Speaker 1: You are now listening and waiting on reparations production of
Speaker 1: my heart rate. Uh wait on reparations. Uh uh? You
Speaker 1: know the workership at the boxes, They swipper when the
Speaker 1: mop and look chipper when never talking and whipping the
Speaker 1: shopping cars. They stacked the beer when the walking to
Speaker 1: pack that we're little boxes, keep our kitchen fridges stocking,
Speaker 1: not financial markets solving. They're clocking forward fifty bucks and
Speaker 1: bear the copping up like sixty fetchures and gets bit
Speaker 1: on my sitting ducks. And they're sick of it enough.
Speaker 1: So if you ever wanted to honor them, here's my all,
Speaker 1: mohammedis we've alway cotton up Amazon and Margeting, FedEx and
Speaker 1: walmartin insto cart and Whole Foods till the fucking boss's
Speaker 1: bargaining workers were in the company. There isn't any arguments.
Speaker 1: Are you with them? Are you with she said, There
Speaker 1: isn't any arguments. The Carroll type of car you win it.
Speaker 1: I don't funk with maggot has because I'm a real partisan.
Speaker 1: Need to break the system down. Maybe we should start again.
Speaker 1: You need to bring your punk as on the left
Speaker 1: where you ought to been. They sobbing and crying. Stop
Speaker 1: with the lion, who told you niggas drake bleached? Now
Speaker 1: you're coughing and dying. Don't mind me, homie. I'm just
Speaker 1: often defied on the mound, like I'm Nolan Ryan or
Speaker 1: I'm Kobe Bryant with the jump shot. I don't give
Speaker 1: a ship about what these punks got. Hold me on
Speaker 1: the microphone, wrap it to my lungs. Pop so stop
Speaker 1: so hot you see in some spots, and none of
Speaker 1: that made the Hey, what's going on y'all? My name's
Speaker 1: Dope night. Hurry up? How you doing this week? Chat?
Speaker 1: I'm good. I'm good. I cannot complain too much, you know,
Speaker 1: all things considered on a you know, good personal note.
Speaker 1: I have found myself in a little bit of a
Speaker 1: creative streak where I've just been hammering out a lot
Speaker 1: of music. More details to come on that in the future.
Speaker 1: And it's always fun to like get back in that
Speaker 1: headspace and that mode where it's like you're just writing
Speaker 1: all the time and recording all the time. Um for me,
Speaker 1: it comes in waves. So when I find myself in that,
Speaker 1: I really go for it. But you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be talking about that ship a lot in the future.
Speaker 1: Have you been keeping track of this ship going down
Speaker 1: to Texas? You were just talking about the ship, Like
Speaker 1: what the fun is going? There is like a straight
Speaker 1: up epidemic of rappers getting shot in Texas. It almost
Speaker 1: feels kind of exploitative to like run down a list
Speaker 1: of people who got shot. You know, it's not the
Speaker 1: which rappers got shot? Report show some notable names, a
Speaker 1: Little Boozy, Benny the Butcher, both of them survived, a
Speaker 1: newer cat that I haven't personally heard of, Mo three,
Speaker 1: he passed away in a shooting, and a spat of
Speaker 1: local rappers. Um, you know, a couple of died, a
Speaker 1: couple of are just wounded. It's not like a conspiracy
Speaker 1: or anything. I don't think nothing is seems to be
Speaker 1: related to directly directly related to each other. It's just
Speaker 1: super weird. What that's about, all in the state of Texas,
Speaker 1: all within like the last three weeks, two weeks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, just something, you know, I hate seeing
Speaker 1: anybody die or get shot and ship let alone, you know,
Speaker 1: black men let alone rappers just struck me as something
Speaker 1: I do I'm missing something is they're part of this
Speaker 1: story that I don't know, but it's just someone when
Speaker 1: you keep an eye out, um what's on your radar.
Speaker 1: So here in Georgia, the runoffs are in full swing.
Speaker 1: There's tons of like national organizations descending upon us, trying
Speaker 1: to bring in their expertise and bring in their money.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I'm not super stoked about John
Speaker 1: Alsoff in particular, whom I shall speak Friday night at
Speaker 1: the forty wat. He even said some dumb sh it
Speaker 1: like you can't expect your elected officials to vote the
Speaker 1: way you want all the time. It's like way to
Speaker 1: cover your own ass for that fucking horrendous Axios interview
Speaker 1: in which you came across as only standing against things
Speaker 1: that are highly popular with the American public and not
Speaker 1: for any thing regardless of whether or not you support
Speaker 1: those policies personally as a viewer. It just looks fucking
Speaker 1: stupid anyway. So just trying to give himself further cover
Speaker 1: from that and like kind of getting heckled by some
Speaker 1: of the like young, young, young progressive crowd that were there.
Speaker 1: But the fact of the matter is that, um, we
Speaker 1: do need to flip the Senate in order for anything
Speaker 1: like Medicare for all or a federal jobs guaranteed to
Speaker 1: be remotely possible um in order for people who to
Speaker 1: get a second round of stimulus checks like which is
Speaker 1: ridiculous that we've all only gotten twelve this entire fucking time.
Speaker 1: And the fact of the matter is that, uh, if
Speaker 1: people are going to be organizing the state, they need
Speaker 1: to be connecting with folks on the ground who know
Speaker 1: these communities, who have ability to get people trained and
Speaker 1: paid to get out there and do the work of
Speaker 1: contacting folks also off in War Knox campaigns. If you
Speaker 1: donate to that ship, then money is going straight to
Speaker 1: consultants and tell them to make ads about puppies and oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not a socialists or whatever where Like the most
Speaker 1: effective way to spend money is through actually paying people
Speaker 1: to do the work up going out and talking to
Speaker 1: people one on one. I hope they realized that, like,
Speaker 1: especially in Georgia, like a lot of the a lot
Speaker 1: of the of what was able to make Georgia flip
Speaker 1: was coming out of the progressive you know, aspect progressive
Speaker 1: part of things like this, this isn't this isn't Ohio,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like, we're not in that's
Speaker 1: that position. It was the progressive movement and activism that
Speaker 1: really you know, was out there on the ground and
Speaker 1: like signing people up and knocking on door and registration
Speaker 1: when no one was watching and no one gave a fux. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's what we were doing. And so I've launched this
Speaker 1: project called the Athens Progressive Campus and Corps where we
Speaker 1: are raising about k to pay people to go out
Speaker 1: and knock on doors and due direct vote or outreach
Speaker 1: over the next six weeks for both our runoff for
Speaker 1: district attorney and for the Senate and Public Service commissioner.
Speaker 1: UM can't pay speaking a public service commissioner. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have Democratic candidate Daniel Blackman on the show next week
Speaker 1: to who himself has a background in hip hop um,
Speaker 1: if elected, will be the only statewide elected Democrat in
Speaker 1: the state of Georgia, and as well, I believe the
Speaker 1: first black man to hold this position in a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty years, So we got history on the line. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a dope dude. Bernie's two thousands sixteen field director
Speaker 1: for the State of Georgia. So he said, you know
Speaker 1: his comrade, but yeah, so we're having him on next week.
Speaker 1: But so yeah, I've been getting to work with these
Speaker 1: runoffs men not you know, like, if people are gonna
Speaker 1: be get all this fucking hullabaloo about it, then we
Speaker 1: might as well be like directing it to efforts that
Speaker 1: are like localized, that are intorrible and offering material, tangible
Speaker 1: benefit to people who live in these communities that we're
Speaker 1: trying to turn out because so many people are out
Speaker 1: to work with the pandemic. People need fucking money, so
Speaker 1: pay them to go talk to people, rather than paying
Speaker 1: for ads on the air where I don't know, you
Speaker 1: talk about you love puppies, I love puppies. I get it.
