Speaker 1: You're listening to Waiting our Reparations a production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio Waiting our Reparations. Ah, you were about to
Speaker 1: listen to what Happy said? Us up because I'm sick
Speaker 1: of this selection and I'm happy ship is done. It'll
Speaker 1: be time for introspection, but for now, be glad. We
Speaker 1: want seeing sad Trump supporters. I was laughing. It was fun.
Speaker 1: Joe got to ship the stair again blacks and wants
Speaker 1: to carry them. Oh, by the way, I want to
Speaker 1: thank the Libertarians. The margins were verything, but we just
Speaker 1: secured the weird. Fuck the proud boys, but I'm down
Speaker 1: with the married men. Take from the rich, give to
Speaker 1: the poor. Dope knife reasons they can't keep licking in stores,
Speaker 1: sending races down in Georgia. Were prepare for more, but
Speaker 1: these hands are like roller. You can get it indoors. Nigga.
Speaker 1: Fox News is lost in these lawsuits is nonsense. They
Speaker 1: want sue Philly, but we trust in the process. Check
Speaker 1: the popular vote, we gain a separation. What's your Biden, though,
Speaker 1: we're waiting our reparation in the mean times and then
Speaker 1: an email to the attorney Blue Georgia. Yeah, we turning
Speaker 1: doing it. The whole world be burning if we don't
Speaker 1: pass a green new deal real soon. Yeah, we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to go get the nerdy scientists to tell us
Speaker 1: because everybody else be denying this, and toe Biden is
Speaker 1: about to pass it, but it's like it because we
Speaker 1: elected him in hot fashion. Up, I have to go
Speaker 1: and bite the bashes because they're trying to do what cool.
Speaker 1: Motherfucker's no, blue, No, I don't acknowledge it. I'm about
Speaker 1: to try to abolish. I like to call it is.
Speaker 1: My name is Dope night. We are waiting, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: Down goes down, Down goes five? Is getting back up?
Speaker 1: Is getting back up? I don't know. Okay, tell well.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's definitely old news for y'all
Speaker 1: at this point. It is Monday, November nine for us
Speaker 1: as we record this, and I have no doubt that
Speaker 1: by Thursday, when you guys hear this, that there's gonna
Speaker 1: be like all new revealing house of horrors with the situation.
Speaker 1: But for now, you know, motherfucker's in the street and
Speaker 1: we're going to be in a little celebratory mood right now.
Speaker 1: And plus we're in motherfucking Georgia, and so this is
Speaker 1: a whole another level of big deal for people down here,
Speaker 1: no doubt. Well, just to recap u over the weekend,
Speaker 1: the election was called and Joe Biden is now your
Speaker 1: new w w E champion or President of the United States.
Speaker 1: Speaking w w E. I'm gonna keep harping on Georgia
Speaker 1: this whole show because we came out with the steel
Speaker 1: chair in the dead of night. I would awake at
Speaker 1: like five o'clock in the morning the last hour watching
Speaker 1: it when it flipped chair and it crept, and then
Speaker 1: when it flipped over and it was like six votes up.
Speaker 1: Like I was exhausted and utterly delirious because I got
Speaker 1: maybe like fourteen hours of sleep last week. But now
Speaker 1: I was just kicking it in the crib with like
Speaker 1: election coverage on, you know, the laptop, and to be
Speaker 1: honest with you, I kind of checked out, Like I
Speaker 1: felt so damn wound up by the whole thing intense
Speaker 1: that like when the day finally got there and the
Speaker 1: votes started coming in, I was like, yeo, I'm just
Speaker 1: turning it off. I had a bad feeling anyway, So
Speaker 1: it's like I'm just gonna turn this ship off. And
Speaker 1: just see what happens in the morning. But your experience
Speaker 1: was completely different, right, because didn't you go to an
Speaker 1: election watching party or something. I was, so I went
Speaker 1: up to Gainesville to watch the results come in with
Speaker 1: my boyfriend Paul, who was a campaign manager for candidate
Speaker 1: for Congress up in with Georgia. But I am dead
Speaker 1: and Pandy running in a really tough district um but
Speaker 1: you know, celebrating all all kinds of small victories that
Speaker 1: are one with regards to turn out, with regards to
Speaker 1: other candidates that were running. So my question I have
Speaker 1: for you is, like, it's one thing to see all
Speaker 1: of your like live or progressive friends like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Georgia turned blue, Georgia turn blue. But for somebody like
Speaker 1: you who's actually you know, I mean whatever, would it
Speaker 1: be unfair? Would it be like a mischaracterization for me
Speaker 1: to say you're somebody who's kind of on the inside
Speaker 1: track of that effort to get Georgia to turn blue
Speaker 1: within this last like two years, right? I mean definitely
Speaker 1: with regards to just getting people engaged inside outside as
Speaker 1: presidential elections. Yeah, I mean, this is a beautiful moment.
Speaker 1: It feels like it was never gonna come like the
Speaker 1: odds were so impossible. And as someone that's like on
Speaker 1: the left left, you know, I recognize that this is
Speaker 1: that you know, we don't choose incrementalism, but we accept
Speaker 1: it when we have to. And so we have put
Speaker 1: in so much work to at least open the door
Speaker 1: to a world where the things we won't were possible,
Speaker 1: I think, and to to kind of just like step
Speaker 1: back and think about all of the efforts that have
Speaker 1: been put in all across the state in these tiny
Speaker 1: rural towns where you know, these people feel like they
Speaker 1: are the only ones, in places like Athens, where we're
Speaker 1: surrounded on all side it's by very conservative areas and
Speaker 1: just like constantly fighting, you know, with jerry mandering and whatnot,
Speaker 1: just to have our voices heard. That like the to
Speaker 1: like breathe in like the threat the sweet smell of
Speaker 1: like what collective action, Like what those fruits of that
Speaker 1: labor smell like? Like uh it was, you know, Like
Speaker 1: I I remain like a realist and like recognize that
Speaker 1: it's going to require a lot of grit and tenacity
Speaker 1: and persistence and frustration for us to continue to fight
Speaker 1: to achieve them. While you want to see I believe that,
Speaker 1: you know, through the selection, we've gained the enemy that
Speaker 1: we want um. But you know, I drove down to
Speaker 1: Atlanta on Saturday and we got the got the notice
Speaker 1: that the election have been called in the car and
Speaker 1: we showed about a rally that was supposed to be
Speaker 1: like count every vote being put on by like Sister
Speaker 1: Song and like a lot of like progressive said of
Speaker 1: lefty like Bipop organizations in Atlanta. But to show up
Speaker 1: and then like the mood was so different, like everyone
Speaker 1: turned on a dime and immediately was about, all right,
Speaker 1: how are we getting medicare for all? You know? Sunrise
Speaker 1: Moving was there and they're talking about a Green New
Speaker 1: Deal and we're still in Georgia under Brian Kemp, you know,
Speaker 1: and a Republican control legislator having to deal with a
Speaker 1: tax on women's bodily autonomy and like continuing that fight.
Speaker 1: But the fact that people were able, but like the
Speaker 1: fact that people were so tired. Everyone was honking. They're
Speaker 1: playing like nuck if you buck and the return of
Speaker 1: the Jedi and ship like if you're watching the news,
Speaker 1: just like each each city in the world that they
Speaker 1: were showing a clip of of everybody was just in
Speaker 1: the streets celebrating, like they defeated the empire and ship.
Speaker 1: Yeah and I guess. And so Saturday was really meaningful
Speaker 1: to me to be there in the park with all
Speaker 1: of those organizers because it felt like proto organizing energy.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like like a victory had been one. It
Speaker 1: was that we were excited and energized for what is next.
