Speaker 1: You are listening to Winning on Reparations production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio My Check. Oh sometimes life can just go
Speaker 1: and throw you a cork screop. So you've got to
Speaker 1: go and just look for someone to talk to places
Speaker 1: you don't get to go. But you better make sure
Speaker 1: it's professional. But that should be always cost an extra dough.
Speaker 1: So you've gotta go to work and try to make
Speaker 1: some extra dope telling people about your feelings. They're saying
Speaker 1: it's just the show, but I guess it's just life.
Speaker 1: Don't accept it though. I'm so damn mad. It's making
Speaker 1: my head explode. Rat Race, cat Chase where my credit go,
Speaker 1: trying to stay out the state pen and the Federal
Speaker 1: ro Dope Knife Lingua franca. We're the best show. Buckle up,
Speaker 1: We're about to begin the show. Oh oh yo, what
Speaker 1: is going on? Party people? You are listening to Dope Knife.
Speaker 1: We are the duo known as Waiting on Reparation. You
Speaker 1: know this is the show where we talk ki pop
Speaker 1: and politics, all that jazz. You know how it is
Speaker 1: follow us like subscribe to all this? We don't. We
Speaker 1: don't give these plugs enough. I think I think we
Speaker 1: need to. We're too humble. Are we even wrappers? Like?
Speaker 1: What is this? Just? Like? Well, well, if you'll if
Speaker 1: you would like to give five stars on the Apple Podcast,
Speaker 1: it would really help. I would make me feel better.
Speaker 1: Oh how you doing. I'm good, I'm good. Yeah, things
Speaker 1: are going well over here. How you've been, I've been good, yo,
Speaker 1: hanging in and maintaining you know, it's it's the episode
Speaker 1: that we got today kind of. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: good thing because it's like, you know, the weight of
Speaker 1: everything just kind of getting to you, to get in
Speaker 1: the heads a little bit, and you know, I had
Speaker 1: to take a little break in a breather and kind
Speaker 1: of shut myself down for about a day too, just
Speaker 1: to have some alone time. I know you're probably you're
Speaker 1: probably going through the rigors of it. Oh man. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I went to my my my grandmother's house in North
Speaker 1: Carolina over the weekend too, so that she can meet
Speaker 1: her great grandson. But then I just I just slept
Speaker 1: for like twelve hours a day. I didn't I didn't
Speaker 1: realize that was that tired until I got out into
Speaker 1: like the middle of nowhere, this farm in like very
Speaker 1: rural like country Bumpkin, North Carolina. Uh, you know, other
Speaker 1: people on tees and whatnot watching the baby, and I
Speaker 1: just like let my guard down and just allowed myself
Speaker 1: to sleep. It's crazy. Oh yeah, well I mean I
Speaker 1: probably still even need more. It's still probably need even
Speaker 1: more sleep. Yeah, but um yeah I apparently really needed it.
Speaker 1: But this is crazy, like how you can be running
Speaker 1: and running around and not realize how depleted you are
Speaker 1: until you actually let yourself like rest. You're like, oh, ship,
Speaker 1: I was actually racked right now. So like, do you
Speaker 1: think that like your rest did more for you physically
Speaker 1: or you're just your mental both. I think it's all.
Speaker 1: You know, we are, our bodies and minds are you know,
Speaker 1: one big pool of goo um, And so I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: the physical rest also helping my mental a little bit.
Speaker 1: Um for sure. Definitely, definitely that's good. We all everybody
Speaker 1: needs to take some times to rest the mental. I
Speaker 1: like how we're like straight up using like nineties jargon,
Speaker 1: you got you gotta you gotta rest those mentals, you
Speaker 1: gotta relax your mentals. So what do we got for
Speaker 1: the people today? But yeah, today we are gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about mental health and hip hop um, both the
Speaker 1: sources of mental english within hip hop communities and how
Speaker 1: those have been Um expressed through the music of folks
Speaker 1: like Ghetto Boys, UM and then barriers as well to
Speaker 1: access to mental health care, Um expressed in music from
Speaker 1: a sub rock to UM Day from his album Psychodrama. UM.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we're gonna go through we might we might
Speaker 1: even talk a little bit about our own personal healing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: through the through the music. It's like if you if
Speaker 1: you really, I mean, you know, we're gonna I guess
Speaker 1: we're gonna specific We'll be talking about, you know, like
Speaker 1: overt examinations of like how you know mental health is
Speaker 1: dealt with in hip hop. But really, if you just
Speaker 1: listen to all of this stuff, it's like one big
Speaker 1: therapy session at the end of the day. Whether somebody's
Speaker 1: like flexing about like you know, diamonds on their wrists
Speaker 1: or being very real about like struggles, all of it
Speaker 1: is a cope. All of it. Yeah healthy and I
Speaker 1: think largely a healthy one in that as as compared
Speaker 1: to other ways that people may seek to remedy their
Speaker 1: internal strife. So yeah, well, I mean, you know we've
Speaker 1: covered it before that hip hop was kind of started
Speaker 1: as a big copings. You know what I'm saying, it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't want to fight. I'm angry enough
Speaker 1: to fight this dude, but ship, let's just work it
Speaker 1: out on the mic, or let's let's break dance in
Speaker 1: the streets. You know, it's exactly exactly. Yeah, get into
Speaker 1: all that. Wait or did you want to talk about
Speaker 1: you want to do? You have something you want to
Speaker 1: talk about? You have someone? Well, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: when when when you approached me about you know, I'm
Speaker 1: I am a fan of the sports balls, you know,
Speaker 1: several of the sports ball sports I'm a fan of.
Speaker 1: So when you were mentioning that we should do this episode,
Speaker 1: it had me thinking about a story that's going on
Speaker 1: in the sports world right now with Philadelphia seventy sixers
Speaker 1: player Ben Simmons. And he's been having you know, for
Speaker 1: those of you who don't know, he's been having disputes
Speaker 1: with his team. He's there's two sides to every story,
Speaker 1: so I'm not even getting into that. But he's trying
Speaker 1: to sit out but still get paid, and he can't
Speaker 1: sit out and get paid for not playing, so you know,
Speaker 1: he's he's come after several attempts of going back and
Speaker 1: forth with the team. He's now come out and said
Speaker 1: that he has met he's going through a you know,
Speaker 1: a mental crisis of sorts or he's having you know,
Speaker 1: he's not mentally prepared to join the team, and you know,
Speaker 1: the team has been supportive. It seems like the fan
Speaker 1: base is supportive. The media is kind of being agnostic
Speaker 1: about it, but it's kind of started up a discussion
Speaker 1: about when is it fair to question the motives of
Speaker 1: someone's claims of you know, mental anguish and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and everyone's being very sense I mean, you know what,
Speaker 1: I guess the cool thing about it for me seeing
Speaker 1: it play out is I feel like five years ago,
Speaker 1: this wouldn't even have been a debate whether he's right
Speaker 1: or wrong in a matter. I think like five years ago,
Speaker 1: if he had come out and been like, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: now I'm having some mental issues. I think that just
Speaker 1: off the bat, everybody would be like, oh, that's bullshit,
Speaker 1: you lie in you lie, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: At least reached a place where people to take people's
Speaker 1: mental health claims seriously exactly exactly because it has been
Speaker 1: distigmatized two a degree, thanks in part to things like hip.
