for
Speaker 1: the New York City Council to defund the police, which
Speaker 1: they did not, and they basically did a whole like
Speaker 1: shell game that made it look like they took money
Speaker 1: away from the cops and they ultimately didn't. Um And
Speaker 1: that's still ongoing, still ongoing fight, and that budget is
Speaker 1: coming back up for consideration in the streets for that. UM. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been active, Yeah, very active as a result. That's
Speaker 1: what's up man. Well, yeah, it's been super fucking dove
Speaker 1: talking to you. Yeah, I appreciate you taking the time
Speaker 1: to talk to you. Man. Where can people find you
Speaker 1: at your music and just your work? So if they
Speaker 1: just go on if they google me, you know what, actually,
Speaker 1: screw that, go of the platforms themselves. I think that's
Speaker 1: the best way. Spell my name s O U l
Speaker 1: k h A N. And whether that's in searching on Spotify,
Speaker 1: on title, Apple Music, or on Twitter, Instagram, I'm usually
Speaker 1: the only I'm usually soul con on everything at Facebook,
Speaker 1: like I though I'm not on Facebook as much, likely
Speaker 1: on my fan page, you know, like and there's I
Speaker 1: just dropped the project, I should say just it's almost
Speaker 1: a year ago. But in July UM dropped an EP
Speaker 1: called grow Up. It's really good. I think people should
Speaker 1: listen to it. I it's on soul Spasm. I think it. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: their timing was kind of set and I didn't know
Speaker 1: how to change that. And if got overshadowed by everything happening,
Speaker 1: and that's okay. It would be weird to complain about that. UM.
Speaker 1: But if if they see like people are like, oh
Speaker 1: I like soul comm but I didn't realize release anything,
Speaker 1: there's probably a reason because the other more important stuff
Speaker 1: was going on. It still goes on, UM. If you know,
Speaker 1: I'm hopefully going to release another thing by the summer,
Speaker 1: another EP, and we'll see from there and hopefully people
Speaker 1: like that. And I'll be doing more videos of me
Speaker 1: rapping just in my home probably and it should be
Speaker 1: cool and I hope people enjoy the music. If they
Speaker 1: ever see me promoting something that they can get involved
Speaker 1: in politically, I encourage them too. And if people have
Speaker 1: questions about how to get more involved in many types
Speaker 1: of activism. I'm happy to point them in the right
Speaker 1: direction if I'm not the right person to get them involved.
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, my My my main priority right now
Speaker 1: is doing whatever I can while being a healthy person.
Speaker 1: Two further better world. That's what's so bad? Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: that was Battle Rapper extraordinare so kind. I was really
Speaker 1: looking forward to that interview. I'm really glad I got
Speaker 1: a chance to finally do that. He is. That's it's
Speaker 1: It's funny. I've been watching his uh clips on YouTube
Speaker 1: for the longest time. And then I was just by
Speaker 1: chance doing a show in Brooklyn and he was in
Speaker 1: the crowd and I saw him and he was just
Speaker 1: there like super incognito, and I was like, yeah, what
Speaker 1: the funk? I know who you is? Yeah I can't
Speaker 1: act like yeah, okay, but um yeah, y'all make sure
Speaker 1: y'all check out some of his stuff. I'm not only
Speaker 1: you know the things that he's into politically, but y'all
Speaker 1: also check out some of his music and some of
Speaker 1: his battles online. But let's get into this music discussion.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be taking it back talking about some classic
Speaker 1: classic Battle tracks just over the year, or is the
Speaker 1: art of battling on wax is a completely different animal,
Speaker 1: you know, in itself. You you've got the battling on stage,
Speaker 1: but then you have another art form in itself, which
Speaker 1: is when two people have a problem with each other
Speaker 1: and they write raps about it and record whole songs
Speaker 1: that live on forever and ever. So up first, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be going back to probably what is considered you know,
Speaker 1: the most not the first battle, but like the most
Speaker 1: impactful battle. Actually, I think this is my many considered
Speaker 1: the first rap battle like really like the like the
Speaker 1: first rap Like nobody, nobody somewhere did this before this happened.
