Speaker 1: You're listening and waiting on reparations. Production of I Heart Radio. Ah,
Speaker 1: were waiting a reparation, reparation let him someone caught me
Speaker 1: a hoty like the metal when the kettle sings. I
Speaker 1: want to be some commandant day, but saddle for a
Speaker 1: Senate seat so I could put somebody pendulists had the
Speaker 1: treasury and every that will be forgiven, medical and everything.
Speaker 1: And while we're at it, playing a plot of fender
Speaker 1: leaping when the Greens on every street and pay incarcerated
Speaker 1: folks for you in the ring to tend to be in.
Speaker 1: So every neighborhood has got to create the food, and
Speaker 1: every neighbor has a stable roof and all the basic
Speaker 1: needs to say that emotional in behavior rules. That's the
Speaker 1: fatal world of state. To pull from the stranglehold of
Speaker 1: the state is quote. But I can make the change alone.
Speaker 1: That's why the day you join us is my favorite
Speaker 1: day to come ship. Wait, no revarations. Yeah, we're waiting
Speaker 1: our reparations. Now you got that one that'll be the intro. Hey,
Speaker 1: this is like, well, Franca, I'm dope knife and we
Speaker 1: are waiting on reparations. Hurry up, please do please hurry up. Oh,
Speaker 1: we were busy this weekend where we got out, how
Speaker 1: does the payment for this district attorney's run off here
Speaker 1: in December? Here? Next week, next two nights week. It's crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been crazy times in doora down here, man, But
Speaker 1: it was hopefully we can elect you know, progressive district
Speaker 1: attorney that's interested in bringing restorative justice into like the
Speaker 1: d a's office and eliminate some of our disparities racially
Speaker 1: and socio economically and our sentencing. So we were out
Speaker 1: canvassing for Debra Gonzalez, who is running for d A
Speaker 1: here in Athens, Georgia. So Mariah, like for people who
Speaker 1: might be a little fatigued with the election season, or
Speaker 1: maybe they're only anticipating like the big ship like the
Speaker 1: Senate joint coming up um, or just people who don't
Speaker 1: even really know, like explain to him why it's important
Speaker 1: to get up and make sure that you go vote
Speaker 1: for you know, your your local d A election, not
Speaker 1: just in Athens but anywhere. Like it's crazy, man, Like
Speaker 1: something like Athens black men make of Athens population, but
Speaker 1: sixty of those uh sentenced to prison in state court.
Speaker 1: I think of folks sentence in municipal court five times
Speaker 1: is likely to be arrested for marijuana UM, despite the
Speaker 1: fact white and black people use it at the same rates.
Speaker 1: Half of the juvenile justice system cases or black youth
Speaker 1: like all the ship oh and the Georgia Center the
Speaker 1: Georgia Institute for Transitional Justice found that even when you
Speaker 1: adjust for criminal histories and like other aspects of a
Speaker 1: defendants background like uh, black men versus like a year
Speaker 1: longer in jail in accents than white men for the
Speaker 1: exact same crimes for the crime and so, and this
Speaker 1: is all ship that, like a district attorney can because
Speaker 1: she chooses she hopefully if she wasn't, will choose what
Speaker 1: cases to bring against people, so she could just be like,
Speaker 1: you know, make a little balance yea Canada, says Deverre Gonzalo.
Speaker 1: She's a former state House representative UM now running for
Speaker 1: district attorney. Actually an entertainment lawyer, but very committed to
Speaker 1: like racial and social justice. But I think one of
Speaker 1: the most badass things about her is that Kemp Bryan
Speaker 1: Kemp actually tried to steal this election by just canceling
Speaker 1: it and appointing someone as r d A. She sued
Speaker 1: him in Superior Court and one to get the election
Speaker 1: to happen. Yeah, she sued him in wanting the election
Speaker 1: to happen. So like, I guess Kemps having a bad week,
Speaker 1: isn't he? Like first Trump blames him for Georgia going blue,
Speaker 1: and now he's part of the Venezuelan George Soros Santifa conspiracy.
Speaker 1: And then you know this election is about to go
Speaker 1: down and hopefully she's gonna win. She's earned it, and
Speaker 1: so we're gonna be out here knocking on doors for
Speaker 1: her the whole next week. And oh and I got
Speaker 1: the true pleasure. As much as I love knocking on
Speaker 1: doors and bringing political messages to the masses, I got
Speaker 1: to see Mac in address shirt and so I felt
Speaker 1: very very hashtag blessed that day. You can't you can't
Speaker 1: go up to people's door and ship like with a
Speaker 1: mask in a biggie shirt that says ready to die
Speaker 1: talk about let me talk to you about your local elections.
Speaker 1: So I had to I had to spruce it up
Speaker 1: a little bit, a little bit. Now, when this episode
Speaker 1: is coming out, it's gonna be Thanksgiving, so I know
Speaker 1: that some of you, a lot of you, probably won't
Speaker 1: be able to listen to this on the day that
Speaker 1: it drops, But for those of you who are happy
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving and all that jazz, it made us a little
Speaker 1: reflective on every thing because this podcast has been going
Speaker 1: on since June of this year, but it's been in
Speaker 1: production since October. Often as a matter of fact, we
Speaker 1: recorded almost eight or nine episodes, like from October nineteen
Speaker 1: up to January before we took a break, and we
Speaker 1: had like nine or ten episodes stocked up, and you know,
Speaker 1: just while waiting for a launch date, a post COVID,
Speaker 1: post George Floyd world just kind of made those episodes
Speaker 1: not seem as striking as perhaps we wanted the show
Speaker 1: to come out being off the jump. And not only that,
Speaker 1: but we were also green. We didn't know what the
Speaker 1: funk we were doing. We were trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1: So the format of what we recorded back then, it's
Speaker 1: not what we do on a weekly basis now, but
Speaker 1: just kind of celebrating anniversary issue, you know, of the
Speaker 1: time that Mariah and I have spent working on this show,
Speaker 1: and Joel and Taylor and the whole you know, everybody,
Speaker 1: the whole team of everybody that helped us bring this
Speaker 1: podcast to you every week. I wanted to celebrate a
Speaker 1: really fly conversation that we had this time last year
Speaker 1: with Mike C. Town from the popular YouTube channel Dead
Speaker 1: and hip Hop. It's a hip hop music review channel.
Speaker 1: We were talking about like problematic aspects of mainstream hip
Speaker 1: hop that we all still love anyway, and then that
Speaker 1: kind of turned into some other ship. It was all
Speaker 1: over the place, but it was fly, and we ended
Speaker 1: up bringing Mike's Town back now so that we could
Speaker 1: talk to him just to you know, get some of
Speaker 1: his thoughts fresh in the post COVID, post election, post
Speaker 1: George Floyd world. Um So we're gonna get into that
Speaker 1: after the jump, and I'm definitely gonna be back with
Speaker 1: some new raps because the ship that I spent last
Speaker 1: year I don't like anymore. Ye Uh. This week we're
Speaker 1: having a discussion about the problematic aspects of the mainstream
Speaker 1: hip hop we can't help but love and where if
Speaker 1: at all a line exists that we can't cross as
Speaker 1: self identified progressive people. We're gonna be talking about problematic
Speaker 1: music that you can't help A day's too nonetheless, music
Speaker 1: to fire to turn off, even if the lyrics themselves
Speaker 1: are a turn off. And I want to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the concept of sonic narratives, as it's
Speaker 1: been argued by hip hop feminists, by hip hop beat,
Speaker 1: that tells the story might be different a little bit
Speaker 1: than the lyrics, the lyrical content of the of the
Speaker 1: song itself, which allows consumers to turn off their critical
Speaker 1: listening ears and enjoy the story that the sounds can
Speaker 1: tell us. And we'll be contemplating the possibility that you know,
Speaker 1: the old slogan goes for you mine and he asked
Speaker 1: will follow, but perhaps it is the other way around, perhaps,
Speaker 1: And talking with us today, we're gonna be having this
Speaker 1: discussion with one of my favorite people. Officially, I guess
Speaker 1: officially you can call him a music critic or a
Speaker 1: music personnel, making faces that I'm saying that that I
Speaker 1: don't know what to call you. I don't either. We're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about Homie Mike's Town from dead End
Speaker 1: hip Hop dead End hip Hop music review review channel
Speaker 1: on YouTube. I personally have been watching for like it
Speaker 1: was like nine years now. Yeah, I mean I started
Speaker 1: watching into something like said, yeah, why don't you tell
Speaker 1: the tell the people a little bit about yourself? For
Speaker 1: for those who don't know you. For those of you
Speaker 1: that don't know me. Um, yeah, so dead in hip hop,
Speaker 1: we do album reviews, we do culture conversations, um. Outside
Speaker 1: of dead and hip hop, we also have a podcast
Speaker 1: calls is the Mike Still On where we talk about
Speaker 1: stuff outside of hip hop. Um. We even talked about movies.
