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Speaker 1: You're listening to Waiting on Reparations the production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Yeah, it's waiting on reparations and we're back

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Speaker 1: in effect. We had to kick it off this way.

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Speaker 1: In case you askeds forget wrappers. The flags try to

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Speaker 1: clash with the best package of fresh. They can't keep up,

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Speaker 1: so they're asking the ref Now, I'll put you on

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Speaker 1: in case you didn't follow it on the show, we

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Speaker 1: bridged the gap between hip hop and politics. Acknowledge it.

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Speaker 1: If you pass the lesson, then we give you all

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Speaker 1: a scholarship war university. But you don't need no hollo tips.

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Speaker 1: The prop spit fell on the ground. That's when the

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Speaker 1: peace was born, trying to tell the whole thing down.

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Speaker 1: Suck your police reform, you got hot takes. I'll start

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Speaker 1: to get your ratio to bait me bro dope and

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Speaker 1: I heart my reparations. Yo. Uh it's like that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's like this, and like that, waiting on reparations doesn't

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Speaker 1: matter of fact. This is linga franca, dope knife. They

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Speaker 1: call me mac why, Hey, yo's good. We're back. Lots

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Speaker 1: is good. This dope knife lingua franca and we are

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Speaker 1: waiting on reparations. Delayed no further. It is. I'm super

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Speaker 1: excited for some of the stuff we got coming up.

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Speaker 1: Got some some some dope interviews with some dope people

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Speaker 1: who got some interesting new topics and angles that we're

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Speaker 1: gonna be approaching this go around. And you know, the

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Speaker 1: whole show was first launched during the beginning week of

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Speaker 1: the George Floyd Uprising last summer, and so it's oddly

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Speaker 1: poetic that here we are beginning our second season of

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Speaker 1: the show as things have come full circle with the

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Speaker 1: Derek Chauvin verdict having been verticized. I was just about

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Speaker 1: to ask if anything happened while we were gone, anything anything,

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Speaker 1: nothing ever happens, Please don't kill anyone ever. What was

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Speaker 1: your what was your whole feelings in that verdict? Well,

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Speaker 1: I think that there was in general, like a clenching

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Speaker 1: in the jaw and like a like a like a

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Speaker 1: balling of the fists, like for the full hour where

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Speaker 1: that I learned that it was coming, um, knowing even

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Speaker 1: then like regardless that it didn't really I mean like

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Speaker 1: in the grand scheme of things, the work would go

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Speaker 1: on and in fact having a sense of fear that

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Speaker 1: like if that like a guilty verdict would then allow

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Speaker 1: like reformists and liberals to like say, look, the system works,

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Speaker 1: we don't need to do anything, like we're good to

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Speaker 1: go pack it up and and since then, you know,

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Speaker 1: it was reported Axios that members some members of Congress

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Speaker 1: have felt that um Derek Chauvin's guilty verdict um has

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Speaker 1: lessen the pressure on them to enact criminal justice reform,

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Speaker 1: which so my fears are coming true. So yeah, I

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Speaker 1: was gonna say, they can think that if they wanted.

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Speaker 1: I think the reason that that is not going to

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Speaker 1: happen is because the Republicans are just the right wing

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Speaker 1: in general feel it's it's almost like they have all

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Speaker 1: fully gone in on Chauvin is innocent in the aftermath

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Speaker 1: of things, which was I don't want to say shocking,

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Speaker 1: it's not the right word, just go with surprising. I

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Speaker 1: was surprised that they took that heart of a turn

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Speaker 1: because if you remember back during the summer, it was like,

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Speaker 1: you know, the Ben Shapiros of the world and the

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Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson's of the world, where they were using the

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Speaker 1: George Floyd uh incident to almost as a tool so

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Speaker 1: they could downplay other things, so they would be like, look,

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Speaker 1: we all agree that Derek Chauvin is a terrible person,

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Speaker 1: that George Floyd was murdered, so you know, there's more

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Speaker 1: to Brianna Taylor. It's not you know, they would they

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Speaker 1: would use it in that way, and so I was

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Speaker 1: expecting them to keep going on that end, kind of

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Speaker 1: using this as like they're, hey, this is the one

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Speaker 1: the one incident that we all agreed was bad, so

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Speaker 1: that proves that we're not racist, or that systemic racism

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Speaker 1: doesn't exist because the system worked, yuta, YadA. But no,

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Speaker 1: it's like literally the second that the verdict was was read,

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Speaker 1: they were like, this is horseship desert sen. I can't

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Speaker 1: believe that this is the PC capital culture of them.

