Speaker 1: You're listening to Waiting on Reparations, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, Do Do Uh, We're waiting No reparations, were
Speaker 1: waiting reparations. Hurry up. My head is spending around like
Speaker 1: a merry goat. Tell him you can sound it like
Speaker 1: chick herera on the carery yoke. But it's not that
Speaker 1: jack and chair we coke. It's the caressene the aero
Speaker 1: so dropping in there, he's cold. Another brother, Maddy was
Speaker 1: barely grown, Mama stopping like the bottom octive of a baperitone.
Speaker 1: Watching is the bearer on the cops, so that it
Speaker 1: ain't have been flare up the blocks, Egg, you better
Speaker 1: prepare yourself. We keep the monitor past the binoculous dropping
Speaker 1: pair of scope. We're sending in Leslie Nope, front of
Speaker 1: the auspices of robbing hood. We got no other option.
Speaker 1: Take a portion of the part distributed to the barrio
Speaker 1: marching in the Congress, taking down across America. Pay homage
Speaker 1: to the god of the rob should you motherfucking wrappers
Speaker 1: like a clover in time black version of Optimus Prime.
Speaker 1: But my product design served the last person with a
Speaker 1: sign of R nine. I'm leaving y'all into twine and
Speaker 1: you caught in a bond. This mad topics to find
Speaker 1: though when I'm under ground to the cheers, fade away
Speaker 1: and it's time to retire. I'm painting the yash you're
Speaker 1: hoping with, dying of fire and ships make believe and
Speaker 1: what I'm busting sun I play for keeps you bumps
Speaker 1: and nothing but a bunch of motherfucking waste the beats.
Speaker 1: I'm a beast on stage. You're on a vacant streets,
Speaker 1: stepping a cipher and they bowl with that. You're making speed.
Speaker 1: I knock them down. Shakepeare's with a lot of style,
Speaker 1: box of mouth, giving you faking tears and crocking dials
Speaker 1: and you crack smoking. I'm only half choking. I'm baanging.
Speaker 1: You're the bat poking. Get your back broken dope. My
Speaker 1: name's Dope night and we are waiting on reparations. Hurry
Speaker 1: up and we are back again for another episode. How
Speaker 1: are you doing? I'm fine, only I'm just tripping because,
Speaker 1: like so earlier today I saw my psychiatrist all the
Speaker 1: little scummels because zoom once you know, skype or whatever,
Speaker 1: and I was talking about, you know, the upcoming wave
Speaker 1: of evictions and the waning of the protests and the
Speaker 1: unemployment benefits running out in Congress not getting shit enough
Speaker 1: about working people to like pass anything to help us.
Speaker 1: And he was like, well, do you think your medication
Speaker 1: is working? And I'm like, does it fucking sound like it?
Speaker 1: You hear the tone in my voice as I describe
Speaker 1: the horror with which I am surveying the world. And
Speaker 1: it's just an interesting moment where he was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: you're right. I guess there's nothing really I can do
Speaker 1: to help you because the world is a fucking hou escape.
Speaker 1: Have a good day. That'll be two fifty bucks. You're welcome.
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous that it's like the first thing that he
Speaker 1: would think to say is do you want some drugs?
Speaker 1: Or are you taking your drugs? But if you draw
Speaker 1: to the dress artist, like do you what the fund?
Speaker 1: Do you think? Now? I feel you though? Like, um,
Speaker 1: for real, I got hit by like a wave of
Speaker 1: depression like a few days ago where I was just down,
Speaker 1: like for two days straight. And it was just because
Speaker 1: you know, normally, since you know, you know, the whole
Speaker 1: deal is like when you make music independently and when
Speaker 1: you when you're like an independent artist, you're always thinking
Speaker 1: like two or three steps ahead if you're smart, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. You think you're thinking about what
Speaker 1: you're gonna be doing, you know, five months from now.
Speaker 1: And it's just like with everything going on, it's just
Speaker 1: been it's been hard to have that sort of vision
Speaker 1: like and envisioning like the future like that. So it
Speaker 1: was just putting me down. But I didn't had to
Speaker 1: start working on the episode that kind of brought me up.
Speaker 1: So here we are. Here we are yeah, um, oh
Speaker 1: you know what else did happened? Yeah? So um. Earlier
Speaker 1: this week, the police Department here at Athens release the
Speaker 1: result of their internal investigation about their conduct the night
Speaker 1: of May thirty one, which was the big march that
Speaker 1: I led and then a bunch of my friends got
Speaker 1: to your guests and shot with Leslie's ammunitions and the
Speaker 1: fun What do you think they fucking found? I'm assuming
Speaker 1: they didn't do anything wrong. According to that, we investigated
Speaker 1: ourselves and found we did no wrongdoing. And it's so
Speaker 1: funny because like at first they didn't admit that they
Speaker 1: used like bean backgrounds, and now they admit they did.
Speaker 1: They claimed that like protesters were hiding like bricks in
Speaker 1: their tents and they were going to fucking throw with
Speaker 1: the cops. And now they admit the no bricks were
Speaker 1: found on the folks they arrested, And it's like they're
Speaker 1: admitting to all these lies in this report that supposed
Speaker 1: to it was all of any wrongdoing, because because they
Speaker 1: conducted at their own investor, it doesn't even make sense
Speaker 1: that they did anyone do an investigation on themselves like that.
Speaker 1: It's like have you ever have you ever read the
Speaker 1: comic folk Watchman? No haven't, or there's like, yeah, yeah
Speaker 1: exactly the film, Yeah yeah, but who watches The Watchman?
Speaker 1: I mean like it's it's on some street level ship
Speaker 1: of like nobody snitch exactly. But I mean that's just
Speaker 1: how it is, Just like any sort of like gang
Speaker 1: er organized group where everyone's looking out for each other
Speaker 1: and no one's gonna there. They look at everybody else's
Speaker 1: being the outsiders, and they look at themselves as being like,
Speaker 1: you know, the inner circle, and they don't deviate outside
Speaker 1: that quote unquote family. So yeah, first rule of five clubs.
Speaker 1: You don't talk about five club They don't fucking say
Speaker 1: ship to nobody to turn in their own under any circumstances.
Speaker 1: What does that sound like to you? Sounds like a
Speaker 1: fucking gang to me, gang gang gang gang gang gang gang.
Speaker 1: That brings us to our topic afterday. Before we get
Speaker 1: on that, let me give a shout out to the
Speaker 1: homie One Cosby out of Cincinnati, Ohio. He's the one
Speaker 1: who's provided the beach for today. That's One Cosby at
Speaker 1: one Cosby on Instagram. So go check him out in
Speaker 1: holler med him for some beats because he's got some fire.
Speaker 1: All right. Yeah, I think when you look at the
Speaker 1: history and then of police saying look at the history
Speaker 1: of gangs, there's so many parallels and moments of intersection,
Speaker 1: uh that kind of spring up. And so I mean,
Speaker 1: at this point it's almost like, you know, we say
Speaker 1: it all the time, and that's what this episode is about.
Speaker 1: But at this point it's kind of even a cliche
Speaker 1: the comparison of police to gangs, because it's like something
Speaker 1: that everybody pretty much accepts for this point especially. And
Speaker 1: when I talk about parallels, I'm not talking about like
Speaker 1: a linkage between like police budgets and like crime rates,
Speaker 1: because nationally that has not been found to exists, but
Speaker 1: rather the way the parallels culture, culture and the way
Speaker 1: they operate. Yeah, and a touch on that we're gonna
Speaker 1: be talking with hip hop and spoken word artists propaganda
Speaker 1: who's the co host and hosts, respectively of the Behind
Speaker 1: the Police and Hood Politics podcasts? But um, how did
Speaker 1: we end up here? Like, how do we end up
Speaker 1: with what we have as a centralized police force in America?
Speaker 1: Policing in the United States mirror the development of policing
Speaker 1: in England. One informal form it took was referred to
Speaker 1: as watch or private for profit policing. Yeah, so the
Speaker 1: watch system was made up on like community volunteers, but
Speaker 1: the main duty of warning incoming danger, so between like
Speaker 1: like sixty six and sev hundred um. A similar night
Speaker 1: watch was created in Boston, New York and Philadelphia. Now,
Speaker 1: the night Watch wasn't really that effective at controlling crime
Speaker 1: because for the most part, those guys were drinking and
Speaker 1: falling asleep while they were on duty, and most volunteers
Speaker 1: were trying to avoid military service. And we're drafted into
Speaker 1: service by their town or we're performing watch dudis is punishment.
Speaker 1: Another system was the constable system official law enforcement officers.