Speaker 1: We have another podcast called Frames per Second. Um. But
Speaker 1: outside of all that, ship, I also got my own
Speaker 1: ship that Mac did not mentioned. Why you know past
Speaker 1: it's only me here, you know the mother dude they
Speaker 1: hear so so we're gonna talk about me. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I have my own YouTube channel as well, where I
Speaker 1: talk about records, talk about um, I don't know, socially
Speaker 1: as you talk about whatever. Um, Mike c town dot com.
Speaker 1: That's m y k E c tw N dot com.
Speaker 1: Check me out, you guys gotta check it out. And
Speaker 1: also when you when you check out the dead End
Speaker 1: hip Hop channel, there's a review that they did to
Speaker 1: this guy Dope nice album, Things got Worse, sound terrible,
Speaker 1: found sounds like a Travis State. Check it out. Don't
Speaker 1: listen to it. But speaking of the music, we do
Speaker 1: listen to despite it from a ideological standboy being somewhat
Speaker 1: of a dumpster fire. Let's get into the topic of today.
Speaker 1: I guess the first thing that I would want to
Speaker 1: know is are we operating first from a standpoint where
Speaker 1: we think or consider everything that a rapper says that
Speaker 1: we take it literally, like they definitely mean that ship.
Speaker 1: I'm only asking just because, going by me, I would
Speaker 1: imagine that to a certain base degree, a lot of
Speaker 1: rappers probably say ship in songs that they wouldn't say
Speaker 1: in real life. Do we disagree? I kin't just a
Speaker 1: little bit of what well, because I was listening and
Speaker 1: you were saying that, you know, it kind of seems
Speaker 1: like uh, rappers will say things in lyrics that they
Speaker 1: wouldn't say and everyday life they might be also calling
Speaker 1: to somebody a bitch absolutely at the streets at the
Speaker 1: strip club, as much as they would in their actual
Speaker 1: songs about being at the strip club. I guarantee that
Speaker 1: rappers that are calling people the F a G word
Speaker 1: are doing it in real life and probably on a
Speaker 1: regular basis. I mean, would you say that is the norm,
Speaker 1: and I mean I think Vinny Pass probably calls people
Speaker 1: that the the F word on that's seem me regular basis,
Speaker 1: even if it's like a quote unquote joke, or if
Speaker 1: it's like I'm angry he's using you know, as devoted
Speaker 1: hip hop listeners were no strangers to misogyny and hip
Speaker 1: hop lyrics. I think there's female as well as male
Speaker 1: rappers who be calling ladies bitches and hose and otherwise
Speaker 1: describing women in disrespectful terms, explicitly describing sexual acts less
Speaker 1: goes on. Um. The same can be said of depictions
Speaker 1: of violence and drug activity hip hop songs. But I
Speaker 1: think Y'a'll be talking about a little bit later in
Speaker 1: the episode. Um. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: what people really resonate with is the feeling that the
Speaker 1: beat and the cadence in the rhyme of a song conveys.
Speaker 1: It's like it tells a separate story from that which
Speaker 1: is actually being manifest in the lyrics itself. I think
Speaker 1: that you can sit down or you can stand up
Speaker 1: rather in the club and hear a song and not
Speaker 1: necessarily parts the specific topics that are being talked about
Speaker 1: how they're being talked about, But you can be moved
Speaker 1: by the story that the beat tells you and by
Speaker 1: the aesthetics of like the rhythm of the delivery, the
Speaker 1: style of the delivery, the way the words coalesce around rhyme,
Speaker 1: and things like that that like altogether kind of get
Speaker 1: put you in a mood and that transport you in
Speaker 1: a sense through the purely are like creative aesthetic side
Speaker 1: of of the music. Before you get to say, like, well,
Speaker 1: he said, what what I mean? I definitely can vibe
Speaker 1: with that, but the I just don't necessarily know if
Speaker 1: that is most of the case or some of the case,
Speaker 1: or you know what I mean, because I definitely feel
Speaker 1: that there's some songs that that is the reason that
Speaker 1: people like you know what I mean, Like I think
Speaker 1: if you took a song like bad and Bougie with
Speaker 1: the same exact beat, same exact cadence, the same exact flow,
Speaker 1: and you simply change the concept of it, I don't
Speaker 1: think as many people would like it is the concept defensive.
Speaker 1: I've never really paid attention to that necessarily a matter
Speaker 1: of the concept. Let me against them. That's that's where
Speaker 1: this conversation kind of like to me gets interesting, because
Speaker 1: it's like, what do we mean by problematic? First of all,
Speaker 1: let me just say I'm coming from the standpoint of
Speaker 1: I don't use words like problematic the way that motherfucker's
Speaker 1: used words like problematic, like I would never describe some
Speaker 1: issue I took with music is problematic. Well, give me
Speaker 1: example the short one, of course, because that's the thing
Speaker 1: because when if you ask me, i've heard bad boogie,
Speaker 1: probably doesn't if not a hundred times, right, But I
Speaker 1: can't tell you what it's about because I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's not what matters to me, because you don't
Speaker 1: know what then they're saying because of the new solid
Speaker 1: rabbits emerging that is instead like appealing because it has
Speaker 1: a certain cadence to it, this sort of indecipherability that
Speaker 1: you know might be purposeful but really just you know,
Speaker 1: creates this aesthetic aura around it that you get down
Speaker 1: to regardless of what they're saying. And then the beat
Speaker 1: itself that is why people are listening to it. But
Speaker 1: if so, if Bad and Bougie were about hygiene and
Speaker 1: good relationships, do we like do we think like people
Speaker 1: be like wrap about relationships, You're going to do well?
Speaker 1: But that's what it's like. It's it's almost as if
Speaker 1: like but to the to the to the counterpoint, though
Speaker 1: we don't know what bad and Bougie is about. That's true,
Speaker 1: but I don't think that what it's about is necessarily
Speaker 1: relevant to what is said. And let me make sure
Speaker 1: that I read this right. My bitch is bad and
Speaker 1: bougie cooking up dope with the ouzy my niggas savage ruthless,
Speaker 1: we got thirties a hundred rounds too now to me
Speaker 1: personally again, disclaimer over a hot beat with a dope
Speaker 1: cadence niggas is in the studio fucking around. I think
Speaker 1: this should fly. I have no problem with it whatsoever.