Speaker 1: I think the the people who make money off of
Speaker 1: political ads, they've done well enough. They're they're good. They
Speaker 1: just had like a billion dollars spent on them. They're
Speaker 1: they're good, They're good. I mean, I will be canvassing
Speaker 1: along with you, and you know it's there's there's moments
Speaker 1: where just sending some money is cool. But boots on
Speaker 1: the ground can make a difference if you can do it,
Speaker 1: and I should clear find the boots in the ground.
Speaker 1: Evan shoes on the ground. I didn't mean to make
Speaker 1: a war like analogy, I just wear boots all the
Speaker 1: fucking time. Anyway, With the Georgia election coming up, and
Speaker 1: now that Donald Trump has been at least temporarily defeated,
Speaker 1: like I said, we're keeping monitor of their authoritarian streak
Speaker 1: that's going on with the GOP right now. But now
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump is a little bit to the side,
Speaker 1: and there's more of a spotlight on the differences between
Speaker 1: the varying spectrums of the left and ship, there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of news made of late, like we talked
Speaker 1: about last episode with UM the sort of fissure within
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party re emerging itself between the progressive wing
Speaker 1: and the establishment moderate centrist wing. I think we're seeing
Speaker 1: this playout in microcosm in Georgia where we do have
Speaker 1: some elections on the line, And so this debate nationally
Speaker 1: about like what wins is now trickling down into the
Speaker 1: discourse around what should as often more not do in
Speaker 1: order to win these runoffs. Should they lean left to
Speaker 1: excite you know, the base getting these you know, policies
Speaker 1: like Medicare for all are so broadly popular in the
Speaker 1: American public, or do they play it safe? And like
Speaker 1: just seeing a lot of debate online about what they
Speaker 1: should do. Now, there's definitely tons of complexity to the issue,
Speaker 1: but if you're a regular person and you're not following
Speaker 1: this ship like from day to day, every detail, then
Speaker 1: it kind of kind of gives you kind of get
Speaker 1: the impression that what the fight is is that part
Speaker 1: of the Democrats want to be socialists and the other
Speaker 1: part or not, and that's what the issue is. So
Speaker 1: we wanted to talk about the word socialism and the
Speaker 1: concept of socialism. Yes, socialism. Um, Like I said, we'll
Speaker 1: keep track of the seventy million Americans who don't believe
Speaker 1: in reality and the results of the election. They think
Speaker 1: that the biker mice from Mars harvested ballads for black people,
Speaker 1: and that was before Q could stop the Star Trek
Speaker 1: Enterprise from high respects. I don't know if then these
Speaker 1: people believe it, but we'll keep an eye on it,
Speaker 1: all right. Today, today we're talking about socialism, its role
Speaker 1: in American politics, black people's participation in different socialist movements,
Speaker 1: and then we'll discuss how hip hop fits in the
Speaker 1: capitalists socialist, communist paradigm of ideologies. And to do that,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking with Communist Rapper and producers Space
Speaker 1: Babies later on in the podcast, and that that was
Speaker 1: a really cool discussion that we had. So wherever you
Speaker 1: are right now, hang on to you butts. We're about
Speaker 1: to get in some dope ship. The underperformance of the
Speaker 1: Democrats in the House races across the country. Um, there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of finger pointing at more progressive being
Speaker 1: in the party, and by progressive wing, you know that
Speaker 1: obviously means a bunch of people, but like the public
Speaker 1: face of that in this moment of time, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's undeniably AOC elean Omar, Eanna Pressley, Rashida to leave
Speaker 1: the squad is kind of the face of progressive America.
Speaker 1: Cats like Jeff Tamal Bowman Corey Bush that were just
Speaker 1: recently new editions. Yet so per the Atlantic progressives and
Speaker 1: moderates have already ditched there united against Trump banner to
Speaker 1: publicly litigate the spat Democratic losses during the election, with
Speaker 1: Representative Alexandria Casio Cortez of New York and Counter Lamb
Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania offering competing diagnoses of the party's problems. And
Speaker 1: so the argument is that people like AOC can't really
Speaker 1: speak to what works in swing districts because she lives
Speaker 1: in a very deeply blue congressional she holds a very
Speaker 1: deeply blue congressional seat, but that ignored data. To the contrary,
Speaker 1: when we take a look at folks like Katie porter
Speaker 1: Um and others that represent swing districts, for ran on
Speaker 1: issues like Medicare for all and one reelection, whereas moderates
Speaker 1: like Debbie Marcrstal Powell Um and Donna Lala like, uh
Speaker 1: that you know, took a more moderate attack and lost
Speaker 1: and lost their elections. Folks like I mean sure, I
Speaker 1: mean Corey Bushes with Corey Bush's district was represented for
Speaker 1: a long time by Democratic congressman but still Missouri. She
Speaker 1: ran on defunding the police among other things, and Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter Act, yeah, straight up, back tear gas and
Speaker 1: perresentership and um, you know, one election and so like,
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a lot of finger pointing because
Speaker 1: no one wants to admit the weaknesses on their respective sides.
Speaker 1: But there is at least some anecdotal evidence to suggest
Speaker 1: that running on populist messaging actually works, actually works, even
Speaker 1: in in leaning Republican districts. This whole thing kind of
Speaker 1: kicked off with a contentious call amongst the House Democratic Caucus,
Speaker 1: and the moderate members were complaining that the progressive members
Speaker 1: who championed ideas like you're funding the police and Medicare
Speaker 1: for all, it cost the party congressional seats and a
Speaker 1: quote the God a fair amount of ink came from
Speaker 1: Representative Abigail Spanburger, Democrat from Virginia. She said, we need
Speaker 1: to not ever use the words socialists or socialism ever again.
Speaker 1: We lost good members because of that. Now it should
Speaker 1: be of note the irony involved with this particular congresswoman
Speaker 1: who was a former agent in the CIA, an organization
Speaker 1: known for toppling socialist governments ring dictators. So yeah, that
Speaker 1: that as what is it about the words socialism and
Speaker 1: our understanding of it that scares half the country and
Speaker 1: then a large chunk of it just has trouble understanding.
Speaker 1: I would say that having studied somewhat US interventions and
Speaker 1: socialist governments around the world, um and governments around the
Speaker 1: world in general, and what their modus operandi seems to
Speaker 1: be is an interest in expanding global markets to extend
Speaker 1: the reach of corporate power in a way that enriches
Speaker 1: the folks that donate to the campaigns of the people
Speaker 1: that are in Congress and in the Senate. UM. You
Speaker 1: think about the way that UH after the fall of Fuck,
Speaker 1: after the invasion of Iraq, the way that the borders
Speaker 1: were opened and and goods started flowing in from Iran
Speaker 1: and other countries. UM and they promised they were going
Speaker 1: to build Walmarts and Donald's is um sure, it was
Speaker 1: about toppling a dictatorship, but it was also about making
Speaker 1: making Haliburton tons of money and making money for tons
Speaker 1: of multinational corporations that wanted to get access to that market.
Speaker 1: If you look at the way that um uh we
Speaker 1: backed the see we be backed the military coup against
Speaker 1: Salvadoriende in Chile in the nineteen seventies, UM like, it's
Speaker 1: out of fear that our our global reach, our global
Speaker 1: ability to control the flows of of of capital, of
Speaker 1: goods in and out of other countries, and that ultimately
Speaker 1: that capital will align the pockets of folks here in
Speaker 1: the United States. We're we're so are so scared, we're
Speaker 1: so scared of socialism because of how it affects our
Speaker 1: bottom lines as Americans and not us says it me
Speaker 1: and you obviously, but like thinking about just like the
Speaker 1: folks that represent us, these are the fears that they have.
