WEBVTT - The Reminders 0:00:01.080 --> 0:00:04.520 You are listening to waiting on reparations production of I 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:09.840 Heart Radio. Yeah, you're waiting. We're waiting on reparations right now. 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:12.520 So we say we rot from gen A to show 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:15.160 me stay. I hit the game winner like Kobe play 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:17.360 can go to Texas and took away to ROEVI wait, 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:20.239 so he said, Greg Abbott, Yes, because of him, I 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:23.079 got balls like Nicki Minaj cousin Frank Trump is still 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:25.520 brain dead. Yeah, you shouldn't win, Turtle Mitch still trying 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:28.120 to shut down the government and the news got quite 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:31.000 the addiction that got how when the white girl's missing, 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:33.800 they don't see the indigenous victims. You're trying to talk 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:36.920 about it, and they're like, no, listen, welcome to the show. 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:38.880 Y'all got a bunch of dope. Should I want to 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:42.280 show y'all? I can't believe. I just run and show 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:48.960 y'all twice. I'm dope, Knife, Frank. We are waiting on 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:53.240 reparations that should be today. We're here with Barls born 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.520 mc Disna and Queen's born m C and vocalist Asia Black. 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:59.840 Together they are the reminders both married couple and hip 0:00:59.880 --> 0:01:02.680 hop duo based in Colorado. So thank you so much 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:04.560 for joining us. How many you can tell us a 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:06.600 little bit a bit about who you are and what 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:10.800 your roots are, both musically and politically. Okay, I'm Baxa Mayor. 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:13.840 I was born in Belgium, raised in Congo, moved around 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:16.640 quite a bit. My mother remarried. My stepfather was in 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:22.360 the Air Force, so I landed in Colorado. UM musician, father, husband, 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:27.319 just all around hard worker and uh, you know, I 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:30.440 just stand for I just stand for the people, for 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:35.120 what I believe in, um spiritually and and just you know, 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:38.839 I'm here to uplift people. So mine is my Both 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:40.640 of my parents are from the House Queens. I was 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.840 born in House Queens. My whole family is from Howes Queens. 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:48.240 UM my my grandmother, my mom is Puertrican and Dominican, 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:51.800 uh and my dad is Jamaican and French Creole. And 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:54.600 I have super duper hip hop roots in my family 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:57.840 just because being from Holles Queens, my aunts and uncles 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:00.400 and dads were there in the seventies eighties when all 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:02.640 of this stuff was really starting to come in and 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:04.720 pop off in My grandfather is actually one of the 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:07.480 first black reporters for the New York times. Um, he 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:11.320 tried to be an editor, and they said that his 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:13.480 race kept him from having that as a possibility, and 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:16.080 that kind of broke my grandfather's spirit. But on my 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:19.520 father's side of the family, where my grandfather is, they've 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:23.520 always been very involved in political understandings. On my mother's side, 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:26.800 it's always been very involved in politics in terms of 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:29.640 how they infected the community. So I remember one thing 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:31.600 my grandfather told me. I was young and the nineties 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:34.320 and everybody's ranting Malcolmax shirts and everything, and my grandfather 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:36.280 was like, if only he would have had that support 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:38.880 when it mattered, Um, it was dangerous for people to 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:42.480 be associated with Malcolm X or Martin Luther King at 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:45.400 the time because people are losing their jobs. Um, they're 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.760 being oppressed for different reasons. They were being blacklisted if 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:50.760 they were supporting out of these movements and they had 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:53.480 white employers, and so, you know, my grandfather kind of 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:57.200 brought that to me. And I've been, you know, championing 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:00.400 different causes ever since I was small because I was 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:04.240 encouraging that way. What would you say is y'all's biggest 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:08.160 music influences? Oh Man? When I was I was raised, 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:10.720 my parents I really a clept the music taste, so 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:15.919 jazz blues. My mom really liked like Woodstock type of music, 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:18.600 like rock music, because she understood that it was a 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:21.680 derivative of blues, and so it was really important for 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.840 in my house for us to understand every kind of music. 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:28.200 I was really inspired by Lauren Hill when I was young. 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:31.120 I loved larn Hill, but I also loved Miles Davis. 