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Speaker 1: It's it's kind of nuts. It's kind of nuts. But

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Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the right just from a

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Speaker 1: political standpoint. I don't know if going to the Choban

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Speaker 1: was innocent is the slogan that they want to be using. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean I kind of hope they're right,

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Speaker 1: and that like the whole oh, the Wolke mob scared

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Speaker 1: the jury into like you know, you know, denying the

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Speaker 1: evidence before them. Like I mean, I like eight, I

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Speaker 1: very very like obsessed with and like planned a lot

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Speaker 1: of seeds of hoping like the power of the people,

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Speaker 1: and like I know it's just one case out of

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Speaker 1: the thousand people that are murdered by the police every year. Um,

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Speaker 1: but like if millions of people rising up can like

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Speaker 1: bring a modicum of justice even if it's not transformational,

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Speaker 1: Uh good? But how do we how do you deal

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Speaker 1: with the volume of it? Because even now, you know,

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Speaker 1: we're sitting here talking about the Chauvin verdict was what

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Speaker 1: a week two weeks ago, and we're in the aftermath

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Speaker 1: two other high profile police shootings right now. We're waiting

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Speaker 1: new body cam footage coming out from Elizabeth Town was

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Elizabe City, North Carolina. Yeah, so that one's supposed

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Speaker 1: to be bad. They're on a state of emergency. It's

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Speaker 1: like it almost never ends, you know. It's it's kind

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Speaker 1: of depressing to think about in that way, especially so

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Speaker 1: soon after the verdict was one for for people who

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Speaker 1: did take some solace in it and found it as

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Speaker 1: like a a small victory and an ocean of bad ship.

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Speaker 1: It's like the bad ship just ding. Yeah, like literally

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Speaker 1: maybe six or seven minutes after like I watched the

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Speaker 1: live stream of the Verdict reading like I learned about

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Speaker 1: McCay brian and uh, just a see thing with rage

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Speaker 1: that like the like the the casualties we will sustain

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Speaker 1: in this like war for like transformation, like where there's

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Speaker 1: so many people that are gonna die like in the

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Speaker 1: year to come, that's in the years that it may

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Speaker 1: take to like transforming system. So I think maybe we

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Speaker 1: should tackle the abolish the police or police reform or

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Speaker 1: something again in the future. Yeah, I definitely come back

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Speaker 1: around to it. We're not going to waste or any

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Speaker 1: more time because we have a pretty long one for

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Speaker 1: you guys today. We are about to have a long,

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Speaker 1: in depth conversation with the one and only rapper activist

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Speaker 1: Immortal Technique. I I'm trying real hard not to fanboy

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Speaker 1: the funk out right now doing a terrible job blowing

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Speaker 1: on you got it a bit. When it was like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna talk to a border just a little bit,

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Speaker 1: he was like, what I'm really enjoyed about this conversation

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Speaker 1: is really two things. His humility, like his his willingness

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Speaker 1: to this like chat for He was just like, yo, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was good, Like let's talk for as long as

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Speaker 1: you all want to talk. I'm just kicking it. And

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Speaker 1: also is continual, uh we framing of our conversation around

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Speaker 1: the contexts and conditions for the things that he does.

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Speaker 1: So like when we asked him about like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you built a fucking school in Afghanistan, instead up being like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I went over there and then I met kids, we

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Speaker 1: played soccer, and I like, you know, ate the traditional food.

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Speaker 1: He was like, yeah, let me talk to you about

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Speaker 1: like foreign intervention in the Middle East and like it's

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Speaker 1: impacts and like imperialism in the military industrial complex, like

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Speaker 1: all is bringing it back to like these larger systems

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Speaker 1: that like that that like spur him to do what

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Speaker 1: he does. And I found that really really like inspiring

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Speaker 1: that Like yeah, I mean obviously from his music you

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Speaker 1: can tell like he thinks very systemically, but like he

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Speaker 1: don't know if he knows how to turn it off,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of fucking sick thing. I really dug is.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's not that I had any reason to

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Speaker 1: not think that this would be the case, but it's

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Speaker 1: just he seems like a really really nice guy, you know,

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Speaker 1: like like a genuine nice, good dude. So you know,

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Speaker 1: without further ado, we're gonna get into that and we

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Speaker 1: will holler at y'all we're gonna have that interview coming

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Speaker 1: up for you after the junk. Y know, today we

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Speaker 1: are going to be talking with legendary m C Immortal Technique, Immortal,

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Speaker 1: how you doing so? On this show, what we try

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Speaker 1: to do is bridge the gap between politics and hip

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Speaker 1: hop and discuss things that you know, always revolve around

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Speaker 1: how those two things intersect and how they affect each

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Speaker 1: other vice versa. And you, you know, for better or worse,

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Speaker 1: you're known as like the at this point, you're like

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Speaker 1: the political rapper, you know what I'm saying. We even

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Speaker 1: had a little poll on Instagram that we did when

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Speaker 1: we first launched the show when we were like, what

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Speaker 1: do y'all think of when you think of political rap