Speaker 1: But there you haven't. Right There in the lyrics we
Speaker 1: got misogyny, my bitch cooking up dope, glorific asian of
Speaker 1: drugs with the oozy glorification of guns, my niggas a
Speaker 1: savage of ruthless. Feed in the stereotypes, we've got thirties
Speaker 1: and to more stereotypes. I don't think that most people
Speaker 1: found bad and Bougie to be a problematic song, but
Speaker 1: we just heard the lyrics. I mean, it is what
Speaker 1: it is right, It sounds about right, It sounds like
Speaker 1: a good Friday. My bitch is bad and bougie, my
Speaker 1: nigga is a savage and ruthless cooking up with they.
Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, I don't know that's to me,
Speaker 1: it's such a generalist song. But just I got some
Speaker 1: guys that business that to me doesn't even register. It
Speaker 1: is like a problematic, highly problematic time because it's not
Speaker 1: a point. So then that's what I'm saying. So then
Speaker 1: I feel like if I had enough time, I could
Speaker 1: find a bunch of black people over the age of
Speaker 1: forty who the lyrics I just read, being like the
Speaker 1: number one hit in the country is highly problematic, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. But again I would disagree with them,
Speaker 1: but it's just like so they're wrong, but then somebody
Speaker 1: else who's mad about another aspect of something, they're right,
Speaker 1: though I don't know. It's just the inconsistency of this
Speaker 1: ship man. I mean, that sounds like a bod idea,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't sound It doesn't sound quote unquote problematic
Speaker 1: particularly agregious sure to me, and I agree with that.
Speaker 1: It's not problematic to me, right, I know that I
Speaker 1: have a sixty four year old mother that it is
Speaker 1: problematic for you know what I'm saying, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: all I'm saying is when she said that to me,
Speaker 1: I do, I wrote, mize, But the people I feel
Speaker 1: like people who would the type of people who take
Speaker 1: it upon themselves to be the arbiters of like this
Speaker 1: is problematic and this ship is not problematic. They have
Speaker 1: a very inconsistent, uneven way of doing that ship that
Speaker 1: just elicits like skepticism. If on Saturday you're in the
Speaker 1: club or on Twitter talking about how you're shaking, you're
Speaker 1: asked to bad and Bougie and how you love that
Speaker 1: song and that's your jam. But then on Monday mc
Speaker 1: get busy said some line that you didn't like, so
Speaker 1: it's like, oh no, he sexius though, then the only
Speaker 1: reason that you don't feel that way about Bad and
Speaker 1: Bougie is because you don't take it literally. I think
Speaker 1: as hip hop listeners, perhaps we are a bit desensitized
Speaker 1: in terms of what strikes us as problematic, because like
Speaker 1: we hear very like ordinary allusions to selling drugs and
Speaker 1: doing this and that in the music all the time.
Speaker 1: It's not it's this to me, is not an over
Speaker 1: the top example of lyrics that are problematic. So that's
Speaker 1: what I want to get. What is over the top?
Speaker 1: What is too much? Because that to me, it's just
Speaker 1: like another day in the neighborhood. Uh well, I mean
Speaker 1: we are we talking solely mainstream rappers? Are we talking
Speaker 1: about people I brought in were mostly mainstream? I don't like,
Speaker 1: I don't have any It doesn't necessarily even have to
Speaker 1: be something that people dance to, but just something that
Speaker 1: generally is like, I mean, okay, So like when you're
Speaker 1: talking about that Mego song, I guess it doesn't really
Speaker 1: phase me that way. It doesn't. It doesn't sounds advocate
Speaker 1: by bringing up the Mego song because it doesn't phase.
Speaker 1: But I feel like the people that would be extremely
Speaker 1: bothered by that song would get bothered by just about
Speaker 1: any rap song period. Probably am just just from a
Speaker 1: just from a standpoint of and again this is all anecdotal,
Speaker 1: but like from my experience of engaging with people in
Speaker 1: the Twitter sphere, unlike conversations like that, that's not the
Speaker 1: kid that they're okay with most songs, but they're bothered
Speaker 1: by it. Sounds like, you know, this is my like
Speaker 1: Chip or Kip that goes to like Georgia Tech and
Speaker 1: doesn't really have any black friends and he's bothered by
Speaker 1: that doesn't doesn't sound like a rap fan would pull
Speaker 1: this song and be like, oh my god, cooking dope
Speaker 1: with the oozing. No, I'm done. No, I don't think
Speaker 1: there's I don't think for the most part, anybody's bothered
Speaker 1: by bad em Bougie. It's like it was a hit
Speaker 1: number one song that people listen to all across the
Speaker 1: world by the hundreds of millions, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So I don't think that there was any sort of
Speaker 1: like reaction to bad and Bougie as it being problematic.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, Kicked with No Black Friends
Speaker 1: probably loves bad and Bougie more than most black people.
Speaker 1: Knows every word, especially the niggas of Savage and Ruth's part,
Speaker 1: probably knows how to wrap that whole hook by heart.
Speaker 1: I am not bothered by that. I know you're not.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to. I'm trying to parse down the people
Speaker 1: that are and should we as a hip hop community
Speaker 1: even being concerned with these people or should we be
Speaker 1: more concerned with ship Like I'm grabbing snitches and putting
Speaker 1: them in lakes and ditches, and if I catch aids,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start raping bitches like would be? Would be?
Speaker 1: I feel like the sort of person who would have
Speaker 1: like some sort of moral outrage against Bad and Bougie.
Speaker 1: They also would not funk with that line that you
Speaker 1: just said. But I feel like somebody, let's keep it real,
Speaker 1: somebody younger who doesn't funk with that line that you
Speaker 1: just said, probably doesn't have any problem with Bad and Bougie,
Speaker 1: And if you got like an honest, heartfelt answer from them,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it would boil down to, well, I
Speaker 1: like me, goes, I don't like that other guy, which
Speaker 1: is fine. I mean, some people somebody rubs you the
Speaker 1: wrong way that you take their ship more serious than
Speaker 1: you do other people's ship. That's fine, that's your prerogative,
Speaker 1: but you know that is what's going on. At least
Speaker 1: it feels that way. And I'm really glad you brought
Speaker 1: that up, actually, because a lot of what I came
Speaker 1: to talk to about today was misogyny and hip hop lyrics,
Speaker 1: because I guess misogyny has been more pervasive in my
Speaker 1: life experience and so that it to me is where
Speaker 1: I draw a line. However, I had not really interrogated
Speaker 1: the fact that if in a song they're talking about
Speaker 1: like squeezing the trigger, you know, Bussanoosi whatever, I kind
Speaker 1: of I don't really hear. I don't really hear that.
Speaker 1: I don't only worry about that because that is not
Speaker 1: as like I just think it's interesting. I don't think.
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't think you're wrong for not
Speaker 1: hearing it. I don't know what I'm saying. I just
Speaker 1: but the fact that you talked about how the influence
Speaker 1: of one's life experiences then colors what you hear, is
Speaker 1: you know, problematic or realistic or or persuasive in these
Speaker 1: songs interesting. I told you the story I think last
Speaker 1: night or the night before, I'll tell it to you, right,
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's funny because it's like related to
Speaker 1: the bad and Booge selling again. So I was watching
Speaker 1: basketball game and this is like two years ago, and um,
Speaker 1: I was like whatever feed I was watching. You could
Speaker 1: see the halftime show, right, and it was like a
Speaker 1: Boston Celtics game, So this is like Boston white people
Speaker 1: and see you know what I'm saying. And the halftime
Speaker 1: show there was like this troop of kids who came
Speaker 1: out to dance, right, and it was like, oh, word
Speaker 1: like that. So it was like it's like a truth.