Speaker 1: We we also have to give credit to the propaganda
Speaker 1: machine of it too. I mean, I'm I'm that unique
Speaker 1: age where it's like I was a child both during
Speaker 1: the Cold War and postcode or you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: So I remember what it was like growing up on
Speaker 1: both sides of that, and it's like, you know, there
Speaker 1: was a time when the communist was the bad guy
Speaker 1: in everything, you know what I'm saying, And it's just
Speaker 1: for for for years, socialists and communists have always been
Speaker 1: used as like a pejorative by the American right against
Speaker 1: leftists or radical anti establishment you know, people from the left.
Speaker 1: And you know, I would say in my lifetime, when
Speaker 1: I really when I started like noticing the how the
Speaker 1: use of that was like becoming what it is today,
Speaker 1: the use of that word socialism and how it's used politically,
Speaker 1: probably like in two thousand and eight, when Barack Obama
Speaker 1: was running, you know what I'm saying, Like in particular,
Speaker 1: after uh John McCain had selected Sarah Palin and she
Speaker 1: had had her first speech and the party started like
Speaker 1: morphing into what we know the Republican Party now, that
Speaker 1: is when it was just this nonsensical use of like
Speaker 1: anybody who is left of Mussolini is a socialist, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, And it's like Barack Obama is
Speaker 1: a socialist, and it kind of it gained more notoriety
Speaker 1: as a thing. They were doing it all throughout Barack
Speaker 1: Obama's presidency. Then Bernie Sanders ascension during the primary in
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen made socialism become more of a
Speaker 1: hot topic again, and it was like him and Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton duked it out and next thing, you know, during
Speaker 1: the by the time the general election came around, the
Speaker 1: Republicans were saying Hillary Clinton was the biggest socialist queen
Speaker 1: and then she invented socialism, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And the same thing now we see the same exact
Speaker 1: thing where they were just sitting down and waiting for
Speaker 1: whoever came out of the democ At again that they
Speaker 1: could and they would paint it with that brush of
Speaker 1: socialists and socialism. So we know that that accounts for
Speaker 1: that half of the country. They're all living in this
Speaker 1: right wing echo chamber where they're getting fed that propaganda
Speaker 1: still like it's nineteen sixty or some ship like that.
Speaker 1: Socially scial litt communist communists are coming for you. They're
Speaker 1: gonna take your kids, they're gonna you know, all that
Speaker 1: if your black lives matters communists, the antifas communists. So
Speaker 1: now that we're in this state where people are scared
Speaker 1: of it, and you know, like the Democrats are trying
Speaker 1: to push this message of like be scared of that word.
Speaker 1: We need to stay away from that word. We need
Speaker 1: to stay away from board and by extension, it's we
Speaker 1: need to stay away from those ideas, and and it's
Speaker 1: just it's like, that's what makes me scared about it
Speaker 1: is to me, it's it's kind of like a dog
Speaker 1: signal of the Democrats drifting further right as opposed to
Speaker 1: there being any risk that they're going to become like
Speaker 1: a socialist party. It's just like, you know, an abandonment
Speaker 1: of leftist principles in general. I think that's what the signals.
Speaker 1: It's hard enough to get people to look up some
Speaker 1: ship that they don't know to begin with, but with that,
Speaker 1: if somebody does hear something like that, let's say someone
Speaker 1: like my mom, you know, whenever these sort of things
Speaker 1: come up. I always think of my mom. My mom
Speaker 1: is like at the mercy of like watching the news
Speaker 1: and what MSNBC, you know, when she hears stuff like that.
Speaker 1: If she were to take it upon herself to go
Speaker 1: like look up socialism, he should get on Google and
Speaker 1: do Google search for it and then read with the
Speaker 1: first result was which will probably be Wikipedia. So what
Speaker 1: does Wikipedia tell the average Internet searcher what socialism is?
Speaker 1: Let's check this out. So socialism, in essence, it's political, social,
Speaker 1: and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economics and social systems,
Speaker 1: all characterized by social ownership of the means production and
Speaker 1: worker self management of enterprises. So pretty much, workers run
Speaker 1: the world. We create all value through our labor, and
Speaker 1: so we should not only control the means of production
Speaker 1: through which capital is produced, but also uh operate democratically
Speaker 1: within those workplaces to make decisions for ourselves as um
Speaker 1: workers enclaves, as you know, as places of work. Um. Uh.
Speaker 1: Social ownership can be public through you know, like the government, collective,
Speaker 1: through communities, cooperative, or based on equity. And there's and
Speaker 1: there's no single definition that capitalates that encapsulates all the
Speaker 1: many types of socialism. Socialism is UM though. Social ownership
Speaker 1: is like the one common element that all these things share. UM.
Speaker 1: So there's like anarcho syndicalism, anarcho communism, state communism, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it. All these things are socialists
Speaker 1: and that the common element they all share a social
Speaker 1: ownership of the means of production. So there's, like I said,
Speaker 1: this is all from Wikipedia, and I just felt that
Speaker 1: it's important because the average person who's going to look
Speaker 1: it up, if they're interested, they're gonna stumble across that.
Speaker 1: So you are, like you would consider yourself to be
Speaker 1: a socialist. I would consider myself a baby socialist, and
Speaker 1: that I'm still studying theory, and so I can't really
Speaker 1: speak like authoritatively on like the political economy of like
Speaker 1: both the when we're currently living under and how like
Speaker 1: capitalism is failing us and why UM as well as
Speaker 1: what communism or full socialism look like. But the general idea,
Speaker 1: I mean, it comes back to the social ownership of
Speaker 1: the means production. I do believe that UM workers you know,
Speaker 1: ship the boxes, they whiffering them up, and they you know,
Speaker 1: should run the ship because then you produce that we
Speaker 1: produce ship so then even even though you know you
Speaker 1: feel that you can't necessarily speak authority authoritative lee about it,
Speaker 1: do you atomous? But do you feel, as someone who
Speaker 1: considers themselves to be a socialist, do you feel comfortable
Speaker 1: with that opening blurb that you just read. Yeah, I think,
Speaker 1: I think, And this is on especially like we on
Speaker 1: the left, what we all have in common for the
Speaker 1: most part being that we believe in social ownership of
Speaker 1: the means of production. Like that's sort of my guiding principle,
Speaker 1: and like how with others on the left, like are
Speaker 1: you good with that? We can sess out the differences
Speaker 1: between whether we believe there should be a government or not,
Speaker 1: whether or not we believe private property should exist at all.
Speaker 1: But like you know, I'm gonna fight with you over
Speaker 1: that if you're down with this general idea that workers run,
Speaker 1: that workers run the world, and the world should treat
Speaker 1: them as if they do. I was watching God I
Speaker 1: wish I tried looking it up, but I couldn't find it.