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Speaker 1: or political hip hop? And most people said, oh, Mortal,

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Speaker 1: oh Mortal, yeah, Mortal Technique. You know. So, my question

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Speaker 1: is what influenced you when you were coming up in

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Speaker 1: terms of like that specifically not necessarily your rap style

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Speaker 1: or your rhyme scheme style, but what MCS or music

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Speaker 1: did you look towards when you were writing and you

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Speaker 1: were like, oh, that's the angle that I can take

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Speaker 1: or that that I should take. UM well, I think

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Speaker 1: I had a lot of different influences coming up. One

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Speaker 1: of the main ones obviously was care and rest one

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Speaker 1: and rock Him. So I grew up listening to people

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Speaker 1: that were well versed in the art of lyricism, so

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Speaker 1: that was a major influence from day one. Um. I

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Speaker 1: was always a big uh. I was always a person

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Speaker 1: who was big on lyrics. I had a lot of

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Speaker 1: respect for the people that I've seen do it because

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Speaker 1: I knew it wasn't easy. Um. I think for me

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Speaker 1: as an adult looking back and at this stage in

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Speaker 1: my career when I'm out here, you know, still making

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Speaker 1: music or trying to put some new stuff out now, UM,

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Speaker 1: I just tend to look back and make those same

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Speaker 1: kind of assessments about my life before you guys asked

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Speaker 1: a question like that. It's just funny. I tend to

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Speaker 1: think about these things and wonder, you know, who were

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Speaker 1: the individuals who set me on this path. And it

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Speaker 1: wasn't just famous rappers, but it was also the example

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Speaker 1: of people in my community, um, revolutionary figures, and they

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Speaker 1: definitively influenced the style of of music that I have

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Speaker 1: and I wouldn't have this style. I wouldn't be doing

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Speaker 1: what I do without them, you know what I mean,

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Speaker 1: even the not just the ones that we remember from

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Speaker 1: the past that are all heralded and have movies about them,

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Speaker 1: but the ordinary folks that I met in my life

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Speaker 1: that I learned, um, not just revolutionary politics from, but

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Speaker 1: an understanding of what it was like to exist as

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Speaker 1: a person UM who was black or brown in the

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Speaker 1: United States of America about twenty or thirty years ago,

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Speaker 1: as opposed to going through that childhood experience at like

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Speaker 1: the nineties, UM in my twenties in the early two

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Speaker 1: thousand's when I was paroled. So I just enjoyed that

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Speaker 1: that different wealth of knowledge that was bestowed upon me.

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Speaker 1: But I would say in terms of hip hop, it

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Speaker 1: was those two that I learned and was influenced by,

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Speaker 1: and then later on in life also you know, obviously

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Speaker 1: the Panthers and Malcolm, but also Ma Mia bou jamal Um.

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Speaker 1: I feel like patrous Lamumba is a person who's overlooked

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Speaker 1: a lot. And I think, UM sometimes when we look

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Speaker 1: at indigenous figures of revolution um or whitewashed and written

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Speaker 1: out of history. So it's important to go back and

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Speaker 1: talk to those indigenous people about what their struggles actually

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Speaker 1: were before it gets redefined to us by you know,

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Speaker 1: mainstream society, which will paint something very you know what

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Speaker 1: I mean. They don't really give you the opportunity to

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Speaker 1: represent yourself in the best way, which is why I

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Speaker 1: guess I always wanted to do independent music. I wanted

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Speaker 1: to talk to you a little bit about your verse

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Speaker 1: on are the Ruggomans Who Do We Trust? Which came

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Speaker 1: out in January on the track Your Reference thinkers like

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Speaker 1: Leo Strauss and Robert Michaels, and one of our listeners

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Speaker 1: wanted to know if there was any early revolutionary writing

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Speaker 1: that inspired your own writing. And I'm personally also curious

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Speaker 1: what you've been reading these days. Um uh. I think that, um,

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Speaker 1: what I enjoy reading, or have always enjoyed reading, is

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Speaker 1: a very very detailed historical account of how things were.

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Speaker 1: And I think that it's one thing to talk about

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Speaker 1: revolutionary politics and ideology, but unless you can define the

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Speaker 1: time period upon which it happens, I think that is

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Speaker 1: essential to revolutionary change. For example, um, we'll all love

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Speaker 1: boxing in the UFC, but one of the first times

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Speaker 1: in which we know that this was done to people.

