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Speaker 1: Pushing.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Hey, Hey, Mike Cheka one too. We got we

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Speaker 2: got the MC from back in the day, from Queens Hollis,

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Speaker 2: Queen's in the house.

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Speaker 3: We can't. You gotta be talking to people who have like,

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Speaker 3: know your history, you know against you.

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Speaker 2: I'm Khalil Jibron Muhammad.

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Speaker 1: I'm Ben Austin. We are two best friends.

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Speaker 2: One black, one white. I'm a historian and I'm a journalist.

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Speaker 2: And this is some of my best friends are.

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Speaker 1: Some of my best friends are in this show. We

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Speaker 1: wrestle with the challenges and the absurdities of a deeply

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Speaker 1: divided and unequal country.

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Speaker 2: In today's show, we're talking to Jelani Cobb, my great

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Speaker 2: friend from grad school, one of my favorite people to tease,

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Speaker 2: dean of Columbia Journalism School, and New Yorker staff writer.

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Speaker 2: Man the list goes on, I'm so proud of this guy.

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Speaker 1: Oh wow, Jelani Cobb. We got like quiet storm Jilani on.

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Speaker 1: We are going to talk to him about a subject

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Speaker 1: that all three of us love, hip hop. We're going

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Speaker 1: to talk about the evolution of the genre over the

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Speaker 1: last fifty years and what it means to us.

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Speaker 2: This is gonna be great, but first, before we talk

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Speaker 2: to Jilani, I want to share something. You know, hip

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Speaker 2: hop is fifty when we're old heads, but it lives

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Speaker 2: on and your nephew, Jabron Mchael Maho is rocking his

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Speaker 2: own beats, his own flow, and so check check this out.

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Speaker 2: Listen to his music right now?

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Speaker 4: All right? All right, yeah, all right, brody last, all right?

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Speaker 4: So this is your music? Right yeah, alright?

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Speaker 2: So what's your what's your hip hop's origin story?

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Speaker 5: Like I started getting into hip hop and I was

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Speaker 5: about maybe six or seven. I was allowed to listen

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Speaker 5: to explicit music, so I was listening to unexplicit versions.

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Speaker 5: I think Outcasts and Graduation or some of the earliest

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Speaker 5: hip hop albums.

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Speaker 1: Man Khalil, I'm almost in tears over here. I can't

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Speaker 1: think of a better way to start this conversation than

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Speaker 1: my nephew and thinking about thinking about you know, these

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Speaker 1: generations we're talking about us being in our fifties and

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Speaker 1: a fifty year old genre. So man, let's just I've

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Speaker 1: been in with Jelani.

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Speaker 2: That's right, that's my boy, proud of him.

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Speaker 1: Let's do it, hey, Jelani, I actually wanted to start

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Speaker 1: with a question going back to when you first met Khalil,

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Speaker 1: and you two guys were in graduate school together at Rutgers,

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Speaker 1: and I had and this is both like an origin

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Speaker 1: story but also like a who were you story? And

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Speaker 1: I had heard in the past that people described the

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Speaker 1: two of you as Malcolm and Martin. That's right, meaning

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Speaker 1: people people thought that Khalil was like Malcolm X, the

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Speaker 1: equivalent to your Martin Luther King. What did that mean?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny because in retrospect, you know, that might

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Speaker 3: have actually just been like a lazy overlay of Khalil's

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Speaker 3: family's history. You know, is the great grandson of Elijah Muhammad.

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Speaker 3: But also dispositionally, you know, Khalil kind of waged a

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Speaker 3: scorched earth campaign in those states. I was a more

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Speaker 3: conciliatory figure, which you know, I think that it wasn't

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Speaker 3: really so much a difference in our politics though, because

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Speaker 3: I think our politics were like roughly parallel.

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Speaker 2: So, Julanni, you know, you have been a hip hop

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Speaker 2: hit as a writer, as a listener. You went to

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Speaker 2: the Mecca Howard University, and I know from the nineteen

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Speaker 2: nineties that you started writing for the City Paper and

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Speaker 2: you started doing music criticism and you wrote a book

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Speaker 2: in two thousand and seven called Break of Dawn Freestyle

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Speaker 2: on the Hip Hop Aesthetic, And it's a book that

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Speaker 2: basically you talk about the music itself. And so even

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Speaker 2: though I wasn't really into to hip hop at that age,

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Speaker 2: I was listening, you know, to these other things. You know,

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Speaker 2: since I didn't get this in the way that you

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Speaker 2: did early on what is the hip hop aesthetic?

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Speaker 3: You know, I think that hip hop is a revisiting

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Speaker 3: of the aesthetic that created the blues, which is heavily improvisational,

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Speaker 3: derived from West African music and traveled with us through

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Speaker 3: the slave trade and you know, became the foundation of

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Speaker 3: all of those musics. And you know, I'll say what

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Speaker 3: I said in that book, which is that hip hop

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Speaker 3: is the blues filtered through a century of experience in

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Speaker 3: a thousand miles of asphalt.

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Speaker 1: Wow, all right, all right, all right, man, we got

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Speaker 1: we got Jelani Cobb by the show this week.

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Speaker 2: The Nuggets dropping Jewels. I just want to say, you know,

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Speaker 2: I met you in the summer before grad school in

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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five, and that was also the same fall

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Speaker 2: when there was a million man March. Hip hop was,

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Speaker 2: you know, all the rage and country. But like, when

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Speaker 2: did you fall in love with hip hop?

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Speaker 3: What?

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Speaker 2: What is your hip hop origin story?

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Speaker 3: Oh? My early, it's really early. I was like seven

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Speaker 3: or eight, you know, I was born in nineteen sixty nine,

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Speaker 3: and so hip hop, you know, people can consider like

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Speaker 3: the origins of hip hop to be nineteen seventy three,

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Speaker 3: you know, if you believe, like you know, there's a

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Speaker 3: single origin point. So this is like nineteen seventy six,

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Speaker 3: seventy seven maybe, And what happened? And I remember that

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Speaker 3: my brother, who's seven years older than me, you know,

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Speaker 3: who was you know, starting to kind of have his

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Speaker 3: teenage explorations of New York City and so on, came

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Speaker 3: home with a mixtape one time, and you know, we

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Speaker 3: had these people playing music, but they weren't singing, you know,

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Speaker 3: they were like talking and like everything they said was rhyming.

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Speaker 3: I had never heard anything like. It was like shocking

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Speaker 3: to me something like that could even exist, you know.

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Speaker 3: And then you know, of course, and short on, my

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Speaker 3: brother started rapping. And then you know, being a little brother,

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Speaker 3: you wanted to do everything that your big brother did.

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Speaker 3: And it was an incredible time because you know, we

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Speaker 3: grew up in Queens, New York and Hollis and so,

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Speaker 3: you know, one of my my brother had to pick

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Speaker 3: me up from school, like a lot of older brothers,

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Speaker 3: and I have distinct recollections of his friend Joseph, you know,

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Speaker 3: who used to also walk home with us in the

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Speaker 3: same general direction. You know, Joseph became better alone later

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Speaker 3: as run you DJ run.

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Speaker 1: All right, you are like throwing down credentials just.

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Speaker 2: In case run wasn't good enough for somebody.

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Speaker 3: Exactly, yeah, run DMC. And so it gets more interesting

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Speaker 3: because you know, I ran into Run maybe let's pop

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Speaker 3: about ten years ago at Harlem and I said my

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Speaker 3: name and he was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

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Speaker 3: Victor's brother. I was like yeah, and he was like, yeah,

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Speaker 3: we used to walk you home from school. So I

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Speaker 3: did not think he would remember that, but you know,

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Speaker 3: for whatever reason, he did. And so then, you know,

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Speaker 3: when I got a little bit older. In eighth grade,

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Speaker 3: I had we had this kind of quirk where we

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Speaker 3: had to line up in height order before we'd be

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Speaker 3: dismissed from school. And you know, I was the third

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Speaker 3: tallest boy in my class.

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Speaker 1: It was me.