Speaker 1: It was like thirty of them white, you know, eight
Speaker 1: eight nine, nobody was like older than ten, right, fancing
Speaker 1: to an unedited bad and Bougie, And I'm just sitting
Speaker 1: there watching it, and there was just something about in
Speaker 1: that moment watching it, and it was like, there's something
Speaker 1: about this is not cool. None of them edited. None
Speaker 1: of those kids knew it was unedited. They didn't. But
Speaker 1: it's kind of the point because what you hear is
Speaker 1: and you get this, you get this sort of like
Speaker 1: impressionistic view or experience of the song when it's when
Speaker 1: it's coming in here, when you're dancing on the baton
Speaker 1: Boston Celtics court to it. That like all you're hearing
Speaker 1: is like the sum total of the song, which is
Speaker 1: which is musical, it's not, it's not being with it
Speaker 1: whittled down into like line by line, Oh, he's cooking
Speaker 1: up he's cooking up crack with the like nobody, nobody's
Speaker 1: getting to that level with white the white kids that
Speaker 1: were dancing to it. You know. I think that what
Speaker 1: it comes down to is like if if rich, stuffy
Speaker 1: white people had a moral problem against bad em bougie
Speaker 1: and didn't want their children dancing to it, I would
Speaker 1: like it more. But the fact that they don't have
Speaker 1: a problem with it just sense all my spider senses
Speaker 1: off that something is terribly wrong. It seems like there
Speaker 1: was a time when just hip hop got more pushed
Speaker 1: back forth. Really, what was this? Like the nineties win
Speaker 1: C the Loris Tucker was fucking taking steam rollers to
Speaker 1: ice tea and ice cubes and what did that do anything?
Speaker 1: How can you say it didn't do anything. That ship
Speaker 1: was like specifically against misogyny and rap, like they were
Speaker 1: like C the Loris Tucker was doing that ship specifically
Speaker 1: about songs like Bitches Ain't Shit or Bitches a bitch
Speaker 1: or n w a one less bit you gotta worry about,
Speaker 1: Like that ship was. It was important. I mean back
Speaker 1: then we were rolling our eyes, was like, oh, they're old,
Speaker 1: they don't know what the funk they're talking about. They
Speaker 1: hated but like twenty five years later you look back
Speaker 1: at it, it's like, damn if hip hop wasn't getting
Speaker 1: at least that sort of pushback back in the nineties,
Speaker 1: Like if the gangster era of rap was just allowed
Speaker 1: to go unfettered with no sort of criticism from within
Speaker 1: the black community in the hip hop community itself, like
Speaker 1: niggas might literally be caveman right now, literally Queen Latifa's
Speaker 1: you and I t y. That is a reaction and
Speaker 1: a criticism of hip hop from within, like these things
Speaker 1: are important. And what it did is it kind of
Speaker 1: made more like thinking rappers like Iced Tea and Ice
Speaker 1: Cube to have to be able to defend their reflect
Speaker 1: evolve or even digging in their views. But you're confronted
Speaker 1: with it, and then the next generation of hip hoppers learn,
Speaker 1: which is why you have a new generation of the
Speaker 1: generation of hip hop that came after that was more
Speaker 1: conscious to issues like that. In the generation that came
Speaker 1: after them was more conscious issues like that from a
Speaker 1: mainstream level. I don't see that ship anymore that you
Speaker 1: don't go there. I disagree. I feel like we're in
Speaker 1: an era where everything gets put on the under the
Speaker 1: microscope to a much higher degree because everybody's got my
Speaker 1: fucking blog, you know, Blevity or Bustle or whoever is
Speaker 1: gonna make a click quick buck off a clickbait article
Speaker 1: writing about how Taylor Swift is actually not a feminist
Speaker 1: or whatever like so um, I don't know, man, I
Speaker 1: necesarily this is starting to creep into the area of
Speaker 1: respectability politics. But I don't really funk with that. I do.
Speaker 1: He's I think when you when you start going down
Speaker 1: this road, that's kind of because she should be complaining
Speaker 1: about rap. I'm of a certain age. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say I should be complaining about rap because it's
Speaker 1: kind of a young person's sport and disagree with that.
Speaker 1: Oh god, oh god, we can't agree on anything. Nas
Speaker 1: got props because he was a kid that sounded like
Speaker 1: a grown ass man, not because he was a dumb
Speaker 1: fucking kid that was sounding like a dumb kid on
Speaker 1: the mike. This aspect of the ship is to be continued. Yeah,
Speaker 1: every every person in the history of ever who got
Speaker 1: old started to crying. Yeah, the habits and the customs
Speaker 1: of the newer generations as somewhat deteriorated. Yes, I'm going
Speaker 1: back to ancient fucking greed. Yes, really, how all those
Speaker 1: newer generations kept that Greek empire going after all these
Speaker 1: years too? They're thriving. If you guys are on the
Speaker 1: train that the reason that a fifty year old in
Speaker 1: nineteen wouldn't like NASA's Illmatic album is the same reason
Speaker 1: that like a thirty year old in two thousand nineteen
Speaker 1: doesn't like Takashi six nine. I think that's nuts. I
Speaker 1: don't because I guarantee if you played any rap album
Speaker 1: for Salors Tucker, she'd say this is trash. It didn't
Speaker 1: matter what rap album was. She just picked Ice Team
Speaker 1: Ice Cube because they were easily like targetable. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: if you played her fucking I'm trying to think of
Speaker 1: of a clean wrapper from the night played like a
Speaker 1: she might be Okay. Will Smith, if you played their
Speaker 1: Tribe album, She's gonna find something. Will Smith had, Will
Speaker 1: Smith had a racist song. Will Smith had this one song,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, she was Asian that I do remember that.
Speaker 1: It was like like that it happened, didn't happen. It
Speaker 1: was literally like yo, Fresh Prince got that one song
Speaker 1: where he said, but did you really say it? Though?
Speaker 1: That's weird to me. But anyway, we're back back. We're back.
Speaker 1: We're talking about problematic content and hip hop songs where
Speaker 1: we draw the line, if any So let's talk about
Speaker 1: that lite which line the line like where is the
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't I don't know where is everyone's line? Mike,
Speaker 1: what is your line on? Like? What is it. What
Speaker 1: are the things that is, you cannot allow the slickness
Speaker 1: of the rhyme or the beat or however you feel
Speaker 1: about the song to like, let's what you just heard slide.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not even gonna sit here in line.
Speaker 1: I don't think I have a line, because you know, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm privileged enough to not have to worry
Speaker 1: about certain things. So I mean, even even though I'm
Speaker 1: listening to something and I can critically analyze that thing,
Speaker 1: at the same time, I'm not gonna lie and be
Speaker 1: like yo, if I'm trying to think, Like if if
Speaker 1: killing Mike one day slips up and says some really
Speaker 1: fucked up ship in the bar, I'm just gonna be like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm done with killing Mike forever. I'm not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not either. I'm not either. Um. But even even
Speaker 1: on a personal level, you know, I'm not saying like
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go public and be like, yo, everybody stopped
Speaker 1: listening to this certain rapper. Even on a personal level,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be like, all right, well, I can
Speaker 1: no longer listen to any of your music because you
Speaker 1: said this one thing. I don't think I have that
Speaker 1: and again I think that comes from a place of privilege,
Speaker 1: because I mean, what can outside of a white person
Speaker 1: calling me, you know, nigger, what is there that a
Speaker 1: rapper could possibly say that will personally offend me to
Speaker 1: the point where I have to draw a line. I
Speaker 1: don't have that issue, So I can I have the
Speaker 1: privilege of ignoring certain things. That's kind of what I'm
Speaker 1: getting at. Yeah, And I mean I feel like with
Speaker 1: the misogyny inherent and a lot of hip hop music,
Speaker 1: I don't have that privilege when I hear certain things.