Speaker 1: It was one of those things where you're scrolling on
Speaker 1: Facebook and you see the video but you don't know
Speaker 1: who was by. So it was this funny skit um
Speaker 1: and this was back, you know, closer to when the
Speaker 1: George Floyd stuff was popping off, right, But it was
Speaker 1: like a skit. It's like this black dude and he's
Speaker 1: at a protest and he's like, listen to the talker,
Speaker 1: and the talker is like, we have to fight for
Speaker 1: black lives, and everyone's like yeah. He's like yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like and we have to fight for reparations. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he's like yeah yeah. It's like then they just started
Speaker 1: going off this like list and we have to make
Speaker 1: sure that there are no white people that are doing
Speaker 1: voices for black characters. And he's like, oh really, and
Speaker 1: everyone's like sharing it is like, and we have to
Speaker 1: fight for the brxist, letting us revolution. He's like wait what,
Speaker 1: he doesn't know. It just brings it just brings to
Speaker 1: mind that it's um, there is a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: and I kind of feel it's right wing game as well,
Speaker 1: but there there does seem to be almost a effort
Speaker 1: to portray this radical or socialists streak in in American
Speaker 1: politics is being something that's white, and that is like
Speaker 1: and I think I think there is some there is
Speaker 1: some sort of like historical precedent for that in that
Speaker 1: because it has been uh movement of the oppressed working
Speaker 1: class that hasn't been oppressed by on on other planes
Speaker 1: of identity with regards to like race or gender. Like
Speaker 1: if you're just like a white blue collar male, like
Speaker 1: being drawn into labor movements and things like that is
Speaker 1: kind of your thing. I mean there are a lot
Speaker 1: of bros. Though, Yeah, but I think, but I think
Speaker 1: it is someone a historical in that there our black socialists,
Speaker 1: A lot of our most famed leaders in in movements
Speaker 1: for civil rights and for UM like things like prison
Speaker 1: abolition that are becoming increasingly popular. We're socialists for the picture.
Speaker 1: I mean, like there's some there's some folks that are
Speaker 1: like underappreciated in our like collective imagination and collective sense
Speaker 1: of history. Like eight Philip Randolph who organized the Brotherhood
Speaker 1: of Sleeping car Porters, so he was involved in labor
Speaker 1: organizing UM. He was agitating for UM relief from unfair
Speaker 1: labor practices UM for people of color under FDR, who
Speaker 1: eventually issued I think it's Executive Order eight eight eight
Speaker 1: eight eight O two UM. But band discrimination and defense
Speaker 1: industries during World War two, and so you know, working
Speaker 1: against discrimination within the workplace UM and I think they
Speaker 1: in later on under Harrius Truman Um and then eight
Speaker 1: uh his Apele Brande's group also in a segregation in
Speaker 1: the armed forces, and so he was one of these
Speaker 1: cats that he was the head of the March on Washington,
Speaker 1: you know, organizing with Bayard Ruston and mlk um Brandolph
Speaker 1: inspired uh this idea called the Freedom Budget UM just
Speaker 1: initially aimed at tackling problems in the black community, but
Speaker 1: later kind of got rebranded as a Freedom Budget for
Speaker 1: All Americans, which listed as its goals as the abolition
Speaker 1: of poverty, guaranteed full employment, fair prices for farmers, probabilities
Speaker 1: for workers, housing and healthcare for all, the establishing a
Speaker 1: progressive tax um, and fiscal policies that respected the needs
Speaker 1: of working families. And so this nigga was out here
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties just like full on. Yeah, like this is
Speaker 1: the ship that you know, guaranteed full employment and guarantee
Speaker 1: full employment. To come to a figure that actually is
Speaker 1: more well known, but it's frequently um, I don't want
Speaker 1: to say whitewashed, but like pacified in terms of how
Speaker 1: they're talking about Martos are continue with a democratic socialist
Speaker 1: like policies like full employment, like a universal basic income
Speaker 1: and a federal job guarantee, kind of the kind of ship,
Speaker 1: and like his organizing around uniting the black and white
Speaker 1: working classes for a movement of poor people of just
Speaker 1: like if you're white, if you're black, if you gay,
Speaker 1: are you straight, if you Mexican, if you're a woman,
Speaker 1: and you ain't getting paid with your fair share of
Speaker 1: your party, then let's do this ship. And that's when
Speaker 1: they murdered his ass. L Sharpson's as don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about, don't forget, like you know, when when they
Speaker 1: wanted to vilify Martin Luther King, they threw the word communist,
Speaker 1: communist comedy comedy like as a matter of fact, like
Speaker 1: everybody in the Civil rights movement when they were calling
Speaker 1: them communists back then. Yeah, and then of course, you
Speaker 1: know Angela Davis, his mother was a national officer and
Speaker 1: lead organizer in the Southern Negro Youth Congress, which was
Speaker 1: which was influenced by the Communist Party, and so Davis
Speaker 1: grew up surrounded by Communist organizers and thinkings, which you know,
Speaker 1: significantly impacted her own intellectual development. And then you know,
Speaker 1: you know, Angelo, Dr Davis went on first Dame Base
Speaker 1: with her just uh girl, girl, I have that bitch
Speaker 1: half that time. Um, so you know she was a
Speaker 1: famed member of the Communist Party, was twice the Communist
Speaker 1: Party's candidate for vice president in the nineteen eighties. So
Speaker 1: when people are calling black lives matter of Marxist organization
Speaker 1: given some of its redistributed policies, um, even things like
Speaker 1: reparations like given that like I mean, I don't want
Speaker 1: to go so far as to call like black people
Speaker 1: the original work class in America, but the idea of
Speaker 1: reparations of a redistributive policy to make amends for the
Speaker 1: labor that was stolen from the folks that helped build
Speaker 1: this country. Like this kind of social in the sense
Speaker 1: of like giving back to the people that build but
Speaker 1: wealth and build value what is owed to them. And
Speaker 1: so ideas like from redistributive policies, both in the sense of, um,
Speaker 1: the lack of generational wealth the black community, or if
Speaker 1: you want to look at like ideas like defunding the
Speaker 1: police and police abolition coming from folks like Antila Davis
Speaker 1: who were themselves are themselves communists. Like it's honestly not
Speaker 1: really a stretch. It's honestly not really stretch. But um,
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of work to do with
Speaker 1: teaching everyone, black people included, what socialism means and that
Speaker 1: and that we can address. We can address the ills
Speaker 1: of racial capitalism that are exploiting black workers, that are
Speaker 1: making it so that more of us are getting COVID
Speaker 1: right now because more of us work in service, in
Speaker 1: hospitality and retail industry is eating into the capitalist machine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're not getting fucking hazard pay and we're not getting
Speaker 1: healthcare because well this being waiting on reparations. You know,
Speaker 1: we have to find a hip hop angle and a
Speaker 1: hip hop in and I feel that, um it is
Speaker 1: kind of a question, you know, it is a good
Speaker 1: question to wonder what is hip hop's relationship or role
Speaker 1: within the paradigm of these differing economic ideologies of capitalism, socialism,
Speaker 1: and communism. And to do that, I had a little
Speaker 1: conversation earlier with the homie Space Baby. Now. Space Baby
Speaker 1: is a communist rapper and beat maker, and he runs
Speaker 1: a YouTube channel called space Babies where they discuss art, history, politics,
Speaker 1: and all of it from a Marxist perspective. Right now,
Speaker 1: he's releasing a video series called Marks in the house,
Speaker 1: which is explaining gentrification all from an anti capitalist perspective.