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.440 I love Prince Um. I really used to love Freddie 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:38.440 Mercury uh a lot because I loved how he I 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:40.880 loved watching him as much as I loved watching James 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:44.280 Brown people like that. So for me growing up, you know, 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:46.160 I grew up in the Congo, so a lot of 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:49.480 Congolese music like Papa Wembay. But then when I moved 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:52.080 to Belgium, one of the first artists I listened to 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:55.280 was Michael Jackson, you know, in the eighties, and then 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:59.440 from there it's everything from classic rock for jazz, reagae um, 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:01.600 you know, pop, R and B, just everything in the 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:07.080 soun Just do you feel um those influences come out 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:10.720 and what you guys have been making. Yeah, mostly I 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:13.520 think for me, mostly in my creative process, I really 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.200 like artists like New York like I like artists that 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:21.760 have really open, honest freedom of expression, um in their creativities. 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:23.760 At Mamma is the same way. She kind of just 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:27.120 starts to basic sonic elements to start putting me together. 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:29.840 So definitely comes out because my music will go from 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:33.560 reggae to hip hop too, blues, two roots to America, 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:39.320 like kind of all over the place. Yeah. So any 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:41.880 born in New York, but you got family from Puerto 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:45.640 Rico and Jamaica, and Samir you hail from Belgium, but 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:48.480 you're racing the Congo. And I'm very curious how your 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:54.320 experiences of of a blackness outside of the US or 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:58.839 you know, drawing from other places in the Dietsphora influence 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:02.880 your view of your your music as well as your worldview. Um. 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:05.479 You know, one thing Asian and I always talk about 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:08.159 is how growing up in the Congo we had we 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:11.840 deal more of colonization and not so much slavery, So 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:16.640 that was more of my upbringing was more of uh, 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:19.880 you know the history of people coming into your country 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.520 and taking over there, right and then you know my 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.200 my my mom is half Congoles, half Belgium. So then 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:29.840 we we went back and forth between Belgium and the 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:36.120 Congo and just feeling like an outcast whenever we're in Belgium, 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:37.800 like they don't want you there, but somehow they came 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:39.480 to your country and took over, do you know what 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:41.800 I mean? And it's the same experience for even Algerians 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.599 in France. But then coming to America, I got to 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:50.800 I got to see and experience something completely different, um, 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:54.920 with the black American experience. Talking about slavery and where 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:59.560 uh where a lot of the history come from h 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:04.320 starts and where uh. You know a lot of Americans say, 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.680 you know, I don't know anything. Ask this in terms 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:09.839 of where I'm trunk, you know, in terms of my 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:13.360 lineage and things like that. So um, you know, I'm 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:15.400 thankful for the for the rich history that that I 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.279 haven't that I can that I can U go back to, 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:22.040 you know. Um, but I know it's it's different for here. Yeah, 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:25.160 my experience with blackness is very interesting because I was 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:28.800 raised like super black, like in a super duper black household, 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:30.839 like in kindergarten. My mom has a picture of me 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:33.000 and I have like eyes on the prize shirt, you 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:35.480 know what I mean, Like super duper like black history 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:39.120 trivia games. You know, my father, my grandfather's half white, 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:42.400 um and then have a quarter Cherokee and quarter black. 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:44.960 My grandfather worked for the New York Times. But we 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:48.200 were always just raised black, like. I never questioned my blackness, right, 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:50.520 White people always said I was black, like I was 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:52.960 always black. And then when I went I went to 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:55.880 Florida and m for college, and that was the first 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:58.960 time anybody ever questioned my blackness because of the way 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:01.360 that I spoke or the way that I navigated things, 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:04.240 or my ideas or it wasn't at the time. It 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.359 wasn't popular in two thousand and one to have an 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.280 afro and to like be natural, like this whole natural 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:12.360 movement was not there. So I was holding that the 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:14.840 