Speaker 1: Take the classic example, the blurred lines Robin Thick, Like,
Speaker 1: when I hear that rape kind of insinuation being made,
Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't help that it's a rip off
Speaker 1: of fucking Marvin Gay and so say, I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: know you want it. You know you're an animal. I
Speaker 1: know you want it. Is that legits like the hook hook,
Speaker 1: you know you want it. It's blur blord lines. The
Speaker 1: idea that like taking advantage and like domesticating women like
Speaker 1: their animals. I'm a domestic like whatever, like so see
Speaker 1: and you got this face like, oh I do. But
Speaker 1: if Benny said that should probably like, yeah, blur them
Speaker 1: lines that that, and you know what, I think the
Speaker 1: pupil's reactions should be. Like for me, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like what do I believe? You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: Like if I hear somebody say something that does hit
Speaker 1: me in that spot, then it comes down to do
Speaker 1: I genuinely believe that this person is like advocating something?
Speaker 1: So it kind of comes back to that like literal question,
Speaker 1: what do you take seriously or not? I mean, I
Speaker 1: know with me, I have I say ship that I
Speaker 1: don't mean all the time, either just jokes or I'm
Speaker 1: just wrapping or making a point or whatever. I'm totally
Speaker 1: open to somebody being like, oh, that's in bad taste
Speaker 1: and them not working with it because I feel that
Speaker 1: way about other ship. But for somebody to make an
Speaker 1: assertion is if they know like who I am based
Speaker 1: on that, Like I'm not about to meet al Pacino
Speaker 1: and start yelling at him about like why did you Kilfrado?
Speaker 1: Because I'm sure he would look at me and be
Speaker 1: like it's a movie, dumb fuck? You know. So it's
Speaker 1: like not everything is real. Yeah, I think with alternative
Speaker 1: or underground hip hop as well as mainstream, a line
Speaker 1: of new draws when people are reporting on facts versus
Speaker 1: like touting like a way of life that others should
Speaker 1: endorse an embrace. So if someone's like, yo, I shot
Speaker 1: a nigger, like, I'm gonna just I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: just listen to that and not take offense to it.
Speaker 1: So that's just sucking real life, a real, real last
Speaker 1: thing that he's reporting, Like, I'm not gonna you know,
Speaker 1: but I don't know though, even in the case when
Speaker 1: we're like yo, Wenna, come buy your block fucking light, yo,
Speaker 1: shut up, Like I'm not gonna I'm probably not gonna
Speaker 1: WinCE at that because I don't know. I just don't
Speaker 1: really normalized And do you listen to that stuff though?
Speaker 1: Does it not? Does it? Does it not turn you off? No? Okay,
Speaker 1: because it does to me, Like, yeah, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I I I'm one of those sort of
Speaker 1: cats where it's like I try to make an effort
Speaker 1: to listen to like a lot of ship and and
Speaker 1: as much stuff as I can, just because I like rap.
Speaker 1: I just like to consume wrap and you know, I
Speaker 1: mean at least be able to say I've heard something once.
Speaker 1: But like because of how I know the stuff that
Speaker 1: makes me feel some sort of way. It makes me
Speaker 1: feel it's like yeah, like the none of the beats
Speaker 1: are hot enough for me to be like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna listen to this song because it makes
Speaker 1: me feel sort of way. And I know that about myself,
Speaker 1: so I'm not gonna like listen to it just so
Speaker 1: I can get mad, you know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 1: like if I put on a music video and I
Speaker 1: see a bunch of like sixteen year olds pointing automatic
Speaker 1: weapons at the camera, Like, there's no part of me
Speaker 1: that thinks that that's cool. Therefore, like I don't feel
Speaker 1: any pressure to like say that I like it or
Speaker 1: anything like that. I don't think that it shouldn't exist
Speaker 1: or that people who do like it shouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to like it. I just know that I don't funk
Speaker 1: with it. I feel, you Like, when I was younger,
Speaker 1: you know, I would listen to sex Style all the time.
Speaker 1: You know, Um, I would listen to fucking Kool Keith records.
Speaker 1: I would listen to Necro records. But as I get
Speaker 1: older and I start realizing, like, yo, nah, lot of
Speaker 1: that ship you're saying is really fucked up. You rapping
Speaker 1: about chaining women up in your basement. No, bro, I
Speaker 1: can't lack with that anymore. Yeah, I mean I did
Speaker 1: when I was younger. And the thing is, uh, when
Speaker 1: I was younger, I felt like I was really in
Speaker 1: this struggle. I was out in the streets from this
Speaker 1: this quote unquote PC thing. But I was still listening
Speaker 1: to the ship and it didn't bother me. But as
Speaker 1: I'm older, it's just like, man, nah, that ship is
Speaker 1: really fucked up. To me, it's the to me listening
Speaker 1: to old stuff like that, the pointlessness of it is
Speaker 1: what gets to me. You know what I mean? Is
Speaker 1: this just like it's like it's not funny because I'm
Speaker 1: not saying yeah, yeah, but again, you know they weren't
Speaker 1: sixteen when they made isn't that kind of weird? Yeah?
Speaker 1: But but again it all goes you know, I know
Speaker 1: that people, you know, the comic consensus is that intent
Speaker 1: doesn't matter and it's all the only thing that matters
Speaker 1: is what happens. But you know, there's a certain there's
Speaker 1: a certain level of like Necro for example, right like
Speaker 1: as a specific example of Necro, where it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I I know that Necro like has like a family
Speaker 1: with like you know what I'm saying, and nephews and nieces,
Speaker 1: and he's like and I know that he's like really
Speaker 1: in the horror movies and and old Italian horror movies
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So from that perspective, it's like
Speaker 1: everything or in that in that light, like everything that
Speaker 1: necro does in his music makes sense from that standpoint,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, this is like a horror movie fan
Speaker 1: who's making you know what I mean? Now, if the
Speaker 1: basis is no, horror movies are wrong and it shouldn't
Speaker 1: exist because it's problematic, I'm not saying I agree with that,
Speaker 1: but that's the stance that I feel that you should
Speaker 1: come at that from. I don't know what you're talking man, Okay,
Speaker 1: Necro is a I guess you could call him out.
Speaker 1: He's a horrorcore rapper, to put it simply, more simply
Speaker 1: than it should be put. He's the sort of rapper
Speaker 1: who like he watches horror movies a lot, and he'll
Speaker 1: be like, Yeo, I'm gonna write a song as the
Speaker 1: slasher who's going after the babysitter, and the whole song
Speaker 1: will be from respect. You know what I mean? That
Speaker 1: that sort of. I kind of sort of get what
Speaker 1: you're saying, because I mean a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of those old Italian horror movies, as yellow movies, are
Speaker 1: very much misogynist because it's just about hunting and killing women.
Speaker 1: At the same time, he's not stupid, he's not he
Speaker 1: should know, like, Yo, I put this ship in here,
Speaker 1: and that's what it is. I feel you're about that.
Speaker 1: I'm hit you with a different one, al right. So
Speaker 1: remember remember back in the day when Rick Ross had
Speaker 1: that line about putting the pilling her and everyone was outraged.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I didn't listen to Rick Ross anyway,
Speaker 1: so it didn't make a difference to me. I was
Speaker 1: just like, either way, I'm not listening to his music.
Speaker 1: But I understood why people were piste off, and I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, that's a really fucked up line. Why
Speaker 1: would you say something like that. That's crazy? And I remember, no,
Speaker 1: it's the Necro line there on the On the Run
Speaker 1: the Jewels album. Um, No, neither rapper said it, but
Speaker 1: Prince Paul had like this interlude type of dealing. He's like, Yo,
Speaker 1: it's probably that half of Molly I put in her drink. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I remember I listened to an album probably thirty
Speaker 1: five times, and that line never ever even popped out
Speaker 1: to me at all, and it was just one day
Speaker 1: at the gym. I was like, damn, that's kind of
Speaker 1: fucked up that heat like even. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I don't skip that song because it's the intent. But
Speaker 1: what is though, I have no idea, no idea what
Speaker 1: that think when they write he's trying to be funny?