Speaker 1: This was like the first like add a show like
Speaker 1: in the in the in the in the spirit of
Speaker 1: like eight Mile, like ed a venue to rappers, like
Speaker 1: had a battle, Okay, so that yeah, this is like
Speaker 1: the Harlem World Christmas celebration. In the severer of one,
Speaker 1: Cool Moody went up against Busy Be and I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, at least the most celebrated but by many
Speaker 1: considered like the the quintessential first rapattle. They used to
Speaker 1: be that like mainly like party rockers would win battles,
Speaker 1: and you know, as long as you get the crowd hype,
Speaker 1: the person who gets the crowd the hype, this is
Speaker 1: the one who wins. But this is like, this is
Speaker 1: that instance where you know, Kumo d got on stage
Speaker 1: and really just out wrapped Busy Be and showed that
Speaker 1: like lyricism was like a whole new gear taken, taking
Speaker 1: this battle rap stuff into So let's check a lout
Speaker 1: a little, right, because I think I think like at
Speaker 1: the inception of hip hop, the m C was sort
Speaker 1: of like a hype man for the DJ and that
Speaker 1: like it was about just adding an extra layer of
Speaker 1: cadence and like getting the crowd hyped up, et cetera.
Speaker 1: This was like, nah, actually you can take you can
Speaker 1: take em C into a whole different level where like
Speaker 1: yeah you'll see you'll see Yeah, everybody in cempo clubs,
Speaker 1: the con you can win, they're all fed ut come in,
Speaker 1: but you know you lose. You pick up wanted to shoot.
Speaker 1: I got fat new because they they're gonna hear some
Speaker 1: movies like you're taking the pub, you're packing. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's like nuts that Busy Bee was like up
Speaker 1: there hyping the crowd and then called out Coolmodi who
Speaker 1: was in the venue, and Cool Moody was like, not
Speaker 1: funk that, and it's like went on stage and just
Speaker 1: three styled at Busy be like Helena, and it was
Speaker 1: all hits, all hits, like like everything that Kubod was,
Speaker 1: he wasn't wasting any motion. It was just all disses.
Speaker 1: Every line was a diss but he he eviscerated him
Speaker 1: in that in turn, you know, grew the legend of
Speaker 1: Kubo D, who went on to have of various other
Speaker 1: classic battles you know down the lines, including one famous
Speaker 1: one with l O cou Ja. Yeah, let's hop onto
Speaker 1: the next one. We got uh between Boogie Down Productions
Speaker 1: just KRS one and Scott l. Rock versus the Jewice Crew. Um,
Speaker 1: it was like a misunderstanding that the Juice Crew said
Speaker 1: that hip hop started in Queens when BBD came out.
Speaker 1: So they came up with South Bronx, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: a song about where you know the true quote unquot
Speaker 1: true birthplaces of hip hop and then Jewice Crew responded
Speaker 1: with kill that Noise and then b b D came
Speaker 1: back where the bride is over Yes, scathing response, let's
Speaker 1: check that out to help them, Nickio making the Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Keepslo taking the bronkeeps in the Queen's keeps Fake come
Speaker 1: up to it. And so I feel like this was
Speaker 1: kind of the beginning of a trend that we see
Speaker 1: nowadays where rappers who have beefull trade tracks and kind
Speaker 1: of go back and forth, like as we've moved from
Speaker 1: like an analog age into a more digital one where
Speaker 1: you might not be in the same venue on the
Speaker 1: same night and calling each other out, but you might
Speaker 1: have soundclouds, you might have Twitter, and you might talking
Speaker 1: shit at each other all these virtual platforms like you
Speaker 1: you go back and forth with like SoundCloud tracks about
Speaker 1: like you know, fuck you, I heard You've got a
Speaker 1: secret child. Like Also, this adds like a new personal
Speaker 1: layer onto it too, because it's like what was once
Speaker 1: just like a competition that happens in the moment and
Speaker 1: then it's over. Now you're adding in the layer that
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, these dishes are going to exist forever.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter that it doesn't matter now that it's
Speaker 1: like thirty years later. And these guys were probably you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of them involved to probably like squash be
Speaker 1: for moved on or in different phases of life. But
Speaker 1: you have, like this insult that you said about this
Speaker 1: other person that lives on forever, it's always gonna be there.