whole thing down solo, you know what I mean. And 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:16.960 they were saying, like, you look like animal from them 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:19.000 up with babies. And I had a culture shock because 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:21.480 you know, in New York is so diverse, right, and 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:23.360 you see people that look like you and that don't 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:24.800 look like you, and you kind of feel the same 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.160 way about it, you know, And then and fam, I 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:29.239 kind of have culture shock. Then my father got stationed 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:31.800 in Colorado and we came to Colorado, and I had 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:35.480 culture shop there too, because it was all white people everywhere, 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.400 you know what I mean, And and they were I 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:40.320 was very black to them, you know what I mean. 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:42.920 Our friends started this project called the Very Black Project, 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:45.440 and I told him, I like that you started this 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:48.960 project because my experiences having to tell people all the time, no, 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:51.080 I'm not just black, I'm very black. Like I'm a 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.760 very black person whether I'm kayaking or fishing or enjoying 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:57.760 Freddie Murcury or b York. Like, I'm a very black person. 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:01.040 And our identity is infinitely expensive and all directions. And 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:03.720 just because you have a limited understanding of blackness, it 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:06.680 doesn't compromise my blackness in any way, you know. And 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.400 I think my experience with blackness has really just been 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:13.640 defending the expansiveness of it, whether it's Afro Latina, whether 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:16.240 it's black people being able to be light skinned, very 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:18.040 very light skinned, all the way to the tip of 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:21.360 creole people. Two people in Africa, you know, talking to 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:24.280 them about the African American experience, Like it's always just 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.640 been in defensive blackness is expensiveness. My experience with them, 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:34.640 we talked a little bit about lineages, um and you 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:37.480 know a lot of people like we you know, I myself, 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:41.000 I'm the whole y'all line. But like my you know, 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:43.839 millennials and gen Z and younger, we're actually like the 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:46.200 post hip hop generation. So we were like, you know, 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:49.480 we may have uncles or parents that were growing up, 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:52.200 um when hip hop we was like first kind of 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:55.720 popping off, I'm taking taking the world by storm, but 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:58.040 we've sort of come into it. It's like a second 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:03.360 uh second wave of of its of its evolution. And 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:06.040 then particularly I mean as hip hop spread across the country, 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:08.240 there was also this disconnect from how it was very 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:10.839 rooted in like the geography of New York City and 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:13.440 the culture of New York City and so um age, 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:14.559 I was wondering if you could talk to us a 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:19.600 little bit about, um uh, the connections that you have 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:21.599 sort of like the genesis of hip hop with like 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:24.240 battery and right in your family, those folks being actually 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:26.200 involved in like when it was popping off, and how 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:28.360 I might give you a different perspective than some of 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:33.760 us who maybe removed either geographically or generationally or otherwise 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:36.559 from like the roots of what hip hop is. Yeah. Sure, 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:40.240 So my uncle was a DJ Blue Massive Beef, So 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:41.920 he used to do like all the park dams and 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:45.640 stuff like that. My mom uh new Rust of Simmons 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:47.920 and ran DFC so before Rust of Simmons had Deaf 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:49.760 Champ Pop and off. He used to hand out flyers 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.440 and stuff for part dams and my mom would help him. 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:54.880 My other aunt was dating Curtis Blow at the time. 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:58.280 My uncle designed the first logo and T shirts for 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.560 Biggie Down Productions, very involved in it. But one thing 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:04.319 I learned, because it's like a lot of people like 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:09.280 I referenced my like ethnic cultural backgrounds, but my cultural 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:12.520 background is music, like growing up in music and an 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:15.240 urban environment and hip hop pretty much. So what I 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:17.520 learned about hip hop is that hip hop is like 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:21.240 a vehicle. It's like a spirit, like a vehicle, right, 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:23.840 and it aligns itself with the stories of the youth, 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:27.640 like it aligns itself to maintain its life. It has 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:31.199 to get fresh stories and fresh perspectives and fresh understandings. 