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Speaker 3: There's a dude named James, and then there was a

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Speaker 3: dude named Anthony Weeks. I think Anthony Weeks wound up

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Speaker 3: going to be like six six or six seven, really tall,

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Speaker 3: but James was just like, you know, a quarter inch

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Speaker 3: taller than me or so. And one day in class,

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Speaker 3: you know, we're lining up before we can be dismissed,

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Speaker 3: and James gives me a sheet of paper and he's

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Speaker 3: written his name on it, and I was like, what's

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Speaker 3: this and he said that's my autograph. What he said,

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Speaker 3: you should keep it because I'm gonna be real famous.

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Speaker 3: And I remember crumbling it up and throwing it away

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Speaker 3: in front of him. Do you like that?

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Speaker 2: And punk ass?

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Speaker 3: Right? Whatever?

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Speaker 1: Now, who is James James's l ocal Jane exactly exactly

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Speaker 1: anything but right, Okay, I just want to say I

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Speaker 1: think you still did the right move of crupling up

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Speaker 1: the paper.

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Speaker 3: That was just like for street cred like you had

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Speaker 3: to like, you know, not be sweating. But I said

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Speaker 3: to say that hip hop was ambient in my life,

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Speaker 3: like it was that's informed as I was.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so Johnny, you talking ambient in your life too?

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Speaker 1: No, I mean we're like well ship And after hearing Jolowney,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't like, you know, my next door neighbor was.

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Speaker 1: But you know, my story happens like five years after Jolwanny,

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Speaker 1: like about eighty two, eighty three, I'd say it's eighty three,

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Speaker 1: And it's also involved an older brother, Jelanny. I have

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Speaker 1: an older brother name Jake, and he was a total

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Speaker 1: bee boy at that point. He's a great artist, and

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Speaker 1: he was a graffiti artist. He was going around with

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Speaker 1: spray paint around around the South side of Chicago. Wow,

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Speaker 1: he was. He was break dancing, he was. He was

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Speaker 1: in a nascent rap group with two of his friends,

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Speaker 1: one of whom was Thriller that's what everyone called him,

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Speaker 1: and the other guy, Donald Cumberpats. And there were two

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Speaker 1: black guys and one white guy, so they were called,

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Speaker 1: of course the Oreo Crew, and you know, we would

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Speaker 1: go around with like a big, you know, boombox with

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Speaker 1: cassette tapes. But like in eighty three, he was like, hey,

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Speaker 1: come to this concert with me. And it was at

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Speaker 1: a tiny venue on the South Side and I was

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Speaker 1: like twelve, and it was Run DMC and their first album,

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Speaker 1: which is just called run DMC had not even dropped yet.

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Speaker 1: And I remember being at that show and the music,

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Speaker 1: you know, feeling the pulsing energy of like being at

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Speaker 1: the like the eye of a tornado, feeling of just

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Speaker 1: like being engulfed by the music, the power of it.

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Speaker 1: You know, hard times are coming to your town. Oh

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Speaker 1: you know which you know, like yeah, just like the

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Speaker 1: you know, I guess it was about austerity measurements. It

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Speaker 1: something I wasn't even thinking about necessarily the lyrics, but

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Speaker 1: it just felt like this power and that for me

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Speaker 1: was the first time. And Khalil for you, this was today, right,

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Speaker 1: this is right now hearing these stories, that's funny.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it is true that long ago I outed myself,

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Speaker 2: I was listening to a culture club and Phil Phil

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Speaker 2: Collins and Madonna back in the eighties. This is true.

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Speaker 2: But but my hip hop origin story starts first with

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Speaker 2: my older cousin, guy named Khali. He's five years older

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Speaker 2: than me, and I'll never forget in his like he

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Speaker 2: had kind of a porch bedroom as a big family

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Speaker 2: and he lived on the porch. And I just to

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Speaker 2: this day can see the album or that I should say,

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Speaker 2: I guess it was an album over forty five. I

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Speaker 2: can't remember, but the label of rappers the like of

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Speaker 2: the Sugarhail Gang, I can see it. I can just

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Speaker 2: see it.

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Speaker 1: That was like Loope bubblegum writer exactly.

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Speaker 2: That was the first time I remember seeing something and

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Speaker 2: listening to music like that for the first time. And

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Speaker 2: then at seven, because my cousin's father was a radio

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Speaker 2: station owner, black radio station owner, Curtis I'm sorry, Curtis

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Speaker 2: Purvis Spans the Bluesman own w V one O three

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Speaker 2: in Chicago, and somehow he was promoting a concert and

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Speaker 2: I got to tag along with family and we saw

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Speaker 2: Curtis blow in concert and a small venue in like

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine. It was unbelievable. So that's when I

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Speaker 2: first got exposed to hip hop, but it was many

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Speaker 2: years later that I would embrace the genre fully and entirely.

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Speaker 1: You're like, this is not for me, No, it was

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Speaker 1: just it was just.

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Speaker 2: A tension there, you know, like you've been when you

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Speaker 2: and I were in high school. You know, you really

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Speaker 2: were listening to KRS one and like rapping lyrics, and

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Speaker 2: I was like, oh, you know, I know that song,

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Speaker 2: but it wasn't like it was on my playlist necessarily.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, right, it was do you really want to hurt me?

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Speaker 1: Right? Culture CLUBB exactly, Jelani, we are going to take

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Speaker 1: a short break and we're going to come back and

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk about hip hop at fifty. All right,

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Speaker 1: we are back on. Some of my best friends are

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Speaker 1: with the amazing Jelani Can and one of our producers

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Speaker 1: bragging yeah. And one of our producers was like, his

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Speaker 1: voice is the greatest voice I ever heard. So now

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Speaker 1: everyone gets to get the piece of that here. So

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Speaker 1: so Jelani, hip hop, you know, we can say turned

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Speaker 1: roughly fifty this year, like you can maybe dated to

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, which is also the same year as

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Speaker 1: the start of mass incarceration. Go figure. But there's this

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Speaker 1: documentary that Chuck d of Public Enemy executive produced and

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Speaker 1: hosts called Fight the Power How Hip Hop Changed the World.

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Speaker 1: It's on PBS, and so we watched that, and you know,

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Speaker 1: you were talking about some of your own sense of

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Speaker 1: origins of being in Queens and sort of having these

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Speaker 1: sort of like you know, like greatest you know, Hall

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Speaker 1: of Famers of hip hop and rap being right around

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Speaker 1: you in school and your neighbors and your brother's friends.

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Speaker 1: And so I want to ask this question, like does

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Speaker 1: hip hop start in Queens or does it start in

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Speaker 1: the Bronx.

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Speaker 2: And you got to think about who you might lose

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Speaker 2: in this answer, what friends of yours might.

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Speaker 4: Like.

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Speaker 3: Without question, the hip hop starts in the bronx, all right, but.

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Speaker 1: But that's where we want we want them, we want

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Speaker 1: complexity here.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, Queens was at the cornerstone of its founding

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Speaker 3: and the reason for that is that Queens was what

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Speaker 3: made hip hop go from being a regional phenomenon to

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Speaker 3: being a national and then an international one. You know,

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Speaker 3: hip hop existed in the Bronx in Manhattan, you know,

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Speaker 3: in the early nineteen seventies, mid nineteen seventies. That began

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Speaker 3: to change in the late nineteen seventies into the early

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Speaker 3: nineteen eighties, you know, partly because it landed in Queens

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Speaker 3: where there was a class difference. So like when hip

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Speaker 3: hop started out in the music in like apartment buildings

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Speaker 3: and housing projects in the Bronx. And you know, it

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Speaker 3: was fun, it was expressive, some of it was political,

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Speaker 3: some of it talked about what was going on, but

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Speaker 3: you know, we just talked about run and DMC. Their

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Speaker 3: father taught black history, you know, which is way that

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Speaker 3: song at a community local college, community college, which is

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Speaker 3: where that song I'm Proud to Be Black came from.