Speaker 1: They were paid a fee for warrants they served. Constables
Speaker 1: had a bunch of non law enforcement jobs as well,
Speaker 1: including land surveyors and weights and measure inspectors. And then
Speaker 1: in the South, policing had its roots and slave patrols,
Speaker 1: a squads of white volunteers given the green light to
Speaker 1: enforce laws related to slavery, capturing and returning escape slaves,
Speaker 1: calling slave rebellions, and enforcing plantation rules with harsh and
Speaker 1: often statistic punishments. The first slave patrol was in modern
Speaker 1: day South Carolina in seventeen o four, and they had
Speaker 1: three primary functions to chase, down, apprehend, and return slaves
Speaker 1: to their owners, To provide a form of organized terror
Speaker 1: to deter slave revolts, and to maintain a form of
Speaker 1: discipline for slave workers who were subject to plantation justice
Speaker 1: outside of the law if they violated any plantation rules.
Speaker 1: After the Civil War, these vigilante groups merged in the
Speaker 1: modern Southern police departments, mainly as a way of controlling
Speaker 1: freed former slaves who are now working in the agricultural
Speaker 1: cast system, enforcing a set of racist government policies called
Speaker 1: the Black Codes, designed to deny ead black people equal
Speaker 1: rights and access to the political system The codes also
Speaker 1: restricted traveling and housing. In eighteen sixty eight, the Black
Speaker 1: Codes were rendered illegal about the Fourteenth Amendment, but within
Speaker 1: twenty years Jim Crow segregation laws got around that ever
Speaker 1: adopted across the South, and enforcement of those laws so
Speaker 1: put it in the hands of Gusts fucking who. The
Speaker 1: in the eighteen thirties is when the idea of a
Speaker 1: centralized municipal police department first emerged in the United States.
Speaker 1: And it's really funny because I got an arguments with
Speaker 1: people on Instagram about this because on four the July
Speaker 1: I posted about the fact that you know, we're celebrating
Speaker 1: this holiday about the founding of our country, and in
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six, the police as we know it did
Speaker 1: not exist in America, and for the majority of human history, indeed,
Speaker 1: policing as an institution, as the centralized municipal police department
Speaker 1: that you know I read to the eighteen thirties did
Speaker 1: not exist throughout human society. And so when we talk
Speaker 1: about abolition, etcetera, we're really talking about in a sense,
Speaker 1: getting back to our roots of like other forms of
Speaker 1: accountability and other forms of um UH security and public
Speaker 1: safety through like community based like, you know, not just
Speaker 1: seeing your neighbors, not not not sorry, not just watching
Speaker 1: your neighbors, but like seeing them for who they are
Speaker 1: and understanding them, understanding them. Yeah, and so um, I mean,
Speaker 1: does I feel like that's what a lot of this
Speaker 1: moment and what's going on is about, is about like
Speaker 1: completely changing people's whole way of looking at stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: more so than just necessarily reforming an institution. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I think I think the idea of like even you know,
Speaker 1: defunding the police or police abolition requires us to stop
Speaker 1: outsourcing all of our problems to the state. It asks
Speaker 1: a lot more of us as private citizens to you know,
Speaker 1: be a and like surveying the conditions on our street,
Speaker 1: not just for crime to occur, but crime prevenge strategies
Speaker 1: and making sure our neighbors have everything they need. I mean,
Speaker 1: we could talk about expanding the quote unquote welfare state
Speaker 1: as a way to deter crime, but ultimately it does
Speaker 1: do think it comes down to like mutual aid and
Speaker 1: like mutual accountability on the community level, and like the
Speaker 1: responsibility that requires of us. People are like I don't
Speaker 1: have to do all that ship. I want to make
Speaker 1: sure my neighbors got fucking cheerios and fucking milk. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, the thing is like a and this is
Speaker 1: I guess it's kind of where, you know, not growing
Speaker 1: up here kind of comes into perspective for me. But
Speaker 1: it's just like, I don't know how if you know
Speaker 1: that there are people who are hungry, Like, how do
Speaker 1: you walk around it like thinking that there shouldn't or
Speaker 1: won't be crime of some sort, Like you think people
Speaker 1: are just gonna like starve. I mean, I know it's
Speaker 1: all relative, like everybody's definition of what they're but if
Speaker 1: you we all live this life in America knowing that
Speaker 1: it's unfair and it's unequal and a lot of people
Speaker 1: have it harder than other people, we're gonna what do
Speaker 1: you think is going to happen? I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: that's right, I'm saying, what do you expect to happen?
Speaker 1: You know? Yeah, I was helping organized folks UM as
Speaker 1: a part of the National uh Strike for Black Lives
Speaker 1: where SCIU and Teamsters and the Poor People's Campaign and
Speaker 1: other UM allied organizations across the country were encouraging workers
Speaker 1: to walk off the job. And how I was explaining,
Speaker 1: like what this what relevance. This held for the moment
Speaker 1: that we're in is that economic justice is racial justice.
Speaker 1: In a world without crimes of survival, are reliance upon
Speaker 1: institution of policing is greatly decreased, some might even argue eliminated.
Speaker 1: And so when we address those economic justice issues of
Speaker 1: people having those foundation foundational needs met UM so that
Speaker 1: they can thrive UM through you know, living wage employment
Speaker 1: or through strong social safe being, it that helps them
Speaker 1: gain UM and keep meaningful employment, we won't have to
Speaker 1: we won't have to worry about you know, homies down
Speaker 1: here fighting outside the homeless shelter. But anyway, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I got a little bit off time. UM. So police
Speaker 1: have only existed in America for like a little little
Speaker 1: shy have two hundred years. UM. One reason that they
Speaker 1: first emerged was that cities were growing and with the
Speaker 1: US no longer being a collection of small cities and
Speaker 1: rural towns, with urbanization occurring at a pace that made
Speaker 1: the watching constable systems no longer good enough to stop
Speaker 1: this disorder. They had to transition to something more centralized.
Speaker 1: And we'll come back to that word disorder, but yeah,
Speaker 1: the general public disorder was more visible and less easily
Speaker 1: controlled in growing urban centers than it had been in
Speaker 1: rural areas. Increasing crime and visible vice, you know, public
Speaker 1: drunkenness and sometimes prostitution. Mob violence, for particularly violence directed
Speaker 1: at immigrants and African Americans took place frequently, um, but
Speaker 1: there is no evidence that there was like a crime
Speaker 1: way back then that made them say, hey, we gotta
Speaker 1: start a centralized police force. Like that's not really what
Speaker 1: was going on. Yeah, I think the keyword here is
Speaker 1: visible vice because I think Alexandria Cossio Cortez in a
Speaker 1: recent interview was talking about how what folks and this
Speaker 1: has been contested by abolitionists, but like we was talking
Speaker 1: about how folks uh need to think of defunding the
Speaker 1: police as advocating for black communities to be police like
Speaker 1: white communities. Are white communities where visible vice is not
Speaker 1: so much of an issue. People aren' drinking down the
Speaker 1: street corner or standing out, you know, up by the
Speaker 1: stop sign hooking, because they're doing these things behind closed
Speaker 1: doors on private properties, whether or not seen, and thus
Speaker 1: it kind of keeps this image of public order. Kentucky
Speaker 1: University criminologist Gary Potter and his paper The History of
Speaker 1: policing in the United States stated more than crime. Modern
Speaker 1: police forces in the United States emerges a response to
Speaker 1: quote disorder will constitute social and public order depends largely
Speaker 1: on who is defining those terms, and in the cities
Speaker 1: of the nineteenth century America, they were defined by mercantile interests,
Speaker 1: whose taxes and political influence supported the development of bureaucratic
Speaker 1: policing institutions. These economic interests had a greater interest in
Speaker 1: social control than crime control. Private and for profit policing
Speaker 1: was to disorganize and to crime specific inform To fulfill
Speaker 1: these needs, the emerging commercial elites needed a mechanism to
Speaker 1: ensure a stable and orderly workforce, a stable and orderly
Speaker 1: environment to conductive business, and the maintenance of what they
Speaker 1: referred to as the collective good. These mercantile interests also
Speaker 1: wanted to divest themselves the cost of protecting their own enterprises,
Speaker 1: transferring those costs from the private sector to the state. Hey,
Speaker 1: so we got a special guest today, Oh yes we do.