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:34.120 So I've never been a person that's rooted in what 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:37.120 hip hop definitively is, you know what I mean. I've 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:39.880 always been a person that understood that it's going to 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.200 change shape and or based on who it's aligning itself 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:45.880 with and how they're expressing it, you know. And so 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:48.720 I get in a conversation with old heads all the time, 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:51.160 Like I'm all, you always see me arguing with like 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:54.360 some old hip hop heads saying, I understand that when 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:56.920 you were growing up, it was this expression that you had, 0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:59.839 but it's almost like a memory, I mean, of some 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.000 thing being extant cement and not being fluid, you know 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:05.880 what I mean. And so I'm always encouraging young people 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:08.720 because for a long time, stories of people like us 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.080 were suppressed, you know what I mean, like really pushed down, 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:15.760 like you couldn't tell these you couldn't people would never 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:17.719 hear these stories of the things that were happening in 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:20.640 our neighborhoods. If you were like a kid that was 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:24.200 still closeted and was coming from a rough neighborhood, there 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:26.439 was no place for you to tell your story, not 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.720 on TV, not on music, not in in books anything 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:31.959 like that, you know. And Audrey Lord is somebody who 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:34.679 always talks about that a lot, the important importance of 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:37.959 finding a medium through which to express yourselves, you know, 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:41.040 and hip hop just happens to be the most successible. Yeah. 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:42.920 I mean you can go on YouTube and get beats 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:44.839 and download them and wrap to them. You can just 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.880 like have your friend beatbox. You can just snap and wrap. 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.120 It's a very accessible art form that allows people to 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:54.840 express their stories easily and fully. You know, whether they 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:57.360 can do it at the capacity of kendrickal Mark really 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:01.520 isn't the purpose of it, right, It's really just letting 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.640 people know that they have that vehicle. When hip hop 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:06.920 was first coming out, you have people on the East Coast, 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:10.720 like in New York, putting the life experience into music, 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:12.880 and the people around could relate because they you know, 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:15.599 they're telling the story of what's actually happening, right. And 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:17.360 then then on the West Coast was the same thing, 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:19.440 whether it be the game band culture on the Bay, 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:22.240 the pimp culture, and everybody around was like, Yo, this 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:24.320 is our lifestyle and this is what we were rocked. 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.079 Even run DMC like, Yo, we rock aldi we dressed 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:31.600 like this. And it wasn't until you had music videos 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:33.640 that people started seeing, Oh, that's how it is on 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:35.240 that side, that's s how it is on this side. 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.160 The difference with you know me at the time I 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:42.600 grew up in Belgium in late eighties, and it made 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:44.920 no difference. We didn't know what East Coast West Coast was. 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:47.440 It was just all music. It was just all hip hop, 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:49.880 you know what I mean, So we all that's how 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:53.599 that's how hip hop reached people overseas, was that we 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:56.599 just took it all as one one music and not 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:59.360 necessarily East Coast, West Coast or you know what I mean, 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.120 not exactly and and and I always always like to 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:06.840 bring that up because, um, you know, when people come 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:08.960 from New York they have that experience, and people come 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:11.080 from certain certain parts of the country, but when people 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:13.319 come from outside of the country, they just took it 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.280 all in as as just one body of music, and 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:18.839 I just appreciated it off what it was. It's it's 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:23.880 interesting in hip hop because like most music changes hands regionally, right, 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:26.160 It's like you go from East Coast to West Coast 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:28.640 to this style or even blues you have like Hill 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:31.800 blues and Delta blues and Chicago blues. But hip hop 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:35.679 changes forms generationally, you know what I mean. It like 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:38.199 changed forms first regionally, and it was just such a 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:40.800 big thing that then now it's like, but now I'm 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:43.880 going by generation, not by region, you know what I mean. 