Speaker 1: I would say exactly and just you know, empathy to
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, like, yeah, it could be us,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And we can't read anybody's
Speaker 1: mind to tell what they're thinking. But I mean that
Speaker 1: was just like a just one of those pop cultural
Speaker 1: things that I was following that made the episode seem like,
Speaker 1: oh man, this is really relates to stuff that I'm
Speaker 1: into right now. Yeah, And I mean, with that following
Speaker 1: the situation closely, I would say that, like in gen role,
Speaker 1: my approach to things like this would regards to the
Speaker 1: credibility of claims of mental health crisis. Um, I think
Speaker 1: there's a far wider array of thanks that could be
Speaker 1: construed as mental health crisis than we normally accept as
Speaker 1: a society failure to cope with all kinds of situations
Speaker 1: and and orienting ourselves to to those failures with with
Speaker 1: a with an eye towards how like what's resources someone
Speaker 1: needs in order to perform effectively is the kind of
Speaker 1: shift we probably need in our society in order just
Speaker 1: to be healthier. Healthier society. You look at things like
Speaker 1: you know, gun violence and interpersonal you know, domestic partner,
Speaker 1: intimate partner violence. UM, even just like work, stress and
Speaker 1: things like that. UM. I mean, yeah, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of it require subsystems change for coping with really
Speaker 1: toxic systems, but also UM showing work and passion for
Speaker 1: and with that, UM providing more resource is for folks
Speaker 1: that are going through it in a variety of ways.
Speaker 1: I mean, this person is, you know, they're fucking negotiating
Speaker 1: basketball contracts or whatever. Um, these are probably a better
Speaker 1: situation than most, and so I don't have the most
Speaker 1: empathy for that. He's in a very very good situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I don't doubt at all that he's going through
Speaker 1: something mentally that sounds like it would be really fucking
Speaker 1: aggravating too. Yeah, I go through doubt. I don't doubt that.
Speaker 1: I just think it's I guess it's the optics are
Speaker 1: kind of hard to escape, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: That's just what it comes down to, that it's like
Speaker 1: there's no way of getting in anyone's head. But it's
Speaker 1: just it's unavoidable to you know, Oh, you're having this
Speaker 1: problem with wanting to be on the team for the
Speaker 1: last five months, and then yesterday you're you mentally can't
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, I mean, I think that creating a
Speaker 1: culture of compassion and um well and resourcing our communities
Speaker 1: effectively to a like, resourcing our community is effectively to
Speaker 1: help folks cope with mental stress and emotional stress. Let's
Speaker 1: talk more about the Yeah, we don't, we don't need to.
Speaker 1: We're talking about it, dude, trying to hang on to
Speaker 1: a I was gonna say, oh yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: think that creating a more passionate culture and better resource
Speaker 1: communities for coping with UM mental stress also enables people
Speaker 1: to be more honest about it, Like I would say
Speaker 1: that like, oh, perhaps like the stand alone like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm having some mental health you know, problems, Like I
Speaker 1: don't know to what do you believe that? Um? But
Speaker 1: but if you were to be honest about hey, the
Speaker 1: situation has been very stressful for me and it's negatively
Speaker 1: impacting my health. UM. I think if we had a
Speaker 1: culture that validated folks when they came forward to speak
Speaker 1: about the true nature of what they're going through internally, UM,
Speaker 1: we'd have fewer disputes over like is this real or
Speaker 1: is that real? Because people can be honest about you, Look,
Speaker 1: I know this is kind of some function. However, I
Speaker 1: am going to for these two. I totally agree. And
Speaker 1: and you know it's like what is worse the opposite
Speaker 1: or you know what what what what seems to be
Speaker 1: because if if the situation is people are more empathetic
Speaker 1: and compassionate you know I'm saying, and open to understanding
Speaker 1: what other people are going through and ship like that.
Speaker 1: And there are people who want to take advantage of that,
Speaker 1: who slipped through the cracks of that. It's still a
Speaker 1: better situation than a society where nobody wants to hear
Speaker 1: hear it, no one cares about your feelings and fuck
Speaker 1: you, you you know what I'm saying, do it with it.
Speaker 1: There'll be a big baby. Yeah, we're gonna get into
Speaker 1: UM all things mental health on this episode. I would
Speaker 1: like to add a content warning. We do have some
Speaker 1: discussion of UM suicidal idegation, things like that. But I
Speaker 1: hope that we have a lot of resources here as
Speaker 1: well for folks that resonate with someone what we talked about.
Speaker 1: So say soon, we'll be right back, and we're back,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna start off by talking about UM ghetto
Speaker 1: boys mine playing tricks on me, which I imagine UM
Speaker 1: many of our listeners are familiar with released still my first. Um.
Speaker 1: They talk a lot about paranoia, like staying up at night,
Speaker 1: seeing people in your room, being constantly on edge, And
Speaker 1: according to the Mayo Clinic, it sounds as if the
Speaker 1: mcs are describing symptoms of post traumatic post traumatic stress disorder,
Speaker 1: you know, from recurrent I wanted distressing memories of a
Speaker 1: traumatic event, upsetting dream good nightmares about the traumatic event,
Speaker 1: troubled sleeping, overwhelming, guilt of shame, always being on guard
Speaker 1: for danger, and thoughts of suicide. Um. All sounds like
Speaker 1: you know, textbooks on terms of PTSD, and they're not
Speaker 1: the only rappers to talk about suicidal thoughts. In addition
Speaker 1: to the Biggest song by the very name, will Wayne
Speaker 1: opened up into that Stephanie and about his teenage suicide
Speaker 1: at him but she had previously branded an accidental shooting.
Speaker 1: So apparently when he was twelve years old he shot
Speaker 1: himself in the chest. Um and said, oh, it was
Speaker 1: like you know, he mishandled the gun or something like that.