Speaker 1: Is that is he trying to be funny? I mean
Speaker 1: maybe I'm just like, look, but I don't hear that
Speaker 1: skit and think, oh man, Prince Paul's being a really
Speaker 1: that's like a really cool dude, Like yeah, that's like awesome,
Speaker 1: Like it's I think they're like satirization, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. But again, it's just like all specific, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It's like it's that specific line
Speaker 1: and what I interpreted it. But let me ask you, Mike,
Speaker 1: why don't you skip over it? Not as a challenge
Speaker 1: to you, but like what makes it make it so that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Because I'm I'm interesting, because I'm interested in like what
Speaker 1: makes it so that people make give a pass on
Speaker 1: certain music? Because I definitely have music I give a
Speaker 1: pass on to yeah. I think again, it goes back
Speaker 1: to the idea of I have the privilege to ignore
Speaker 1: it because I, as a man, I know it happens,
Speaker 1: but it's a lot less likely that I'm going to
Speaker 1: go to a club and someone's gonna spike my drink. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I that's not something that I have to go out
Speaker 1: into the world and really worry about. So I have
Speaker 1: the privilege of saying, you know what, Yeah, that's fucked
Speaker 1: up in the sense of I wouldn't want anything like
Speaker 1: that to happen to any of my of my friends,
Speaker 1: but I personally don't have to worry about that. And
Speaker 1: also it goes back to the aesthetic thing that we're
Speaker 1: talking about earlier. It's a fucking dope song and I
Speaker 1: have literally I've listened to the ship out of r
Speaker 1: t J and I can't even pick out what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. I don't even I don't even remember. It
Speaker 1: doesn't jump out because it's the exciting experience. And that's
Speaker 1: not even me trying to criticize R t J. It's
Speaker 1: just it's just a matter of because I mean, Mac
Speaker 1: is right, they were obviously, you know, trying to be
Speaker 1: tongue in cheek. I just but that goes to the
Speaker 1: thing you're talking about earlier though, that if I just
Speaker 1: handed you that line and nothing else, you had never
Speaker 1: heard the song. If I just put that line in
Speaker 1: front of you, where he's like, why is this girl
Speaker 1: so happy? Oh, it's probably the half of Molly I
Speaker 1: put in her drink, and I just gave you that
Speaker 1: walked away. You're gonna think, oh my god, run the
Speaker 1: dual supports rape, So should they have to explain that
Speaker 1: or should you actually have to like bear the responsibility
Speaker 1: to go hear the entire song and determine, okay, are
Speaker 1: they actually endorsing scumbaggery or it all comes down to
Speaker 1: like a personal choice all the way around. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: it's personal on the fan on how they want to
Speaker 1: interpret it, and it's personal on the artists and on
Speaker 1: how they want to interpret it for me personally, Like
Speaker 1: my most popular song, I have a line where I
Speaker 1: said Obama killed way more kids than Adam Lanza. I
Speaker 1: wrote that in I meant every single syllable of it
Speaker 1: when I wrote it, because that's how I felt. You
Speaker 1: fast forward to three years after that, and if I'm
Speaker 1: doing a show, I gotta like think about how I'm
Speaker 1: going to rework that line, because somebody could come up
Speaker 1: to me afterwards and be like, hey, so I heard
Speaker 1: that ship you said about Obama, So like what you
Speaker 1: funk with Trump or something. Now, as an artist in
Speaker 1: that situation, you can have one of two reactions. You
Speaker 1: can either have the reaction of I don't give a
Speaker 1: funk what you think, you think, whatever the funk you
Speaker 1: want about my ship, I ain't explaining ship. Or you
Speaker 1: could be the sort of artist that's like me. It's like,
Speaker 1: oh man, I don't want somebody to go away with
Speaker 1: the wrong impression than what I intended to elicit with
Speaker 1: the art I made, So let me explain that. And
Speaker 1: it just comes down to comes down to that that
Speaker 1: interaction right there. Do you know how many parties I've
Speaker 1: gone to and someone finds out, like like Detton hip
Speaker 1: Hop did this thing with Patreon in uh in California,
Speaker 1: and this white dude came up to me and Fivo
Speaker 1: and found that we did hip hop stuff and I
Speaker 1: can't remember exactly what he asked me, but he asked
Speaker 1: me something that required me to defend some kind of lyric.
Speaker 1: And you can ask Fivo I got my ship. I
Speaker 1: still up and I walked away and Ralph asked me later,
Speaker 1: He's like why, And I was like, Bro, I'm not
Speaker 1: doing this with people like he. He he wasn't curious
Speaker 1: about my opinion. He had his opinion. He was waiting
Speaker 1: for me to give half of mine so he could
Speaker 1: give all of his. It was not an inquisitive question,
Speaker 1: and I can sense that kind of ship out. This
Speaker 1: dude didn't listen to wrap. He clearly didn't you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So it's like if you came up
Speaker 1: and wanted to ask me, like, Yo, what do you
Speaker 1: think about this? Yes, so now let's talk about it.
Speaker 1: But some random dude off the street and a fucking
Speaker 1: Abercrombie and Fit shirt, no, bro, And that's not like
Speaker 1: a racist thing. He could be black and white whatever,
Speaker 1: but I'm just not going to entertain that kind of ship. Hey, dope,
Speaker 1: knife here. So that was just part of the interview
Speaker 1: that we do to Mike c Town a year ago.
Speaker 1: There's still an hour and a half of that interview
Speaker 1: left because we didn't know what we were doing back then,
Speaker 1: So who knows, Maybe sometime in the future we'll post
Speaker 1: the rest that up. But um, fast forward to now
Speaker 1: present day. Um, we brought Mike back on this show
Speaker 1: just to touch base, just to get some of his
Speaker 1: thoughts and pick his brain a little bit about some
Speaker 1: of the things that have happened in between when we
Speaker 1: recorded that interview and now. Um. Yeah, So, how do
Speaker 1: you feel about the way that rappers are engaging with
Speaker 1: our current political moment or just the current life moment,
Speaker 1: life moment, you know, whatever moment this is right, this
Speaker 1: moment that we're in, this moment in human history. Do
Speaker 1: you think in general rappers are like, well, what do
Speaker 1: you think about what they're doing? Yeah? What do you
Speaker 1: think about the chants? I mean, I guess it depends
Speaker 1: on who we're talking about. I mean, talk us through
Speaker 1: a couple in your eyes, maybe the highlights and then
Speaker 1: some of the low lights. I don't I don't honestly
Speaker 1: know that I have any highlights man like that out
Speaker 1: here It kind of is, Man, I don't really see Like,
Speaker 1: I know this sounds bad, but I don't really see
Speaker 1: a lot of rappers that are like really stepping up
Speaker 1: to like you know what I'm saying, Like at least
Speaker 1: not like these like mainstream guys that have like a
Speaker 1: lot of young eyes on them, you know. Unfortunately, I'm
Speaker 1: kind of just like let down by you know, big
Speaker 1: time mainstream rappers right now. They're like they're just kind
Speaker 1: of more focused on their money than they are people. Man,
Speaker 1: what else would you expect really from a mainstream rapper anyway?
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean it's they've been telling you for
Speaker 1: years they don't give about nothing but but the paper.