Speaker 1: And not only that, but it's too it's to slam
Speaker 1: in music people people are gonna listen to for other forever.
Speaker 1: So I've I've only had one distract made about me once,
Speaker 1: but it got the guys who did it took it
Speaker 1: down after I made my responseship. It was like it
Speaker 1: was like it was my first you know, I was
Speaker 1: looking forward to, like going back and forth. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh man, how how y'all gonna stop after this? The
Speaker 1: first one I was just gonna started. But that brings us,
Speaker 1: That brings us to the last track that we got,
Speaker 1: which I mean, in my opinion, you know, I've in
Speaker 1: preparation for this and just for other things, I must
Speaker 1: have listened to like sixty or seventy different battle tracks,
Speaker 1: obscure stuff that none of y'all even heard of, because
Speaker 1: you didn't even know such and such were beefing and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. But I have to say, after listening
Speaker 1: to all those battle tracks, I think that this next
Speaker 1: joint is probably the best recorded battle track in hip
Speaker 1: hop's history. In my opinion, this is Cannabis with second
Speaker 1: round knockout. Let's check this out. And like a truck
Speaker 1: free role model, you discussed me. I know, bitches to
Speaker 1: see you smoke weed recently. You walk around showing off
Speaker 1: your body because the sales postable avoid the fact that
Speaker 1: you ain't got scales mad at me because I kicked
Speaker 1: that ship real nick a spell when I did not
Speaker 1: be sending your fans with high hells Kumo feed to change. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so here we see a little bit of that
Speaker 1: like discursive hierarchy being created, like when he's talking about like,
Speaker 1: um like most of your fans, and most of your
Speaker 1: fans were like oh applying that like oh you're more
Speaker 1: feminine because you're a fan base is feminine reinforcing, you know.
Speaker 1: Let me give a little backstory to this beef. So
Speaker 1: this is uh. This was the Cannabis uh response in
Speaker 1: a battle between him and Legendary for L. L cool
Speaker 1: J and I can't believe that I'm old enough. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, but it's it's crazy. So they
Speaker 1: did a music video shoot and Cannabis looked up to L.
Speaker 1: COUJ like you know, like a god and ship and
Speaker 1: this Cannabis was a new rapper and he was doing
Speaker 1: this song with a method man, Red Man, DMX and
Speaker 1: l Couj. Right, so for Cannabis is like, oh snap
Speaker 1: pho on the song with these guys, it's crazy, And um,
Speaker 1: l Coj has a famous microphone tattoo on his arm,
Speaker 1: so I guess something happened in Cannabis like made a
Speaker 1: comment about like, oh, I want like a microphone tattoo
Speaker 1: just like that. So they filmed the video and then
Speaker 1: l rewrote his verse and mentioned that conversation like you
Speaker 1: can't grab this mic on my arm. So you know,
Speaker 1: it was kind of like a disk and everybody knew
Speaker 1: it was a disc to Cannabis because Cannabis and then
Speaker 1: you know, went and got a microphone tattooed on his arm,
Speaker 1: and then that song came about. So Cannabis made this
Speaker 1: is like the response and started like a whole thing
Speaker 1: between them, which you could make a whole documentary and
Speaker 1: a podcast about the battle between those two dudes in particular.
Speaker 1: But oh man, where where can I start? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's definitely has a cringe moments, you know, it's and
Speaker 1: obviously the sensibilities of it or definitely out of step today,
Speaker 1: but from just like a technical aspect of a battle
Speaker 1: rap song. It's again what Kumo'd did in his freestyle
Speaker 1: back in the eighties. I think what Cannabis does with
Speaker 1: this is like he creates something where every line is
Speaker 1: about l O COO J. You know. And for me
Speaker 1: what made it refreshing at the time is that it
Speaker 1: was something that was solely based in rap and in music.