Speaker 1: Who is that? We have? Jason Emmanuel Petty, or known
Speaker 1: to the world as a propaganda games the same amount
Speaker 1: of jail time. It's eighteen of cocaine, but eight say
Speaker 1: the same thing. It's crooked, stay eat known kind and
Speaker 1: must worsnd instead of celebrating shine and hip hop and
Speaker 1: spoken word artists and poet from Los Angeles, California and
Speaker 1: the co host up behind the police and politics prop
Speaker 1: How are you today? I'm all right man. You know
Speaker 1: you gave a full government though YO said, I didn't
Speaker 1: need to put the fans just watching. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. I don't really talking about the police. No,
Speaker 1: we're good. I'm all good man. We uh we um
Speaker 1: on a personal note, or like the house we're renting,
Speaker 1: we're looking into buying, so which is super dope, which
Speaker 1: means now I have an office uh over here like
Speaker 1: not recording in my bedroom with my like daughter taking
Speaker 1: her nap right on the other side of the wall.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. Yeah, So tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about yourself for folks that may not be
Speaker 1: familiar with their work. Yeah, yeah, How would you describe yourself?
Speaker 1: Man um Almo Tall drink of walk Nona. I am
Speaker 1: south central Los Angeles, you know, born and bred in
Speaker 1: l A, moved around the cornucopia Los Angeles. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't know how familiar listeners are. But like Sand Valley, Whittier,
Speaker 1: Long Beach, I've lived in pretty much all of it.
Speaker 1: Lived in i E. For a little bit. Um My
Speaker 1: Uh moms from d C. Dad from Texas. My father
Speaker 1: was a black panther. Uh. Fell in love with hip
Speaker 1: hop at in Lamart Park in l A. And Um.
Speaker 1: I went to college for illustration and in their cultural studies,
Speaker 1: and then I went on to get a masters in
Speaker 1: social science. I taught history for six years. Um. And
Speaker 1: I was just a hardcore battle rapper the whole time,
Speaker 1: you know. And then uh, yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Fell in love of poetry in college. Um and in
Speaker 1: our story right right yeah, and uh and just kind
Speaker 1: of been like you know, there was a moment where
Speaker 1: I had to make a decision as far as like
Speaker 1: was I gonna continue in the education to be a
Speaker 1: teacher or like you know, those opportunities were arising. It's
Speaker 1: kind of funny story, I don't I know, ya ya
Speaker 1: yr listeners to appreciate it. Like I was crew I
Speaker 1: was with was Was We produced album on Caress one, um,
Speaker 1: and he was going to take us on tour. So
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, I'm out this job. The teachers
Speaker 1: didn't take me to shot and uh and it wasn't
Speaker 1: my shot, but but it was an amazing experience. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying that I'll never forget it. But
Speaker 1: either way, that was Like I I left the classroom
Speaker 1: around that time and then, um, yeah, I kind of
Speaker 1: been doing music and poetry and sort of activism. I
Speaker 1: come from my activist family. Like I said, my father
Speaker 1: was a Panthers, So I kind of came from that
Speaker 1: already and just kind of been doing that of a since.
Speaker 1: So what so what was his involvement with the Panthers,
Speaker 1: Like was he an organizer? Was he? Like? Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I know they did a lot of different kinds of things,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, so Pops was after school tutor and he
Speaker 1: was doing like some of the some of the the bussing,
Speaker 1: the transfers things. My father was at the watch chapter
Speaker 1: forty one and Central down here and the one that
Speaker 1: went the CIA bottle, the one with one of the
Speaker 1: ones that c Yeah, so yeah, he was a part
Speaker 1: of He was a part of the the after school tutoring.
Speaker 1: My dad. You know, after he came back from Vietnam,
Speaker 1: he was a went on to to go to u C.
Speaker 1: L A And get his Afro Studies degree in sociology.
Speaker 1: So my father was very intelligent man. And UM, so
Speaker 1: his big thing was like education is the way, so
Speaker 1: he that was that was that was where he participated
Speaker 1: the most, was in the after school tutoring. And how
Speaker 1: has like the how have those activist roots influenced the
Speaker 1: way you move in the world. Man, It's it's like
Speaker 1: it's hard to not see the need and it's hard
Speaker 1: to not see you know, sort of a a a
Speaker 1: much more sort of intersectional kind of like a very
Speaker 1: disinclusive understanding of what you know, interlocking systems of the
Speaker 1: justice look like how to have advocacy across different borders
Speaker 1: and different lines. Um. Because of again the way that
Speaker 1: like I was taught to even understand power and how
Speaker 1: you interface with power and how power uh interfaces with
Speaker 1: with the population. You know, it was just because of
Speaker 1: that sort of like like I said, like very well
Speaker 1: read activism that like my father had. It's like you
Speaker 1: just you were you were able to see it every everywhere.
Speaker 1: And then secondly, just being from l A, like I
Speaker 1: was on the east side of South Central. I know
Speaker 1: it's a lot of directions, but um, on the east
Speaker 1: side of South Central. It bordered the Latino community, so
Speaker 1: we're we're butting up against UM. Like the next street
Speaker 1: over was an area called Huntington Park, which I mean
Speaker 1: there's no signs in English in Huntington Park, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So like I I lived on this
Speaker 1: like borderlands to where I just I understood the immigrant
Speaker 1: the you know, specifically the Mexican American immigrant UM experience
Speaker 1: UM and could just see so many like I'm like
Speaker 1: they that's the same ship, Like they're doing that, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. So it was just hard to
Speaker 1: not It's hard to not notice it. And realized that
Speaker 1: like a lot of our work where we was doing
Speaker 1: and what my father was doing for the black community
Speaker 1: was like yo, like y'all could do this too, Like
Speaker 1: y'all need this to you know what I'm saying. And UM.
Speaker 1: So that like sort of intersectional understanding I think kind
Speaker 1: of came from having that lord like activists like father,
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Are there any like areas where
Speaker 1: you're hip hop and your activism like intersect I mean
Speaker 1: the whole time, Like that's the funny part. Like again,
Speaker 1: you know, I the wing of hip hop I fell
Speaker 1: in love with. And I know that's another similarity because
Speaker 1: I saw the song as y'all chose for this episode.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, I grew up going to you know, Uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know how familiar you are with just like
Speaker 1: the l A Rap scene as far as like good Life, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I grew up going to that. Like I was too young,
Speaker 1: So I was too young for the Good Life. I
Speaker 1: snuck in snug right, but it was a healthfu cafe.
Speaker 1: So it's like, I mean, so what for people who
Speaker 1: might not know what that is? What is? What is?
Speaker 1: So the Good Life wasn't wasn't open mic sort of
Speaker 1: like workshop that evolved into sort of this battle scene,
Speaker 1: but you couldn't curse. Yeah, it was very clean. You
Speaker 1: couldn't curse because of uh sort of our our our
Speaker 1: kind of patriarch of that area, like the Mert Park
Speaker 1: is the sort of like l A's Harlem, so a
Speaker 1: lot of like activism, old jazz, like a lot of
Speaker 1: the sixties stuff. It was right on Cranshaw Boulevard again,
Speaker 1: which is like Black Renaissance areas of Los Angeles. Um,
Speaker 1: so it was already a community that was like there,
Speaker 1: our elders were activists, Our elders were like you know,
Speaker 1: were these So if hip hop was going to be
Speaker 1: born there, it was gonna look like where we were
Speaker 1: born in, you know what I'm saying. So freestyle fellowship.
Speaker 1: So these were like my heroes, you know, um yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, so freestyle fellowship. Like I mean I saw,
Speaker 1: you know, I saw, I saw. I remember seeing Corrupt
Speaker 1: and Snow you know what I'm saying. I remember seeing
Speaker 1: these guys come to these open mics. I remember people
Speaker 1: flying in. I the Juice and Supernatural battle like that
Speaker 1: was was that blow? You know what I'm saying. So like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so we saw these things. I remember, you know a
Speaker 1: Unity which was over on the American Miracle Montains do
Speaker 1: with all these like l A deep cuts, but like,
Speaker 1: uh that's where are when when M battled this guy
Speaker 1: named Otherwise you know, for this for this event that
Speaker 1: like Drey saw him at like and lost, you know,
Speaker 1: like that particular battle he lost, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But like you know, the Rhyme Fest battles, like all
Speaker 1: these different like moments, all these people were all already
Speaker 1: their hip hop was already an active protests so if
Speaker 1: that's sort of the primortal suit that I kind of
Speaker 1: came from. It was like this is what I knew.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, this is this is what
Speaker 1: I understood. I you know, we were in l A.
Speaker 1: But like, like if you saw the good documentary, like
Speaker 1: we all weren't we all weren't defunk, Like we all weren't.
Speaker 1: We all came from everybody there, there's a bunch of
Speaker 1: different flavors. Yeah, you know, we all came from ganghoods,
Speaker 1: but like we didn't all we weren't all gangs. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's kind of like that stuff really saying to me.