Speaker 1: And when I discovered him was from a previous video
Speaker 1: series he had called Marks on the Mic, which is
Speaker 1: all about what we're talking about right now, which is
Speaker 1: hip hop's role in relationship with capitalism and socialism and
Speaker 1: communism and whatnot. So stay tuned, we're going to get
Speaker 1: into that after joke. Maybe this is the part of
Speaker 1: Rapps the deepest entrench in capitalist ideology and the ultimate
Speaker 1: Raps the richest rap song, and this is debatable, is
Speaker 1: bigg East Juicy. I mostly want to take a look
Speaker 1: at the hook because honestly, it's sung by capitalists. Check
Speaker 1: it out. You're a black man and you know what
Speaker 1: your place society is much even though you recognize that
Speaker 1: the system is not built for you, forget that ship,
Speaker 1: ignoring it, trying to get rich good, stay complicit in
Speaker 1: this capitalist system and now reward you richly. Yo. That
Speaker 1: was a clip from the series Marks on the Mic
Speaker 1: by our next guest. God. Moments like this really make
Speaker 1: me wish that I was doing this in front of
Speaker 1: us live audience, because then I could be like, Yo,
Speaker 1: everybody makes some noise for communists rapper, beat maker, space Baby,
Speaker 1: How you doing? Man? Was good? Was good? I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to be on and talk about literally my two
Speaker 1: favorite things in the world, communism and pop. So that
Speaker 1: you're you're in the right place for that. So um,
Speaker 1: first off, you know, I gotta ask you so name how?
Speaker 1: How What's up with the name space baby? Right? So?
Speaker 1: At first, so it started out as kind of a
Speaker 1: thing of you know, like, oh, I'm different than the rest.
Speaker 1: I must not be from Earth, you know, from space.
Speaker 1: I'm a space baby. We're all space babies and things
Speaker 1: like that, you know. Like when I kind of grew
Speaker 1: out of that mindset of like, no, I don't want
Speaker 1: to be apart from the people. I want to be
Speaker 1: one with the people. At that point, the name stuck
Speaker 1: and I like the sound of it. Yeah, at this point,
Speaker 1: that's just what space Baby is. So how long have
Speaker 1: you been making hip hop? I've been making hip hop
Speaker 1: for fourteen years now at this point, I've been I've
Speaker 1: been I've been wrapping for about fourteen fifteen years, and
Speaker 1: I've been making beats for about twelve years. Because you
Speaker 1: want to start out, I was shitty. Nobody wanted to
Speaker 1: give me beats and I was just like, man, I'll
Speaker 1: make myself so funck y'all. So at that point myself, Oh,
Speaker 1: I know what that's like. That's why I produced because
Speaker 1: I didn't have anybody to make beats for me too.
Speaker 1: So what type of stuff were you into? What are
Speaker 1: your influences? So when I I have a very like,
Speaker 1: I've always been a fan of history, so every time
Speaker 1: that I would like discover something new, I would always
Speaker 1: go back. So I was that annoying kid in middle
Speaker 1: school listening to nothing but eighties rap and like quoting
Speaker 1: mcs nobody knew. So it was really I would say
Speaker 1: that Public Enemy Takes a Nation of Millions, Like that
Speaker 1: record convinced me that I wanted to spit um. And
Speaker 1: then after that, you know, I just started to get
Speaker 1: into all the classics, like a tribe called quest dayla Um,
Speaker 1: freestyle fellowship, like really anything I didn't really know much
Speaker 1: about because I grew up in the Netherlands, I didn't
Speaker 1: really know too much about the States, so it was
Speaker 1: all one big thing for me. I didn't really you know,
Speaker 1: West West Coast has this, East Coast has this like oh,
Speaker 1: it's just taking rap music, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: So um so yes, So I got into everything and
Speaker 1: I think at this point, um, I feel like my
Speaker 1: latest biggest influence was probably Kendrick and Uh and the
Speaker 1: California and other California based MC called Bamboo would say
Speaker 1: those two are my biggest aspirations right now. The way
Speaker 1: that I was introduced to you was through your YouTube channel, UM,
Speaker 1: and that in particular just caught my attention, just marks
Speaker 1: on the mic. It just seemed like, you know, it
Speaker 1: seemed like right up my alley in terms of the
Speaker 1: vein of hip hop that I'm into and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So checking it out it was really insightful. Now I
Speaker 1: obviously introduced you as communist rapper. You write a YouTube
Speaker 1: channel that's all about the Marxist perspective. It seems like
Speaker 1: that's a big part of your identity or your WRAP identity.
Speaker 1: So what brought that on? Was that always something from
Speaker 1: the beginning when you first started making music or is
Speaker 1: that something that you kind of developed into your rap
Speaker 1: persona as it were. I was, Yeah, I would always
Speaker 1: like Wrap when I was going through and you know,
Speaker 1: because I start to to to to spit at a
Speaker 1: young age, I would rhyme a lot about you know,
Speaker 1: teen angst stuff like that, Like I would just pretty
Speaker 1: much spit about two things like one being depressed than
Speaker 1: to being the best MC alive, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of the same time. And so, you know, every time
Speaker 1: I would get into new things, like when I was
Speaker 1: really starting to get into film, I would you know,
Speaker 1: incorporate a lot of like movie quotes and movie references.
Speaker 1: And for literature, when I was really getting to like
Speaker 1: magical realism, science fiction, I would find a way to
Speaker 1: incorporate that because a lot of the aspect of what
Speaker 1: I like the most about rap is kind of the
Speaker 1: stream of consciousness. So it would really be whatever I
Speaker 1: would be into and absorbing that would that would show
Speaker 1: up in my music. So after college, when I got
Speaker 1: into Marxism, that very naturally found a way into it,
Speaker 1: although much more intensely than any other topic that incorporated
Speaker 1: my music before. Now, with the nature of like just
Speaker 1: just political ideology is just in general, it's it's it
Speaker 1: just naturally lends itself to something that you try to
Speaker 1: persuade embody towards, you know what I'm saying, like, depending
Speaker 1: on whatever your ideology is. So as an artist, does
Speaker 1: it ever, do you ever find yourself like walking a
Speaker 1: fine line between that's naturally what's coming out, but you
Speaker 1: also don't want to be too preachy about about your
Speaker 1: ship on the audience or is it like funk that
Speaker 1: that's what I'm going for, is you know you're you're
Speaker 1: coming here to have to be converted. It's okay, I
Speaker 1: mean that. I mean all, like all art is branded
Speaker 1: with a class character. So like you know, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: pushing something when I'm not talking. If I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about communism, I'm pushing capitalism. Like it's not always that easy,
Speaker 1: but sometimes it is, you know. And for me, that
Speaker 1: fine line which you're you know, what you're referring to
Speaker 1: is very real and most m c s don't know
Speaker 1: how to walk it. And I don't know, like I'll
Speaker 1: leaf that up to other people, but when I do, know,
Speaker 1: if I'm very conscious about it, because much more than
Speaker 1: anything else, it's so hard to do political wrap right,
Speaker 1: It's so hard, like nine times out of tend you
Speaker 1: sound preachy says or if you try to like throw
Speaker 1: in concepts, you know, and and and even then like
Speaker 1: even with with the with the well known group like
Speaker 1: the coup Um, I have some comrades who think they're
Speaker 1: super corny. You know when when in that one song
Speaker 1: digg it like when I spin in dialectical analysis, everybody
Speaker 1: like mad, that's corny throwing the work in there. So
Speaker 1: it's always it's always a fine line. But uh, at
Speaker 1: the same time, it's both something that comes out of
Speaker 1: me naturally and also something that I you know, I
Speaker 1: see the ship that I put out is part of
Speaker 1: the class struggle by default, and I have to be
Speaker 1: conscious of that. Specifically. Talking about socialism today in your
Speaker 1: communist so, could you explain what is the difference between
Speaker 1: communism and socialism? Sure? So so realism. So when it
Speaker 1: comes to capitalism, Um, that's based on wage labor. Right,
Speaker 1: you have a bunch of people who sell their their
Speaker 1: power to work. Right when you go to a capitalism
Speaker 1: saying like, hey, I can't work for you, please hire me,
Speaker 1: give me an hour league wage. Right, So we're selling
Speaker 1: our labor power essentially, and we do not own the
Speaker 1: products that we make. Right. So that's the capitalists, um
Speaker 1: part of it. Now, under communism, there's no such thing
Speaker 1: as selling your labor power. Right. You don't go to
Speaker 1: another person and say like, hey, please rent me out.