Speaker 1: Um Like we were getting like like it was like
Speaker 1: a like a like a like a pre a pregame
Speaker 1: at the at the at the crib. What you're doing
Speaker 1: shots with all your homies on the couch of doing
Speaker 1: power power before you go out for the real you know,
Speaker 1: the go out into the sub thirty degrees. All is
Speaker 1: pretty much kind of like a detour. You know. It's
Speaker 1: like a like the ship is obviously not over, and
Speaker 1: it's like whatever whatever, whatever thing that people were scared
Speaker 1: of encountering with the second Trump presidency. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: we're all kind of on the hangover still of being
Speaker 1: happy that he's going to be going away, but we're
Speaker 1: only taking a detour. You know, this is a joke
Speaker 1: because it doesn't seem like there's gonna be a coup well,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not losing. It's only Monday. Let's give
Speaker 1: these niggas sometime. Let's let's meet here next week and
Speaker 1: let's talk about what's going on with that, because I
Speaker 1: don't know. The last thing that I heard today before
Speaker 1: we started recording was the person whose job it is
Speaker 1: to sign off on the transition is refusing to sign
Speaker 1: off on the transition. They've got mad lawsuits out everywhere.
Speaker 1: They're trying to prevent states from certifying the vote. So
Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, this is Monday. The ship
Speaker 1: was just confirmed, the Biden one yesterday, and the fun
Speaker 1: he starts already, So I don't know what the hell
Speaker 1: is gonna be like on Thursday. We'll see how that
Speaker 1: plays out. Before we think we're out of the woods
Speaker 1: yet on Trump and his little coup thing, because I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, Lindsey Graham ted cruise ship. There's a long
Speaker 1: list of like people who have been in Congress for
Speaker 1: twenty thirty years that should know better better on TV
Speaker 1: talking about Trump never lost, so I have I don't know,
Speaker 1: We'll see, we'll see. There's the problem with distractions like
Speaker 1: that because we have to put all hands on deck
Speaker 1: and turn our attention to the elections coming up in Georgia,
Speaker 1: right right, and so you know, it's been an exciting
Speaker 1: kind for Georgia's could remain kind of like an annoyingly
Speaker 1: exciting time for Georgia for the next TIWO weeks and
Speaker 1: that like every national organization, all eyes were on Georgia
Speaker 1: pouring in money and people, and Andrew Yane announced that
Speaker 1: he's moving here, and like all these Facebook groups have
Speaker 1: popped up and people like how do I donate, and
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna send you a thousands buttons and I'm
Speaker 1: just imagining our mailbox is just stuffed just to the
Speaker 1: brim with like mailers and the ads. But the struggle
Speaker 1: never ends ends, so on the cited, like, I feel
Speaker 1: very energized to Like I wasn't excited about Warnock or
Speaker 1: us off before. They're pretty milk toast neo liberals. It's
Speaker 1: with the exception, I mean, like we're not kind of
Speaker 1: came around like a federal job guarantee you, which is
Speaker 1: like pretty legit one of my favorite policies. Um, but
Speaker 1: now I'm like, oh shit, if we at least like
Speaker 1: have the Senate like Medicare for all and like a
Speaker 1: federal job guarantee are a lot more possible if we
Speaker 1: have the Senate that if we don't, so I might
Speaker 1: as well fucking put everything I got into the next
Speaker 1: six weeks of trying to elect these motherfucker's just to
Speaker 1: create the world in which the world I want is
Speaker 1: a little more possible, no doubt. Well that was a
Speaker 1: long ass intro, but we got a real dope show
Speaker 1: for you all today. We're gonna talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about the elections coming up in Georgia. But later
Speaker 1: on we're gonna be talking with the hosts of nprs
Speaker 1: new podcast, Louder than a Riot, some really cool people,
Speaker 1: and it's a really cool show you guys are gonna
Speaker 1: dig on. We're also gonna go over some new music
Speaker 1: real event to our times for the music review. That's
Speaker 1: gonna be cool. We've got some stuff dealing with the
Speaker 1: NSAR situation in Nigeria. We've got Jim Jones and his
Speaker 1: election theme track. We're also going to dive a little
Speaker 1: bit into the case surrounding newly released rapper Drake EO
Speaker 1: and his court situation. So stick around at some dope stuff.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a second. And so with all
Speaker 1: eyes on Georgia. We want to get some shout outs
Speaker 1: to organize this across the state who have been doing
Speaker 1: work on the ground for years to bring us to
Speaker 1: this moment and who will continue to push us into
Speaker 1: the future as we you know, not only celebrate this
Speaker 1: moment and celebrate not only celebrate this moment, also celebrate
Speaker 1: its potentiality. After I went to the rally on Saturday,
Speaker 1: I met up with some latinage organizers from mostly North Georgia. Um,
Speaker 1: who were you know, celebrating, but also we took a moment.
Speaker 1: It was really weird, but like inspiring. The host Maria
Speaker 1: del Rosario Pelacios, kind of took everyone like paused the
Speaker 1: gathering to ask everyone, what does the nation? What should
Speaker 1: the nation thank you for for this moment in Georgia.
Speaker 1: And everyone went around and just said what, you know,
Speaker 1: whether they're organized or not, just answered the question, like,
Speaker 1: you know, what does the nation know you for this moment?
Speaker 1: And so I asked. I found really inspiring some of
Speaker 1: their answers, and so I asked some organizers from across
Speaker 1: the state answered the same question so that y'all can
Speaker 1: give him proper props. And I stopped with local youth
Speaker 1: activists and daughter a former state House candidate, Mocha Jasmine
Speaker 1: Johnson Daln White, who gave rowsing speeches about the importance
Speaker 1: of voting at Black Lives Matter rallies over the summer
Speaker 1: and a final push land Bass at voter suppression that
Speaker 1: I get out the vote rally here in Athletes the
Speaker 1: Saturday before the election. I believe that the nation should
Speaker 1: thank any local activists in Georgia for what's happening in
Speaker 1: the state because we were able to relay a message
Speaker 1: and information to the citizens when we needed it the
Speaker 1: most in its upcoming election. To basically put somebody in
Speaker 1: office stats here for us and the people and be
Speaker 1: the change that we wanted to see by being a
Speaker 1: beacon and just spreading light to all. I spoke with
Speaker 1: Brendon Buchanan, former charity Metroy Letter Democratic Social America, which
Speaker 1: is the largest UH chapter of d s A of
Speaker 1: the South. The folks in power in the state of
Speaker 1: Georgia have spent the last twenty years convincing people that
Speaker 1: change is not possible, whether that's through control of the media,
Speaker 1: control of elected officials, control of the suburbs, or control
Speaker 1: of that goofy racist flag that we've had going up
Speaker 1: until like two thousand and three, and we've been working
Speaker 1: just as hard the same work you're doing to convince
Speaker 1: people that change matters and is really possible. You don't
Speaker 1: have to thank us for what's happening in Georgia, but
Speaker 1: you're welcome. But yeah, I mean to kind of unpack
Speaker 1: some more takes that have been circulating around the election.
Speaker 1: The NYT reports that nine of the ten voters sided
Speaker 1: the summer uprising as a motivating factor the decision to vote,
Speaker 1: three forces of calling it a major motivating factor, and
Speaker 1: a fifth of voter saying it was the single most
Speaker 1: motivating factor for the decision to participate in the election.
Speaker 1: Among those who sided the protests as a factor, of
Speaker 1: them voted for Joe Biden voted for Donald Trump. According
Speaker 1: to their survey, it seems about what you would expect.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people anecdotally who weren't really
Speaker 1: that engaged or interested in the election, just from the
Speaker 1: typical thing that you would expect, like Democrats and Republicans
Speaker 1: are the same, and what really is the biggest difference
Speaker 1: between Trump and Democrats and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: But after the clearing out of Lafaye Square. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a lot of friends who were like on
Speaker 1: that day, were like, oh, you mean it's like really real.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, we've been saying for the last three years.
Speaker 1: And I feel like for people that are like not
Speaker 1: super politically engaged, whose primary Civics education came from high school,
Speaker 1: like this is how a bill becomes a law, go vote,
Speaker 1: like who maybe are inconsistent or non voters, Like it
Speaker 1: makes sense that in the summer of sudden, a sudden
Speaker 1: like quasar of goddamn political activity, people's first day they're
Speaker 1: gonna do is get vote. More so than like writing
Speaker 1: to their legislator or organizing direct action or mutual aid.