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Speaker 3: You know, their father was a clergy member, They had

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Speaker 3: a home, they made records in their basement. L Ocol

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Speaker 3: j who I mentioned earlier. I remember he later like

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Speaker 3: incorporated this into his memoir. But I literally remember the

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Speaker 3: day that he came to school and said, my grandfather

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Speaker 3: bought me two thousand dollars worth of DJ equipment because

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Speaker 3: you know, he wants to support my music. And he

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Speaker 3: later used that equipment and his basement. Again, people had

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Speaker 3: homes with basements to make the demo that landed on

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Speaker 3: Rick Rubin's desk. You know, tribe called Quest revolutionized hip

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Speaker 3: hop by infusing jazz with it. And you know Q

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Speaker 3: Tip had his father had a father zz collection, all

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Speaker 3: that jazz collection, which was at that time a very

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Speaker 3: middle class preoccupation, you know, on pastime and and so

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Speaker 3: because they had a little bit more stability that parents

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Speaker 3: may have had a blue collar union job or a

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Speaker 3: civil service job, they had access to things that kids

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Speaker 3: in other parts of the city didn't and were able

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Speaker 3: to help shape you know, I mean Russell Simmons starting

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Speaker 3: Deaf Gem in his dorm room. The really central part

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Speaker 3: of that story is that he had a dorm room, right,

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Speaker 3: So all of those things that make Queen's a really

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Speaker 3: crucial place in the founding of hip hop.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Well that's interesting because, as you know, having having

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Speaker 2: led the Schomberg Center and being proximate to the Bronx,

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Speaker 2: you know, I was hearing all this Harlem centric storytelling

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Speaker 2: about about about the origins of hip hop. But I

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Speaker 2: think I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean,

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Speaker 2: the thing we know for sure is that the music

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Speaker 2: certainly didn't start in Chicago where we were where we

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Speaker 2: were listening to house music. But of course house music

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Speaker 2: coming out of disco and also breakbeats, you know, all

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Speaker 2: share in common. You know, this kind of sampling culture

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Speaker 2: that helps to make hip hop what it is.

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Speaker 3: And before the term hip hop really got popularized, people

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Speaker 3: used to refer to it as disco. Yeah, and then

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Speaker 3: like this was why they have rappers like the Disco

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Speaker 3: three like.

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Speaker 2: So one of the things that this documentary focuses on

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Speaker 2: is the social and political aspects of the music and

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Speaker 2: all these places in the eighties and nineties, from Chicago

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Speaker 2: to New York to Philadelphia to everywhere you know in

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Speaker 2: the North and even in the South, there are these

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Speaker 2: there's a crisis of violence, a crisis of community violence,

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Speaker 2: a crisis of gun violence. And you know, I know

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Speaker 2: you tell this story in a recent New Yorker article

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Speaker 2: where you talk about hip hop at fifty of seeing

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Speaker 2: a young man killed in front of your home. What happened?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So my parents met in Harlem. You know, my

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Speaker 3: father was an electrician in the apartment building where my

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Speaker 3: mother lived, and you know, kept making excuses to check

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Speaker 3: her lights, and so, you know, eventually my mother was like,

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Speaker 3: I don't think there's anything wrong with my electricity. And

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Speaker 3: that's how they met. But one of the things that

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Speaker 3: they wanted to do, they knew they want to do

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Speaker 3: early on, was move out of Harlem. And because of

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Speaker 3: some of the things that happened in the Civil rights movement,

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Speaker 3: more opportunity opening up, they were able to get a

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Speaker 3: house in Queen's which was a big deal at that time,

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Speaker 3: you know, And so there's this kind of narrative of

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Speaker 3: achieving that that goes along with that. But you know,

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Speaker 3: they're not really always clean breaks with the past. Because

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Speaker 3: I remember when I was you know, eight, or I

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Speaker 3: was around eight, a day when you know, there was

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Speaker 3: this gunfire outside. This is in residential Queens And you know,

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Speaker 3: there was a guy who was shot, who died in

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Speaker 3: front of our house, collapsed, you know, on the curb,

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Speaker 3: and and you know, someone covered him up with a sheet,

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Speaker 3: and you know, the police came, and you know, my

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Speaker 3: father went out and to see if it was my

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Speaker 3: older brother. I mean, as a child, this is just

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Speaker 3: like a horrific thing that you see. But as I

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Speaker 3: later came to understand, it was a generational experience that

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Speaker 3: the tides of violence that were increasing, you know, partly

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Speaker 3: in concert with you know, the influx of herowin into communities.

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Speaker 3: And so as I got older and I met people

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Speaker 3: from Chicago, I met people from la I met people

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Speaker 3: from d C. I met people from Detroit, and we

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Speaker 3: had all seen we all witnessed these scenes of warfare,

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Speaker 3: you know, in our youth. And that's when you start

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Speaker 3: to understand that like what hip hop was talking about,

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Speaker 3: the violence that hip hop was talking about was almost reportage,

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Speaker 3: you know, from the front lines of like what people

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Speaker 3: were seeing in their communities.

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Speaker 1: Toilana, You're making me think of Grandmaster Flash and the

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Speaker 1: Furious Fives. The message and so this, you know, in

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Speaker 1: the in the like mid nineteen eighties, and so this

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Speaker 1: is a story about me and that song, which is

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Speaker 1: when I was in Miss Paris's eighth grade class at

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Speaker 1: William H. Ray School, we had to all recite a

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Speaker 1: poem out loud, you know, memorize it. And I chose

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Speaker 1: the message, you know, I was gonna and and you know,

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Speaker 1: hearing you in and seeing this documentary of like, now,

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Speaker 1: why the fuck would I do that? You know, like

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Speaker 1: like I thought it sounded really cool.

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Speaker 2: You were also wearing a gold chain back then, so

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Speaker 2: you know, it all was part of part of.

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Speaker 1: It, wasn't it wasn't you know, like what you just

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Speaker 1: said about it being sort of like reportage or like

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Speaker 1: you know, documenting experience or a sound track. Like I

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Speaker 1: knew those things are going on, but like you know,

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Speaker 1: broken glass everywhere is like a jungle. Sometimes it makes

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Speaker 1: me wonder those aren't my experiences exactly, but it but

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Speaker 1: it resonated with me. I wanted to Yeah, I was.

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Speaker 1: I was. I was totally interested in this music and

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Speaker 1: in this and in the story it was telling and

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Speaker 1: in the sense of even injustice and like the kind

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Speaker 1: of violence that I knew at least was in the

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Speaker 1: periphery and that I was passing through. I was struck.

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Speaker 1: In this documentary, Mellie Mel talks about that who is

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Speaker 1: you know, one of the writers of the song and

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Speaker 1: part of Grandmaster Flash, And he talks about, you know,

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Speaker 1: thinking about that song and thinking about it in terms

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Speaker 1: of protest music, and he was like, I wrote that

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Speaker 1: and I was thinking of Bob Dylan music. I was

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Speaker 1: thinking of Marvin Gay, I was thinking of Stevie Wonder,

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Speaker 1: like he is consciously thinking about making music that is

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Speaker 1: protest music.

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Speaker 3: And so when people have like the tiresome debate about

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Speaker 3: who's the greatest rapper of all time, I always have

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Speaker 3: an unconventional pick, which is Melly Mel, you know, because

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Speaker 3: he introduced extended metaphor into recorded hip hop.

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Speaker 2: You listen to John Dolomite's version of it, oh.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, beyond the version of it, right, Like Dolomite is like,

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Speaker 3: you know.

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Speaker 2: Because because that's a different kind.

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Speaker 3: That's a different kind of that's a different kind of thing.

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Speaker 3: Like my father, my father knew like those those toasts

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Speaker 3: and boasts that like that Dolomite Rudy Ray Moore used

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Speaker 3: to like recite and my mother when my mother wasn't around.

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Speaker 3: He would tell me some of them we should not

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Speaker 3: look back and go like, oh my god, I couldnot

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Speaker 3: believe you told me that filthy poetry Like you know,

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Speaker 3: I will just say, like all of it centered around

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Speaker 3: like orifices. So but Melle Mel introduced like extended metaphor

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Speaker 3: and you know, the overtly political like frames of references

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Speaker 3: in music, and like really revolutionized what it could be.

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Speaker 1: What were the so you said, you know, political references

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Speaker 1: like in his music.