Speaker 1: So transitioning, Like, so you've been a hip hop artist
Speaker 1: and an activist for all these years. How did you
Speaker 1: get into the podcast game? Because you're the you know,
Speaker 1: you're the coast of the Behind the Police podcast. Also
Speaker 1: you got the Hood Politics podcast. So how did you
Speaker 1: get into that? Dude? I So I started as I
Speaker 1: started doing music, and you know, and the type of
Speaker 1: music I was doing, I was getting a lot of
Speaker 1: like speaking opportunities, um, and then sort of you know,
Speaker 1: I wrote a few op eds for you know, a
Speaker 1: couple couple of outlets and people started saying, Yo, you
Speaker 1: should do a podcast, you do a podcast podcast. And
Speaker 1: at the time, I was like, man, about what man, Like,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying? Like I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: know what you want me to say. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying it? Who's really going to tune in weekly?
Speaker 1: You feel me? And at the time, like when it
Speaker 1: first started, I was like, well, I'm an artist. I
Speaker 1: don't have you know what I'm saying, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: you have these like lofty ideas of not understanding like
Speaker 1: multiple streams of income all this stuff and just what
Speaker 1: a what abroad like fully developed artists you could be.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I got offered a show that me and
Speaker 1: my wife actually started doing. It was called The Red
Speaker 1: Couch Podcast UM, which was where it originally started. I
Speaker 1: was offered by this this magazine called Relevant. They were
Speaker 1: launching this like whole podcast network. They wanted me to
Speaker 1: be like the flagship UM, and so they were the
Speaker 1: ones that were like, you can write, you can do
Speaker 1: whatever you want, and I didn't. I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't uh about what you know what I'm saying? So
Speaker 1: so so memo, I just kind of made up the podcast.
Speaker 1: You know what, I'm saying, and then out of that
Speaker 1: groo hood politics, because that pub politics at first was
Speaker 1: just a section in the broader. It was just one
Speaker 1: of the bits in Red Couch, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: And then it kind of took its own life and
Speaker 1: and was just people were tuning in just for the
Speaker 1: first twenty minutes of the show, you know, just for
Speaker 1: the red just for the hood politics section, and then
Speaker 1: tune it out. And then other people were tuning in
Speaker 1: for the last forty because they just wanted to hear
Speaker 1: my wife talk because she's brilliant in her own right,
Speaker 1: you know actually and more right, she's PhD and a
Speaker 1: policy and social context is brilliant. This is gonna be
Speaker 1: the hardest thing you do in your life. I'm surprised
Speaker 1: our marriage last. Yes, uh and she almost is funny
Speaker 1: at the end of that, she almost didn't want to
Speaker 1: like go through the like the ceremony and like walking
Speaker 1: across the stage. I was like, girl, I'm walking across
Speaker 1: if you're not gonna walk an walk like that was
Speaker 1: the hardest thing. I can't believe it anyway. Uh so yeah,
Speaker 1: so so, so it became like for me, podcasting was
Speaker 1: just like this like creative, uh way to get ideas
Speaker 1: out that I didn't have sort of like my identity
Speaker 1: so wrapped up into like I did with like hip
Speaker 1: hop poetry. Like so it was like this could just
Speaker 1: be I could just like the pressure was off, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, because I just feel like I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't. This wasn't this wasn't the air I breathe.
Speaker 1: And then it kind of like took on a life
Speaker 1: of its own and now it's like, dude, I really
Speaker 1: love like podcasting. And then Behind the Police thing was
Speaker 1: like legit just a d M. Like, yes, I was
Speaker 1: following you know Robert show. His show was just you know,
Speaker 1: I don't even familiar with the show show Behind the Bastards.
Speaker 1: I was just yeah, I was just a fan of it,
Speaker 1: and so I started following him and we started like
Speaker 1: chopping it up back and forth, cracking jokes, and then
Speaker 1: I did a show on the Panthers with him, like
Speaker 1: he again direct messaged me like hey, because he said
Speaker 1: he was working on one, and I was like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: my dad was a panther. So then he direct messaged
Speaker 1: me and was like, hey, you want to be on
Speaker 1: the show, And I was like, yeah, well let me
Speaker 1: so I imped it that called my pops to be like,
Speaker 1: let me make sure I have like my timeline. I
Speaker 1: don't want to make a fool of myself on this thing. So, um,
Speaker 1: so we did the show. The show, like you know,
Speaker 1: the numbers were pretty good. And then he had later
Speaker 1: on had this idea about the behind the Police thing
Speaker 1: and was like, eight, do you want to like calls
Speaker 1: with this? This would mean it was legit, just a
Speaker 1: direct message. It's good to know that, like you can
Speaker 1: still like that could happen anyone with the social media,
Speaker 1: democratized information, democratized relationship making like it happen anybody. But yeah,
Speaker 1: talk to us a little bit about, um some topics
Speaker 1: that come up on her politics, and then we'll talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about some of the highlights for you
Speaker 1: from being a part of Behind the Police. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: her politics is it's based on a really basic premise
Speaker 1: of if if you survived inner city in any city
Speaker 1: in America, if you understood gang life, you understand geo politics. Hell,
Speaker 1: if you if you survived the eighth grade, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, you understand geo politics. Because I honestly
Speaker 1: believe politics is just gangbanging in nice suits, like it's
Speaker 1: it's the same. So what I wanted to do with
Speaker 1: this pod is take whether it's like hot takes from
Speaker 1: just like the current events of the current zygeist, or
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, continual threads, like you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's America's like involvement in the Middle East or what
Speaker 1: what the hell of colde War is? Or how do
Speaker 1: you explain sanctions and tearraffs, and like all these things
Speaker 1: that um, you know, are are are have its own language,
Speaker 1: have its own like you know, vocabulary and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and like people like you and me are oftentimes, especially
Speaker 1: if you ain't got no like you know, self fixes
Speaker 1: at the Indian names, you ain't gonna like degrees and nothing,
Speaker 1: you kind of feel like these people are like smarter
Speaker 1: than you, like you know what I'm saying, Like you
Speaker 1: can't like I'm not welcoming to this conversation. And what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do with this pod was be like, actually,
Speaker 1: you understand this stuff very well. You know, you've been
Speaker 1: living at your whole your whole life, especially from the hood.
Speaker 1: So I say all that. For example, let's say we
Speaker 1: were talking about Let's just say we were talking about sanctions, right, Um,
Speaker 1: so China's you know, trying to I don't know you
Speaker 1: was losing the tariff war and we was gonna sanction
Speaker 1: uh China, China, this YadA YadA, like what was going
Speaker 1: through all this stuff? And just might say, well, what
Speaker 1: the hell is the sanction? And I'm like, well, it
Speaker 1: kind of works like this. Let's just say, um, you,
Speaker 1: Mariah are the plug, right, so you got all the weight,
Speaker 1: It's all in your hands, right, And um, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know your little cousin Pookie, right, he lived
Speaker 1: on the other side of town, and he wants to
Speaker 1: sell your weight, right well, and so so Fookie over
Speaker 1: there with the Mariah with the Mariah Waite, right. But
Speaker 1: Pooky's neighborhood gets to be like wait wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: wait wait wait, hold up, we produce our own weight.
Speaker 1: You're not allowed to. We got our own plug over here.
Speaker 1: You can't just be selling. You can just be selling
Speaker 1: to my neighborhood like this, right. And if you are,
Speaker 1: then like I'm I'm feeling like I'm attached you for this,
Speaker 1: Like then I need for you need to run back
Speaker 1: to this block. If you're finna sell over here. Right,
Speaker 1: So at the end of the day, your cousin trying
Speaker 1: to sell your weed in his neighborhood, but his neighborhood
Speaker 1: not allowing him to sell unless he pays, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So I'm like, that's like, so you
Speaker 1: know that's already know this stuff. You already know how
Speaker 1: this works. It's just new vocals and they dress it
Speaker 1: up in language that's unfamiliar, but the processes themselves are
Speaker 1: incredibly familiar. Already you already know it. Right. We all
Speaker 1: know a Kim jongle. We all know one. We're all knowing.
Speaker 1: It's it's your little It's it's a little brother who's
Speaker 1: just mad that his big brother always gets to shine.
Speaker 1: And you can't never say nothing to him because he's
Speaker 1: he's always ready to scrap. And if just in the
Speaker 1: way to handle that dude, and you know he ain't
Speaker 1: gonna throw the punch, You're not gonna really do. He
Speaker 1: just talking a lot of ships, just yell at the time.
Speaker 1: He just always talking ship. So you're just like, yo,
Speaker 1: the best way to deal with him is to be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's your world, big it's your world. Dog. No nobody
Speaker 1: wanted with you you good? You good? Can you just
Speaker 1: chill though? Right? And then and then and then his
Speaker 1: his big brother, which would be South Korea, being like, y'all,
Speaker 1: can't don't rile this one because I gotta go home.