Speaker 1: The thing that they has been inculcated in their minds
Speaker 1: since they were like they were instant infancy was voting,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, it makes sense that like people's media
Speaker 1: reaction would be to make sure they participate in the election,
Speaker 1: even if honestly with regards to regards to their visionary goals,
Speaker 1: the visionary demands that emerged from the uprising, like really
Speaker 1: like we don't fares well either way, but I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we should look at it as you know,
Speaker 1: obviously everything has to be with proper perspective, But I
Speaker 1: don't think that there's anything wrong with people looking at
Speaker 1: it as like a victory and a sign of progress.
Speaker 1: This easily could have flipped on the other It could
Speaker 1: have that, could have this, this, everything right here could
Speaker 1: have been reversed for the negative. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It could have been fifty three of them voted for
Speaker 1: Trump because of the protests and then the's and then
Speaker 1: in the NYT piece they do talk They did talk
Speaker 1: to voters who said they saw the looting and the vandalism,
Speaker 1: and they got scared, and they wanted a law and
Speaker 1: order president, and they went out and voted. They decided that, oh,
Speaker 1: I gotta as all offense, but I'm gonna go out
Speaker 1: and vote for Trump. So well, let's here's my final thoughts.
Speaker 1: Unlike the Trump supporters. Look, I know that there's seventy
Speaker 1: million of them, you know what I'm saying, seventy million
Speaker 1: people who are willing to go and vote. And I
Speaker 1: know that with all of the craziness that the Trump
Speaker 1: administration was throwing at the wall, that it's hard to
Speaker 1: keep track of everything. I personally am not one of
Speaker 1: those people that like loses track of ship. One day,
Speaker 1: one morning in July, the President just woke up out
Speaker 1: of the blue and tweeted out white power. Seventy million
Speaker 1: people are cool with that, completely cool with that. So
Speaker 1: just keep that, you know, I mean everyone, just keep
Speaker 1: that in proper perspective. With all of this like unity
Speaker 1: talk and oh we gotta like repudiation of fascism, it's
Speaker 1: like fucking barely, it's barely. It's barely, way too close
Speaker 1: for comfort. Are you fucking kidding me? But yeah, let's
Speaker 1: just keep all of that in mind. That just that
Speaker 1: there are seventy million people who accept Donald Trump and
Speaker 1: everything about Donald Trump. So you the listener out there,
Speaker 1: whatever thing that you take away from this past four
Speaker 1: years about the Trump presidency that you personally that affected you,
Speaker 1: that you think was especially bad, seventy million of your
Speaker 1: fellow countrymen and women have zero problem with it, whatsoever,
Speaker 1: whatever that issue would be. I just want to keep
Speaker 1: that in mind because obviously we know that the the Centrists,
Speaker 1: they're gonna start coming out of the woodwork. They've already
Speaker 1: started coming out of the woodworks with demands of bipartisanship
Speaker 1: and working together in YadA YadA, YadA. Oh it's never
Speaker 1: These things are never brought up when the Republicans win. Like,
Speaker 1: I do not remember any news source that was like, hey,
Speaker 1: you guys know that some of these policies that you're
Speaker 1: the most ulim band in this wall, Like, you guys
Speaker 1: do know that these are like fringe right wing like ideas.
Speaker 1: Are y'all really just gonna poist them on the American
Speaker 1: public without like you know, trying to like find any
Speaker 1: sort of like middle ground. No one's what was asking
Speaker 1: Republicans about any sort of middle ground. The Democrats win
Speaker 1: and the next day they're like, all right, so you
Speaker 1: guys gotta work together, right, we gotta reject throughout the lasts,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean starting to peel their masks off
Speaker 1: now and show the goblins that we hated for a
Speaker 1: decade before Trump. Yeah, it's it's very frustrated speaking of
Speaker 1: we speaking of interpretations of where we go from here. Um,
Speaker 1: there's so there is a lot of talk about like
Speaker 1: do we sees on our new power to push things left?
Speaker 1: Because honestly, funk the niggas like we can do whatever
Speaker 1: we want now, you know, we're more Republicans voted for
Speaker 1: Trump this time the last time, so fuck them and
Speaker 1: we don't need them. We didn't. They didn't vote for
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. We don't, you know, did cater to them.
Speaker 1: That's the Lincoln Project you can thank for that votes
Speaker 1: for Trump. Yeah, good job, great jobs, five million more votes.
Speaker 1: And John Casey didn't give us Ohio nailed nailed it. Boys.
Speaker 1: You know, we got Minnesota, thanks Alan Alont Michigan, Thanks
Speaker 1: Rush Lead. I'm just saying, so, y'all thrown out the
Speaker 1: radical lab Meanwhile, Democrats who lost re election failed, you know,
Speaker 1: if the most part failed to support policies like Medicare
Speaker 1: for all, and the ones that did actually ended up
Speaker 1: winning there, Yeah, and putting in swing state and swing
Speaker 1: districts like fucking Katie Porter. So I mean, well, I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's more to it than that. Results are results,
Speaker 1: you know. But there's gonna be plenty of time for
Speaker 1: these debates in the weeks and months to come. But
Speaker 1: enough of that for now. Let's get into the fun ship.
Speaker 1: Let's bring on our guest today. Today, we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking with two extraordinarily dope people individually. They are a
Speaker 1: reporter and editor for NPR Music Sydney Madden and NPR
Speaker 1: Music's hip hop writer Rodney Carmichael. And if this was
Speaker 1: like a live studio audiences where I'd say, makes some
Speaker 1: noise for riding everybody, can you tell this performing? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have you seasoned music journalists, but together they are
Speaker 1: hosts one of the freshest podcasts out right now. NPR
Speaker 1: is Louder than a Riot. So, Sydney, Rodney from the job,
Speaker 1: can you explain to our listeners what the show was
Speaker 1: about and what they can expect to hear when they
Speaker 1: dive in. Man, you want to take that? Yeah? Absolutely, Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, thanks for having us, y'all. I've been
Speaker 1: binging the show, so now I'm a fan. I'm a
Speaker 1: new fan. So um, Louder than Riot is all about
Speaker 1: the collision of rhyme and punishment in America. So what
Speaker 1: we do on this show is really traced the historical
Speaker 1: and socio political timelines and intersecting timelines of hip hop
Speaker 1: and mass incarceration from the nineties till now. And we
Speaker 1: do it through real life cases of rappers and hip
Speaker 1: hop luminaries that have been touched by the criminal justice system.
Speaker 1: I was really curious and how you set it on
Speaker 1: this particular intersection between hip hop and politics for the
Speaker 1: focus of your show, since in our show we talked
Speaker 1: about many ways that policy touches the lives of the
Speaker 1: of those in the hip hop community. So why mass
Speaker 1: incarceration particularly, I mean, I think we got our first
Speaker 1: signals from the music, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: think if you if you you grew up in the
Speaker 1: in the eighties and but especially in the nineties, in
Speaker 1: terms of being a hip hop fan, if you were listening,
Speaker 1: if you were listening to the music at the time,
Speaker 1: you know, they were making these connections. They were they
Speaker 1: were critiquing the the prison industrial complex on a ground
Speaker 1: level plane spoken, you know, the way we talked each other,
Speaker 1: and then you know, in ways that I'm sure the
Speaker 1: academics were as well, and then the activists and whatnot.