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Speaker 3: So you know they have a song, you know, the

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Speaker 3: message is the best known of them. You know. Then

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Speaker 3: after that they had you know, White Lines, which is

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Speaker 3: an anti drug song. And so when you had the message,

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Speaker 3: I remember being like blown out of my seat by

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Speaker 3: that because especially like when you think about the last

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Speaker 3: line of that song where he talks about this person

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Speaker 3: who's grown up in like slum conditions and he winds

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Speaker 3: up you live in a difficult life and then committing

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Speaker 3: suicide in his cell, and it's the last line is

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Speaker 3: now your eyes sing the sad, sad song of how

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Speaker 3: you live so fast and die so young? Nobody else

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Speaker 3: this was going to say, your eyes sing a sad

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Speaker 3: song in hip hop in that timeframe.

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Speaker 1: Right, That's why Miss Paris gave me an as.

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Speaker 2: So Jelannie, I want, I want to just say, you know,

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Speaker 2: the thing about this moment with the message, the thing

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Speaker 2: about the period in time which it emerges Melly Mel's

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Speaker 2: vision of like protest music, with this new genre is

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Speaker 2: places like New York were coming undone, particularly for black people.

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Speaker 2: There's violence and gangs, there's a heroin epidemic. The state

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Speaker 2: is using the hammer of the law in a way

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Speaker 2: that it had never used it before. Nelson Rockefeller, the

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Speaker 2: heyday of the Rockefeller that's right in nineteen seventy. So

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Speaker 2: basically people are being thrown out like the trash. There's

431
00:25:53,956 --> 00:25:58,836
Speaker 2: no redemption, there's no rehabilitation, is only incapacitation. Moynihan, who

432
00:25:58,836 --> 00:26:01,436
Speaker 2: by then had already sort of defined the black family

433
00:26:01,516 --> 00:26:05,116
Speaker 2: as a pathological one, engages as a Senator of New

434
00:26:05,196 --> 00:26:06,956
Speaker 2: York like he's like, we need to just do a

435
00:26:06,996 --> 00:26:10,556
Speaker 2: period of neglect, of benign neglect in these communities. And

436
00:26:10,596 --> 00:26:13,796
Speaker 2: so by the time Reagan is president and elected in

437
00:26:13,876 --> 00:26:17,636
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one and the message comes out in nineteen

438
00:26:17,676 --> 00:26:21,156
Speaker 2: eighty two, we basically get a fucking drug war enacted

439
00:26:21,156 --> 00:26:23,956
Speaker 2: on the black community. I spend every summer of the

440
00:26:24,036 --> 00:26:27,196
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties in New York City, and I mean, aside

441
00:26:27,196 --> 00:26:29,556
Speaker 2: from like seeing everything that was part of the moment,

442
00:26:29,596 --> 00:26:34,676
Speaker 2: the graffiti, the break dancing, particularly on the subway, the

443
00:26:34,756 --> 00:26:38,516
Speaker 2: music was everywhere. I also remember stepping on crack vials,

444
00:26:38,636 --> 00:26:41,076
Speaker 2: something that I actually don't remember from Chicago, but I

445
00:26:41,116 --> 00:26:43,836
Speaker 2: remember walking the streets of New York and literally stepping

446
00:26:43,876 --> 00:26:47,756
Speaker 2: on crack vials crunching under my feet. It's just yeah,

447
00:26:47,796 --> 00:26:50,236
Speaker 2: so of course that music made so much. It's a

448
00:26:50,236 --> 00:26:50,716
Speaker 2: time stamp.

449
00:26:50,796 --> 00:26:54,036
Speaker 3: Yep, yeah, that's a time stamp. Yeah, there are people

450
00:26:54,036 --> 00:26:57,196
Speaker 3: who know what that's like. And you know, you go

451
00:26:57,276 --> 00:27:01,076
Speaker 3: to the park to play, the playground would be littered

452
00:27:01,076 --> 00:27:03,236
Speaker 3: with crack vials, you know, from people who they are

453
00:27:03,276 --> 00:27:06,116
Speaker 3: getting getting high the night before. But to the thing

454
00:27:06,116 --> 00:27:09,116
Speaker 3: that you were talking about, it was really all arms

455
00:27:09,196 --> 00:27:12,156
Speaker 3: of the state, you know, pointing in the same direction.

456
00:27:12,596 --> 00:27:15,676
Speaker 3: You know, there was the public policy element of it.

457
00:27:15,716 --> 00:27:18,396
Speaker 3: There was the police and policing element of it. There

458
00:27:18,436 --> 00:27:20,916
Speaker 3: was a judicial element of it. There was even the

459
00:27:20,996 --> 00:27:23,596
Speaker 3: cultural element of it. When you see like films that

460
00:27:23,636 --> 00:27:26,756
Speaker 3: depicted New York in like this apocalyptic light, you know,

461
00:27:26,916 --> 00:27:28,356
Speaker 3: like the Warriors right.

462
00:27:28,476 --> 00:27:32,436
Speaker 1: You know, Jelanney, I want to talk about here from

463
00:27:32,436 --> 00:27:34,876
Speaker 1: both of you, about you know, what the music is

464
00:27:34,916 --> 00:27:38,356
Speaker 1: actually saying. Like here, if this music is socially conscious,

465
00:27:38,396 --> 00:27:42,036
Speaker 1: if it's political, we're talking about you know, music that's

466
00:27:42,116 --> 00:27:44,916
Speaker 1: that's going from breakbeats and extending a good time to

467
00:27:45,036 --> 00:27:48,276
Speaker 1: actually like social commentary and maybe a way to think

468
00:27:48,276 --> 00:27:50,076
Speaker 1: about this as we got East Coast rap and West

469
00:27:50,116 --> 00:27:52,836
Speaker 1: Coast rap and let's talk about East Coast first because

470
00:27:52,836 --> 00:27:54,796
Speaker 1: that's where we are. We're talking about New York and

471
00:27:54,836 --> 00:27:57,796
Speaker 1: being there, and I want to ask about just like

472
00:27:57,956 --> 00:28:01,116
Speaker 1: Public Enemy in a way and to think about, like,

473
00:28:01,556 --> 00:28:04,716
Speaker 1: you know, what is the importance of Public Enemy in

474
00:28:04,756 --> 00:28:07,436
Speaker 1: this transition to social commentary.

475
00:28:07,756 --> 00:28:13,316
Speaker 3: Inestimable man public Public Enemy again going back to this

476
00:28:13,396 --> 00:28:16,356
Speaker 3: by the way, you know this kind of middle class dynamic.

477
00:28:16,396 --> 00:28:19,916
Speaker 3: Public Enemy was from Long Island, you know, which is

478
00:28:19,916 --> 00:28:23,516
Speaker 3: a more suburban environment. And you know they started out

479
00:28:23,596 --> 00:28:29,316
Speaker 3: on college radio, and you know, Chuck d explicitly talked

480
00:28:29,316 --> 00:28:32,956
Speaker 3: about incorporating the things that he learned in his African

481
00:28:32,956 --> 00:28:37,196
Speaker 3: American Studies class into his music. And you know, this

482
00:28:37,276 --> 00:28:39,676
Speaker 3: is the apartheid era. You know, this is the point

483
00:28:39,676 --> 00:28:43,116
Speaker 3: where people are learning like who Nelson Mandela is. This

484
00:28:43,196 --> 00:28:46,556
Speaker 3: is the also dawning of the HIV AIDS crisis, which

485
00:28:46,596 --> 00:28:51,196
Speaker 3: is also disproportionately affecting black communities. Uh. And the general

486
00:28:51,276 --> 00:28:54,716
Speaker 3: kind of economic stagnation is hitting uh, you know, community

487
00:28:54,716 --> 00:28:56,556
Speaker 3: after community along with violence.

488
00:28:57,156 --> 00:28:57,276
Speaker 4: Uh.

489
00:28:57,556 --> 00:29:01,436
Speaker 3: And Public Enemy comes out with a kind of moral clarity,

490
00:29:01,996 --> 00:29:06,116
Speaker 3: you know, almost like a Jeremiah, you know, a voice.