Speaker 1: And at some point and at some point if he
Speaker 1: does lose it, he's gonna listen on me first, he's
Speaker 1: gonna lose it on me, So y'all need to chill. Like,
Speaker 1: so I had a question. So it's it's funny that,
Speaker 1: like you draw that comparison between geo politics and hood
Speaker 1: politics and things. So do you see any you know,
Speaker 1: people always talk about how the police are the biggest gang.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of songs that we're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about where you know, people make reference to that. So
Speaker 1: like what's your opinion on like just that parallel or
Speaker 1: that analogy between like police and them just being another
Speaker 1: gang on the street like the other game. I mean,
Speaker 1: it couldn't be more accurate, like especially when you go
Speaker 1: into like the stuff like just the history of the police.
Speaker 1: I just don't know, I have no I can't see
Speaker 1: any distinction from a historical perspective, and then also from
Speaker 1: my own experience, it's like, Okay, if I'm gonna talk
Speaker 1: about just my own experience in inner city Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: If i turned down a particular street and I'm walking
Speaker 1: home with my new like no, my new Jordan's new
Speaker 1: Air Force ones, and I turn a corner coming home
Speaker 1: from school with a backpack, and I catch some boys
Speaker 1: in blue. Whether they crips or cops, it don't make
Speaker 1: no difference, right if I if they come around that corner,
Speaker 1: one of them is gonna flag me down, like hey, hey, hey, hey, Hony,
Speaker 1: where are you going? You know, it's like here we go.
Speaker 1: I'm going who who, Where you stay at? Where your
Speaker 1: where your grandma stay? What you're doing on the street? Right? Um,
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just cutting through the that's my my
Speaker 1: family bank, this stay from there? Yea, yeah, You're like,
Speaker 1: oh where were you from? You know what I'm saying
Speaker 1: that you started going to ask me all these questions interrogations,
Speaker 1: and and my only way out of this is either
Speaker 1: I'm gonna catch a fade or I have to hand
Speaker 1: over equipment. Right So I'm like, or I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: in trouble. I'm like, Okay, that's that's street loss, Like
Speaker 1: all right, this what's gonna happen. I'm gonna henna, right,
Speaker 1: I'm here, gonna run my backpack and run my shoes
Speaker 1: or I have to be like I'll die for this.
Speaker 1: And I said always, I have to answer this dude, like, listen,
Speaker 1: I would die for my backpack. You know it's stupid,
Speaker 1: but it's like that's those were the rules. So if
Speaker 1: I come around the corner and it's the cops, who hey,
Speaker 1: hey sir, how are you doing young man? What do
Speaker 1: you we? Are you doing here? Really really can't see
Speaker 1: your idea? Where do you live? I'm like, I'm having
Speaker 1: the same scenario. Where'd you get those shoes? Yeah? Did
Speaker 1: you do? You steal them? Maybe somebody got them? And
Speaker 1: I'm like what I even asked me, like no, my
Speaker 1: both my parents were right, Okay, well you've seen the
Speaker 1: fifth description of someone that was causing trouble on this street.
Speaker 1: So I need to see what's in your backpack? What's this?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, it's the same scenario. You are gonna
Speaker 1: go through my stuff. I'm about to get search and
Speaker 1: if I don't keep it cool, I'm gonna catch a faith.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, I just don't and y'all not gonna
Speaker 1: say nothing about each other even if somebody is out
Speaker 1: of line, because I mean, I mean, the thing I
Speaker 1: was kind of difference is that the police police the
Speaker 1: gang supposedly, but nobody polices the police. Nobody policing him. Listen,
Speaker 1: listen on one of the episodes at My Homeboy, Bamboo,
Speaker 1: he's part of Soule Assassins, even famili but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, so Bamboo was talking about like, man, there
Speaker 1: are times that like and I was asking him, like
Speaker 1: if he had any like if you remember any of
Speaker 1: the little hot heads in his in his life, in
Speaker 1: his hood that would get everybody in trouble, and he
Speaker 1: was like, yes, it was my own cousin. So like,
Speaker 1: you know, you all sitting you all sitting down, you
Speaker 1: are sitting down like mone of your own business. And
Speaker 1: then this fool starts mouthing off, which is basically which
Speaker 1: is basically what happened with with um, with us shooting Sulamani. Right,
Speaker 1: It's like somebody started mouthing off, right, you know. And
Speaker 1: so he was like, yeah, that's what happened. Somebody starts
Speaker 1: mouthing off, The homeboy starts mouthing off, and then he
Speaker 1: turns back at you and he's like, hey, hey, we
Speaker 1: got beef with these fools, like y'all the enemy being
Speaker 1: a ride and it's like, no, no, no no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no way, but we have who is we fool? Like
Speaker 1: you you're the one that started stacking on this fool,
Speaker 1: just like you're I'm sitting here in the taco you
Speaker 1: were banging on homie. So now, but you know what,
Speaker 1: Am I gonna say that in public? Hell no, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go ride like because that's my squad. And that's
Speaker 1: so like you have that same exact mentality, the same rules,
Speaker 1: even even though you see a guy that you're like,
Speaker 1: this man is completely out of line. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: what we're watching in the news right now. We all
Speaker 1: know killers of Brianna Taylor, we all know the killers
Speaker 1: of Joyce. Everybody there know they were out of line.
Speaker 1: Right anybody's gonna say nothing because it's good ship. You're
Speaker 1: not gonna say nothing, I know because I wouldn't if
Speaker 1: this was my hood. I'm not. I mean, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: checking when we get you, feel me, But I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna check him in public. And that's what I feel like.
Speaker 1: Cops don't really understand that like they would if if
Speaker 1: they would just check themselves, they probably would be given
Speaker 1: a lot more benefit of doubt about stuff. It would
Speaker 1: be so much easier for the just on their on
Speaker 1: their behalf, Like this isn't like on the yes, when
Speaker 1: I think about, they were to come up with like
Speaker 1: a rule amongst themselves and they're like, alright, look guys,
Speaker 1: all right, for every tenth person, for every tenth unarmed
Speaker 1: person that gets shot, we're all going to agree that
Speaker 1: that one's bad. If they would, even if they would
Speaker 1: even give that ground system, few people wouldn't. It wouldn't right.
Speaker 1: I think about, Like I think about again, Like the
Speaker 1: street part is like at some point one of the
Speaker 1: shot callers are gonna come from jail, right, so one
Speaker 1: of the ogs are gonna be like, all right, Parliament,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And I know that's what
Speaker 1: happened in l A. That's why drive by stopped. It's
Speaker 1: because the O g s made the call from prison
Speaker 1: like hey, this is and I hate to say it,
Speaker 1: but they were like, look, this is just not g
Speaker 1: Like you can't just what are you doing? Like you
Speaker 1: can't just draw you hitting innocent people like this is ridiculous,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And that was because the
Speaker 1: gang checked the game, like you know what I'm saying, like,
Speaker 1: and if you have somebody in your hood that's mouthing
Speaker 1: off like like you know, Bamboo's cousin, there was always
Speaker 1: a big homie I could call and be like, Hey,
Speaker 1: I don't know what's up with this fool like. Look,
Speaker 1: I mean we we handled it like we went down there.
Speaker 1: We did we had to do, but like this fool
Speaker 1: like he set us like we didn't. We didn't have
Speaker 1: to have this problem because guy was like hollering and
Speaker 1: then that dude's gonna check him and be like all right,
Speaker 1: tell uncle, you know what I'm saying. So like like
Speaker 1: like you said, like there is it's weird, but there
Speaker 1: is an infrastructure in some way with just like street it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I learned a lot from behind the police about
Speaker 1: how police unions kind of operate to shield folks from
Speaker 1: accountability and keep folks on the job, to sort of
Speaker 1: close the ranks up in these ways. Did was there
Speaker 1: anything else from you're working on that show that really
Speaker 1: stuck out to you as like a highlight of like
Speaker 1: a piece of history, you learned about the way police
Speaker 1: operate that was new to you. Yeah. I think that,
Speaker 1: like the things that really stuck out to me was
Speaker 1: like the difference between what was happening in the North
Speaker 1: and what was happening in the South, and then how
Speaker 1: they were different, but how they were interconnected, like you know,
Speaker 1: the the the north, you know, was what the research
Speaker 1: that we saw was, like it was really about like
Speaker 1: protecting sort of like property, right, Yeah, the first police
Speaker 1: departments came about to break up like labor strikes and
Speaker 1: to like capital, and they were operating something in the
Speaker 1: South with slave patrols that turned into police departments protecting
Speaker 1: capital in a different way. Yeah, exactly, so that the
Speaker 1: capital was just humans. Yeah, you know. Uh so, so
Speaker 1: I think that like that sort of like differences and
Speaker 1: sort of like the mind bender. It was when you
Speaker 1: had sort of like labor unions striking and then the
Speaker 1: company's hiring free black people. That's like what do you
Speaker 1: like saying, Well, I don't know what to say about
Speaker 1: this one, because because and and then and it's like
Speaker 1: how that stoked so many like even even a divide
Speaker 1: even for are between poor people in general. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, but like and and it's like, dude,
Speaker 1: how do you how do you untangle that? Like these
Speaker 1: are these are free slaves that are just like, yo,
Speaker 1: you mean to tell me you're gonna pay me to work?