Speaker 1: But I mean I am of a mind that like,
Speaker 1: if you don't have something to say, don't just say
Speaker 1: something to say something, so they admire that some folks
Speaker 1: are like, we have anything intell didn't to articulate about
Speaker 1: this situation, And they don't because when people do, they
Speaker 1: started running up saying ship and everyone looks to them
Speaker 1: like a leader of a movement. When they're like not
Speaker 1: actually on the ground doing organizing these communities, then it's
Speaker 1: just like shut the funk up and like, let us
Speaker 1: do what we're doing. So I actually I'm very thankful
Speaker 1: for those that have not spoken out of uh at
Speaker 1: least everyone had a good take or like, you know,
Speaker 1: but they don't. So it's better than they're quiet. Aren't
Speaker 1: we supposed to be in a recession? Didn't like people
Speaker 1: lose their job and ship, and it's just like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, the that hasn't affected the big money talk
Speaker 1: at all. You know, it's it's almost liked the words yeah,
Speaker 1: because now now you're really bragging to people that don't
Speaker 1: have ship, and then you're wondering, I know this sounds bad,
Speaker 1: but then you're wondering why, you know, ship that happens
Speaker 1: to people like Boosey, and then ship that happens to
Speaker 1: people like many of the Butcher Like I was, you
Speaker 1: wonder why these things happen. Like you're fucking bragging about
Speaker 1: your chains and all this ship, and then you're riding
Speaker 1: through neighborhoods where motherfucker's don't have anything and you're riding
Speaker 1: arounding rolls royces. Yeah, of course you're gonna get run
Speaker 1: up on. Those are just two names, and like a list,
Speaker 1: there's like been like five or six cats who have
Speaker 1: been shot in Texas and stuff, and it's been, you know,
Speaker 1: weird because it's all been happened, you know, bunched up
Speaker 1: in a short amount of time. But then you just
Speaker 1: have to wonder. Coincidentally, last weekend, there was like one
Speaker 1: of the longest food lines that we've ever seen in
Speaker 1: American history. In Texas, you know, like six thousand cars
Speaker 1: were lined up for a food bag. So that go
Speaker 1: hand in hand with the desperation that people feel and
Speaker 1: situations like that. Yeah, I mean I I look at that,
Speaker 1: because we talked about that today a little bit, But
Speaker 1: I mean I look at that now. I don't want
Speaker 1: to blame Benny for what happened. I mean, I hope
Speaker 1: he's okay and all that good ship, But with Benny,
Speaker 1: I don't want to make it seem like I'm like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you should have known better, You shouldn't have
Speaker 1: been doing X y Z. No, that still sucks if
Speaker 1: you got shot in the leg because somebody tried to
Speaker 1: rob you. But at the same time, I would think
Speaker 1: that maybe once everyone calms down and understand situation and
Speaker 1: thinks about it, it's kind of one of those things
Speaker 1: where it's like, yeah, this was kind of bound to happen,
Speaker 1: you know, for people that are less fortunate. You can't
Speaker 1: like roll through the hood in a Rolls Royce like
Speaker 1: you just kind of can't. You know. The last time
Speaker 1: that we talked, you know, we were talking about problematic
Speaker 1: lyrics and things of that nature. So I guess at
Speaker 1: this point in my life, I don't particularly look to
Speaker 1: rappers to do these kinds of messaging. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's good or bad. Um, I guess I don't
Speaker 1: really look to musicians period anymore to to get these
Speaker 1: kinds of messages out, which I guess that is kind
Speaker 1: of sad, isn't it kind of a yeah, isn't it
Speaker 1: kind of a bad thing? And I don't mean that
Speaker 1: on hip hop. I just mean that just in general,
Speaker 1: that we have such a cynical view towards like artists
Speaker 1: and ship It's like we just we expect the default
Speaker 1: of them is to, you know, kind of not be
Speaker 1: worship as far as things like that go. Yeah, no, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the more I'm thinking about it, it is kind of bad.
Speaker 1: But I also understand that most musicians are working for
Speaker 1: the machine anyway, so it's just kind of how things go,
Speaker 1: and you know, And at the same time, I'm also
Speaker 1: getting to this point where I don't necessarily want to
Speaker 1: put that burden on musicians anymore. I think that people
Speaker 1: having access to social media and all this, they should
Speaker 1: kind of know who to look to, Like I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think people should be going to Little Wayne
Speaker 1: to get political advice. You know, I don't think that
Speaker 1: people should be pulling up a Kanye West tweet to say, oh,
Speaker 1: you know what do I think about this bill? Or
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like, at this point, we
Speaker 1: all have access to the direct thoughts of political analysts.
Speaker 1: So why are we still waiting for fucking push a
Speaker 1: t to tell us who we should vote for? I can,
Speaker 1: I can give you kind of an answer to that.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't. No one should be looking towards the Donald
Speaker 1: Trump for anything either. Sure know what I'm saying, because
Speaker 1: like he's the same manner of celebrity. No one should
Speaker 1: be looking to Paris Hilton to get any advice about
Speaker 1: anything important. Nobody should be looking. But unfortunately we're just
Speaker 1: in that reality to where we are to the to
Speaker 1: the tune of seventy one million people. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, who, and it's it's I don't. I don't think.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest explanation for is celebrity and the
Speaker 1: celebrity culture that we live in where and you add
Speaker 1: in social media, where people can cultivate these like bubbles
Speaker 1: in these cultural personality, you know, in in a positive
Speaker 1: note for artists, you can use that to sustain yourself
Speaker 1: and to strive, you know, and you cultivate your fan
Speaker 1: base that will support you no matter what and they're
Speaker 1: gonna ride with you. But then if you see what
Speaker 1: what happens when you add in a couple of couple
Speaker 1: million dollars and some political uh political strategists and ship
Speaker 1: like that, and you can make a megaphone that just
Speaker 1: hypnotizes people in a way. So I guess in a
Speaker 1: certain way, it's it's kind of out of people's control
Speaker 1: to a certain degree. Yeah, I don't know. I go
Speaker 1: I go back and forth about this quite a bit.
Speaker 1: You know, this whole idea of I want I want
Speaker 1: rappers to talk more. And then I start thinking, like,
Speaker 1: why should they have to? Like an artist's job is
Speaker 1: to create art, right, And on one hand, I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: they shouldn't be held responsible for anything outside of that.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, if this is also a
Speaker 1: culture thing, like you know, if you're if you're at
Speaker 1: the forefront of a culture and you understand that your
Speaker 1: culture is the most popular culture in the world, then
Speaker 1: I feel like, wouldn't you kind of want to make
Speaker 1: things better? Wouldn't you, like, do you almost like a
Speaker 1: would you feel a sense of because yeah, like if
Speaker 1: you know, I'm trying to think like I can't say
Speaker 1: Kanye because Kanye is going through some ship, but like
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of like a rap like I
Speaker 1: don't know. I hate, I hate to always throw this
Speaker 1: on Kendrick Lamar, but I mean, I guess he's probably
Speaker 1: the most popular example of this. But if you're a
Speaker 1: Kendrick Lamar and you know that your words have heavy, heavy,
Speaker 1: heavy meaning and they they you know, wouldn't you want
Speaker 1: to like at least understand the weight of your words
Speaker 1: and use them in a way that could make things better?
Speaker 1: Or would you rather just keep rapping about the same
Speaker 1: ship that everybody's been rapping about for the last three decades.
Speaker 1: Part of me wants to say, well, ship, why aren't
Speaker 1: you using your voice right now to amplify the other
Speaker 1: voices that are saying like what's going on? Or what
Speaker 1: you know what I mean as opposed to just being
Speaker 1: a part of the status quo. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know the answer to that. So UM I
Speaker 1: saw on Twitter when UM like fifty in them were
Speaker 1: when everybody was getting on maggot out towards the end
Speaker 1: of the election there that was kind of pissing you
Speaker 1: off a bit. I mean, as as it was all
Speaker 1: of us, I guess, but I mean I I was
Speaker 1: one of the people who I just I knew I
Speaker 1: wanted to just like sit down and talk and just
Speaker 1: like pick their mind about what they were thinking during
Speaker 1: that was you so okay? So with ice Cube, he
Speaker 1: actually pissed me off the least out of the whole
Speaker 1: group of rappers that all of a sudden started talking,
Speaker 1: mainly because I don't think ice Cube meant any ill
Speaker 1: will with what happened. I think that ice Cube got played.