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I need fucking food, so please like
Speaker 1: hire me. Um. It's about you own what you produce, right,
Speaker 1: So you're in soul control of your of your of
Speaker 1: your ability to to work essentially. And it's also there's
Speaker 1: a communal aspect to it, right, like we're all working
Speaker 1: together to um produce what is necessary for the community.
Speaker 1: So okay, so you have capitalism and communism. But then
Speaker 1: where the socialism come in. So socialism is that transitional period.
Speaker 1: It's kind of this realization like, hey, these two things
Speaker 1: that I just described, they're very very far apart, right,
Speaker 1: especially scale. Let's gonna take a long time to get
Speaker 1: from point A to point b. So socialism is that
Speaker 1: transitional period where the working class uses the tool of
Speaker 1: the state. Right, so has control over the state, So
Speaker 1: there's still a state to slowly transition out of right,
Speaker 1: so you're slowly, um, you're slowly phasing out wage labor essentially, um.
Speaker 1: And so that's one side of it. Now you have
Speaker 1: people who call themselves socialists but who really mean democratic socialist,
Speaker 1: and I think that's where the tricky part comes in.
Speaker 1: They say, hey, I'm Burnie Standard says I'm a socialist,
Speaker 1: but he's not. He's a democratic socialist. He doesn't want
Speaker 1: to abolish capitalism. He wants a better capitalism, right, want
Speaker 1: to quote unquote their capitalism. Yeah, that's why I say
Speaker 1: that I'm a communist to really let people know I'm
Speaker 1: not a democratic socialist like Labor. I wanted all to
Speaker 1: work for the common good for each other. I don't
Speaker 1: want anybody owning my ship. I want all of us
Speaker 1: to own ship collectively, except my toothbrush. I can keep
Speaker 1: my tooth. So with this, uh, with this thing of ours,
Speaker 1: this hip hop thing that we got, like, how does
Speaker 1: this fit you know, hip hop as a culture, you know,
Speaker 1: not not the commodified understanding of hip hop, but hip
Speaker 1: hop as a culture, and with the history that it has,
Speaker 1: how does it fit into this this paradigm of different
Speaker 1: economic ideology? Right? Right, there's two parts of that. Again,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a there's a there's a duality to
Speaker 1: to a lot of things. I would say that the
Speaker 1: first thing, there are communist aspects of hip hop, right,
Speaker 1: Like the cipher is one of those things, right circle,
Speaker 1: It's very I mean, it's not necessarily non hierarchical, because
Speaker 1: we've all been in a cipher we have like old
Speaker 1: heads and mcs and they will not right, you know, um,
Speaker 1: But but essentially it's right. It's based on skill, it's
Speaker 1: based on merit rights, based on common values essentially, um.
Speaker 1: And within every economic system, so within capitalism, you're always
Speaker 1: going to have some counter force. It's never ideologically, it's
Speaker 1: never purely capitalist. There's always gonna be some counter force.
Speaker 1: And so I would say that there's nothing essentially about
Speaker 1: hip hop that is either or I would even say
Speaker 1: that from the get go it was used for both. Um.
Speaker 1: That is the short answer to it, that there is not.
Speaker 1: And I think that's kind of also my beef with
Speaker 1: concepts like conscious wrap and ship like that. All right,
Speaker 1: conscious about what you know what I mean, very very idealistic.
Speaker 1: So I would say that it can be used for both. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's from the get go it was growth both
Speaker 1: pro capitalists and anti capitalists. Essentially prop both pro capitalists
Speaker 1: and anti But which do you if do you have
Speaker 1: like an opinion as to which one it leans more towards?
Speaker 1: I would say, so I could give you my full opinion,
Speaker 1: but that's gonna be a rap. Hey, this is waiting
Speaker 1: our reparations, dude. We support the rant rant away. So yeah,
Speaker 1: because essentially, so, like I said, like the way capitalism
Speaker 1: treats hip hop is really insidious, right. So, like from
Speaker 1: the get go there was a commodification of rap music
Speaker 1: and hip hop culture, right. So from the start hip
Speaker 1: hop and rap they were turned by capitalists into commodities,
Speaker 1: you know, which means that it was starting to be
Speaker 1: produced for exchange value rather than use value. Um about
Speaker 1: youth value. I mean, you know when hip hop started,
Speaker 1: it was it was it was a working class expression. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it was focused on and you know, expressing oneself,
Speaker 1: bringing people together. That was the use value of it, right,
Speaker 1: And so the music industry quickly commodified it and start
Speaker 1: to produce it for exchange value, which means how much
Speaker 1: money you know they can squeeze out of this thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: But even that, just squeezing money out of hip hop,
Speaker 1: it doesn't tell the whole story. Because what's important what
Speaker 1: kind of music actually sells, um, And what messaging makes
Speaker 1: the most money, and what sells is capitalist ideology, right
Speaker 1: why because big capitalists they own the means of entertainment
Speaker 1: production and what gets pumped out. They control the narrative.
Speaker 1: So you know, a lot of rap music from the
Speaker 1: bat contained pro capitalist themes. And the tricky part about
Speaker 1: it is that the anti capitalist part of hip hop
Speaker 1: can still easily serve capitalism as well. And go ahead, now,
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask you how so oh because so essentially, um,
Speaker 1: we can kind of link it to like a protest. Right,
Speaker 1: so let's take like a song and a protest. So
Speaker 1: capitalist they have allowed songs with with themes of anti
Speaker 1: capitalism to come out right like from the Back who
Speaker 1: had you know, Grandmaster flashing like rats in the front room,
Speaker 1: roaches in the bat, junkies in the alley with the
Speaker 1: baseball bat. You know, it's just like ship like that,
Speaker 1: like on like right away, like describing ship like that?
Speaker 1: So why why have capitalists allowed groups like Public Enemy
Speaker 1: to come out with the track like quite the power?
Speaker 1: And that's because it's like a song and a protest.
Speaker 1: They both can have a revolutionary aspect to it, right,
Speaker 1: Like there's protests who have brought governments? Now I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say capitalism, but government. Sure, they've brought governments now, same thing.
Speaker 1: A very well timed song can be be an anthem
Speaker 1: for a riot, for a protest, and it can help
Speaker 1: bring a government down. There's absolutely a hunch percent that
Speaker 1: revolutionary aspect to it. I mean, that's why otherwise I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be I mean I would still be making music,
Speaker 1: but probably like into it. But what we also see
Speaker 1: is that a protest can have a counter revolutionary function
Speaker 1: in the sense of we're all hype, We're all hitting
Speaker 1: the streets. You know, we're all shouting things. You know,
Speaker 1: we're throwing up our middle finger against the pigs, like
Speaker 1: this and that, all this stuff, and it's like a
Speaker 1: cathartic thing. We're all letting out all this anger, all
Speaker 1: this hype, and it's very disorganized. We're hitting the streets
Speaker 1: every fucking day, and then we're going home, right, and
Speaker 1: then the next thing we go on nine five, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I feel much better. I felt like I really did something,
Speaker 1: but essentially you didn't do anything. The same thing can
Speaker 1: happen with with you know, with the track like Fight
Speaker 1: the Power, where you you know you're wrapping it. You
Speaker 1: feel like, damn, you know, I'm putting out all this
Speaker 1: anti capitalist ship and you're wrapping it. You're angry, it's
Speaker 1: all anti government thing. You're bumping it with your friends,
Speaker 1: like yeah, man, they're speaking the truth, and then it's
Speaker 1: a cathartic expression and and then the next day you
Speaker 1: could just like Okay, you know, I feel much better,
Speaker 1: and then this week show again. Right, So it has
Speaker 1: that dual character and um, but there is a determined factor.