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:46.319 I think the internet was huge in that book. It's 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:48.520 interesting to watch it because people really hold tight to 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.200 their definitions of it, and then when the next generation 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:53.719 gets in their hand, they're like putting hip hop, you 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:57.480 know what I mean, and they're like, it's almost inevitable. 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:01.960 I'm imagining, like in the net like six or seven years, 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:05.240 you're gonna have people who are like being like, ah, 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.120 he's sixteen year olds. Just so I don't know how 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:11.319 it was like, yeah, back in two thousand and fifteen, 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:16.040 when hip hop is really good, hip hop is like 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:20.400 it's a rebellious spirit, like it sparks, It sparks something 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:22.840 inside of people that gives them the courage to express 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:25.520 themselves in the ways that they need to express themselves. 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:27.760 I mean, that's why hip hop and politics are so 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:31.080 closely a line, very closely a line. It's a very 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:34.520 intimate relationship between those two things. And we're already at 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:36.920 the age now where you know, songs are being remade 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:38.680 that we were listening to, you know what I mean, 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:40.640 not too long what feels like not too long ago, 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:43.840 and kids they're remaking it and I'm like, what are 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:45.640 you doing to this. He's sounded like our parents, you 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:48.480 know what I mean, like whenever uh snooping, Dr dre 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:51.280 was sample and stuff. And but what's interesting is that 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:55.200 our son will play if he hears a song it 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:57.280 came out two years ago, He's like, no back. I'm like, 0:14:57.600 --> 0:14:59.320 that's just two years ago. Like to me, a throw 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:02.480 back and something twenty years Well, how old is your son? 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:05.520 Wantes he like the seven or yeah, so like two years. 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:10.040 It's like his whole I half was like throw back years. 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:12.600 It's relative. I think that might be a way of 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:15.800 how we consume media now though, because I even find 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:18.480 myself when i'm you know, going on YouTube and I'm 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:20.960 looking for videos like if I see something that came 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:23.840 out like even last week and yeah, yeah, so I 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.520 don't need to watch that. I'm good exactly, You've got 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:29.000 like eight seconds of it and say you saw it, Yeah, 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:31.680 I saw that. As you mentioned rebellion a little bit, 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:34.360 and also because I know you have to run, I 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:39.360 had this question for you about on your song if 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:43.080 you didn't know you you say you steal the key 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:45.360 from the oppressor's at the cage bird carey, I'm paid 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:47.840 into the cadence of Freda Scott king that he should 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:50.920 bas Asada, Angela and Kathleen, And so I wanted I 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:53.000 wanted to ask you in the line of talking about 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:56.280 like what rebellion means, what do you does stealing McKey 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.160 from the oppressor mean? And how do the women you 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:02.480 reference um in the song kind of influence your work 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:04.440 towards that end? You know. The thing to me is 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:08.640 it's twofolds, well even more than just twofold. I'm talking 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:12.880 about women number one, who were women, right that were 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:17.040 incredibly intelligent, right, And a lot of times when women 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:20.600 who are incredibly intelligent get discredited a lot or people 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:23.400 go out of their way to discredit their intelligence. Right, 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:25.800 do you have women who are very intelligent? You have 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:28.720 in that group of them women who were mothers, right, 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:30.920 And they were all black on it. And so what 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:33.920 they did, like even like just rocking and natural is 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:36.840 like a huge statement, right, or showing up somewhere with 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.080 your children in your community to say, yo, like this 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:41.520 is mad racist, right, And I got my kids, right, 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:43.800 I'm nursing a kid, I got an afro, and I'm 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:46.480 like confronting the police, you know what. I just like 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:54.080 occupying that dynamic and also like mediating conversations because of education. 