Speaker 1: And that's that sucks is ice Cube either doesn't understand
Speaker 1: that he got played or he doesn't want to admit
Speaker 1: that he got played. But he got fucking played. And
Speaker 1: my whole thing is, I don't blame ice Cube for
Speaker 1: trying to use his platform to make things better. I
Speaker 1: blame ice Cube for being ignorant enough to think that
Speaker 1: this was going to work. Like I didn't see this
Speaker 1: contract with Black America. I never signed on for this ship.
Speaker 1: And if I had a choice of the people that
Speaker 1: I would want to represent me in something like this
Speaker 1: no offense to ice Cube, but it wouldn't be ice Cube,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So like, but I don't
Speaker 1: blame him for taking his contract to Biden and Trump.
Speaker 1: I think what sucks is the narrative got switched up
Speaker 1: after that to where it was like, oh, the Democrats
Speaker 1: ignored ice Cube and Trump listened to ice Cube, when
Speaker 1: it was really like, nah, man, the Democrats saw that
Speaker 1: your ship was basically in line with what they were
Speaker 1: already attempting to do. And Trump said, oh, look a nigger.
Speaker 1: I can use nigger to get other niggers a vote
Speaker 1: for me. And that was all it was. And eventually
Speaker 1: ice Cube never saw that, and I that's what that was.
Speaker 1: That's what I meant by disappointing. I didn't mean it
Speaker 1: was it was disappointing as in he was like a
Speaker 1: bad person. It was disappointing as in, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I grew up thinking that like if something like that happened,
Speaker 1: that ice wouldn't be able to or ice Cube wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to get like played by some punk as
Speaker 1: politician like pro you know, yeah that you know. So
Speaker 1: it was just kind of like a finding out there's
Speaker 1: no Santa Claus type of ship, like, oh man, that
Speaker 1: could happen to be He's just the regulative um. But
Speaker 1: looking at it from ice Cube standpoint, right, ice Cube
Speaker 1: just got into politics. He said this, Yeah, he said this.
Speaker 1: He just got into politics. He writes up this contract
Speaker 1: with Black America and almost fucking immediately he has the
Speaker 1: President calling him being like, yes, let's talk, and he's like,
Speaker 1: what ship? This was easy? That's all I had to do. Wait,
Speaker 1: I want to ask you something really quick. Were you
Speaker 1: actually surprised by not ice Cube, but people like fifty Wayne.
Speaker 1: Were you actually surprised by their stances on this? Here's
Speaker 1: the thing, here's the thing. Mm hm. Fifty was frilling
Speaker 1: to a degree, but no, I wasn't. And and this
Speaker 1: is this is part of the thing, right, And it's
Speaker 1: like we're it's not gonna work with what we had
Speaker 1: recorded before. But it's kind of like a a thesis
Speaker 1: that I've had where it's like, Yo, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of these rap niggas are right wingers. Yo, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like for real, I think I
Speaker 1: think we're I think we need to stop getting in
Speaker 1: this mode. And I think that the Trump is um
Speaker 1: stuff is kind of like bringing bringing making this more
Speaker 1: of a point it But we need to stop getting
Speaker 1: in this idea that like being black as a progressive position,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, it's not I'm with you,
Speaker 1: like that's that's not that's not how that works like that,
Speaker 1: you know. So, So with that being is like we
Speaker 1: need to understand that the fact the reason why a
Speaker 1: lot of black people vote Democrat, or I should even
Speaker 1: say why a lot of black people vote against Republicans
Speaker 1: is because Republicans have openly embraced like weird Nazi ship
Speaker 1: in fucking clan shit, you know what I'm saying, instead
Speaker 1: of them, if Republicans were just smart enough to be like, yo,
Speaker 1: let's I'll just be racist. But let's not say that
Speaker 1: we're racist, Like let's like, yeah, let's just let's be
Speaker 1: like we love money, poor people, We love money, I
Speaker 1: love Jesus and my guns and blah blah blah. Yo,
Speaker 1: you have a lot of black people in America that
Speaker 1: would be comfort But with that, like for real, like
Speaker 1: that's wrapped about the same ship, like exactly, yeah, I
Speaker 1: rap about shooting guns and hating gay people all the
Speaker 1: time too, So let me get in you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, So I think that's part of it. And
Speaker 1: I think Trump, in his connection to hip hop in
Speaker 1: the past, like the sort of the figure, the stature
Speaker 1: that he had as a figure, I think that's helped
Speaker 1: come into play to where I think a lot of
Speaker 1: guys I might even heard Ebro talking about this on
Speaker 1: the show once, but I think a lot of cats
Speaker 1: or silent because it's like they don't really have that
Speaker 1: much of a problem with ship. I mean, fifty Cent
Speaker 1: in his troll summed it up best. I know Trump
Speaker 1: doesn't look like black people, but damn six in taxes.
Speaker 1: That's That's like they've been telling us this for forty years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's about time we listen some Mikey, thank
Speaker 1: you for coming in and talking with us man one
Speaker 1: more time. Let the people know where they can find
Speaker 1: out all the stuff you're doing. Sure, um, you can
Speaker 1: find me on dead End hip Hop at YouTube dot com,
Speaker 1: forward slash dead End hip Hop. You can find me personally,
Speaker 1: UM through my own avenues at mike ctown dot com,
Speaker 1: m y K E C t O w N dot com.
Speaker 1: I do other kinds of reviews, talk about records, talk
Speaker 1: about other nerdy ass ship you know, so yeah, you
Speaker 1: can get all your bases covered. You'll make sure you
Speaker 1: go check that out and supports coming on to come in. Well,
Speaker 1: that brings us to a close today and uh, I
Speaker 1: guess I'm gonna be the one closing the soft fire
Speaker 1: and m right, we got a little carried away with that.
Speaker 1: Interview is a second episode in a row with no
Speaker 1: music review. We gotta do a long one for you
Speaker 1: all next time, yo, Joe, let me get a beat
Speaker 1: one more time. Make sure you follow dead End hip Hop.
Speaker 1: Check out Mike Satown their reviews. Follow linga Franca and
Speaker 1: Dope Knife on Instagram, fillow Dope Knife and Ling with
Speaker 1: Franca on Spotify. Subscribe to this podcast. Thank you guys
Speaker 1: for supporting one year old. Do you believe it? Yo? Yo,
Speaker 1: y'are swimming in the kids pool. I'm trying to let
Speaker 1: the world know I even got the drip too. I'm
Speaker 1: pimping in the fur coat. I hit you with the
Speaker 1: big stool, swam sipping merlow and get up off my dick, fool.
Speaker 1: You probably call your girl bro. I'm knife, I in wonder,
Speaker 1: I brom when I'm in slumber. My mama or woop
Speaker 1: my ass on my music. I hired it from I
Speaker 1: bury these rappers not in the casket, but lying under
Speaker 1: the gap, spraying out more loads in the briant pumper.
Speaker 1: I'm the precipice. Ain't nobody fresh is this? And it's
Speaker 1: like my Bible. Yo just rasped my will and testament remainstream.
Speaker 1: Niggas wanted to tell me I'm a relevant dog. I
Speaker 1: will reach into your ass, pull out your skeleton. You'll
Speaker 1: never win. That was uncalled for. That was uncalled for,
Speaker 1: an problem. I'm sorry, y'all. I'm gonna try to do better. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm Lingua Franca. I'm dope knife. We are waiting on reparations.
Speaker 1: We'll see you next week. See you guys next week.
Speaker 1: Happy Thanksgiving, y'all. Waiting on reparations as a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Listen to Waiting on Reparations on the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.