Speaker 1: But you know, in an interview, uh King Clean that
Speaker 1: his I think his mother at threatened to take his
Speaker 1: music career away or take away streams of rapping, and
Speaker 1: he thought that without that, you know, he couldn't. He
Speaker 1: he didn't want to live anymore. And he actually rapped
Speaker 1: about the incident on his two thousand fifteen track London
Speaker 1: Roads from the album Free Wheezy Messita Remember going in
Speaker 1: your gun drawer, putting it to my chest, missing my
Speaker 1: heart by sentimnoz oh Lord like talked about it openly
Speaker 1: and didn't even I didn't even know that i'd heard
Speaker 1: that story before, but I heard the accidental discharge stories,
Speaker 1: so I didn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He later came out
Speaker 1: and was like, actually, you know, this was a real
Speaker 1: attempt um taking my life sadly twelve years old. So,
Speaker 1: according to the CDC, rates of depression anxiety leapt upwards
Speaker 1: for young folks between the ages twelve and seventeen, increasingly
Speaker 1: so in the last two decades, and stories like this
Speaker 1: or why. The Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act was signed
Speaker 1: into law October two thousand four. It was the first
Speaker 1: legislation to provide fundings specifically for youth suicide prevention programs.
Speaker 1: Under this legislation, funding was set aside for campuses, states, tribes,
Speaker 1: and US territories to develop, the valuate and improve early
Speaker 1: intervention in suicide prevention programs. But where do these symptoms
Speaker 1: come from? Like why twelve years old whyl Wayne going
Speaker 1: for the gun drawer? Why? Like what sorts of influences
Speaker 1: in the lives of folks I got'll boids leave them
Speaker 1: to create a song like my plane tarts on me. Definitely,
Speaker 1: it's like nurture and environment, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's like, like we were just saying, it's like there
Speaker 1: is a natural stress that comes to living in a
Speaker 1: capitalistic society. It's just built in. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's it's built in. It's a dog eat dog. Everybody's
Speaker 1: in constant competition with one another. So you've got that
Speaker 1: base level of stress. But then you add on conditions
Speaker 1: that make it even the compound on ship. But when
Speaker 1: you have a lot of caps that are coming from
Speaker 1: difficult circumstances, whether it be economic or maybe it's high
Speaker 1: crime areas, they don't have the influences and mentors and
Speaker 1: adults that are around them that they need and ship
Speaker 1: and then they think that they're just going through life
Speaker 1: regular because this is how it is. But in actuality,
Speaker 1: people aren't supposed to be living through that right and
Speaker 1: I think that I think that comes that We're gonna
Speaker 1: circle back to talk more about stigma as a barrier
Speaker 1: to access in mental healthcare in a bit. But I
Speaker 1: think that's really more the case than anything, is that
Speaker 1: it's the normalization of trauma of just like, oh, everyone's
Speaker 1: like this, everybody you know feels this way, and then
Speaker 1: you actually find out, Wait, y'all don't think about this stuff.
Speaker 1: Y'all don't lay awake at night, you know, with your
Speaker 1: finger on the trigger, like y'all out here living happy lives.
Speaker 1: I thought everybody funk this way because we don't talk
Speaker 1: enough about mental health. Um, you know, people afraid to
Speaker 1: come forward to when they're struggling or you know, they
Speaker 1: don't even know that they should talk about it because
Speaker 1: they think that they're experiencing is perfectly common and fine.
Speaker 1: So I have a question, and I I'm sorry if
Speaker 1: this comes off insensitive or not, because like I've definitely
Speaker 1: dealt with my issues before, and I've had thoughts and
Speaker 1: all that sort of thing. But I just wonder, is
Speaker 1: it like determined that all, like all attempts or thoughts
Speaker 1: of suicide are related to mental illness? Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't. I can't speak from like a
Speaker 1: clinicians like perspective, like how they formally categorize things like that.
Speaker 1: But this, I definitely think that's not normal. I don'initely
Speaker 1: think that's like a sign of um even not a
Speaker 1: mental illness in terms of like something um even determined
Speaker 1: like somebody with like chronic illness or something like that
Speaker 1: who doesn't want to feel the pain anymore. But that's
Speaker 1: still be like you know what I mean, like if
Speaker 1: you if you you with with guidance and clarity, you
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't be thinking of Still that's a good question.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I mean, if it's a reasonable
Speaker 1: at times as a couple of response to adversity with
Speaker 1: you know, thinking about like terminal illness or something like that.
Speaker 1: Perhaps we're diving into in a future episode because I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's some research out there on that topic that
Speaker 1: might be really eliminating. Um. Coming back to the conditions
Speaker 1: we living through men, I mean, like in addition to
Speaker 1: folks like you know, the Getta Boys, billow Wayne at
Speaker 1: a young age seeing seeing like physical aviolence in the community,
Speaker 1: seeing people get shot or losing a parent, either do
Speaker 1: incarceration or community violence. I think that there's a lot
Speaker 1: more trauma in the community. Then we realize that it's
Speaker 1: grown from systemic forms of violence. So the trauma of hunger,
Speaker 1: of being hungry every day, and the procarity of not
Speaker 1: knowing what your next meal is coming from housing procarity
Speaker 1: like not knowing where you're going to sleep at night
Speaker 1: if you're family is like moving from the house to house,
Speaker 1: shelter to shelter, hotel room, staying with auntie's and uncle,
Speaker 1: things like that. UM, like, yeah, I've got a family
Speaker 1: and you've got like four hundred, only four hundred dollars
Speaker 1: in your bank account. That's fucking stress. It's stress. It's stress,
Speaker 1: and it you know, it lends itself to It lends
Speaker 1: itself substance abuse, it lends itself to UM just suppoor
Speaker 1: coping mechanisms of many kinds. It lends itself to UM
Speaker 1: behavioral disorders. I would say, Um, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: saying hurt people, hurt people, and this is after something
Speaker 1: I've been studying as I've been thinking about public safety
Speaker 1: interventions in the community. UM. One sort of model that
Speaker 1: I've been really interested in recently is the cure violence
Speaker 1: approach to disrupting violence in the community, which takes an
Speaker 1: epidemiological approach to UM understanding violence in the community. So
Speaker 1: it's it's they sort of think that, like UM, violence
Speaker 1: is like a virus that when you're exposed to it,
Speaker 1: you convince you then are more likely to transmit it
Speaker 1: to other people by then doing acts of violence, so
Speaker 1: hurt people, hurting people, and so they you know, UM
Speaker 1: employ or this program youre violence. They employ violence interrupters
Speaker 1: who act like contact tracers in a certain sense, UM,
Speaker 1: identifying folks in the community who have been impacted by
Speaker 1: violence and who are thus at risk of transmitting violence
Speaker 1: to other people. And they halt communities git spread just
Speaker 1: like with COVID wearing a mask or social distancing by
Speaker 1: encouraging mitigation strategies. Um. Um. These folks they connect people
Speaker 1: who have been exposed to violence with healing and resources
Speaker 1: so that they don't keep the cycle going. So UM
Speaker 1: thinking about it just like you know, just like COVID,
Speaker 1: just like any other virus where UM any any other
Speaker 1: like national health crisis any other. Yeah, I mean, like
Speaker 1: public health at large. UM. You know, the fabric, the
Speaker 1: strength of the fabric of the community is such determinant
Speaker 1: for its health in so many ways. But um, thinking
Speaker 1: about about like, Okay, how do we disrupt cycles of
Speaker 1: violence by like halting the spread, by cutting you know, interrupting,
Speaker 1: you know, cutting off somebody before they go out and
Speaker 1: hurt somebody else, by helping them heal from the trauma
Speaker 1: that they have, um, they're carrying with them as a
Speaker 1: result of violence exposure from the past. So medical hypotheses
Speaker 1: about what causes PTSD, Yes, let's talk about where, like
Speaker 1: what people think this is coming from. Some say it
Speaker 1: could be a survival mechanism intended to help us survive
Speaker 1: further traumatic experiences, for example flashbacks. Many people with PTSD
Speaker 1: experience may force them to think about an event in
Speaker 1: full details, so you're better prepared for if it happens again.