Speaker 1: And that determinant factor is how is it connected to
Speaker 1: the on the ground movement? And um. Same thing with protests, right,
Speaker 1: Like a series of coordinated protests by a revolutionary party
Speaker 1: that's like part of a larger revolutionary strategy can absolutely
Speaker 1: bring down capitalism. Same thing with songs, right, art and
Speaker 1: artists like used as a part of a revolutionary strategy
Speaker 1: can help bring down capitalism. But what we see in
Speaker 1: the US, and after this, I'll, you know, stop with
Speaker 1: this long ass read. Hip hop came out of the
Speaker 1: ruins of the anti capitalist movement of the sixties, right
Speaker 1: like seventy three, you know, seventy nine first record release
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. Like it's really in this complete
Speaker 1: leftist power of vacuum that hip hop rolls out of.
Speaker 1: And I feel that that's why hip hop has gotten
Speaker 1: a lot of leeway, you know, compared that to the
Speaker 1: revolutionary movement in the Philippines right now, where artists are
Speaker 1: literally being gunned down in the street. Why because their
Speaker 1: ship is part of this struggle that has real material games.
Speaker 1: So that's the determinant factor. So do you think that, um,
Speaker 1: American hip hop, I mean, I would say hip hop
Speaker 1: in general, But do you think that American hip hop
Speaker 1: has kind of been co opted in a way by
Speaker 1: left by right wing sort of like value systems. I
Speaker 1: would say that there's you know, what's interesting about rap
Speaker 1: is that they have different class lives they represent. They
Speaker 1: can represent different class characters in the in the same
Speaker 1: song or the same verse even right like somebody in
Speaker 1: the verse saying we need to, you know, bring the
Speaker 1: working class together and then say some real patriarchal ship.
Speaker 1: You know that should happens all the time. Um, the
Speaker 1: dominating line, I do feel, yes, absolutely as pro I
Speaker 1: would say that the majority of American rappist pro capitalists.
Speaker 1: But I think that I feel like that's pretty well documented.
Speaker 1: I just feel like that other part of the anti
Speaker 1: capitalist portion, how much power it actually holds on their
Speaker 1: relationship to on the ground movement for like, that's not
Speaker 1: often talked about. Oh, I definitely agree with you on
Speaker 1: all that. I guess where I would differ from you
Speaker 1: is I don't know how innocent I feel hip hop
Speaker 1: is in it, Like I don't think hip hop is
Speaker 1: like a hapless victim. I Like, I'm sure a lot
Speaker 1: of people my age is heartbroken in the last few
Speaker 1: months at like, oh wait, my favorite rappers are supporting
Speaker 1: the nazis What the fun is going on? Like? Why? Why?
Speaker 1: Why are my favorite rappers saying hug the police? So
Speaker 1: I'm salty about it. I can admit that I'm definitely
Speaker 1: salty about that. I mean, just to speak on that
Speaker 1: real quick, Like we all seen, like when Lie Wayne
Speaker 1: came out with Missofficer, we all, yo, this is this
Speaker 1: is this could be a whole other topic for a
Speaker 1: whole other episode. You know, I'm sure that there was
Speaker 1: a lot of rappers, you know, in the mainstream who
Speaker 1: stayed silent because they were trying to protect their brand.
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't be shocked if the you know, a
Speaker 1: good majority of them brains have been made into mush
Speaker 1: that they worshiped money so much that they're kind of
Speaker 1: cool with fascism and ship I would not be surprised
Speaker 1: with that at all. Like does hip hop even represent
Speaker 1: that to the average person? Anymore. I know, fucking I
Speaker 1: know of I know bar back in my town and
Speaker 1: Savannah that's like a cop hangout, a Southern cop hangout
Speaker 1: that bumps the most hardcore gangster trap ship all night,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So like do these messages
Speaker 1: even represent that sort of like countercultural aspect anymore? And
Speaker 1: that's why just like just that circulation of music on
Speaker 1: its own is not enough. Like there was this this
Speaker 1: video that was that was that was going viral with
Speaker 1: this Trump supported a Trump rally. You know, she had
Speaker 1: the Trump flag in her hand and she was wrapping
Speaker 1: along with Rage against Them the Machine. Yeah, so literally
Speaker 1: this is probably the most iranic you know, because even
Speaker 1: Rage against Machine in the early nineties, like they were
Speaker 1: supporting the Peruvian Communist Party was waging people's who are
Speaker 1: in Peru in the eighties, like it was, they were
Speaker 1: much more hardcore and really into this ship than a
Speaker 1: lot of other artists. And he literally has you know,
Speaker 1: like those who are the badge or whatever the funk
Speaker 1: like in the song and she was like, yeah, pro
Speaker 1: propable kind of this thing of just like do you
Speaker 1: like I agree with you? And to some level, also
Speaker 1: right wingers can literally do whatever the you know, like
Speaker 1: all this music makes me feel hype, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like I want to uh for for cop,
Speaker 1: like oh, I want to rest some people while this
Speaker 1: ship give me gives me adremaline. I mean it's true,
Speaker 1: it's true, don't get me wrong. I mean I'm not
Speaker 1: this This is not like a I don't even know
Speaker 1: what it is because it's not like I'm saying anybody
Speaker 1: should switch up the music that they want to make.
Speaker 1: You know, do you just's whatever? But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I kind of feel like I know I have I
Speaker 1: have a Yeah, I'm a rapper too. I got I
Speaker 1: got a sense of like what's cool and what's not.
Speaker 1: And I don't mean cool as in like oh that's hip,
Speaker 1: and I just mean there's like the ship I don't
Speaker 1: funk with, you know what I mean. There's like there's
Speaker 1: like attitudes in perspective. There's like the ship that I'm like, Yo,
Speaker 1: if you were wearing a maga hat, I wouldn't funk
Speaker 1: with what you're saying and what you're doing right now.
Speaker 1: So I'm not gonna funk with it just because you're
Speaker 1: spitting overbeats. Well, that's real. And I mean, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of with with with rappers. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: mostly disappointments, you know, even with Killer Mike. Killer Mike
Speaker 1: was also making all these songs that other with a
Speaker 1: lot of like progressive rappers, like he has a track
Speaker 1: with with Bamboo, but he also owns a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of businesses um in Atlanta. So when when when the
Speaker 1: George Floyd like protests came out, it was just like,
Speaker 1: you know, y'all better not be coming through my neighborhood
Speaker 1: and things like that. I'm like, dude, you literally rapper,
Speaker 1: this so fucked up, like, come on, not you Mike.
Speaker 1: And I like who was one of the It was him.
Speaker 1: And when I found out that Hannibal Burr's was a landlord,
Speaker 1: those two were just like I'm like, yaw, come on.
Speaker 1: And and so a part of it, I think is
Speaker 1: that thing of like you're absolutely right, like I agree
Speaker 1: with you. There is no innocence like when it should.
Speaker 1: A lot of rappers know what the funk they're doing.
Speaker 1: They're making a very conscious decision, um. And I think
Speaker 1: some of it, you know, it stems from you know,
Speaker 1: like the class character of you know, class mobility, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of rappers. They started out
Speaker 1: coming from know what we call lumping backgrounds, which is
Speaker 1: just like outside of regular production, you know, like drug
Speaker 1: dealing and things like that, and that they move up to,
Speaker 1: you know, in the case of Killer Mike, like a
Speaker 1: petty bourgeois class standpoint was like I own multiple small
Speaker 1: businesses or to like fucking jay Z when you're you know,
Speaker 1: owned sports teams and you're like bourgeois to the core.