Speaker 1: That sounds great, you know what I'm saying, And and
Speaker 1: being like and there and from their perspective, not even
Speaker 1: understanding why anyone would possibly strike, like why would you
Speaker 1: why would you do that? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And um, just that that jugs the position. Just that
Speaker 1: moment in history I think was like the most like
Speaker 1: the one I didn't know it. And then too it
Speaker 1: was just like dude, like you you can't, Like history
Speaker 1: is just so man, girls, it's so entangled and twisted. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had been aware of the way that like the
Speaker 1: white and black working class have been kind of pitted
Speaker 1: against each other to protect capital and how that is
Speaker 1: like kind of hampered label labor struggles, particularly in the
Speaker 1: South historically, but I did not know about that particular
Speaker 1: piece of the history. Yeah, am, people sort of like
Speaker 1: came and undermine the moment. She's you know, and it's
Speaker 1: like I just like, you can't. It just reminded me
Speaker 1: of like, I know, it's trivial. But it just reminds
Speaker 1: me of like the the Breaking Bad series to where
Speaker 1: you're like, I don't know whose side I'm on, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like when you're whether it's like
Speaker 1: Walter or Skyler, I'm like, I, damn, I don't know
Speaker 1: because I I don't know, you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it really like it really it really threw that section,
Speaker 1: like really threw me for a loop. And then it
Speaker 1: was like, but one of the takeaways I really appreciated
Speaker 1: about this event is like or that that series is
Speaker 1: that all of those things that poor people or people
Speaker 1: of color and specifically black people have kind of just
Speaker 1: known but had no receipts for. I feel like, yo,
Speaker 1: you're not crazy. You know what I'm saying. Here here
Speaker 1: is eight hours of receiving you know that. Like so
Speaker 1: I just I appreciate like Robert, like Robert was like, man,
Speaker 1: I mean he did the lord's work for this one,
Speaker 1: like he did he did I mean the the lifting
Speaker 1: of the receipt of the of the research, you know,
Speaker 1: and um yeah, I just get like that feeling of
Speaker 1: being like, listen, we have something we've given to the
Speaker 1: culture that's gone staying. You know, let's go, that's here forever,
Speaker 1: you know. So now, so for today, we're gonna look
Speaker 1: at something well known and something less well known songs
Speaker 1: addressing the police. In specific, I wanted to pick songs
Speaker 1: that were more or less about police corruption, the first
Speaker 1: being J Dells The police ste Business. Okay, so do
Speaker 1: you what are your thoughts about the police prob I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, I just I'm already like a Dilla nerd,
Speaker 1: you know, So there's that, right, Uh. I think like
Speaker 1: I think that the interest of that one or the
Speaker 1: one of the things so interesting about about this particular
Speaker 1: song is like you know, the backstory you heard the
Speaker 1: backstory about it that like you know, he he was
Speaker 1: apparently he was working on an album for Busta Rhymes
Speaker 1: and his basement got rated, you know, at mom Duke's house,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like you like call his
Speaker 1: basement got raided. They destroyed page, they destroyed, like, he
Speaker 1: destroyed so much stuff. So that night he made that
Speaker 1: song because the police just like rated his mom's house
Speaker 1: because they heard something, you know what I'm saying. So,
Speaker 1: and Dilla being who he is, like you know, in
Speaker 1: the beginning stades of this lupus and just all this
Speaker 1: stuff was happening, like so like the backstory behind this
Speaker 1: song for me makes it even that much more like no,
Speaker 1: not dilla, you know what I'm saying. It's like it's
Speaker 1: like it's like fresh, it's fresh, palpable anger, like that
Speaker 1: should just happen. Yeah, and you can hear to me,
Speaker 1: it's like you could hear that in this song that
Speaker 1: it's like it's very it's definitely angry. Yeah, definitely, it's
Speaker 1: definitely a reaction. Yeah, this just happened, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. And yeah, so for me, it's like that's
Speaker 1: why it's always been such a like um, such a
Speaker 1: stickler for me. And it's just like you know you
Speaker 1: obviously we had the n W A one, but like
Speaker 1: this was so like it was such a B boy
Speaker 1: swing because it was della and it became for me
Speaker 1: more more of an anthem. Even on my l A
Speaker 1: Boy that song came. And then also around the around
Speaker 1: like the time that I was coming up, at some
Speaker 1: point they ended up using the instrumental for this for
Speaker 1: some anime. I'm trying to remember what it was. Was
Speaker 1: it Sam? Was it Samurai Champloo. I can, like, when
Speaker 1: I really listened to it, I can hear the like
Speaker 1: I don't remember, Yeah, I'll go back and find out.
Speaker 1: But it was one of those joints I used to
Speaker 1: play on adults swim. But I just remember, like you would.
Speaker 1: You would hear it because all of my own homies
Speaker 1: were watching that that show, so you would hear that beat.
Speaker 1: And then b boys would always break two. And then
Speaker 1: I remember the first time I heard the first time
Speaker 1: I heard the song and heard the lyrics and it
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, the songs like about something hearing
Speaker 1: the instrumental for years. Yeah, No, this was definitely like
Speaker 1: you know, the Cipher song. You know what I'm saying
Speaker 1: that Little Groovers would just like you know, hit the hit,
Speaker 1: the hit the middle of the start going to start
Speaker 1: from doing a freestyle dance because it because it's just
Speaker 1: so just that first those first eight ball first eight
Speaker 1: like bars are just so big, you know. All right,
Speaker 1: I'm next. We got Big l The Enemy featuring Cat
Speaker 1: y'all want so bad you want to frisk me and
Speaker 1: sold the old kind of names, trying to hurt dude,
Speaker 1: just mad because I'm with y'all. Cat so I think
Speaker 1: I think the theme, the overall theme for that one,
Speaker 1: it kind of is like, um, you know, we're we're legit.
Speaker 1: Now we're successful, so we're not really like committing crimes anymore.
Speaker 1: But Big L. Shoos is like convey that message like
Speaker 1: almost entirely through his interaction with police, and like how
Speaker 1: that harassment is carried on from before he was famous
Speaker 1: to now being famous. It's just like dual consciousness, right,
Speaker 1: It's like, Okay, so we you know, we understand, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, crack sales isn't good, Like this
Speaker 1: wasn't this wasn't good for us, you know. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, you know, we understand that you know,
Speaker 1: this stuff didn't happen in the vacuum, you know, and
Speaker 1: and and and it wasn't necessarily the desired route for everyone,
Speaker 1: you know, just like trying to figure out what's the
Speaker 1: best way to do this, and then when you get
Speaker 1: to a place to where you're like, okay, I could
Speaker 1: put these were you know, these were crimes of survival.
Speaker 1: They were nobody scrubbing them clean, not saying that these
Speaker 1: were bad things, you know, done, but but raut of
Speaker 1: it now, you know, and just that letdown of like
Speaker 1: but it's it's but it's you can't save you. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's the same. I'm still seeing the same you know.