Speaker 1: The feeling of being on edge hyper arousal may have
Speaker 1: developed to help you react quickly to other crisis. As
Speaker 1: a result of neoliberalism, commodifications of basic needs food, housing,
Speaker 1: and education, and cycles of community violence without adequate healing
Speaker 1: resources in the communities, we leave treatment to the jails. Yep.
Speaker 1: So it's like, oh, well, you ain't got any you
Speaker 1: ain't got nowhere to sleep, You ain't got nobody talk
Speaker 1: to um. But we do have jails, and so that's
Speaker 1: where home homeless jail, prostitute making money selling your body
Speaker 1: and you know, not hurting nobody. Jail still some some
Speaker 1: gymps on the seven eleven jail um which all of
Speaker 1: these things are driven by these you know, lesser spoken
Speaker 1: of forms of trauma that from folks experience from very
Speaker 1: early ages within hip hop communities to the National Alliance
Speaker 1: of Mental Health reports that two million individuals with mental
Speaker 1: illness are booked into jails each year, Nearly of incarcerated
Speaker 1: men and of incarcerated women have a serious mental health condition,
Speaker 1: and that rates of mental illness and persons of jails
Speaker 1: are three to six times that of the general population.
Speaker 1: In two eighteen, Washington Post reported that one thousand, one
Speaker 1: sixty civilians had been fairly shot by police, two hundred
Speaker 1: of whom were confirmed to be mentally ill. UM statistic
Speaker 1: then um is that people with untreatedments illnesses are sixteen
Speaker 1: times were likely to be killed during a police encounter,
Speaker 1: and of state prisoners with mental health disorders are incarcerated
Speaker 1: for nonviolent crimes higher in certain parts of the country.
Speaker 1: In this study, those with mental health diagnosis, jailed and
Speaker 1: King County, Penellis County, Washington. More than sixt of them
Speaker 1: were minor crimes or survived. So you know, I spent
Speaker 1: on the talking about like cycles of violence in the community,
Speaker 1: but even but it's even petty ship. I brought out
Speaker 1: the example of someone feeling a slim gym from the
Speaker 1: seven eleven um, which is like but which is still
Speaker 1: blaming people behind bars because we don't have because we
Speaker 1: don't we don't read signs of of this behavioral malfunction
Speaker 1: if you want to say as as something to be treated,
Speaker 1: something that's requiring some sort of mental health intervention, instead
Speaker 1: like you broke the law, so we're gonna throw you
Speaker 1: behind bars. And then another thing that we're not even
Speaker 1: like dealing with is ther motherfucker's know what jail does
Speaker 1: to you. She doesn't make you better. Hell no. So
Speaker 1: if you are going they're locking you up for said
Speaker 1: slim Jim, that's a fucking traumatic event that if you
Speaker 1: were fine beforehand, like if you really just wanted to
Speaker 1: slim Jim and didn't want to spend a dollar fifty nine,
Speaker 1: then they lock you up. Even just getting booked for
Speaker 1: some ship like that is a traumatic experience. Being in
Speaker 1: holding a holding tank is a traumatic experience, or you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. So all this ship contributes to right,
Speaker 1: and so we read traumatized, traumatized people who were going
Speaker 1: to get out and do what continue to act out
Speaker 1: because they've been traumatized and not adequately treated for their
Speaker 1: underlying cause is of behavioral dysfunction UM. To look at
Speaker 1: a concrete example of the sort of link between UM
Speaker 1: defunding of social services and expansion and reliance upon UM
Speaker 1: prisons for mental health treatment quote unquote, Chicago's Cook County
Speaker 1: Jail is the biggest single side jail in the United
Speaker 1: States and one of the biggest mental healthcare providers in
Speaker 1: the country. About a third of the jail six thousand
Speaker 1: or so inmates have been diagnosed with the mental illness,
Speaker 1: and many of them were sent to the facility after
Speaker 1: the state reduced funding for hospitals and community based outreach
Speaker 1: during the economic recession between like eight and UM. In
Speaker 1: those years, Illinois slash one point or no, excuse me,
Speaker 1: not one point. Oh god, this is even worse. A
Speaker 1: hundred and thirteen point seven million dollars from its budget
Speaker 1: for mental health services. Causing at least to state operated
Speaker 1: in patient facilities and six clinic in Chicago alone close
Speaker 1: and with your services available, more people struggling with psychoses
Speaker 1: have been pushed into the streets, I think, and I
Speaker 1: think this is both in terms of not having beds
Speaker 1: to sleep in and push into the streets with regards
Speaker 1: to criminality. Um and these days and mirror national trends
Speaker 1: between two that and nine and twelve, state like just
Speaker 1: the state legislatures around the country cut four points three
Speaker 1: five billion dollars in services for people with psychiatric problems,
Speaker 1: even while the need for services increased. So that explains
Speaker 1: the fucking music bro Like, god dammn, you got bigas
Speaker 1: out here shooting kids of each other, going to jail
Speaker 1: for it, being retraumatized with that experience, getting now doing
Speaker 1: it again, all because you know, there's this tight link
Speaker 1: between uh, commodification of basic needs, privatization, expansion of jails,
Speaker 1: and just creating and sustaining the cycle that we're talking,
Speaker 1: we're hearing and talked about in so much of the music.