491
00:29:06,996 --> 00:29:08,836
Speaker 3: And then also I think the other thing about Public

492
00:29:08,916 --> 00:29:12,356
Speaker 3: m me it was not something what Chuck d was saying,

493
00:29:13,556 --> 00:29:16,356
Speaker 3: but literally the voice he was saying it in right, Yeah,

494
00:29:16,436 --> 00:29:20,276
Speaker 3: you know, the huge booming voice that comes out. You know,

495
00:29:20,356 --> 00:29:23,756
Speaker 3: it sounds like a stern parent admonishing you for something

496
00:29:23,836 --> 00:29:25,636
Speaker 3: like you know, the beginning of Night of the Living

497
00:29:25,676 --> 00:29:27,116
Speaker 3: base heads who goes here?

498
00:29:27,156 --> 00:29:30,956
Speaker 1: It is bam, You're like, wait, well, there's a there's

499
00:29:30,996 --> 00:29:33,676
Speaker 1: a total urgency. It's like right, you know, it's a

500
00:29:33,756 --> 00:29:35,676
Speaker 1: you don't even know what it's a call to action.

501
00:29:35,796 --> 00:29:37,396
Speaker 1: You don't know what the call is, but it's a

502
00:29:37,396 --> 00:29:41,036
Speaker 1: fucking call to action. It's like wake up. Yeah right

503
00:29:41,156 --> 00:29:42,236
Speaker 1: yeah yeah.

504
00:29:42,076 --> 00:29:44,716
Speaker 3: And so I mean I think all those things, like

505
00:29:44,756 --> 00:29:48,436
Speaker 3: they just completely changed the whole zeitgeist, you know a

506
00:29:48,516 --> 00:29:49,396
Speaker 3: hip hop at that point.

507
00:29:49,516 --> 00:29:52,196
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, obviously, fight the Power became

508
00:29:52,236 --> 00:29:56,156
Speaker 2: an anthem of an entire moment for youth culture. I

509
00:29:56,156 --> 00:29:59,196
Speaker 2: mean it was also the moment when people rediscovered the

510
00:29:59,276 --> 00:30:01,556
Speaker 2: Nation of Islam. Far Khan was, of course already in

511
00:30:01,676 --> 00:30:03,836
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine, Yes, is nineteen ninety nine. Far Khan

512
00:30:03,916 --> 00:30:07,076
Speaker 2: is already a popular leader. But for young people who

513
00:30:07,116 --> 00:30:10,396
Speaker 2: had not come of aid necessarily with malc them, they

514
00:30:10,476 --> 00:30:15,076
Speaker 2: now rediscover through this Public Enemy, through its evocation of

515
00:30:15,116 --> 00:30:18,036
Speaker 2: the Nation of Islam, takes a nation of millions to

516
00:30:18,076 --> 00:30:21,556
Speaker 2: hold us back. So it's sort of celebration of black nationalism.

517
00:30:21,836 --> 00:30:24,516
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden, Malcolm X gets kind

518
00:30:24,556 --> 00:30:29,196
Speaker 2: of quote unquote rediscovered for our generation and his face

519
00:30:29,276 --> 00:30:33,076
Speaker 2: becomes part of the iconography of the moment the Public

520
00:30:33,156 --> 00:30:35,356
Speaker 2: Enemy borrows it. I mean, it's just just an incredible

521
00:30:35,396 --> 00:30:39,036
Speaker 2: time for how Public Enemy embodied so much for that moment.

522
00:30:40,836 --> 00:30:41,956
Speaker 3: I have to tell you, I don't know if I

523
00:30:41,956 --> 00:30:45,396
Speaker 3: ever told you this, but like that album came out,

524
00:30:45,716 --> 00:30:50,956
Speaker 3: Nation Millions came out right before my sophomore year in college,

525
00:30:51,716 --> 00:30:58,596
Speaker 3: and there were two things that completely set the path

526
00:30:58,836 --> 00:31:02,876
Speaker 3: of the subsequent years of my life that I experienced.

527
00:31:03,396 --> 00:31:07,036
Speaker 3: One was that I took my first African American studies

528
00:31:07,076 --> 00:31:11,916
Speaker 3: course with a professor Adel Patton. The other was that

529
00:31:11,996 --> 00:31:17,956
Speaker 3: I listened to Public Enemies Nation of Millions incessantly, And

530
00:31:18,196 --> 00:31:21,116
Speaker 3: you know, those two things that point kind of lit

531
00:31:21,116 --> 00:31:25,636
Speaker 3: this fire in my imagination, in my sense of like

532
00:31:25,716 --> 00:31:27,236
Speaker 3: who I was going to be and like what I

533
00:31:27,316 --> 00:31:28,396
Speaker 3: was called to do in my life.

534
00:31:28,636 --> 00:31:30,356
Speaker 1: You probably wouldn't be on some of my best friends

535
00:31:30,396 --> 00:31:32,076
Speaker 1: are today if it wasn't for that enough moment.

536
00:31:33,396 --> 00:31:35,996
Speaker 2: I remember a picture of Jilyni from that time period.

537
00:31:36,796 --> 00:31:39,116
Speaker 2: He here in my memory, you wearing a tank top.

538
00:31:39,476 --> 00:31:43,236
Speaker 2: You are super buff, you have like you you are

539
00:31:43,636 --> 00:31:47,316
Speaker 2: clean and mean, and you have a huge flat top

540
00:31:47,396 --> 00:31:50,676
Speaker 2: and I think I'm pretty sure you're wearing an African red,

541
00:31:50,676 --> 00:31:53,956
Speaker 2: black and green medallion chest. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah right.

542
00:31:54,756 --> 00:31:59,116
Speaker 3: That was like vintage Public Enemy era Jelani. Yeah. As

543
00:31:59,156 --> 00:32:00,796
Speaker 3: a matter of fact, that's how it even became Jolynni.

544
00:32:00,876 --> 00:32:02,836
Speaker 3: Up to that point, I was will you know that

545
00:32:02,956 --> 00:32:04,076
Speaker 3: changed my name to Julyanni.

546
00:32:04,156 --> 00:32:05,356
Speaker 2: There it is, there, it is.

547
00:32:05,756 --> 00:32:07,476
Speaker 1: So I want to go to Los Angeles. Yeah, I

548
00:32:07,476 --> 00:32:10,236
Speaker 1: want to go West coast right here real quick. And

549
00:32:10,236 --> 00:32:12,516
Speaker 1: and to think about Los Angeles in the eighties and

550
00:32:12,756 --> 00:32:15,116
Speaker 1: the music that the hip hop that's coming out of there,

551
00:32:15,516 --> 00:32:20,956
Speaker 1: and it is so closely focused on police abuse in

552
00:32:20,996 --> 00:32:23,796
Speaker 1: a different way than East Coast music. And we're talking

553
00:32:23,796 --> 00:32:26,636
Speaker 1: about you know, what became called gangster rap, you know,

554
00:32:26,876 --> 00:32:29,516
Speaker 1: begin maybe by iced tea and then NW a sort

555
00:32:29,556 --> 00:32:32,516
Speaker 1: of bringing it to its you know, kind of like apotheosis.

556
00:32:33,596 --> 00:32:37,236
Speaker 1: It's a it's a different kind of uh of attack.

557
00:32:37,356 --> 00:32:40,956
Speaker 1: It's a different kind of of voice, right.