Speaker 1: Um the yeah, like the hard part of being like
Speaker 1: I I remember, it's like you we can't clean up enough,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like you can't. There's no
Speaker 1: this is not respectable. Respectability a policy and you get
Speaker 1: bit by dogs and fire holes and being whip yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's like you're saying thing, We're like, uh, class
Speaker 1: you know, we have all these class aspirations um as
Speaker 1: hip hop artists, Like it's a part of our class
Speaker 1: aspiration is a part of our culture. But these things
Speaker 1: can't can't save you because ultimately of the streets on you,
Speaker 1: when you roll down the street, when you know, get
Speaker 1: pulled over, they're gonna immediately be like where's it gunn
Speaker 1: at are you selling rocks? Like all of these kinds
Speaker 1: of things, They're going to be scared the same way
Speaker 1: and have the same sort of reaction in the rational
Speaker 1: fear and ship like yeah, yeah. What I think about
Speaker 1: when I listen to the song is like I feel
Speaker 1: like if it's like it's um, how do I say this,
Speaker 1: Like there's a lot of interesting ways that hip hop
Speaker 1: access like journalism for conditions on the ground, for people
Speaker 1: of color. And you know, you have a lot of
Speaker 1: songs that sort of impressionistic lee capture like life on
Speaker 1: the streets in terms of like what you see in
Speaker 1: your surroundings, people standing out on the street, corner altercations
Speaker 1: going down, things that are happening in your home. And
Speaker 1: then you have this other kind of sub genre. It's
Speaker 1: funny that you brought up like, oh, this is jay
Speaker 1: Z before jay Z, because I think like nine of
Speaker 1: the Problems has a very similar um structure as this
Speaker 1: song in terms of like it being an anecdote of
Speaker 1: a personal account of of an interaction with police, and
Speaker 1: this is very common encounter of like specifically getting like
Speaker 1: pulled over and like you know, asked all these questions
Speaker 1: and like you were talking about at the beginning, like
Speaker 1: well your mama say that, like um, and so I
Speaker 1: love one day to like take a look at songs
Speaker 1: in this like I don't know the subcategory, this classification
Speaker 1: of these like personal accounts of this kind of interaction
Speaker 1: because similar to like Shakespeare had its sonnets, and then
Speaker 1: you know, it's like love poems, et cetera. And this
Speaker 1: is like a special kind of hip hop song that
Speaker 1: you see over and over again. Oh can we can
Speaker 1: we just take one second just to comment on just
Speaker 1: how ill that big L versus? I mean, boyd, this
Speaker 1: this ship just makes you want to like, Yo, why
Speaker 1: am I rapping? Yeah? All right? Our next song is
Speaker 1: karus one Sound of the Police? What would you be
Speaker 1: doing that? I got the same. This is so dope.
Speaker 1: Like the parallel between with the overseer and the officer.
Speaker 1: Ye was the one thing I'll say, do you want
Speaker 1: to talk about the stupid? That is a stupid? Was
Speaker 1: the one overseer one on the plantation officer I patrolling
Speaker 1: all the nation, overseer could stop you, what what you're doing?
Speaker 1: Officer of a point, just when he's pursuing. It didn't
Speaker 1: hit me until it didn't hit me until I was
Speaker 1: much older, when he was going oversee you, oversee you.
Speaker 1: Obviously obviously the officer was a special back then You're like,
Speaker 1: oh did you caress what's that? Yeah? I was like,
Speaker 1: oh he's the greatest. Yeah, I didn't remember what he
Speaker 1: did that. I was like, oh yeah, this is yeah,
Speaker 1: Oh there was um. Recently, I think just the other day,
Speaker 1: Kanye West put out a new song, and um, the
Speaker 1: beginning of it had it was like a recording of
Speaker 1: his mother reciting the lyrics for the song. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: really Yeah, do you want to go into the next one? Oh?
Speaker 1: I mean do we need to be what else? What
Speaker 1: about this one? I mean it's it's you know, it
Speaker 1: is your officer thing. And then he kind of puts
Speaker 1: it in it's like historical contacts with like the lineage
Speaker 1: of police went. At the end, He's like, my grandfather
Speaker 1: had to deal with the cops, my great grandfather had
Speaker 1: to deal with the cops, my great great grandfather had
Speaker 1: to deal with the cops, and then my great great
Speaker 1: great great winner gotta stop totally. And I think, uh again,
Speaker 1: like you know, so so Dila's you know, Dealer's the
Speaker 1: police was more around my adulthood to where I understood
Speaker 1: what was happening. You know, the sound of the police
Speaker 1: like that was more of my childhood. So I didn't
Speaker 1: really really understand what he was saying. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm I mean, I got it because I knew, like
Speaker 1: I knew I liked the police, you know what I'm saying. No,
Speaker 1: I feel that heavy. Like to me, it's like, um
Speaker 1: like Sound of the Police, Like when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: it was kind of like a movie almost right where
Speaker 1: you knew it was kind of you knew it was
Speaker 1: based on real ship, but there was like a certain
Speaker 1: disconnect from it, whereas like the Dealership, like I was
Speaker 1: in my twenties when that was going on, that ship
Speaker 1: was like actually happening to me, like exactly, that's what
Speaker 1: I was saying. Yeah, I was like, it wasn't happening
Speaker 1: to me with care Us doing it, But when Dealer
Speaker 1: was doing it, I was like, yeah, I got Yes,
Speaker 1: I got the perfect like the Sound of the Police
Speaker 1: is Godfather and J Deller's The Police as good Fellas
Speaker 1: than perfect. All Right, I'm next. You got looking to
Speaker 1: the eyes of the Ship. We should be on the
Speaker 1: p I think this one might be a unique long
Speaker 1: hip hop songs for the perspective perspective, Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: definitely for now. I think I have heard some other
Speaker 1: songs where people were rapping from the perspective of the
Speaker 1: cop but this is definitely a standout one of the crop,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. It gets so personal. Wake up in
Speaker 1: the morning, kiss my wife, goodbye, hug my kids, telling
Speaker 1: my love and mom out hit the ride, like kind
Speaker 1: of like it's a little uncomfortable, I think, given the
Speaker 1: current discourse of like you know, like be within the
Speaker 1: labor movement or trying to kick cops out, and like
Speaker 1: the violence that we see on social media and the news,
Speaker 1: um and then the like a thin blue line people
Speaker 1: want to bring up like oh, they have a family
Speaker 1: and they not kids. But like it's really hard to
Speaker 1: put yourself actually into that mind frame of like someone
Speaker 1: that could perpetrate such just ability. Yeah, it makes it
Speaker 1: it's more nuanced picture of the situation. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: what makes to disconnect so much harder to swallow when
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, exactly, you have a family, you have children,
Speaker 1: You understand how how broken you would be to lose
Speaker 1: someone like this, Like you understand, don't you understand? Like
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So it's like so then
Speaker 1: you have to walk away and go okay. So my
Speaker 1: only conclusion is you don't see us as human, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like, because you just told me
Speaker 1: you've got a family and children, so you understand. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I learned, like in working
Speaker 1: in local government. You know, when I came into it
Speaker 1: with this um mindset that like, okay, it's me versus
Speaker 1: the enemy, which is all these conservatives that are perpetrating
Speaker 1: off its white supremacy. And then you get there and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, I like your blazer, what's up. I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: would you like to get a beer in this afternoon?
Speaker 1: And like really nice, cordial and polite people who seem
Speaker 1: very normal, And it's very disarming for disarming, and you
Speaker 1: canna forget the mission because people are like normal in
Speaker 1: terms out and it makes it harder to focus on
Speaker 1: the fact that like not just how you convey yourself
Speaker 1: in terms of niceties, but actually what you do with
Speaker 1: like the policies that you either create or you operate under,
Speaker 1: how you enact, like your you know, form part of
Speaker 1: systems that are oppressive. Like that's the judge of character,
Speaker 1: not not whether or not like oh, they kissed his
Speaker 1: wife goodbye and like you know, wave to the focus
Speaker 1: the doughnut shop on his way to work. It's it's
Speaker 1: this other things like that have to be disaggregated from
Speaker 1: the civility that like creates this sheen over the whole,
Speaker 1: the whole scheme of operation sometimes and it makes it
Speaker 1: harder to like, uh effectively critique how are these things? Uh?
Speaker 1: How do they say it's operate? How these things work? Well?
Speaker 1: Thinking like another? You know one of the I guess
Speaker 1: in citious, sinister lee ingenious things about Like the way
Speaker 1: some of these like racist systems work is they're kind
Speaker 1: of established to the point where they don't necessarily need
Speaker 1: like bad actors in order to operate, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Like it can like systemic racism can operate
Speaker 1: without individual racism being present, you know what I mean. Right,
Speaker 1: So for example, it's like it's like the scheme the
Speaker 1: motives operandi is like to over police a black community.