Speaker 1: So they that if you if you take like I'm
Speaker 1: sure that like nineties six jay Z, but you know
Speaker 1: when he was ninety when he was on the record
Speaker 1: with Big Al Ship like that, Yeah, he had a
Speaker 1: different world outlook, you know what I mean, like buying
Speaker 1: an official Vangal painting, you know, because you're in a
Speaker 1: different class position. We we did an episode not too
Speaker 1: long ago where we were talking about as a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, I think it was kind of the same
Speaker 1: subject like just like Wrapped the just sounded Republicans, We're
Speaker 1: talking about the story of O J and it was like, Yo,
Speaker 1: who the is he talking to? It's like wait, it's
Speaker 1: like like he is he straight up like talking about
Speaker 1: flipping buildings in Manhattan, Like like you're not, like, are
Speaker 1: you talking to me? Because I don't know what the
Speaker 1: funk that's about? But okay, just the transition. So um,
Speaker 1: so like what what do what can people find on
Speaker 1: your YouTube channel because it seems like it it seems
Speaker 1: like you put a lot of effort into that, I
Speaker 1: mean for real, So right now at this point, I,
Speaker 1: like you said, I'm releasing a video series which is
Speaker 1: called Marks in the House. So that's a series about
Speaker 1: gentrification because you know, a lot of times when people
Speaker 1: talk about gentrification is this ship of of Oh there's
Speaker 1: some hipsterious moving into my street and there's a new
Speaker 1: ice cream shop that only sells golden flake ice cream
Speaker 1: cold and that now my rant is going up, and
Speaker 1: it's like yeah, but there's there's more behind that, and
Speaker 1: it's intentional, right that they're keeping this information um from us.
Speaker 1: So in that's what I do. If you know nothing
Speaker 1: about Marxist political economy, so if you're out there listening,
Speaker 1: that's probably you, because nobody teaches us this ship at all.
Speaker 1: And I have to struggle for a really long time
Speaker 1: to grab because nobody was there to teach me. Um,
Speaker 1: if you know nothing about Marxist political economy or anything
Speaker 1: about or not much about gentrification. If you start at
Speaker 1: episode one, I will walk you through literally every fucking thing.
Speaker 1: And it's twenty one episodes, and by the end, not
Speaker 1: only will you understand how gentrification works, but also how
Speaker 1: capitalism works, and and and and this even the historical
Speaker 1: switches that capitalism goes through. And they're all most episodes
Speaker 1: there around ten minutes, so it's, you know, easily digestible
Speaker 1: somewhere a little longer. But it's kind of this thing like, okay,
Speaker 1: it was the same thing with Marx on the mic
Speaker 1: where boat serious, Like if you don't know anything about Marxism,
Speaker 1: but your interest in either hip hop or gentrification starts
Speaker 1: from episode one. By the end you will sound like
Speaker 1: the smartest party of the person where it. So let
Speaker 1: our listeners know where they can find you where you at.
Speaker 1: So it's on the on the YouTube channels called space Babies.
Speaker 1: So if you type in space babies, you'll find it.
Speaker 1: Even though there's this other vlogger who's called space baby
Speaker 1: who just like blocks and ship like, we won't match
Speaker 1: it up. But if you if you if you just
Speaker 1: type in space babies, you'll find it, and you can
Speaker 1: find my music space baby on Spotify, so you can
Speaker 1: find some stuff there. I'm coming out with with a
Speaker 1: new project on there as well. I would say that
Speaker 1: those are the main two avenues to find me. All right,
Speaker 1: that's what's up. Yeah, thank you for coming through. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1: We uh we always end our ship with some bars.
Speaker 1: You're gonna you're gonna spit with us. I'm down all right,
Speaker 1: where let's get it in. Let me get a beat. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're waiting our reparations. Imagine a minute, millions of average
Speaker 1: women and men in the tragic position of trading and
Speaker 1: impassion for wages and cat because they shackle by capitalism.
Speaker 1: Imagine a minute millions of average citizens planted the spinach
Speaker 1: and whacked into the kitchens and stacking the linen's contractors
Speaker 1: and windows and pennants, their labor extracted for pennies. What
Speaker 1: if they coordinated to address the sort of state of
Speaker 1: it in an organization? Guess fucking what. That's sort of
Speaker 1: what d s A does, and not even sort of.
Speaker 1: It's more of the crux ticking the power from borders
Speaker 1: of box big bankers off showing that cuts converting the
Speaker 1: power of labor to those who created the billionaires, ooh
Speaker 1: it to us. So if you're jaded, and certainly by
Speaker 1: waking up early to earn a bag, if you sat
Speaker 1: about Bernie, if you've got a curious yearning and had
Speaker 1: it but passively working, we got you back and we're
Speaker 1: happy to have you. We are the d S. A
Speaker 1: actively working unity, struggle, unity to custle. Can't promote revolution
Speaker 1: from a sidect bubble. How do you reclaim the block
Speaker 1: when the shady cops look you for a way to
Speaker 1: spray your pop? How to make a stop when they
Speaker 1: sit in there? You sit? If you have the long
Speaker 1: you get popped with no pity. But if you organized
Speaker 1: a committee pop at first, but put in work, then
Speaker 1: it grows to fifty. Watch the moved chip that that
Speaker 1: people prow together, hunt of isolation? How do your vendetta
Speaker 1: out of here? With the fake fucking politicians think they
Speaker 1: clip the people said? Oh deaths with the vengeance. When
Speaker 1: you organized, you can reach your goals. Take back the land,
Speaker 1: take back and crow cleanse with the whole then and
Speaker 1: with the new. If it's sounds amful, then you know
Speaker 1: that it's true. With bigger than you revolution him and
Speaker 1: it cutbacks. The food stamps can afford insolent. No debts
Speaker 1: of care here even though your tooth aches when they
Speaker 1: charge you thout wow, how will you pay diabetes? Rampant
Speaker 1: shirt verses old the seat that you work the deathly
Speaker 1: can't afford fresh cool series? What do you expect from
Speaker 1: a capitalist who only gets my profit? Not for how
Speaker 1: you live? Gotta lift the car and keep the brainworking.
Speaker 1: Gotta hit the buck, Fred Law, your Fred surgeons, the
Speaker 1: movement of surgeon sure called the class fraggers. When we
Speaker 1: roped from the bottom up. That takes a lot of love.
Speaker 1: That's why you try to silence us and the greedy
Speaker 1: want to take the capital and bottle up baby, start
Speaker 1: a movement. And what we do when your follow us
Speaker 1: with the Democrats providing homie is not enough, We take
Speaker 1: you back to class and let you after math all
Speaker 1: these motherfucker's going crazy with a fascist ass. I take
Speaker 1: a pass when releasing the button you we gotta believe
Speaker 1: in this, but believing it's something. The whole system got changed,
Speaker 1: and we need a discussion to get it popping. First,
Speaker 1: talking about the means of production. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if I'm a socialist. I'm a smoking vocalist, but I
Speaker 1: like with both my comrades are trying to go with this,
Speaker 1: and the people that I really hate they want to
Speaker 1: go against. You know me, I'm an asshole, so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go with it. Do you say no doubt? Franka,
Speaker 1: My name's Dope Knife and we are Waiting on Reparation.
Speaker 1: See you guys next week. Waiting on Reparations as a
Speaker 1: production of I Heeart Radio. Listen to Waiting on Reparations
Speaker 1: on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your part. Guess