Speaker 1: How do we get access the treatment and resources? One
Speaker 1: side of it is acts as a treatment and resources
Speaker 1: logic certainly seems to think so. As you may recall,
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, Logic partnered with the National Suicide Prevention
Speaker 1: Hotline on his song one eight hundred to seven three
Speaker 1: eight to five five, known colloquially as one eight hundred,
Speaker 1: which is the number for the hotline. The first hook
Speaker 1: and verse of the song is from the perspective of
Speaker 1: someone who is calling the hotline and they want to
Speaker 1: admit suicide. This is followed by a second chorus where
Speaker 1: the protagonists ostensively finds the will to live again. So
Speaker 1: this hotline that he parted with, it's funded by the U. S.
Speaker 1: Suthens Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which is an
Speaker 1: agency within the U S. Department of Health and Human
Speaker 1: Services um UH SAMSA I guess as you could call it.
Speaker 1: The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration was established
Speaker 1: by Congress in when operating ever since, expanding through some
Speaker 1: pieces of federal legislation over the years. But in the
Speaker 1: week's fall release, calls directed to the National Suicide Prevention
Speaker 1: Hotline rose by and visits to their website increase from
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand to four thousand. Over the following months,
Speaker 1: um the hotline told things of the Rolling Stone that
Speaker 1: they received the second highest daily call volume ever. It's
Speaker 1: over four thousand calls on the day that the song
Speaker 1: was released. So it really save some lives. You literally
Speaker 1: save us the lives. I mean a lot of people
Speaker 1: talk about how hip hop save their lives and like,
Speaker 1: I'm one of those folks too that they definitely would
Speaker 1: not be here today if it was not for hip hop.
Speaker 1: But this nick out here literally like savor lines like
Speaker 1: you call this number and you know, and help people.
Speaker 1: But that that's the thing, you know, it's the thing
Speaker 1: that we always It's kind of like a recurring theme
Speaker 1: on this show is it's like when rappers have something
Speaker 1: to say and they put it in a song, it's
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. It's just more effective than anything you say
Speaker 1: in any interview. It's just that's just what it comes
Speaker 1: down to you. I firmly believe that, Yeah, it gets
Speaker 1: into your psyche and has this level of credibility that
Speaker 1: you can't find even if you go see a mental
Speaker 1: health professional, like talking to a therapist that might seem
Speaker 1: scared to you, but logic telling you to caul this
Speaker 1: hotline is something that seems accessible and trustworthy. Now we
Speaker 1: got a British rapper Dave and his debuse debut solo
Speaker 1: album Psychodrama, which won the brit Award for Album of
Speaker 1: the Year Now. The album followed Dave's therapy session. He
Speaker 1: discusses his older brothers and the impact of their prison
Speaker 1: the prison convictions had him, as well as his struggles
Speaker 1: with mental health and the challenges facing black working class
Speaker 1: used in britt We've talked a lot about the environmental
Speaker 1: impacts on mental health um with regards to access to
Speaker 1: resources for stability in the community, but the song environment
Speaker 1: kind of also proved that making it out doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: heal trauma or bring fulfillment necessarily. Let's listen to it
Speaker 1: real quick. Welcome from there's no clause to get truth.
Speaker 1: We've got out. So he's talking about, you know, it's
Speaker 1: got the flashy cars and the gold chain, but really
Speaker 1: what he sees the lack of self worth and battle scars,
Speaker 1: the way that people use these material possessions um ostentiously
Speaker 1: to hide what's really going on underneath. And like all
Speaker 1: throughout the songs talking about kind of like running from
Speaker 1: your problems by seeking out material comforts, be they you
Speaker 1: know what it wealth or talk about you know, having
Speaker 1: sexual groupies or whatever you gotta do to like avoid
Speaker 1: dealing with what you feel underneath yeah, different different forms
Speaker 1: of yeah dope. Effectively, this is similar to this kind
Speaker 1: of was the same sort of theme throughout Tyler the
Speaker 1: Creator's last album called Me If You Get Lost, just
Speaker 1: like that simp concept of I'm feeling sad, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go buy a car today. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly UM
Speaker 1: and then UM. At the end of the song, it
Speaker 1: ends with a rebuttal from his therapist, so the beat
Speaker 1: drops out and he hears theres kind of respond like
Speaker 1: I can't remember um, and then we got We've got
Speaker 1: a number of people actually talk about UM going to
Speaker 1: therapy asat rock and His song Shrunk Up of his
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen album The Impossible Kid discusses navigating
Speaker 1: the bureaucracy of mental health care. Um. He starts out
Speaker 1: filling out a form at the front desk and sitting
Speaker 1: awkwardly in the waiting room, and then recounts a combative
Speaker 1: conversation with the therapist, most finally in her office. In fact,
Speaker 1: in the music video for the song, his visit to
Speaker 1: the therapist office is recast is like a video game
Speaker 1: where he has to beat various bosses in order to
Speaker 1: get to the therapist, who he then engages in a
Speaker 1: final boss battle. Let's check out a little bit of that.
Speaker 1: My medical history is the course Sooner Buffalo Charlottean Psychiatry
Speaker 1: and trouble Suiting. What are the barriers to accessing mental
Speaker 1: health care? Yeah, well, he talks about some of them
Speaker 1: in the song, like filling out the paperwork and making
Speaker 1: sure it's some covered by your insurance. And it's it's
Speaker 1: simple things like taking time off work to go to
Speaker 1: get the appointment. Um, and the fear of like when
Speaker 1: you sit down in that chair in the person's office,
Speaker 1: having to bear your soul. It's not an easy thing.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of institutional barriers in addition to
Speaker 1: like the psycho social ones. Um, I mean ship some
Speaker 1: real talk about my own personal experience real quick. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm on Medicaid because I don't have insurance to my
Speaker 1: employer anymore. I used to have it through the University
Speaker 1: of Georgia. And um, I've been on I've been on
Speaker 1: medication for like I guess almost a couple of years now,
Speaker 1: for like depression, YadA YadA, Dad YadA YadA. Um, Well
Speaker 1: it turns out it's uh, it wasn't there a Medicaid
Speaker 1: didn't want to cover it, and so when I went
Speaker 1: to just you know, just go get it refilled a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago, they were like, Hey, that's gonna
Speaker 1: be twelve hundred dollars um as opposed to the fifteen
Speaker 1: I have been paying for the last like two years. Um.
Speaker 1: So I'm running back and forth between like my psychiatrists
Speaker 1: and my doctor trying to get the right paperwork, you know,
Speaker 1: rationing my medication because you know, like about to run
Speaker 1: out and then running out entirely, all while also trying
Speaker 1: to like have the will to call the psychiatrist back
Speaker 1: and be like, Yo, did you fill that paperwork today?