558
00:32:41,756 --> 00:32:45,316
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is. It is like you know, you have

559
00:32:45,356 --> 00:32:47,396
Speaker 3: at the same time, like everybody, I think hid their

560
00:32:47,396 --> 00:32:50,836
Speaker 3: own kind of iteration of it, you know. But Los

561
00:32:50,876 --> 00:32:55,636
Speaker 3: Angeles had, you know, the huge amounts of carnage that

562
00:32:55,636 --> 00:32:57,956
Speaker 3: were happening as a result of like the gang warfare

563
00:32:57,996 --> 00:33:01,836
Speaker 3: that was happening, you know, among various constituencies, as most

564
00:33:01,876 --> 00:33:05,836
Speaker 3: notably to crypts and bloods, and you know, a kind

565
00:33:05,836 --> 00:33:11,356
Speaker 3: of corresponding draconian level of policing. They would bulldoze the

566
00:33:11,356 --> 00:33:13,916
Speaker 3: whole front of someone's home off, you know, under the

567
00:33:13,996 --> 00:33:16,996
Speaker 3: name of like trying to stop a drug deal or

568
00:33:17,316 --> 00:33:20,476
Speaker 3: or some such and so I think that you know,

569
00:33:20,516 --> 00:33:23,676
Speaker 3: this is experienced even more intensely, like we were seeing

570
00:33:23,716 --> 00:33:27,116
Speaker 3: things happening in New York City that was certainly like

571
00:33:27,396 --> 00:33:30,196
Speaker 3: you know, we think back to it, it's like Michael Griffith,

572
00:33:30,396 --> 00:33:33,916
Speaker 3: you know, who's killed by the police, I don't know, Bumpers,

573
00:33:33,996 --> 00:33:35,716
Speaker 3: you know, a black woman who's killed by the housing

574
00:33:35,756 --> 00:33:37,756
Speaker 3: police and so on. We had those kinds of things.

575
00:33:38,236 --> 00:33:40,036
Speaker 3: I think that the L A. P. D was even

576
00:33:40,076 --> 00:33:43,356
Speaker 3: more egregious, you know, and the behavior that they were committing,

577
00:33:43,516 --> 00:33:46,876
Speaker 3: and you heard that in the music. You know, as

578
00:33:47,156 --> 00:33:50,756
Speaker 3: political as Chuck d was, who was like within a

579
00:33:50,796 --> 00:33:55,876
Speaker 3: certain set of real constraints of propriety, the so called

580
00:33:55,916 --> 00:33:59,476
Speaker 3: gangster rap that came out of La dispensed with all.

581
00:33:59,396 --> 00:34:07,836
Speaker 6: That in the police get metaphor, you know, we're not

582
00:34:07,916 --> 00:34:10,796
Speaker 6: making like it's been kind of cloak this, you know,

583
00:34:10,956 --> 00:34:12,756
Speaker 6: like the poetry is mainly going to be in the

584
00:34:12,836 --> 00:34:16,156
Speaker 6: rhyme just but basically, in case you didn't understand the

585
00:34:16,196 --> 00:34:19,956
Speaker 6: sentiment we were trying to express, it is fuck the police.

586
00:34:20,036 --> 00:34:24,116
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, It's it's such a rich moment for

587
00:34:24,316 --> 00:34:27,476
Speaker 2: what becomes this contrast, and in some ways gangster rap

588
00:34:28,516 --> 00:34:32,476
Speaker 2: takes over the ethos of hip hop in the way

589
00:34:32,556 --> 00:34:36,196
Speaker 2: that both the media understand the evolition of the music,

590
00:34:36,756 --> 00:34:40,076
Speaker 2: the way the criticisms start to emerge about the music itself,

591
00:34:40,076 --> 00:34:46,516
Speaker 2: particularly criticisms about the said hyper celebration of black masculinity

592
00:34:46,716 --> 00:34:48,996
Speaker 2: and violence, the display of guns, and of course all

593
00:34:49,036 --> 00:34:52,796
Speaker 2: of that just furtheres like a vicious cycle, where then

594
00:34:52,956 --> 00:34:56,196
Speaker 2: Chief Darryl Gates, you know, who sort of uses the

595
00:34:56,236 --> 00:34:59,796
Speaker 2: Swat team to militarize policing. You get the ubiquitous presence

596
00:34:59,796 --> 00:35:03,476
Speaker 2: of helicopters, you know, covering every part of black Los

597
00:35:03,516 --> 00:35:08,156
Speaker 2: Angeles and its surrounding suburbs. And it's just a moment

598
00:35:08,316 --> 00:35:12,756
Speaker 2: when you can actually feel the ground of Black America

599
00:35:12,836 --> 00:35:16,476
Speaker 2: began to shift as the nineteen nineties take over from

600
00:35:16,916 --> 00:35:20,156
Speaker 2: the eighties of Reaganism to the nineteen nineties, and we

601
00:35:20,236 --> 00:35:21,716
Speaker 2: also get a change in the music.

602
00:35:22,316 --> 00:35:24,396
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that one of the important things about

603
00:35:24,396 --> 00:35:27,236
Speaker 3: that that I was trying to bring out in the

604
00:35:27,276 --> 00:35:29,796
Speaker 3: piece that I wrote in The New Yorker was that

605
00:35:29,876 --> 00:35:35,396
Speaker 3: people critiqued the kind of hyper masculinity of hip hop

606
00:35:35,436 --> 00:35:37,556
Speaker 3: at that point, which I understand. I think there's a

607
00:35:37,596 --> 00:35:42,356
Speaker 3: fair critique, but I also think that most people missed

608
00:35:42,476 --> 00:35:46,716
Speaker 3: the fact that that hyper masculinity was clearly in response

609
00:35:46,836 --> 00:35:51,516
Speaker 3: to the astounding vulnerability of the people who were creating

610
00:35:51,956 --> 00:35:54,996
Speaker 3: the music. And what I say vulnerability. I mean, they

611
00:35:55,076 --> 00:35:59,276
Speaker 3: belonged to the demographic that was most likely to die

612
00:35:59,356 --> 00:36:04,036
Speaker 3: of homicide in the United States, young black men, and

613
00:36:04,276 --> 00:36:08,716
Speaker 3: they were almost kind of armoring themselves in kind of

614
00:36:08,796 --> 00:36:12,956
Speaker 3: cell breating the masculinity and vulnerability because the reality was

615
00:36:12,996 --> 00:36:15,076
Speaker 3: so much to the contrary.

616
00:36:16,436 --> 00:36:18,356
Speaker 2: So we're gonna take a break. We're gonna come back

617
00:36:18,556 --> 00:36:21,996
Speaker 2: and talk about how the music changed and the choices

618
00:36:22,076 --> 00:36:25,476
Speaker 2: it makes going forward. At least it's artists. We'll be

619
00:36:25,556 --> 00:36:48,956
Speaker 2: right back after the break. So Jilani, I mean, listen,

620
00:36:49,036 --> 00:36:51,956
Speaker 2: hip hop is a global phenomenon. I mean, you can't

621
00:36:51,956 --> 00:36:54,036
Speaker 2: go anywhere in the world and not either hear the

622
00:36:54,116 --> 00:36:57,116
Speaker 2: music or see the influence of the music. But one

623
00:36:57,156 --> 00:37:00,636
Speaker 2: thing that I know a lot of people are talking

624
00:37:00,676 --> 00:37:03,316
Speaker 2: about I've certainly considered it over the years, is like,

625
00:37:03,516 --> 00:37:07,116
Speaker 2: how does the music go from agitation where there's this

626
00:37:07,196 --> 00:37:10,116
Speaker 2: social commentary and even though thanks to rap, has all

627
00:37:10,116 --> 00:37:14,356
Speaker 2: of these problems, you know, hyper masculinity, misogyny, I mean it,

628
00:37:14,596 --> 00:37:17,196
Speaker 2: you know, all of this, but it goes to this

629
00:37:17,276 --> 00:37:22,316
Speaker 2: period where it's really glorifying money making and materialism and

630
00:37:22,396 --> 00:37:25,676
Speaker 2: getting paid and it's like I got mine, you get yours.

631
00:37:26,396 --> 00:37:28,956
Speaker 2: I mean, the music really does change to some degree

632
00:37:28,996 --> 00:37:30,636
Speaker 2: at least I would say, do you think that's true?

633
00:37:30,636 --> 00:37:32,116
Speaker 2: I mean, do you think the music change or those

634
00:37:32,116 --> 00:37:34,116
Speaker 2: elements were sort of always intention.