Speaker 1: But if you were just a straight up hip hop head,
Speaker 1: it was information. And you know, I think that that
Speaker 1: that sense that there was just you know, connection or
Speaker 1: you know, was it conspiratorial. It's just an idea that's
Speaker 1: always kind of resonated. You know, a lot of conspiratorial
Speaker 1: ideas resonating our community because you know, honestly, a lot
Speaker 1: of conspiratorial things have happened to our community that we
Speaker 1: were never told about, and we had to learn about
Speaker 1: ourselves and connect the doubts ourselves. Yeah. So so I
Speaker 1: think that's that's that's where the connection came from. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I think you know, Source magazine back in
Speaker 1: the early two thousand's when they did them behind Bars
Speaker 1: issues a few years running. You know, that was a
Speaker 1: really huge thing. I remember at the time, um and
Speaker 1: and and just I open it in terms of like, oh, there, there,
Speaker 1: there's there's a connection here, or at least a way
Speaker 1: to explore the criminal justice system in a way it's
Speaker 1: impacting us through the thing that we love so much,
Speaker 1: hip hop. You know. So is there any is there
Speaker 1: any like one particular case that kind of sparked off
Speaker 1: the interest to go in this direction. I don't think
Speaker 1: it was. I think it was the fact that there
Speaker 1: were so many cases, you know. I mean the idea
Speaker 1: is it's really about trying to expose the fact that
Speaker 1: this this you know, mass and conceration and over policing
Speaker 1: impacts us so much, you know, and it's like, how
Speaker 1: can you talk about this issue in a way that
Speaker 1: isn't just academic isn't just statistics in a way where
Speaker 1: you can tell stories that will pull people in and
Speaker 1: and and and really you know, get you to think
Speaker 1: about these issues. So hip hop really is almost just
Speaker 1: the vehicle to look at, you know, how how this
Speaker 1: stuff is has been affecting us for for so many
Speaker 1: decades because you know, hip hop is popular, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, it's popular with us, it's popular with
Speaker 1: people outside of our communities obviously, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people who claim they love black people don't necessarily seem
Speaker 1: to always understand the way, you know, issues and systemic
Speaker 1: racism and whatnot how to impact them black people specifically,
Speaker 1: and so it's like, let's let's use this thing that
Speaker 1: you love, um, you know, whether you're black or white
Speaker 1: or whatever, and and and expose these broader realities. Um. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just the mass amount of cases that that
Speaker 1: made it seem so you know, it's like like so
Speaker 1: inevitable together. And that's the through line that we really,
Speaker 1: um saw because when a lot of these cases started
Speaker 1: popping up, whether it be uh the meat mail pro
Speaker 1: violation or twenty one Savage getting getting yoked up at
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl for citizenship violations stuff like that to too.
Speaker 1: To an untrained eye and untrained ear, it can all
Speaker 1: seem like I selated incidents, and it can all seem like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: rappers get in trouble, that's what they do. They sell
Speaker 1: this type of criminal outlaw lifestyle, so when they live it,
Speaker 1: you know that's what happens. But these these cases don't
Speaker 1: happen in a vacuum. In these cases have so much
Speaker 1: overshadowing and overarching systemic themes, systemic racism, themes throughout that
Speaker 1: we really wanted to drive that connection home. And it
Speaker 1: now seems like obviously it's been a topic that's evergreen
Speaker 1: and pertinent, but now it seemed a perfect time to
Speaker 1: do it because as hip hop is the most consumed,
Speaker 1: most stream genre in America, and America incarcerates more of
Speaker 1: its um population than any other country per capita in
Speaker 1: the in the world. So it's like these superlatives, they
Speaker 1: don't live separate from each other. They're all intertwined because
Speaker 1: the art and the culture, it's a it's a mirror
Speaker 1: to what what is happening in society. So that's why
Speaker 1: we really wanted to draw it out. So how did
Speaker 1: y'all like linked to to do this podcast. Oh that
Speaker 1: was the easy part, I means part. Yeah, we started
Speaker 1: at the same year. Uh. And at NPR Music, I
Speaker 1: started at the beginning of the years. It came towards
Speaker 1: the end of the year, and you know, we we
Speaker 1: were we were I think we were really kind of
Speaker 1: hungry to create a platform within NPR Music, uh for
Speaker 1: hip hop. You know, obviously there's the Tiny Desk, which um,
Speaker 1: you know, we we both contribute to uh as well
Speaker 1: and has has in it in itself in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways become a platform for for hip hop and
Speaker 1: R and B in black music. Um. And there was
Speaker 1: you know, the the early hip hop podcast microphone Check,
Speaker 1: which was one of the first things that really made
Speaker 1: me start checking for NPR Music before I worked there. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, uh, Franny Kelly who started that podcast,
Speaker 1: she had moved on at that point, so it just
Speaker 1: wasn't a platform. It just felt like, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: hip hop, like like we already said, you know, hip
Speaker 1: hop is the most popular genre, and you know it's
Speaker 1: it's the two it's the two teens whatever. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, it's it's crazy that we don't have
Speaker 1: a bigger platform here to talk about hip hop, and
Speaker 1: so I think, you know, we we were already in
Speaker 1: brainstorm mode and and you know it kind of we're
Speaker 1: going to create something whether it was right, and it was.
Speaker 1: We really saw openly for ourselves with it because we
Speaker 1: were both coming to it as hip hop journalists music
Speaker 1: journalists who were at the time like newes to MPR.
Speaker 1: But you know, NPR has it carries such a name
Speaker 1: of high caliber journalism. So we really saw that crossroads
Speaker 1: of like cultural confluence that we bring naturally to it
Speaker 1: because we're of the culture and we cover the culture
Speaker 1: and we are the culture. And then and then marrying
Speaker 1: that with real in depth research, reporting, editing, producing, um,
Speaker 1: soundscaping that NPR is known for. So we were like,
Speaker 1: there's nothing else out there like this, So let's do it.
Speaker 1: Fellos Firs and name mother than a rioting from oh Man.
Speaker 1: Well that was first. We went through a lot of
Speaker 1: names we had. We won't we won't mention any of
Speaker 1: the we had. Um, some just weren't right, others were
Speaker 1: not available. UM. But you know, in the midst of this,
Speaker 1: you know, we've been we've been working on this, this
Speaker 1: podcast for over two years and so in the midst
Speaker 1: of us kind of finally coming down, ramping up to
Speaker 1: getting ready to release it, all of this stuff everything
Speaker 1: of starts to happen, right, and so you know, it
Speaker 1: felt so um, it just resonated with with with with
Speaker 1: everything that we were talking about, you know, and it
Speaker 1: felt like, you know, let's try to pick a name
Speaker 1: that not only uh, speaks to this moment, but speaks
Speaker 1: to the history that hip hop has in terms of,
Speaker 1: you know, being a voice for the voiceless and speaking
Speaker 1: truth to power and you know mL case you know
Speaker 1: famous quote a riot is the language of the unheard.
Speaker 1: It just kept resonating, and it's just like, you know, what,
Speaker 1: what what better genre of music is there in hip
Speaker 1: hop when it comes to being a soundtrack for the unheard?
Speaker 1: You know? So um, just the idea that hip hop
Speaker 1: has been rapping and raging about this stuff for forty
Speaker 1: plus years and for whatever reason, America on on on
Speaker 1: some level, you know, whether it was short lived or
Speaker 1: not seemed to to hear. Uh. You know what we've
Speaker 1: been um, you know, crying about and pointing out for
Speaker 1: for forty plus years, uh, four hundred years. You know
Speaker 1: this this summer it's just we we just wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of land on something that connected all of that together.
Speaker 1: And you know, you know if if if if share
Speaker 1: so if. That's just kind of how we landed on.
Speaker 1: And it's really a lot about just to add on
Speaker 1: to that, Rodney is being humble, but he came up
Speaker 1: with that great epiphany in like the eleventh and a
Speaker 1: half hour because they were like, y'all, all these names
Speaker 1: are taken. We need a name. Ronney's like, I got it.
Speaker 1: But just to add on to that, there's so much
Speaker 1: um um negative and derogatory connotations to the word riot,
Speaker 1: and riot has become something of of a racialized term
Speaker 1: and a politicized term, and we really wanted to um
Speaker 1: circumvent that and subvert that and and put it in
Speaker 1: front of your face and be like, nah, this is
Speaker 1: the deeper context that you need to look into and
Speaker 1: you need to listen to. And and that's exactly what
Speaker 1: our show does. Our show is a lot about context.