Speaker 1: Can I go pick up my meds today? Imagining like
Speaker 1: if I hadn't had social support to like go jump
Speaker 1: through all those hoops, A lot of people don't, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people do end up like just ending
Speaker 1: it like like, nah, I can't handle I can't handle
Speaker 1: stay on the phone with these insurance people. I can't handle.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't have the money to like I like,
Speaker 1: I got to the point where I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: about to put in my credit card right now and
Speaker 1: get the ship, because like this is getting really bad,
Speaker 1: like imagining the both the financial and the bureaucratic barriers access.
Speaker 1: It's not even imagining. It's like, yo, I'm ship. It's
Speaker 1: brutal um. So I can totally understand why people don't
Speaker 1: even want to, like they don't even know what it's like,
Speaker 1: but assume it's too hard and don't even try to
Speaker 1: get out to get help. I mean, if I can
Speaker 1: be candid, that's kind of my situation right now. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like I've for a long time I've wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to somebody about my dad. Just my father passed away.
Speaker 1: I didn't really take the time to process or grieve properly,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I just kind of kept
Speaker 1: going on business as usual. So lately, the older than
Speaker 1: getting it's like, man, I think I should finally sit
Speaker 1: down and talk to somebody, But because I'm already busy,
Speaker 1: like the additional hurdles of like everything that you said,
Speaker 1: from setting it up to all the paperwork, to taking
Speaker 1: the time off of the things that I'm doing to
Speaker 1: do it, It's just it's hard, you know. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, and like I have, I have a
Speaker 1: relatively mild case of it because like I just kind
Speaker 1: of feel like I need to talk to someone, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, My ship doesn't feel like a
Speaker 1: life or death issue, but there's millions of people who are, yeah,
Speaker 1: and and little issues. I mean, yours is not small,
Speaker 1: let me clarify. But things that go on treated for
Speaker 1: a while can compound. So I'd be thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm handling this well for a while, but you don't
Speaker 1: actually like the process that ship can build up, you know,
Speaker 1: And so something that wasn't rapping and not talking to
Speaker 1: somebody for the last eight years, she she, she, let's
Speaker 1: talk about some of the other reasons why people don't
Speaker 1: get help. So we talked a little bit about stigma, um,
Speaker 1: which you know, people are scared of, not like backlash,
Speaker 1: of being honest, you know, being honest with their employer,
Speaker 1: being honest with their friends and family, being judged for
Speaker 1: what they're going there rather than support it. Um. And
Speaker 1: we spoke some as well about the normalization of of
Speaker 1: of emotional like inner turmoil, the assumption that everyone feels
Speaker 1: this way. UM. I definitely before I started like doing therapy,
Speaker 1: like thought that I feel like, oh, the like morbid
Speaker 1: thoughts I would have, or like whatever struggles I was
Speaker 1: going through every what went through them, and then I
Speaker 1: would like talk to someone. UM. Remember one time I
Speaker 1: made my friend cry. I was just like talking. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, you know, I've had this on my
Speaker 1: mind and that on my mind and not feeling great,
Speaker 1: and she like sobbed hearing me, hearing me talk about it,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, ship, I didn't realize that was
Speaker 1: that bad. Like those moments where you're like, huh wow,
Speaker 1: this is more severe than I had. Soon because we
Speaker 1: don't talk about it, we can normalize it inside. But
Speaker 1: then there's you know, structural barriers in addition to those
Speaker 1: cultural ones UM talk about, like lack of mental health
Speaker 1: care professionals and low income communities, particularly culturally responsive care,
Speaker 1: so being access getting access to someone who looks like you,
Speaker 1: who's from your same background. UM. The US is facing
Speaker 1: an overall shortage of doctors, but the shortage of mental
Speaker 1: health care professionals is steeper than in any other category,
Speaker 1: part because UM of low reimbursements from government and private
Speaker 1: insurance or mental health care people don't even go into
Speaker 1: that field because they're like, I'm not gonna make any
Speaker 1: money doing it. Um, or when they get out, they
Speaker 1: choose to make people pay out of pocket for their services. UM.
Speaker 1: Private sector and ship yep. So you know, urban clinics
Speaker 1: and providers often have long waiting lists and people can
Speaker 1: wait for months before they get a basic intake appointment.
Speaker 1: Affordability is also an obstacle as well. Um. Things improved
Speaker 1: with the A c A. With the Mental Health Parity
Speaker 1: and Addiction Equity Act two thousand eight requires insurance groups
Speaker 1: offering coverage for mental health or substance use disorders to
Speaker 1: make these benefits comparable to the general medical coverage. It
Speaker 1: required that deductibles, co pays out of pocket maximums, treatment limitations,
Speaker 1: and other mental health or substance use disorders related costs
Speaker 1: must be no more restrictive than the same requirements or
Speaker 1: benefits offered to other medic for other medical care. But
Speaker 1: even with that, you know, um, the cost of treatment
Speaker 1: still often limits people's access to mental health services or
Speaker 1: knowledge again, knowledge of the maze of our insurance bureaucracy. Um,
Speaker 1: there's the assumption that it will cost a lot. So
Speaker 1: even when there are like low cost resources, I think
Speaker 1: for example, here in Athens, we have this thing called
Speaker 1: Newchie Space where you can get sliding scale UM counseling,
Speaker 1: particularly for musicians UM, and a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: even go because they're they're just people just assume that
Speaker 1: is it will cost too much, and they're not wrong,
Speaker 1: because these fucking insurance companies try to gauge you bleed
Speaker 1: you dry for everything and every last red cent, every
Speaker 1: last red cent. But it's not necessarily UM, cut and dry,
Speaker 1: that health care expansion is enough to fix the problem.
Speaker 1: Listeners of the show no that I'm a vulnerative Medicare
Speaker 1: for all UM. But in two Oregon held a randomized
Speaker 1: uttering to decide which low income people would receive Medicaid.
Speaker 1: Two studies UM done in the aftermath by M. I. T.
Speaker 1: And Harvard found that medicaid coverage generated no significant improvements
Speaker 1: in measured physical measured physical health outcomes in the first
Speaker 1: two years, but it did lower rates of self reported
Speaker 1: depression by ten. Reasons for this, I think that UM
Speaker 1: access to mental health care SURE probably lowered self recorded
Speaker 1: rates of depression. People were probably also less suppressed because
Speaker 1: they weren't stressed about having health coveraged. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: one last thing to worry about. So like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: would say I'm happier than if I couldn't see a
Speaker 1: doctor at all. I mean, I think that's that would
Speaker 1: be a benefit of Medicare for all as well. Is that,
Speaker 1: like you said, like just on a massive level, like
Speaker 1: just that one stress of life could just take that
Speaker 1: away because everybody knows that they have health care, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, So they know that if something
Speaker 1: does happen, they're not just teetering on the edge of collapsed. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so that's why I even post the question of
Speaker 1: whether health care expansions and never fix the problem was
Speaker 1: ultimately when this study kind of proved, I would say earliest.