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:56.320 You know what I'm saying, Okay, look, we're gonna sit 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:59.240 down and we're gonna have this conversation this way, learning 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:03.840 to understand and navigate emotion. You know. Um, I really 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:06.520 love all of those women, all of their published works, 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:08.320 all of the things that they said, all the things 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:10.879 that they stood for, because a lot of times, intelligent 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:14.240 Black women that stand up for their communities are always 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.440 marked like they're just racist, right, as if race wasn't 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:19.800 a condition that was strusted upon them, upon them to 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:22.800 operate inside of the same thing happened with Lauren Hill. 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:25.200 When Lauren Hill said I don't make my music specifically 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:27.840 for white people to listen to. It's not their experience. 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:29.800 They're like, oh, she's a racist, But that's not a 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:32.960 racist thing to say, but it was an honest expression. 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.280 And in naming those women and taking the key back 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:39.159 from the oppressor is being able to stand in your 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:42.680 being and in your person right without compromise, you know, 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:46.760 definitely with conversation, with confrontation when it has to happen, 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:50.480 you know, with with compassion, but not with compromise in 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:53.200 terms of who I am as a mother, as a 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:56.399 woman and as a black woman, all three equal of 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.680 equal importance. We're gonna take a quick little break. We 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:07.160 will be right back after the job. So yeah, I mean, 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:09.680 we're we're a show about hip hop and politics and 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:12.120 most we talked about poblic policy. But there's all these 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.240 ways of being political. It's into personal. It's you know, 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:18.840 in uh, resisting oppression by standing in your truth, by 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:20.960 being who you are. And so I think feel like 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:22.600 you were speaking a little bit of that. But to me, 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:24.119 I wonder if you want to librate a little bit 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:26.840 on what you see how you see politics. Man invested 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:30.840 in hipop as well. For a lot of young people, 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:32.960 for people who listen to it, sometimes that's where they 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:35.719 find this information from. They have no idea what goes 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:37.200 on on the news. They don't turn the TV on, 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:39.520 but they turned the music and whether they be Kendrick 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:41.960 the Chuck d and they get this information from there. 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:45.440 And I've always looked up to that. I've always looked 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:47.959 up to artists like that too, artists who who um 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:53.119 express themselves and where they stand in the music, you 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:55.399 know what I mean? And I and uh and and uh. 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:58.760 I made a conscious decision to to always do that 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:02.480 as well, always speak my mind. When we were younger 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:04.560 and we weren't as well in farm, all of our 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:08.719 like the emotional center of a lot of our activism 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:11.600 came from like anger or frustration, you know what I mean, 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:16.160 our disappointment or and then now our activism comes from 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:19.840 a very positive center. Like it's not reactive, you know 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:23.199 what I mean, it's proactive all the time. Unfortunately, sometimes 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:25.280 we have to be reactive because of what's happening, but 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:27.760 we try to be proactive. And the thing hip hop 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:30.159 and politics is so dope because there are two mediums 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:32.439 that show people that black people are not a monolate 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:35.240 Like there's still conversations we have that we don't all 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:37.080 think the same and we don't move the same we 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:39.080 don't all do the same things. But it kind of 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:41.920 lets us see like the areas where we can have 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:46.119 these conversations because generally it isn't until something happens and 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:48.879 some type of activism have to take place in our 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:51.880 to remedy what's happening or have a conversation about what's 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:55.160 happening that people actually have a conversation. I think politics 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:58.639 and hip hop both do that, like very prevalently. You know, 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:01.400 you might sometimes refer some kids are hearing about any 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:03.639 political concept might be through a hip hop song, and 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.080 the first time kids that are active on politics are 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:08.720 hearing about community concepts are do a hip hop song, 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:12.000 you know what I mean. So those two they're like 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:16.040 they inform one another, hip hop and politics. Yeah, it's 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:19.680 like to some people, hip hop makes makes it makes sense, 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:22.160