Speaker 1: It's a lot about historical um um backdrops. It's a
Speaker 1: lot about um intergenerational trauma, community settings, disparities that informed
Speaker 1: the music that that turned UH young artists into into
Speaker 1: scapegoats and into martyrs for the culture and for and
Speaker 1: for the law. So so casually, uh, and so that's
Speaker 1: what we really wanted to do. We wanted to signal
Speaker 1: in the name that this is going to be more
Speaker 1: than what you just think it is off jump. So
Speaker 1: that's why we we went with something and we actually
Speaker 1: made ours. It's a new phrase, and it helps that
Speaker 1: you know, now when you say louder than the riot,
Speaker 1: all you can think of is this, right, So it's
Speaker 1: easy for search terms too, So shout out to Rodney. So,
Speaker 1: like back in the early two thousand tens, like I personally,
Speaker 1: it's like before falling down the YouTube rabbit hole had
Speaker 1: like a term to it that was like diagnosed. I
Speaker 1: was kind of like susceptible to some online just conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories and stuff like that in the early days of
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And I remember one of the
Speaker 1: early things that I remember stumbling across around them was
Speaker 1: the letter, the infamous letter that you guys deal with
Speaker 1: in the first episode of the show. So I wanted
Speaker 1: you guys to first explain to our listeners just the
Speaker 1: story behind the letter, and then why did y'all choose
Speaker 1: to have that be like the jumping point for the
Speaker 1: first episode, the stars like what you guys dealt with? Okay.
Speaker 1: So so the letter, the letter in question, um, uh,
Speaker 1: which I guess doesn't really have a name to it,
Speaker 1: but but we kind of named the hip the hip
Speaker 1: hop Willie Lynch Letter. Um. I've heard other people call it.
Speaker 1: To Dr Regina Bradley, who we we interview in the
Speaker 1: DJ Drama episode, she she calls it that as well. Um,
Speaker 1: the letter, the letter you know, it reports that there
Speaker 1: was a meeting that to place in the early nineties
Speaker 1: that brought together music executives and private prison industry executives
Speaker 1: and proposed this, uh you know, this this this meeting
Speaker 1: or this connection between the two in which they would
Speaker 1: get rich together if the music executives began signing, marketing
Speaker 1: and promoting hip hop. That uh you know played into
Speaker 1: a lot of the criminal stereotypes and and therefore with
Speaker 1: you know, help them feel their private prisons. Uh. That
Speaker 1: was that was the idea, right and um, I think
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, the idea resonated because you know,
Speaker 1: like so many people that we interviewed talked about it
Speaker 1: kind of you know, fits with the evolution of hip hop.
Speaker 1: That was happening that began to happen, you know, early nineties,
Speaker 1: as as as gangster rap, you know, explode it and
Speaker 1: really became the most popular form or subgenre of hip hop.
Speaker 1: You know, you saw this transformation from you know, like
Speaker 1: the pro black afrocentric era kind of East Coast driven,
Speaker 1: although there were a lot of West Coast artists a
Speaker 1: shot after, artists like Paris and whatnot, that we're on
Speaker 1: that same tip um. I mean it with every everybody,
Speaker 1: the whole. I think hip hop at at large what
Speaker 1: was on that tip um. But you know, you definitely
Speaker 1: saw a transformation, and I think there was market forces
Speaker 1: that at play behind some of that, but it was
Speaker 1: also cultural things happening behind some of that um and
Speaker 1: and so I think the reason why we wanted to
Speaker 1: jump it off like that is is because I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't think we could have avoided it. Honestly, if
Speaker 1: you're looking at the intersection, but the potential intersection between
Speaker 1: mass and conceration and hip hop. You know, even if
Speaker 1: even if the thescy theory is letter is a is
Speaker 1: a is a hoax or just a theory, it does
Speaker 1: so much of the legwork in terms of getting you
Speaker 1: to think about the potential connections between the two or
Speaker 1: why we as as as black folks, as hip hop
Speaker 1: fans would be so anxious about the potential connection, you know,
Speaker 1: and and what what is what is driving this connection
Speaker 1: and and why are things changing in ways that seem
Speaker 1: to be beyond our control? Um? I mean you just
Speaker 1: look at like so many forms of of of of
Speaker 1: of black art. I mean, think about like the so
Speaker 1: called black exploitation error and film. You know, it starts
Speaker 1: off as an error where all of a sudden, you know,
Speaker 1: black directors and creators start getting access to to make
Speaker 1: bigger budget films through the Hollywood system, and you know,
Speaker 1: the the next thing, you know, you know, no matter
Speaker 1: what you think of the Black itation era, which I
Speaker 1: love a lot of that stuff. Um, I kind of
Speaker 1: like grew up on that stuff watching this stuff on VHS,
Speaker 1: I'm saying, uh, but you know, in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: it has the same trajectory that you see hip hop having.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like it's a cyclical thing and sometimes repeats,
Speaker 1: and I think it's just it's the job of capitalism
Speaker 1: in some ways to you know, uh, market and exploit
Speaker 1: and and kind of reduce things to you know, the
Speaker 1: lowest common denominator in some ways, because for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: that seems to be the way that the system can
Speaker 1: can more easily market you know, uh, you know, like
Speaker 1: the black experience or something the outside of black folks,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So it's just like, let's
Speaker 1: let's let's figure out a way that I can't imagine
Speaker 1: how we would have explained why we were, you know,
Speaker 1: exploring this connection if we didn't have that conspiracy theory
Speaker 1: letter to to fall back on, so to speak. Word,
Speaker 1: I heard you mentioned something about you know, market forces
Speaker 1: in Sydney. Earlier you talked about the community backdrops that
Speaker 1: sort of influenced the pervasiveness. And you know, the recent
Speaker 1: in recent decades, the explosion of the prison industrial complex
Speaker 1: and as um conversations around you know, defunding and abolishing
Speaker 1: the police and like abolishal prisons have become mainstreamed. Over
Speaker 1: the summer, a lot of people are thinking thinking towards
Speaker 1: the other factors of public safety and our communities with
Speaker 1: regards to access to healthcare, access to education, other sorts
Speaker 1: of preventative measures that make our community safer. And I
Speaker 1: was wondering how much those other sorts of UM influencing
Speaker 1: UM pieces of public policy UM make their way into
Speaker 1: your discussions of the how under investment UM spurs the
Speaker 1: prison industrial complex, if at all in the show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great question. And we are about halfway through
Speaker 1: our season right now, and a lot of it has
Speaker 1: been UM dealing with cases that have to do with
Speaker 1: criminalizing hip hop culture at large. Where that that be
Speaker 1: with UM DJ dramas, mixtape raid or or lyrics on trial,
Speaker 1: which is a pervasive tactic by prosecution, and that's what
Speaker 1: the case of Mac Phipps UM. On other episodes that
Speaker 1: are coming up this season, you're gonna hear about Bobby
Speaker 1: schmurder and cycles of structural, cultural, and direct violence in
Speaker 1: underserved and and under UM underfunded neighborhoods, Black and brown
Speaker 1: neighborhoods specifically, You're going to hear about police tactics and
Speaker 1: the lineage of profiling and and parole pitfalls in South
Speaker 1: central l A. Which is the place where Nipsey Hustle
Speaker 1: called home. And then UM you're gonna hear about specific
Speaker 1: prison conditions and how they are meant to psychologically and
Speaker 1: physically break you as a human being. Uh, you're gonna
Speaker 1: hear about uh and then sorry, and then we bring
Speaker 1: it home. We're talking about where we are at this
Speaker 1: present moment and how you said a lot of conversations
Speaker 1: being mainstream this summer about defunding the police, abolishing the
Speaker 1: prison industrial complex, and what and what reality will look
Speaker 1: like on the other side of that when we don't
Speaker 1: live in a world of of crime and punishment and
Speaker 1: guilt and innocence as binaries. So with every hip hop story,
Speaker 1: we we've in these these lessons and these and these
Speaker 1: updates on on certain jurisdictions, certain protocols, certain laws, but
Speaker 1: we do it in a way that's applicable to somebody
Speaker 1: who just chilling on the block, who would see like,
Speaker 1: this is how it relates to me type of thing
Speaker 1: like not like, it doesn't have to be um you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be something that is so above
Speaker 1: your head and so um foreign to you that you
Speaker 1: think it doesn't apply to you. And one thing I
Speaker 1: love about y'all's last episode, which you're talking about the
Speaker 1: power of voting and hip hop's influence when it comes
Speaker 1: to getting the vote out and stuff. I think it
Speaker 1: was I think it was dope knife who said it.