Speaker 1: It suggests, let's say, um that when you have less
Speaker 1: to worry about, your less deppressed. And I think this
Speaker 1: extends to multiple categories of social need um um, from
Speaker 1: if you're less worried about housing, you're less suppressed. If
Speaker 1: you're less worried about where your food, you're less depressed.
Speaker 1: If you're happier in your school environment, you're less suppressed,
Speaker 1: which speaks then to the need for community based solutions
Speaker 1: to get at the root crosses for why people are
Speaker 1: experiencing mental health problems, you know, issues about ravage therapy,
Speaker 1: rappist therapy, I mean, um, in the mean term, in
Speaker 1: the meantime, until we refund our social services so that
Speaker 1: people ain't so stressed about various things lead them to
Speaker 1: you know, poor coping of various kinds. We have hip
Speaker 1: hop UM. I'm definitely found it super therapeutic to rap
Speaker 1: about various things I've been through, UM to both like
Speaker 1: sort of accept them as like to process them both,
Speaker 1: like just by writing them out on paper, but saying
Speaker 1: them out loud so many times in front of like
Speaker 1: audience is sort of like it's almost like exercising a demon, like, ha,
Speaker 1: y'all have that that's not you know, I'm casting you out.
Speaker 1: I find I find that like listening to shipped to
Speaker 1: helps me identify stuff. Yeah, like hearing somebody else talking
Speaker 1: about their own ships, like it helps me identify oh
Speaker 1: you know what, I kind of feel that way too,
Speaker 1: And then you know that gets the mind going as
Speaker 1: to with what's the root of that feeling and where
Speaker 1: it's coming from and stuff like that. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of cliche best, but you know for musicians
Speaker 1: like oh, then this is my therapy band, right, you know,
Speaker 1: It's like it's like I need it, but I don't
Speaker 1: know it just it really is. It's like for any
Speaker 1: emotion too. It's it doesn't all necessarily have to be negative.
Speaker 1: But even getting out positive emotions and positive thoughts, whether
Speaker 1: it be in wrapping or listening to WRAP, I find
Speaker 1: it can be help helping and southing. And some scholars
Speaker 1: whore starting to take to wrap us therapy staying seriously UM,
Speaker 1: identifying a lot of what you know we're talking about
Speaker 1: right here, and thinking about how to UM use that
Speaker 1: in more clinical settings to help folks UM. The University
Speaker 1: of Cambridge has supported a project known as the Hip
Speaker 1: Hop Psyche Initiative that aims to use hip hop to
Speaker 1: improve people's mental health and to address issues including stigma
Speaker 1: towards mental illness under the lack of diversity within the
Speaker 1: psychiatric profession. In their article on the topic, the co
Speaker 1: founders gave the example of Juicy Meditorious b I G.
Speaker 1: Which he dedicated to all of the teachers that told
Speaker 1: me I'd never amount to nothing, to all the people
Speaker 1: that live above the building that I was hustling in
Speaker 1: front of of that called the police on me when
Speaker 1: I was just trying to make some money to feed
Speaker 1: my daughter, but goes on to describe how he has
Speaker 1: become successful psychogenesis when out with that drop, I couldn't pictures.
Speaker 1: The co founders point out similarities with possible positive visual
Speaker 1: imagery technique investigated by Professor Emily Holmes group at the
Speaker 1: University of Oxford UM. This technique is a form of
Speaker 1: therapy in which the patient is encouraged to use the
Speaker 1: power of their imagination to help them through difficult times,
Speaker 1: including things like depression or bipolar episodes, and so they
Speaker 1: then um seeing some of these similarities, I thought that
Speaker 1: by integrating hip hop into psychotherapies, they they could refine
Speaker 1: their tools as psychologists to make them more relevant to
Speaker 1: their users. I mean this, this is that they could
Speaker 1: have used a bunch of examples for that same exact
Speaker 1: point other than you see. I mean the first popular
Speaker 1: successful wraps off literally is that the sugar Hill Gang
Speaker 1: Hop hivoted hip hop HIV. You don't stop, I got
Speaker 1: a linked in Continental you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like those guys were wrapping about that before they had
Speaker 1: any of that stuff, and it was because it was
Speaker 1: empowering to them, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: so like they're identifying these cops that we just organically
Speaker 1: have in the community and thinking about how to you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps augment them with other aspects of psychotherapy in order
Speaker 1: to help people in a culturally relevant way. Where it's like, Yo,
Speaker 1: sitting down on a couch in an office talk to
Speaker 1: some white lady in the lab coat does not sound
Speaker 1: super healing to me. But when you bring these things
Speaker 1: in that do resonate with people, it helps make therapy
Speaker 1: more accessible. Now, is there any sort of like downside
Speaker 1: or negative to this, because I just I just kind
Speaker 1: of feel like if if the if the constant thing
Speaker 1: then is to attribute like material gain and wealth with
Speaker 1: you know, if that's the coke, and that's like all
Speaker 1: it is. There's no other exploration of or I don't
Speaker 1: want to say there's no other exploration, but just in
Speaker 1: terms of like when when hip hop is dealing with
Speaker 1: like positive reinforcement on this level, it seems to be
Speaker 1: like Almo always in terms of like, well you could
Speaker 1: be rich and it would be better. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: because of the society we live in, it is often
Speaker 1: tied to material gain, but I think you could um
Speaker 1: recast the use of positive visual imagery to really mean
Speaker 1: lots of different things. Um. You know, maybe I called
Speaker 1: my mom the other day and it really made me
Speaker 1: feel good. Yeah, I went for a walk in the
Speaker 1: park and it was nope, play ball with the cat
Speaker 1: or you think about um, it was a good day.