635
00:37:35,476 --> 00:37:40,956
Speaker 3: You know, it's like genealogy, you know, like you have

636
00:37:41,436 --> 00:37:43,836
Speaker 3: kids that like don't look like the mother or father,

637
00:37:43,956 --> 00:37:47,036
Speaker 3: but it looked like the great uncle. Like those things

638
00:37:47,036 --> 00:37:50,236
Speaker 3: had always been present. They had always been part, you know,

639
00:37:50,556 --> 00:37:55,636
Speaker 3: of the music, you know, and so when you listen

640
00:37:55,676 --> 00:37:58,116
Speaker 3: to like early hip hop, there was like, you know,

641
00:37:58,156 --> 00:38:00,076
Speaker 3: I got a fly oj which is like you know,

642
00:38:00,116 --> 00:38:02,276
Speaker 3: a car back then, or like I got this many

643
00:38:02,316 --> 00:38:02,956
Speaker 3: girls of this.

644
00:38:04,436 --> 00:38:08,756
Speaker 1: It just became the subject of the music. The subject

645
00:38:08,796 --> 00:38:10,916
Speaker 1: of the muse has always been the music too, Like

646
00:38:11,116 --> 00:38:13,116
Speaker 1: I'm great, I'm great at what I do. I mean

647
00:38:13,156 --> 00:38:16,076
Speaker 1: clearly telling my rappers delight and so. But but but

648
00:38:16,196 --> 00:38:19,676
Speaker 1: we're talking about something shifting, right, Let's.

649
00:38:19,476 --> 00:38:22,556
Speaker 2: Just s be clear. Like I'm thinking about Tupac and Biggie,

650
00:38:22,596 --> 00:38:25,796
Speaker 2: like their rise in the nineteen nineties, and and although

651
00:38:25,796 --> 00:38:28,876
Speaker 2: Tupac has a lot of music that is you know,

652
00:38:29,236 --> 00:38:32,996
Speaker 2: social commentary, he is also part of this broader shift

653
00:38:32,996 --> 00:38:37,156
Speaker 2: where you start to get this celebration of like your

654
00:38:37,276 --> 00:38:43,796
Speaker 2: own personal agency to be successful and Biggie Smalls. You know,

655
00:38:43,996 --> 00:38:47,076
Speaker 2: it leans into this I'm thinking about Get Money by

656
00:38:47,116 --> 00:38:50,236
Speaker 2: Junior Mafia featuring Little Kim and Biggie.

657
00:38:49,956 --> 00:38:55,276
Speaker 3: And my My Howard classmate, you know, Sean Combs. So

658
00:38:55,436 --> 00:38:58,196
Speaker 3: Diddy was as responsible for that as anybody. You know,

659
00:38:59,236 --> 00:39:00,356
Speaker 3: money making.

660
00:39:00,116 --> 00:39:02,676
Speaker 2: Problems, right, more money, more problems, nineteen ninety seven.

661
00:39:02,996 --> 00:39:06,116
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's let's be real though, like this is still

662
00:39:06,196 --> 00:39:09,716
Speaker 3: music that was made in America. You know, the ethic

663
00:39:09,876 --> 00:39:12,836
Speaker 3: of acquisition had always been there, Like, I don't think

664
00:39:12,836 --> 00:39:16,756
Speaker 3: it's conspiratorial to say that very much. The capitalist acquisition

665
00:39:16,876 --> 00:39:20,916
Speaker 3: ethos replaced like the militant ethos that you saw on

666
00:39:20,956 --> 00:39:23,476
Speaker 3: the East or the West coast. You know, they just

667
00:39:23,516 --> 00:39:27,716
Speaker 3: became about luxury, you know, and brands and designer goods

668
00:39:27,796 --> 00:39:28,436
Speaker 3: like jay Z.

669
00:39:28,596 --> 00:39:35,636
Speaker 2: Jay Z that's first billionaire, right, right, I'm a business man, right.

670
00:39:36,156 --> 00:39:39,796
Speaker 3: And so when you said when when you know jay

671
00:39:39,836 --> 00:39:43,916
Speaker 3: Z hit the line he said, you know, put me

672
00:39:44,076 --> 00:39:47,396
Speaker 3: anywhere on God's green Earth, I'll triple my worth. And

673
00:39:47,436 --> 00:39:51,716
Speaker 3: I was like, that's the ethos of venture capital. Put

674
00:39:51,756 --> 00:39:53,996
Speaker 3: me anywhere I can make money. Yeah, you know that

675
00:39:54,556 --> 00:39:58,436
Speaker 3: is there's no more clear distillation of the creed of

676
00:39:58,476 --> 00:39:59,476
Speaker 3: capitalism than that.

677
00:39:59,956 --> 00:40:02,156
Speaker 1: Well then then, I mean this raises the question we're

678
00:40:02,196 --> 00:40:06,116
Speaker 1: talking about how music reflects a moment. I mean, in Khalil,

679
00:40:06,316 --> 00:40:08,156
Speaker 1: I know that you do all this work about the

680
00:40:08,236 --> 00:40:12,196
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties and sort of this kind of individualist ethos

681
00:40:12,236 --> 00:40:16,676
Speaker 1: taking over, and to imagine that that hip hop is

682
00:40:16,676 --> 00:40:22,436
Speaker 1: is accurately depicting how much this has become mainstream, how

683
00:40:22,556 --> 00:40:24,916
Speaker 1: much of this has sort of imbued in all of

684
00:40:24,956 --> 00:40:27,876
Speaker 1: our cultures, that this being sort of this sense of

685
00:40:27,916 --> 00:40:30,916
Speaker 1: acquisition of sort of get mine.

686
00:40:31,116 --> 00:40:33,996
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the best selling album of two thousand

687
00:40:33,996 --> 00:40:38,476
Speaker 2: and three is fifty cents Get paid, And you have

688
00:40:38,556 --> 00:40:41,116
Speaker 2: to like, I know, I'll put this back to you, like,

689
00:40:41,796 --> 00:40:44,196
Speaker 2: I know, we can never really suss out the chicken

690
00:40:44,236 --> 00:40:46,196
Speaker 2: and egg part of this, but I mean, what are

691
00:40:46,236 --> 00:40:48,036
Speaker 2: your what is your take on the role of the

692
00:40:48,116 --> 00:40:54,316
Speaker 2: music industry itself in glorifying a certain narrative of black hypercapitalism,

693
00:40:54,676 --> 00:40:57,396
Speaker 2: along with all the misogyny and madness that goes along

694
00:40:57,436 --> 00:41:00,676
Speaker 2: with it, to cater to white listeners sensibilities about like

695
00:41:00,716 --> 00:41:03,116
Speaker 2: some kind of authentically black culture.

696
00:41:04,716 --> 00:41:06,996
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think that you know, the industry

697
00:41:07,036 --> 00:41:09,596
Speaker 3: was predominantly driven by what would sell like they had

698
00:41:09,636 --> 00:41:12,636
Speaker 3: the same ethos that the musicians had, but it also

699
00:41:13,116 --> 00:41:17,156
Speaker 3: sold with fewer headaches. You know, like the more militant

700
00:41:17,236 --> 00:41:21,756
Speaker 3: edge of things could be difficult, could be dangerous, could

701
00:41:21,756 --> 00:41:26,276
Speaker 3: create you know, turbulence for your for you as a company,

702
00:41:26,316 --> 00:41:28,196
Speaker 3: people talking about how much money they had and all

703
00:41:28,236 --> 00:41:30,396
Speaker 3: those other things. That wasn't going to be the same

704
00:41:30,436 --> 00:41:35,916
Speaker 3: sort of problem. But you know, also I think fundamentally, uh,

705
00:41:36,756 --> 00:41:41,636
Speaker 3: you know, what that reflected was the fact that so

706
00:41:41,676 --> 00:41:46,596
Speaker 3: many people in black life recognized, you know, we live

707
00:41:46,836 --> 00:41:52,396
Speaker 3: in proximity as a comparatively poor or a poorer class

708
00:41:52,436 --> 00:41:56,676
Speaker 3: of Americans in proximity to the wealthiest nation in the world.

709
00:41:57,796 --> 00:42:00,236
Speaker 3: Is it really that complicated for people to like make

710
00:42:00,316 --> 00:42:03,196
Speaker 3: songs about like I want, I want that, I want

711
00:42:03,196 --> 00:42:07,476
Speaker 3: to cut I want part of that. You know, it's

712
00:42:07,516 --> 00:42:08,276
Speaker 3: not that shocking.