Speaker 1: But you know, we're talking about having the power to
Speaker 1: focusing on the power that you have to control what
Speaker 1: you do, which is your human body. If you are
Speaker 1: able body, do have the power to protest, and you
Speaker 1: have the power to go out and get and get
Speaker 1: in line and vote in person and until you have
Speaker 1: until you do not have breath in your body, Like
Speaker 1: that's what you can do, you know, like you want to,
Speaker 1: you want to have applicable choices of what you can do.
Speaker 1: And I think a big aim of this show is
Speaker 1: about is about the power of disseminating the narrative, like
Speaker 1: informing the narrative um um, aligning the narrative, and sharing
Speaker 1: the narrative with people who it's very much about, but
Speaker 1: they don't really get to hear it themselves, and they
Speaker 1: don't get to hear it in in the way that
Speaker 1: they talk to each other. And I think that's something
Speaker 1: that we always carry with us whenever we're whenever we're
Speaker 1: whenever we're diving deep into the historical laws of when
Speaker 1: lyrics on child are being used, or when rego laws
Speaker 1: are being allowed to criminalize the mixtape, or when the
Speaker 1: power of the prosecutor pushes someone who's eighteen years old
Speaker 1: into a plea deal without his lawyer. President things like that.
Speaker 1: We're up. Okay, So what is everybody listening to? Laid
Speaker 1: on me? What? What's everybody bumping right now? Oh? Man, yo,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell y'all. I have not told you, have
Speaker 1: not told anybody about this because it's it's not out here.
Speaker 1: It doesn't come out next week about He's always like
Speaker 1: he's out music. I don't even get music early like that.
Speaker 1: But uh, the first person for for Goodye Mov's new
Speaker 1: album snent it to me the day of the election.
Speaker 1: I think was the day that I listened to it too.
Speaker 1: That so like two days ago or whatever. Man, I'm
Speaker 1: a good mother fan. Especially first I heard a new
Speaker 1: song and had like a video. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that was that the one that you're talking about, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's that's on the album though, is like,
Speaker 1: this is definitely their best album since uh since Still Standing,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: executive produced by Organized Noise, Cool Joe is on Fire,
Speaker 1: Gift is on Fire. See Low sounded like see Low
Speaker 1: from the hood again. Oh my god, I feel like
Speaker 1: all of my things like Dwarf and comparison to that.
Speaker 1: Damn you're talking about legends, Okay, and I only listened
Speaker 1: to it once, so you know, I might just be
Speaker 1: super hyper. But don't try to backtrack now, dare you? Okay? Anyway,
Speaker 1: my favorites are things that are already out that people
Speaker 1: have already been debating and dissecting. But with this, we've
Speaker 1: really been, you know, diving deep into these stories that
Speaker 1: are you know, like headlines from a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago that are like we're trying to tell the story
Speaker 1: behind the story. So I haven't been super deep in
Speaker 1: like the Rollout, but I'll say Polo g dropped one
Speaker 1: of the best projects this year to me, um uh gritty, heartfelt,
Speaker 1: soul full, um real um Spillage Village. I'm very I'm
Speaker 1: keeping my eye on them. I'm very much keeping my
Speaker 1: eye on them because they already have like so many
Speaker 1: of my favorite artists separately, and now I feel like
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't know if I'm going to over
Speaker 1: overhype it. I don't want to say the Avengers, but
Speaker 1: it's like like I feel like they're really coming together
Speaker 1: and like all the rings are being put to I
Speaker 1: don't know, uh yeah, um who else? Who else? And
Speaker 1: always I mean I just have I just have favorites
Speaker 1: that I always go back to, like like Kendrick no name,
Speaker 1: um out with something new. I don't know you ever heard?
Speaker 1: I heard heard Kendrick's next one is going to have
Speaker 1: kind of like a rock theme to it. Really, that's
Speaker 1: what That's what I heard, So okay stuff what I mean?
Speaker 1: I mean he was leaning a little bit into more
Speaker 1: into more, like into more percussion and gets hard than
Speaker 1: usual on damn right yeah yeah, but I mean like
Speaker 1: the yeah, the track that he had with Bono, and
Speaker 1: like if if he kind of takes that queue and
Speaker 1: just goes off with like if you had a whole
Speaker 1: album that was nothing but those songs, right yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: Nickas needs to just stop wrapp him yea yeah? Alright, Well,
Speaker 1: where can we find your podcast? Where should people tune
Speaker 1: in to listen? And when? Yeah? Yeah, Louder Than a
Speaker 1: Riot drops every Thursday in your phees twelve and one Eastern.
Speaker 1: Check for it, subscribe and stay ready. You can find
Speaker 1: out on Apple podcast, Bodify or wherever you find your
Speaker 1: podcast and if you wanna, um, if you want a
Speaker 1: hollyback and tap in and tweet at us. We're at
Speaker 1: Louder than the Riot where that what's up? Thank you
Speaker 1: guys for talking with us. Yeah, I would be surprised
Speaker 1: how many black people who do not talk to you
Speaker 1: about this podcast. So it was great. Well, please spread
Speaker 1: the word about waiting our reparations. Alright, music discussion time.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be talking about some contemporary tracks today, some
Speaker 1: new things and their relevancy to the ongoing political discourse
Speaker 1: of the day. So what do we got first, Marai? So,
Speaker 1: jim Jones is back a little bit talking about the
Speaker 1: election last week with his new track actually titled election.
Speaker 1: Let's give it a lesson real quickers you want to
Speaker 1: reapproaching the next election, trying to coach you up? Stuck down,
Speaker 1: it's just deception. This is one of those I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's cool. I always hey, I am advocate
Speaker 1: of old Nick is still doing it. That's like, like,
Speaker 1: I love I love seeing that ship and it's dope
Speaker 1: to see Jimmy back and forth. But this definitely kind
Speaker 1: of comes across as Jimmy had a new track that
Speaker 1: was out and he wanted to put it out around
Speaker 1: the time of the election, so he named it Election Day.
Speaker 1: There was like two bars at the beginning of that
Speaker 1: that had anything to do with the election, and the
Speaker 1: rest of it was just you know, the capo the capo.
Speaker 1: I don't really think this is like Jim Jones's statement
Speaker 1: on the election him in particular, I've heard him speak
Speaker 1: about the election more in like actual interviews than he
Speaker 1: mentioned in the song. Yeah. I mean, I was interviewed
Speaker 1: but Magazine recently and they asked me about um not
Speaker 1: like whether or not are an artists try to raise
Speaker 1: awareness about issues for economic reasons try to capitalize off
Speaker 1: of like a cultural zee guys. And my response was that, like,
Speaker 1: I don't. I feel like, maybe I'm naive and maybe
Speaker 1: I like to believe the best in people, but I
Speaker 1: feel like what comes off what comes across as an
Speaker 1: attempt to like hijack a cultural moment, like titling a
Speaker 1: song election and then mostly talking about your jewels and
Speaker 1: stuff is really just like a lack of something really
Speaker 1: interesting to say. I mean, there's a problem. That's the
Speaker 1: widespre problem. We had an episode about hip hop artists
Speaker 1: and their duty to participate in the discourse around social
Speaker 1: movements when it's like, frankly, if you don't have you
Speaker 1: to say, that's okay. Don't position yourself as someone with
Speaker 1: a very nuance to take if you don't, because you're
Speaker 1: taking away air. You're you know, in uh, you know,
Speaker 1: an ecosystem. There's a lot of people who are art
Speaker 1: organizing on the ground who need to be heard, and
Speaker 1: so it's fine if you don't have any to say.