Speaker 1: What you're talking about? You know what he had for breakfast,
Speaker 1: dRIT around the city, didn't get shot as actually beautiful
Speaker 1: woman the good year blim and it reads ice cubes
Speaker 1: to pimp like just you can imagine all kinds of
Speaker 1: things if you have this freedom outlet in which to
Speaker 1: put those imaginings, um, if you have that sort of
Speaker 1: like um context in which it's relevant to like channel
Speaker 1: it as opposed to you know, just thinking in your
Speaker 1: own head. And so I think I think that yes,
Speaker 1: it is shaped both by UM corporatism and music industry,
Speaker 1: which itself is shaped by living in a capitalist society.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't have to be like that. You can
Speaker 1: use the positive visual imagery to talk about any kind
Speaker 1: of stuff that you want to actualize. I imagine. So
Speaker 1: in closing out, if you or anyone you know is
Speaker 1: struggling with suicidal thoughts and or distress. The National Suicide
Speaker 1: Prevention Lifeline is available and that's AD to seven, three,
Speaker 1: eight to five, So forget But um, as we end day,
Speaker 1: let's circle back around to Mind Playing Tricks On Me.
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna get into that. That's gonna be
Speaker 1: our music discussion. I know we had like music playing
Speaker 1: all throughout this motherfucker, but like this is gonna be
Speaker 1: the actual music discussion. So we'll be back with that
Speaker 1: after the job. All right, we are back. I've been
Speaker 1: waiting to get in this dirt. No Dirt Dirt easily
Speaker 1: one of the most famous songs in hip hop history.
Speaker 1: We are talking about the nine song Mine Playing Tricks
Speaker 1: On Me by the Ghetto Boys Bushwick Bill, Scarface and
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, why am I brain? Oh my brain
Speaker 1: fartingty No, you didn't, I forgot his name. Ghetto Boys
Speaker 1: Willie D. Really I'm tripping? All right? Um, So Mine's
Speaker 1: Playing Tricks is off their album We Can't be stopped.
Speaker 1: The lyrics, like we said before, they describe mental anguish.
Speaker 1: The exhaustive life is a gangster including deal with symptoms
Speaker 1: of post traumatic stress disorder, paranoia, suicidal and suicidal ideations
Speaker 1: and loneliness. It also samples hung up on My Baby
Speaker 1: by Isaac Hayes. Just to give you, you know, some
Speaker 1: little some stats about it. What else we got, oh,
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones ranked this as the fifth greatest hip hop
Speaker 1: song of all time. I have no idea how they
Speaker 1: determine that, but it sounds right. That's good. I'll take it.
Speaker 1: Um in Scarface co Incidentally, I think we've discussed previously
Speaker 1: on the show Sink ran for Houston City Council. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he did. He did last year, maybe year before that.
Speaker 1: People don't know about Scarface is Scarface plays like every
Speaker 1: instrument on some prince ship. Yeah, like he as a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, like if you were to go see
Speaker 1: a scar Face show, it's probably him in a jazz
Speaker 1: band with him playing the guitar, looking like good BB
Speaker 1: King and ship like for real, but some new every day.
Speaker 1: Something else I learned today is that Scarface's grandmother is
Speaker 1: credited for the song's title. Um told She told MTV.
Speaker 1: Um it's a strange way of how we came about it.
Speaker 1: I come through the room and I think I was
Speaker 1: just kind of mumbled into myself and my lips and
Speaker 1: work into something. He said, Mama, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: And I said, oh, nothing, My mom's just playing choice
Speaker 1: on me. And I didn't have no idea he was
Speaker 1: gonna go out and be making a song about it,
Speaker 1: but indeed he did so, Thanks Grandma Scarface. Man. I
Speaker 1: wish I could share those war stories about the conversations
Speaker 1: that me and my mom had that inspired me so
Speaker 1: because it's it's not as heart war as um Gangster
Speaker 1: Rap may have been. This is a quote from NPR
Speaker 1: about song Gangster Rat. May have been America's nightmare in
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties, but it was also America's creation.
Speaker 1: There's a post traumatic stress that comes along with being
Speaker 1: black in this country. It's almost part of your inheritance.
Speaker 1: And the feeling was compounded by the Crow era, by
Speaker 1: the War on drugs, by over policing, and nascart incarceration.
Speaker 1: This was an arrow when it wasn't at all unusual
Speaker 1: to hear young black men referred to as an endangered species.
Speaker 1: And the worst of it, we were being told that
Speaker 1: we were the ones that should be feared the most.
Speaker 1: Day by day, it's more impossible to cope. I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm the one that's doing dope can't keep my
Speaker 1: steady hand because I'm nervous. Everyday morning I'm in service,
Speaker 1: praying for forgiveness and trying to find an exit out
Speaker 1: the business. I know the Lord is looking at me,
Speaker 1: but yeah, yeah, and still it's hard for me to
Speaker 1: feel happy. Often drift when a drive haven't fatal, thoughts
Speaker 1: to suicide, bang and get it over with and then
Speaker 1: I'm very free. But that's bullshit. And he goes on
Speaker 1: to talk about how I think his daughter needs him,
Speaker 1: his family needs him. Um, but yeah, I mean a
Speaker 1: lot of this exactly what they're describing. I would doubt
Speaker 1: that this is like the first rap song to deal
Speaker 1: with the subject matter, but it definitely was the first
Speaker 1: popular song that you know that I can recall hearing
Speaker 1: about the subject matter. And then again, you know, I
Speaker 1: think I was like only like five or six time
Speaker 1: or something like that. But yeah, I mean people talk
Speaker 1: about like the message I think as another one, but
Speaker 1: this one really gets into like like deep characterization. The
Speaker 1: message is more like about the condition, and this is
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. And I mean at a time when you
Speaker 1: turn on you know, if you if you could just
Speaker 1: teleport yourself to back, then you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: if like you're turning on MTV and ship like that,
Speaker 1: you're seeing Snoop Dogg, G funk Era, Low Ride, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Dr Dre and the chronic iced
Speaker 1: t N w Ay So for the ghetto boys not
Speaker 1: only to approach the subject matter from like a different
Speaker 1: angle and talk about it's like mental health impacts, but
Speaker 1: then also to be Southern mcs and doing that, that
Speaker 1: was big. That was big. Someone closing once again, if
Speaker 1: you're struggling out there, all hesitate to call the National
Speaker 1: Suicide Prevention Lifeline twenty four hours a day to seven, three,
Speaker 1: eight to five. And I hope you know as well,
Speaker 1: you can find some therapy in the music Bush Wicked Bill,
Speaker 1: Rest in Peace, Rest in Peace, Brush wo Bill. You
Speaker 1: feel you feel like rapping? Yeah? I feel like Joel Joel.
Speaker 1: One of these days we're going to have to let
Speaker 1: Joel talk. Let's get the rapping. Uh. The taste of
Speaker 1: fame was the young caging of a parakeet that had
Speaker 1: dreamed of freedom, but it never made a choice before.
Speaker 1: But they can have. Repeat is blended in the candic
Speaker 1: cabra juice, and it's a therapist when they're paying me
Speaker 1: to stamp at me. Here's to kick your kiddo. They
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