Speaker 1: This is coming off of the heels of Tupac and
Speaker 1: Big You both getting killed because of some street ship
Speaker 1: that you know what I mean, that the media kind
Speaker 1: of manipulated into being being involved with music when it
Speaker 1: really wasn't. So for me, you know, it was like
Speaker 1: being young when the song came out and seeing that
Speaker 1: it was like, no, this was a beef between two
Speaker 1: rappers about how well they rapped over some rap ship,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, and and and you know,
Speaker 1: and like like everything that they said about each other
Speaker 1: was based in that that field of like, yo, I'm
Speaker 1: a better rapper than you. Even like even even the
Speaker 1: line that that um, the line of your fans were
Speaker 1: high heels is more in reference, you know, just at
Speaker 1: the time was more in reference to like, yo, you're
Speaker 1: not even rapping for people who like listening to rap,
Speaker 1: because that was the stereotype back then, is that girls
Speaker 1: want to see L COJ when a shirt off and
Speaker 1: YadA YadA, YadA dada. So but I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a class Just just even thinking about that makes
Speaker 1: me smiles, Like I wish that when rappers in the
Speaker 1: two thousand's have beef with each other and they're making
Speaker 1: songs that it's like a battle of wits and people like,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like exaggerating ability and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and not like yo, I'll spray your grandmother
Speaker 1: with the drum, you know what I mean, Like I'll
Speaker 1: pissed the whip you with the smack you with the tool.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like, yeah, maybe I'm just nah. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've been talking about a lot of these shootings here
Speaker 1: in Athens in recent episodes, and I was talking to
Speaker 1: the father of one of these kids that got killed.
Speaker 1: Apparently people was like jealous that he was blowing up musically,
Speaker 1: and people like and like a bunch of people conspired
Speaker 1: to like take this twenty year old child's life. So like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it goes like, Yo, I'm gonna spread your car up
Speaker 1: and then let people to people a literal literally go
Speaker 1: spread your car up. Yeah, I mean yeah, Hey, if
Speaker 1: if it's like the words are power, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, It's like we we all have the right
Speaker 1: to say what we want. But it's like ship can manifest,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, So you to that extent,
Speaker 1: it's like you gotta be mindful of things that you
Speaker 1: put out there in the world, you know. But that's
Speaker 1: it for us today. We are going to bounce, but
Speaker 1: you know we're gonna be back next week with some
Speaker 1: dope ship. Hey, Joel, you drop a beat reparations waiting
Speaker 1: the refaration? Yeah yeah, Yo, Who the hell ill of
Speaker 1: the knife? Riddle me that? Do you all know where
Speaker 1: I'm lyrically? Yet I'm lyrically at a level levitating you
Speaker 1: chumps because I'm sitting in the woods meditating with monks.
Speaker 1: Then I'm breaking a blunt and I'm thinking a skunk
Speaker 1: because i gotta smoke like every day to month. I
Speaker 1: want battle's first place, not a favorite stunt. Should I
Speaker 1: make a favorite rapap staying a slump, I'll rework it
Speaker 1: until let's see perfect. I did freestyle battles, No read
Speaker 1: her ship. I did freestyle battles, don't read her ship.
Speaker 1: I'm on stage to be Batchel, thinking to myself to
Speaker 1: look how peek got gap teeth, to watch taxis more
Speaker 1: the fat keys, the class geek a better slash beets.
Speaker 1: I'll be going for his family like, hey, ty, your
Speaker 1: mama got a supper walking last week? Or maybe I
Speaker 1: was passing the gases trashy but to look a little closer,
Speaker 1: but the fragrance were so nasty I had to hal
Speaker 1: a taxi to a different galaxy. Now the crops clapping
Speaker 1: and gas thing, I'm beating. That's Battley mother for a
Speaker 1: little stad We we can tearing each other down for
Speaker 1: props and freads, specially when he's in fact on my
Speaker 1: mom's dead. I'm Franka. I'll dope knife and we are waiting,
Speaker 1: and your mama sucks dix in hell. I hate everything
Speaker 1: about you, hate the way you look. Hey hey, hey,
Speaker 1: hey hey hey, but for real now we'll see you
Speaker 1: next week. Listen to Waiting on reparations. Something I heard
Speaker 1: radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast
Speaker 1: A sk