Speaker 1: I don't think, um, I agree with you on that
Speaker 1: that that is a thing. I'm not sure that that's
Speaker 1: what is going on. Like, I think this is more
Speaker 1: akin to uh. I mean, rappers do stuff like this now,
Speaker 1: where like they'll name a song after a celebrity or
Speaker 1: an athlete and it has nothing to do with the
Speaker 1: song is about, but you know it gets the song
Speaker 1: traction on social media because it's named after someone famous,
Speaker 1: or it's named after something that's going on. I think
Speaker 1: this is similar to that. You you look in a
Speaker 1: feed of something and you see, oh, Jim Jones has
Speaker 1: a new track called Election Day, and you know, some
Speaker 1: people might listen to it with no expectations at all,
Speaker 1: but you know a good amount of people are gonna
Speaker 1: be like, oh, what does Jim Jones have to say
Speaker 1: about the election and you would be disappointed with this.
Speaker 1: But it's a hot song though if you like that,
Speaker 1: like off kilter dip set flow it is. It is
Speaker 1: more aesthetic than it is like yeah, it's it's in
Speaker 1: a that I more than it's it's a it's an
Speaker 1: aesthetic style choice. I think you know obviously none of it.
Speaker 1: We haven't talked to Jim Johnson. We don't know, but
Speaker 1: it feels more like you know, Okay, there's an election
Speaker 1: my track yes, please please. And up next we got
Speaker 1: a track from Nigerian rapper burn a Boy with his
Speaker 1: song twenty, which was a tribute song for the Lackey massacre,
Speaker 1: which we'll discuss in a little bit. Let's check this
Speaker 1: out to come out playing open your money should not fire.
Speaker 1: Now to fill you in on a little bit of
Speaker 1: the Lackey massacre, we gotta fill you in a little
Speaker 1: bit about the End Stars movement in Nigeria. So SO
Speaker 1: Stars is the Special Anti Robbery Squad. It's a special
Speaker 1: police unit in Nigeria that was originally started in nine
Speaker 1: and throughout the years that it's been legged with accusations
Speaker 1: of abuse from rape to extortion, kidnapping, intimidation, murder, even
Speaker 1: committing acts of organized crime selling drugs and racketeering and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So in two thousand seventeen, twitter campaign
Speaker 1: was launched with the hashtag and Stars and built off
Speaker 1: that movement and mass demonstration that followed it, it swelled
Speaker 1: into an outpour of you know, people calling for Stars
Speaker 1: to be disbanded and ended. Now, as the years have
Speaker 1: gone by, this isn't necessarily the first time that there's
Speaker 1: been calls to end the Stars, the Starters police unit,
Speaker 1: and usually when it has gotten to a bit of
Speaker 1: a crescendo, the government usually says, okay, we will disband
Speaker 1: it so they can get everyone to calm down, and
Speaker 1: they end up not just disbanding it. Um this time
Speaker 1: it does appear to be different, as they have a
Speaker 1: read that they're going to immediately begin disbanding Stars. That
Speaker 1: will remain to be seen. But the amazing thing to
Speaker 1: see is to to look and see that there's mass
Speaker 1: demonstration and mass protests going on against police brutality and
Speaker 1: all the way on the other end of the world
Speaker 1: kind of coalescing with what we have going on here.
Speaker 1: It's it's cool to see, perhaps you know, inspired to
Speaker 1: greater mobilization by seeing what had happened in the United
Speaker 1: States and internationally around the George Ford uprising over the summer.
Speaker 1: I think it also really hearkens back to something as
Speaker 1: the David talks about in Freedom, is constant struggle about
Speaker 1: the importance of international solidarity and like a global abolitionist
Speaker 1: movement because so much of like the person industrial complex,
Speaker 1: like is transnational, Like the things that like the Israeli
Speaker 1: defense forces are doing two folks in Palestine, like in
Speaker 1: the US, we're sending cops over there to learn from
Speaker 1: them and like bring those tactics back to America to brutalize,
Speaker 1: you know, protesters in Ferguson, Missouri thousand and fourteen, and
Speaker 1: so like there's there's these global flows of like learning
Speaker 1: how to abuse power and uh and ultimately it's it's
Speaker 1: just a reminder of how many of our struggles are
Speaker 1: the same and when we like band together and share tactics,
Speaker 1: share resources, share information, to share capital both social and
Speaker 1: like literal like monetary monetary resources with folks that are
Speaker 1: fighting similar fights in other places, Like you know, we're
Speaker 1: trying to deliberate everybody. Unfortunately, last month, the city of
Speaker 1: Leaky was the site of what is now known as
Speaker 1: the Leaky massacre. Members of the Nigerian Armed Forces open
Speaker 1: fire on peaceful and stars protesters in Leaky at the
Speaker 1: Leaky tollgate and Lego State in Nigeria. Officials have not
Speaker 1: disclosed the number of casualties originally, but but there was
Speaker 1: reported to have been at least fifteen people killed in
Speaker 1: the incident. In addition, there have been complaints about missing persons,
Speaker 1: friends and family members, and few have been confirmed to
Speaker 1: be in the hospital and critical condition a day after
Speaker 1: the incident. This was on the twenty one of October.
Speaker 1: The government of Lego State initially denied any loss of
Speaker 1: life by the gunfire and even the phrasing of that
Speaker 1: laws of life by gunfire. They denied that the police
Speaker 1: had murdered people, but later they admitted an interview at
Speaker 1: CNN that two persons were killed. Amnesty International stated that
Speaker 1: at least twelve protesters were killed in what the organization
Speaker 1: described as extra judicial killing. I mean, I never lived
Speaker 1: in Nigeria before, so I never experienced oars. But I
Speaker 1: know when I was living in Cameroon around my teenage years.
Speaker 1: You know, you start going out and shoot like that.
Speaker 1: I definitely have experience with the shake down nature of
Speaker 1: African police forces for sure, So that's definitely a common thing,
Speaker 1: like extortion, like getting extorted by the cops over there
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and that sort of ship is
Speaker 1: happening to kids whose parents are diplomats in business. People
Speaker 1: like those kids are getting locked up and your friends
Speaker 1: gotta go bail you out and ship like that, or
Speaker 1: scrounge up some money so they can pay off the
Speaker 1: cops to let you go so that you don't get
Speaker 1: in trouble with your parents and ship like that. So
Speaker 1: you can only imagine what's actually happening to the you know,
Speaker 1: actual local populations, what type of abuse as they're subject
Speaker 1: to by the police there. But damn even explaining all that, ship,
Speaker 1: we kinda we kind of lost track of the song.
Speaker 1: So the song Burner Boys, let's talk about that a
Speaker 1: little bit. My first initial reaction is fire flames. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like it's got like a like a soulful, like
Speaker 1: contemplative kind of vibe where but at the same time,
Speaker 1: the rhythms, perhaps it's just a cultural nuance that I'm
Speaker 1: not aware of because I'm sucking American. But it feels
Speaker 1: like celebratory the same time, like flabratory of bows that
Speaker 1: are that were lost. It's like a celebration of life
Speaker 1: more than a morning of death. Um. It reminds me
Speaker 1: of when, you know, when I was a kid, my
Speaker 1: mom used to listen to quite a bit of you know,
Speaker 1: like anti apartheid like music just from different you know,
Speaker 1: regions and stuff like that. So it kind of reminds
Speaker 1: me a little bit of that vibe, has that spirit
Speaker 1: to it, like like move real movement music type, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: now that that that song is really fresh, I've never
Speaker 1: heard of Burner Boy before, but I'm sure that my
Speaker 1: mom has. My mom is quite the consumer of like
Speaker 1: Nigerian entertainment stuff. She loves Nigerian movies and and she's
Speaker 1: always trying to put me onto the new Nigerian music
Speaker 1: that's coming out. And I'm always like, yeah, Mom, I'll
Speaker 1: get to it. Get to it. Well. Our last song
Speaker 1: for consideration today, Uh. It was just dropped last week
Speaker 1: by Drakio the Ruler who is out of jail after
Speaker 1: three years. South Central Drakio the Ruler has been released
Speaker 1: from jail last and it's clearly dead set and picking
Speaker 1: up where we left off, according to his attorney, remediately
Speaker 1: pumping and a jail. He went at the studio for
Speaker 1: six hours to work on new music, including this track
Speaker 1: by Stone Matter off his upcoming album We Know the
Speaker 1: Truth three shots based in a final naked I'm an
Speaker 1: leaving bid in the stream with his eye from seven
Speaker 1: when I left the coupon you saw with banana peels.