Speaker 1: You're not like going out and specific like in all
Speaker 1: the people you encounter in that neighborhood are black. You're
Speaker 1: not like, oh, I'm not specifically targeting anyone. It's just
Speaker 1: everyone I you know, have countered that day and that
Speaker 1: was doing your crime. I brought them down. But the
Speaker 1: system has already put you in that scenario where if
Speaker 1: you operate according to the standard procedure, the outcomes are
Speaker 1: going to be racist, no matter if you're buying kids
Speaker 1: ice cream, cones or like posing for selfie is what
Speaker 1: the b ball court with whoever inherently with the way
Speaker 1: that the policy operates to put you in that area
Speaker 1: the first place, is inherently a tool of oppression. Is
Speaker 1: the biggest, The biggest takeaway I think of our series
Speaker 1: of the Behind the Police series is that like the
Speaker 1: racism has taken on a life of its own. And
Speaker 1: I think that that's the part that's hard when it's
Speaker 1: hard to communicate when we like, listen, I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about your uncle Dave, who's a great guy. Like that's
Speaker 1: not who I'm talking about, you know, And they're like, well,
Speaker 1: who are you talking about? It's like, no, okay, how
Speaker 1: do you like? I don't. I just don't understand why
Speaker 1: it's a system, you know what I'm saying. And and
Speaker 1: and that is the most insidious part, like you said,
Speaker 1: is that like the the system of policing, no matter
Speaker 1: how many good apples you put into it for you
Speaker 1: to survive in this system, you can't stay a good
Speaker 1: apple because because the system is bad, you know. Um
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, So I think that that's like so
Speaker 1: important for the discussion and the discourse around like abolition
Speaker 1: and um, you know, uh, just criminal justice as a whole,
Speaker 1: like we obviously we focus specifically on policing, but the
Speaker 1: whole thing to where it's like, yeah, there's probably you're
Speaker 1: you're right, there's a ton of good cops, there's a
Speaker 1: ton of good judges. You're missing the point though, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's and it's it. But it's it's like if
Speaker 1: you are like function in the world, like you said,
Speaker 1: of just niceties and that there is a which I
Speaker 1: found from just understanding like from a sociological perspective, you know,
Speaker 1: where the conservative movement in America is trying to get to,
Speaker 1: or at least in the West, you know, conservative liberal
Speaker 1: their transitive verbs. So it's like, you know, you're conserving
Speaker 1: what like liberal liberal, you know, liberating from what. So
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say all conservatives are this, but
Speaker 1: the direction that the conservative movement in America is going
Speaker 1: to is at the end of the day, they have
Speaker 1: an ideal as to how society should look and work.
Speaker 1: They just happen to believe that they're the arbiters of
Speaker 1: it um whether they know what or whether they know
Speaker 1: they believe it or not. They almost feel like it's
Speaker 1: like I think that's why I like a lot of
Speaker 1: like Western like evangelical sort of like you know, or
Speaker 1: just just religions specifically, would end up leaning conservative because
Speaker 1: they believe there's a transcendent ideal of how society is
Speaker 1: supposed to look. You know what I'm saying, it's transcendent.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's not us, it's it's above us. That's
Speaker 1: the way we're supposed to be. So we should all
Speaker 1: act like we're supposed to act, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: And we're this is the natural order of things, you know,
Speaker 1: that was given to us by some sort of transcendent
Speaker 1: divine if you want to call it God where you
Speaker 1: wanna call it. At the end of the day, Conservatism,
Speaker 1: at least here believes that there is somewhere out there
Speaker 1: the answer and we need to like and they have
Speaker 1: figured it out. It's like they try to tie it
Speaker 1: towards the natural order and stuff. So going back to
Speaker 1: the song, I didn't want to we don't want to
Speaker 1: take us too far off at tangent. But um, I
Speaker 1: think that this this song definitely the Cyper's Hill Joint.
Speaker 1: It definitely has like of aura of um like fantasy
Speaker 1: and entertainment like purposes towards it. Doesn't seem as serious
Speaker 1: to me as like, for example, have we did. We
Speaker 1: had a song on a few weeks ago by a
Speaker 1: dude named Marlon Kraft, a song called Gangship, and he
Speaker 1: kind of does a similar thing where the first verse
Speaker 1: he dedicates it solely from the perspective of the cop
Speaker 1: and it's very it's much more serious. It doesn't get
Speaker 1: like training day with it, where it's like seems like
Speaker 1: you're listening to like a Jerry Bruckheimer, you know, crime
Speaker 1: thriller or something like that, which I feel the cypers
Speaker 1: Hill song kind of does the Cyper I don't. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't really take away from the Cyper's Hill song
Speaker 1: that it's like a serious like political statement of a song,
Speaker 1: like a socio political message at all. It's just like
Speaker 1: it's a creative writing exercise and inhabiting a different perspective
Speaker 1: sounds like it sounds like, yeah, he just sounds like
Speaker 1: he was just picking a character to like to do.
Speaker 1: It could have easily been a sanitation worker or like
Speaker 1: a shoe mender or something like a serial killer or something. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In terms of like, oh, the shock value of like
Speaker 1: looking into this different worldview or this different lifestyle for
Speaker 1: a second. And I think be Real's like tone and
Speaker 1: his like lyrical ability at the time of this song,
Speaker 1: like it's hard, it's hard to commute. I don't even
Speaker 1: think if he was trying to be serious, he wasn't
Speaker 1: developed as an artist well enough to to communicate that
Speaker 1: at this moment in his career, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: As he got further along, it was just like, oh,
Speaker 1: like be Real is like we need to cement him
Speaker 1: in in the cannon, you know what I'm saying. Um,
Speaker 1: But I think at the time it was it was
Speaker 1: still just this like Southgate, like you can just kill
Speaker 1: you the fan that the fan that kind of dan,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It was just this like
Speaker 1: you know, just this like DJ Muggs just this like
Speaker 1: four by four you know, just ryan pattern that like
Speaker 1: he just had. He hadn't developed it yet, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Um, So I I want to give
Speaker 1: him that to where it's like same thing because I
Speaker 1: feel the same way. It's like I kind of feel
Speaker 1: like maybe we're getting there, but like I don't know,
Speaker 1: I just it feels a little more lighthearted. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: that's gonna I think that's gonna do it for us
Speaker 1: today for the music discussion. You know, I wanted to
Speaker 1: thank you Propaganda for coming through our show. Hey can
Speaker 1: you tell the people where they can find you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can find me at profit Pop. That's all of
Speaker 1: my socials and and uh it's my website to profit
Speaker 1: pop dot com. Uh. There's also a little thing we're
Speaker 1: doing for coffee and black people. Uh it's called which
Speaker 1: is profit pop gotting backslazed Coffee. Uh you know, off,
Speaker 1: you only grow at the equator, right, so like, so
Speaker 1: who liver? So? Uh So we just got a collection
Speaker 1: of like you know, like by poc, like roasters and
Speaker 1: shops that like if you you know, I'm obviously I'm
Speaker 1: a coffee dude. So like just ways to support like
Speaker 1: smaller roasters that are like doing the good work. That's
Speaker 1: what's up. Yeah, Well, thank you so much for coming
Speaker 1: on today. Pleasure. This is the dopest I said yes
Speaker 1: off the strength of the name of the pod, I
Speaker 1: was like, let's go. Yes, I want to be on
Speaker 1: this well ship. We're starting a little tradition of you know,
Speaker 1: spitting bars to open up and close out the show.
Speaker 1: So I think you're gonna be our first guests. Bitter
Speaker 1: with us today, Yo, let's get a beat. Let's get
Speaker 1: this ship popping having me on the show though, yeah
Speaker 1: we does. But let's be downloads and is and blew
Speaker 1: this all we knew red rags of badges are the
Speaker 1: same when it came through, flaming through the gardens, the
Speaker 1: jungles like where you stay at? You don't look famili
Speaker 1: you won't play that home me say that? What's that tat?
Speaker 1: Or you run with that other click right, we've seen
Speaker 1: you the other night. Dug and right, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: need somebody and the reason you round these parts on set,
Speaker 1: we got the burners on deck. Are we prayed for
Speaker 1: his life like lit lunar me. He didn't call the backup.
Speaker 1: He come, he's far me. Your odds are if you're
Speaker 1: living not far from the hood. They pulled up in
Speaker 1: a squad car to your odds. I'm losing cool up
Speaker 1: and nothing. I'm losing counter of the comics, Jacuzi po
Speaker 1: bumbling into the sound of the samba thunderclouds. The gun
Speaker 1: you got you coughing like what the bear for? You
Speaker 1: wanted to ground them down in vodka mix, but who
Speaker 1: could they not under like a puppy chowling on the
Speaker 1: down park park bitch, let me up, police and take
Speaker 1: seven seats on the park bench. Look me in the eyes.
Speaker 1: What you know about darkness? Please call the police and
Speaker 1: Darren send the squad of cars now while they sit
Speaker 1: in up. I got a bust of Freestyle forty five
Speaker 1: on TV talking like you see now, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: and cure the world's like I was in green Out.
Speaker 1: I'm not a politician. I'm not a fucking actor. Whatever
Speaker 1: you think of asking, I do it for the rappers.
Speaker 1: I don't got a post piston and I don't have
Speaker 1: a master, So why don't be singing dancing the coolners
Speaker 1: for the crackers. I hope that you don't get a fit.
Speaker 1: Let's take it to just pretend. If you touch my
Speaker 1: microphone the hello through my little friend, I really know
Speaker 1: that it's just too crazy. Waiting on reparations like fun
Speaker 1: you pay me dope Yo. My name is Dope Knife Franca,
Speaker 1: and we are waiting on reparations. See you next week,
Speaker 1: see you next week. Waiting on reparations as a production
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio. Listen to Waiting on Reparations on the
Speaker 1: i heart Radio, app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.