713
00:42:08,356 --> 00:42:10,476
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not that yeahhleil.

714
00:42:10,516 --> 00:42:12,756
Speaker 1: I actually have a question for you sort of similarly,

715
00:42:13,076 --> 00:42:16,036
Speaker 1: you know, sort of going from the seventies to the eighties,

716
00:42:16,116 --> 00:42:18,556
Speaker 1: the nineties to the two thousand, sort of the changing

717
00:42:18,596 --> 00:42:21,556
Speaker 1: sort of hyper capitalism. How do you think Phil collins

718
00:42:21,676 --> 00:42:22,876
Speaker 1: music changed over that time?

719
00:42:26,596 --> 00:42:31,956
Speaker 2: Well, probably the sample of in there Tonight has has

720
00:42:32,036 --> 00:42:36,676
Speaker 2: kept his bills paid for for probably more than anything

721
00:42:37,396 --> 00:42:40,156
Speaker 2: else that he made. So that's that's how his life changed.

722
00:42:41,276 --> 00:42:43,276
Speaker 2: So Jelani, we we want to know.

723
00:42:44,476 --> 00:42:45,716
Speaker 1: We got one last question.

724
00:42:45,556 --> 00:42:48,956
Speaker 2: Got one last question, right, So where is the music

725
00:42:49,036 --> 00:42:51,556
Speaker 2: now and where is it headed? That's a two parter.

726
00:42:53,516 --> 00:42:55,196
Speaker 3: You know, it's really hard for me to say. Like

727
00:42:55,276 --> 00:42:57,396
Speaker 3: one is that I'm like not as closely connected to

728
00:42:57,396 --> 00:43:00,516
Speaker 3: it as I was. My kind of recreational time that

729
00:43:00,556 --> 00:43:03,636
Speaker 3: have been engaged and listening to music is now, uh,

730
00:43:04,156 --> 00:43:06,676
Speaker 3: watching Paw Patrol with my children.

731
00:43:08,276 --> 00:43:12,836
Speaker 2: So yes has the three year old, twin boys and

732
00:43:12,876 --> 00:43:14,236
Speaker 2: a five year old daughter, right.

733
00:43:15,036 --> 00:43:20,196
Speaker 3: Six year olds? Six? Yeah, yeah, yeah, big girl. And

734
00:43:20,236 --> 00:43:22,796
Speaker 3: so there's there's that part of it. The other part

735
00:43:23,716 --> 00:43:27,076
Speaker 3: is that I think that hip hop was smaller than

736
00:43:27,876 --> 00:43:32,516
Speaker 3: like now. It's such a huge, sprawling thing that it's

737
00:43:32,556 --> 00:43:35,276
Speaker 3: hard to even categorize what it is or where it's going,

738
00:43:36,276 --> 00:43:40,836
Speaker 3: and so it's going in five different directions simultaneously. But

739
00:43:40,876 --> 00:43:42,716
Speaker 3: I think that, you know, the one thing that we

740
00:43:42,756 --> 00:43:47,156
Speaker 3: can say definitively that we couldn't say the early parts

741
00:43:47,156 --> 00:43:50,516
Speaker 3: of its history is that it's permanent. You know, people

742
00:43:50,516 --> 00:43:52,516
Speaker 3: were always waiting for the moment when hip hop would

743
00:43:52,556 --> 00:43:55,036
Speaker 3: die or you know what it would go away. I

744
00:43:55,036 --> 00:43:57,236
Speaker 3: think at the half century mark we can say that

745
00:43:57,356 --> 00:44:00,436
Speaker 3: this is a genre that has, you know, fought for

746
00:44:00,516 --> 00:44:03,436
Speaker 3: its place in the cultural landscape, and that it's not

747
00:44:03,476 --> 00:44:04,156
Speaker 3: going anywhere.

748
00:44:04,396 --> 00:44:08,876
Speaker 2: Yeah so so, Delattie. This has been fabulous. Thanks so

749
00:44:08,956 --> 00:44:11,876
Speaker 2: much for joining us on Some of My Best Friends Are.

750
00:44:11,916 --> 00:44:15,956
Speaker 2: And as you know, on every episode we express our

751
00:44:16,036 --> 00:44:17,676
Speaker 2: love for each other and I love you, brother.

752
00:44:17,836 --> 00:44:19,836
Speaker 1: Oh, I love you too, Love you brother. Thank you

753
00:44:19,876 --> 00:44:20,716
Speaker 1: for being on the show.

754
00:44:20,956 --> 00:44:27,036
Speaker 3: If you look you too.

755
00:44:28,116 --> 00:44:30,476
Speaker 2: Some of My Best Friends Are is a production of

756
00:44:30,556 --> 00:44:33,916
Speaker 2: Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted by me

757
00:44:34,116 --> 00:44:37,156
Speaker 2: Khalil Dbron Mohammad and my best friend Ben Austin.

758
00:44:37,316 --> 00:44:41,196
Speaker 1: It's produced by Lucy Sullivan. Our associate producer is Rachel Yang.

759
00:44:41,756 --> 00:44:45,036
Speaker 1: It's edited by Sarah Nix with help from Keishel Williams.

760
00:44:45,396 --> 00:44:49,196
Speaker 1: Our engineer is Amanda ka Wang, and our managing producer

761
00:44:49,356 --> 00:44:51,236
Speaker 1: is Constanza Guyardo.

762
00:44:51,636 --> 00:44:55,996
Speaker 2: At Pushkin thanks to Letal Molad, Julia Martin, Heather Fain,

763
00:44:56,436 --> 00:45:01,476
Speaker 2: Carly Migliori, John Schnarz, Retta Cone, and Jacob Weisberg.

764
00:45:01,716 --> 00:45:05,436
Speaker 1: Our theme song, Little Lily, is by fellow chicagoan the

765
00:45:05,556 --> 00:45:09,676
Speaker 1: Brilliant Avery R. Young from his album Tubman definitely want

766
00:45:09,676 --> 00:45:13,236
Speaker 1: to check out his music at his website, Averyaryong dot com.

767
00:45:13,316 --> 00:45:16,916
Speaker 2: You can find Pushkin on all social platforms at pushkin pods,

768
00:45:17,316 --> 00:45:19,836
Speaker 2: and you can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin

769
00:45:19,916 --> 00:45:23,796
Speaker 2: dott them To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the

770
00:45:23,836 --> 00:45:27,796
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen.

771
00:45:27,996 --> 00:45:30,356
Speaker 1: And if you like our show, please give us a

772
00:45:30,396 --> 00:45:32,996
Speaker 1: five star rating and a review and listen. Even if

773
00:45:33,036 --> 00:45:34,636
Speaker 1: you don't like it, give it a five star rating

774
00:45:34,676 --> 00:45:37,556
Speaker 1: and a review, and please tell all of your best

775
00:45:37,596 --> 00:45:38,476
Speaker 1: friends about it.

776
00:45:38,716 --> 00:45:52,676
Speaker 4: Thank you, all right?

777
00:45:53,316 --> 00:45:56,796
Speaker 2: And how do you think about the history of hip hop?

778
00:45:56,956 --> 00:45:59,316
Speaker 2: Like when you think about music back.

779
00:45:59,156 --> 00:46:00,796
Speaker 3: In the day, what comes to mind?

780
00:46:01,356 --> 00:46:05,636
Speaker 5: I feel like hip hop is as important to black

781
00:46:05,676 --> 00:46:12,116
Speaker 5: people as jazz is. It's sets the tone for a

782
00:46:12,156 --> 00:46:18,556
Speaker 5: lot of the youth black culture. And every generation has

783
00:46:18,756 --> 00:46:23,196
Speaker 5: their hip hop gods who set the tone for them.

784
00:46:23,316 --> 00:46:26,836
Speaker 2: All right, all right, all right, all right, son, thank

785
00:46:26,876 --> 00:46:29,356
Speaker 2: you man. I appreciate that some of my best friends

786
00:46:29,356 --> 00:46:33,556
Speaker 2: are my son.

787
00:46:32,396 --> 00:46:39,116
Speaker 5: I'm sorry these shows