Speaker 1: I think that's like a callie thing. Now, it's because
Speaker 1: that's how blue Face raps. That's that's that's I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not too versed on it, but that
Speaker 1: reminds me of like the blue I don't know who
Speaker 1: came up with at first, but that's like that off
Speaker 1: kilter blue Face style where like always seems like it's
Speaker 1: teetering the edge of just completely falling off the flow,
Speaker 1: but it just it still keeps it up. I wonder
Speaker 1: if he's been advised by his attorneys to like be
Speaker 1: cool in his lyrics and in his music videos now,
Speaker 1: because so the full story is that, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: he had. He emerged victorious from pretty harrowing legal battle
Speaker 1: against murdered attempted murder charges. He was originally arrested in
Speaker 1: seventeen for an incident that left the twenty four year
Speaker 1: old man dead. He was acquitted in twenty nineteen, but
Speaker 1: what kept was kept locked up as prosecutors used his
Speaker 1: lyrics and music video is proof that Draco's rap group
Speaker 1: Two Greedy Stink stick with Stink Team. Okay, the two
Speaker 1: Greedy Stink Team was a violent gang in Dracio as
Speaker 1: the leader. In California, if you are a gang member,
Speaker 1: you can be charged for crimes other members of your
Speaker 1: supposed gang committed. Earlier this year, he recorded thank You
Speaker 1: for Using GTL, which was recorded entirely over the phone
Speaker 1: in prison. And GTL is the telecommunications company that it's
Speaker 1: like a for profit provider of phone services to folks
Speaker 1: in jail. Um, And so so that was his way
Speaker 1: sticking it in, sticking it to him. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: he was in solitary confinement for nine months out of
Speaker 1: the three years that he was locked up, and so
Speaker 1: that he used his time with relative freedom while inside
Speaker 1: to record an album that Pitchfork actually called some one
Speaker 1: of the best albums that this year. It's pretty dope.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I wonder if like now that he's out um,
Speaker 1: the prosecutors offered him a deal of time served, and
Speaker 1: now he's back to his family and stuff. I wonder if,
Speaker 1: like in his lyrics and music videos, is gonna be
Speaker 1: like a little more careful. Um well, I mean, judging
Speaker 1: from this song, it doesn't sound like it. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's still talking about spraying people up and stuff. Look,
Speaker 1: people are probably gonna get mad, but I gotta I
Speaker 1: gotta keep it real. A lot of rappers wrap about
Speaker 1: out the stuff that he raps about. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like a common thing now. I don't know how many
Speaker 1: rappers are out there talking about Man, I was just
Speaker 1: mind of my own business and I just got hit
Speaker 1: out the blue with a double murder charge. Don't you
Speaker 1: hate it when that happens? So, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm glad that another dude is another black man
Speaker 1: ain't in jail. But you know, as far as using
Speaker 1: his lyrics against them, again, I think that's bullshit. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how like widespread of a practice that is,
Speaker 1: like our d as across Is there an epidemic of
Speaker 1: d as across the country really utilizing rappers lyrics to
Speaker 1: get put bogus charges on them, because that would insinuate
Speaker 1: that every rapper has multiple murder convictions going on right
Speaker 1: now because everybody is snitching on themselves about how many
Speaker 1: people they're spraying, and that very well maybe the case,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it seems unlikely. So I know there
Speaker 1: are some cases where Motherfucker's is genuinely like, yo, I
Speaker 1: killed this dude on this day, and I put the
Speaker 1: evidence in my mom's house is underneath my floorboard. If
Speaker 1: you check their at eight pm, you'll find it. So
Speaker 1: there's some people who are actually leaving evidence in their
Speaker 1: rhymes and ship and I don't know yet, there's profiling
Speaker 1: Motherfucker's with their rap lyrics, and then there's detective work.
Speaker 1: I think in this particular case where his music videos
Speaker 1: and his lyrics were used to like try to saddle
Speaker 1: him with like enhanced like gang like gang enhancements for
Speaker 1: his charges. It's kind of bullshit because like I think that,
Speaker 1: and I've seen this in you know, as a legislator
Speaker 1: in my own community. Or it's like you see a
Speaker 1: bunch of young niggas hanging out and it's like call
Speaker 1: the cops. There's some dus like, Okay, these kids are
Speaker 1: fourteen years old and there's not after school programs for them.
Speaker 1: To be in and ship and they're just hanging out,
Speaker 1: and they look like a gang because they're just kids
Speaker 1: and they're just hanging out with their friends. And so
Speaker 1: the idea that any sort of like organization of black
Speaker 1: people that is not institutionalized in some way is like
Speaker 1: a gang, it's very dangerous. And so I think in
Speaker 1: this particular case, like that's total bullshit. And then you know,
Speaker 1: the Drakos attorney himself, John hardasaki Um called him out
Speaker 1: for you know, wasting years and millions of dollars trying
Speaker 1: to person this guy for life. Um, and so it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of bullshit. But I mean, I just but
Speaker 1: I mean, I do think it's I fear unwise for
Speaker 1: rappers till I be talking about the crimes they do.
Speaker 1: I fear it was the big details in the music.
Speaker 1: As far as the music end goes, it's um, I mean,
Speaker 1: the song is fresh, you know, if if you can
Speaker 1: get into that flow, it's kind of like the Jim
Speaker 1: Jones thing. That's that's funny. We have two very specific
Speaker 1: flows in the music that we listened to today. And
Speaker 1: then this particular case. There's so much to unpack here
Speaker 1: from the way our tax about dollars have spent in
Speaker 1: the judicial system, plea bargaining, California gang enhancement laws, the
Speaker 1: importance electing progressive district attorney, the question of whether progressive
Speaker 1: prosecutors even exist? You know, is that like in that
Speaker 1: like an oxymoron? Exactly? Um for profits communications companies like
Speaker 1: storting incarcerated people, as exemplified in his album Thank You
Speaker 1: for using TL. I mean, we can do a whole
Speaker 1: fucking episode on this case. Well, it's gonna have to
Speaker 1: wait for another episode because I'm getting antsy and I
Speaker 1: feel like rapping. Let's get a beat. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, waitation,
Speaker 1: yeah yo yo, dope, knife on the microphone. I'm never
Speaker 1: quiet eat MC's till I really need a diet. Motherfucking
Speaker 1: step to me. Do you just retire? You hope one
Speaker 1: day I'll beat louder than a riot, bust re stals
Speaker 1: and a bus my bars, I smoke, man. We need
Speaker 1: till I'm hot life stars to support everybody trying to
Speaker 1: outline stars. I love everybody. No, I'm not hard. I
Speaker 1: got nothing. I'm gonna stop in this place. I don't
Speaker 1: want to leave no evidence for my case, just in
Speaker 1: case the d want to listen up, I'm done. I'm done, Yo,
Speaker 1: legal freaking what the kids start from? Alenatuda, Jerry, we
Speaker 1: find in stars, messing conservation. Yeah, we pined like piggies.
Speaker 1: You're about it. Listening to Rod in Sydney and if
Speaker 1: you run in with a friend of three, that's again
Speaker 1: watch out. You'll give the depth pendalty and I got
Speaker 1: plenty beats from the background. Yeah, I'm never about to
Speaker 1: back down. Everybody at clown, I'm wan, I'm dope knife
Speaker 1: and we are waiting on reparations. See you next week.
Speaker 1: Waiting on Reparations as a production of I Heeart Radio.
Speaker 1: Listen to Waiting on Repper rations on the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: M