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Speaker 1: A gladiatorial arts was born. The birth of it was

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Speaker 1: during the Servile Wars in the Roman Republic, not the

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Speaker 1: Empire yet the Republic where everything was supposed to be fixed,

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Speaker 1: and there was a certain area that refused conscription, and

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Speaker 1: so the survivors of this revolt were made to fight

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Speaker 1: to the death against UM. Everyone now sees this in

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Speaker 1: a different, you know, format on tele vision in one

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Speaker 1: way or another. But just remember that the Third Servile

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Speaker 1: War was where we heard the name Spartacus, which is

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Speaker 1: the only gladiator gladiator from ancient Rome that people remember, really,

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Speaker 1: I mean, we struggled to find another one. But it

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Speaker 1: was after that that the Roman Republic collapsed within fifties

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Speaker 1: and became an empire that was more efficient but less

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Speaker 1: free in many ways than people thought. But at the

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Speaker 1: same time, the degree of freedom that the Republic bestowed

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Speaker 1: upon people um wasn't seen by individuals on the bottom

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Speaker 1: tiers of that society. And we see that reflection in

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Speaker 1: the United States of America, and music is just a

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Speaker 1: reflection of that, and people who want to give that

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Speaker 1: a voice in our society or or or remind individuals

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Speaker 1: of what we've gone through and everything has its place.

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Speaker 1: So you know, I always tell people, yeah, I'm not

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Speaker 1: the person that you're most likely going to hear banging

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Speaker 1: in the background of the stre club. But at the

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Speaker 1: same time, the music that I make is not club music,

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Speaker 1: so to speak. Sure there's some stuff that's catchy that

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Speaker 1: moves you, but it was made to to generate thought,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean. In the same way a

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Speaker 1: book has flashy metaphors and great concepts, but unless there's

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Speaker 1: a point to it all, you know what I mean,

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Speaker 1: Unless there's a plot, then what the hell did I

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Speaker 1: just read for four hundred pages? You know what I mean?

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Speaker 1: Where where is this going? So I think that's always

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Speaker 1: been something that I've emphasized, and now I'm doing a

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Speaker 1: whole bunch of other stuff scriptwriting. Um I'm reading for

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Speaker 1: a couple of parts that people have asked me to

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Speaker 1: come aboard. I'm not an actor by trade, but I

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Speaker 1: guess they think I look scary and I know how

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Speaker 1: to I can. I can memorize like ten pages and

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Speaker 1: a day and it's super easy. And I had just

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Speaker 1: literally got aboard with this type of stuff. So basically

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Speaker 1: just that, um, I was in a extend the stuff

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Speaker 1: that I've been doing musically, two books and film, not

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Speaker 1: just for adults but for kids, which is weird because

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Speaker 1: you've got to relearn how to rhyme like a kid,

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Speaker 1: which is funny. You've got to make it the most

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Speaker 1: basic format possible, which I'm not used to doing. I'm

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Speaker 1: used to taking the most complicated words and phrases and

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Speaker 1: putting them together, so you know what I mean. It's

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Speaker 1: like asking someone who's a chess player to play checkers.

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Speaker 1: You know, if you're a chess player, man, you're great

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Speaker 1: at chess. But a checkers player, right, white people off

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Speaker 1: the board and the checkers because it's a different game.

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Speaker 1: That's how you see, you know, boxing, m m m a.

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Speaker 1: Some people are really good at one sport, Please don't

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Speaker 1: get in the other because it's a different game, right,

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Speaker 1: I remind people. Um. So, something that we're interested in

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Speaker 1: is the concept of using like hip hop as a

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Speaker 1: tool for education, UM or even activism or organizing. What

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Speaker 1: are your thoughts on that? Um? I think you could

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Speaker 1: definitely say hip hop could be used, but any musical

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Speaker 1: form I think could be used. And I think what

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Speaker 1: I've discovered on this journey of writing the middle Passage

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Speaker 1: is that that's exactly what the world before we call

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Speaker 1: it the New World or or European colonialism from the

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Speaker 1: fourteen to the eighteen centuries, nineteenth century in many places.

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Speaker 1: But I think when we look at that, all forms

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Speaker 1: of learning were done through a musical system. Even now, Um,

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Speaker 1: none of us learned the alphabet through a numerical system,

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Speaker 1: although in some languages letters have a significant number attached

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Speaker 1: to him, but all of us learned the alphabet A, B, C, D,

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Speaker 1: very as a as a musical skain Um. Everything that

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Speaker 1: was taught to us as a society was done through music.

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Speaker 1: One of the most riveting things that was brought to

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Speaker 1: my attention, that is just the truth people have known

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Speaker 1: for a long time but escaped me, was that there

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Speaker 1: were tens of thousands of individual African instruments that were

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Speaker 1: destroyed during the course of the Middle Passage, and these

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Speaker 1: were the rhythms, these were the songs, These were the

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Speaker 1: lessons that were taught to young people about what it

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Speaker 1: means to be a warrior, what it means to be

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Speaker 1: a man, what it means to be a person. Where

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Speaker 1: your places in life, where your places with your people,

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Speaker 1: where your places in the universe. Yes, abstract concepts like

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Speaker 1: that existed very much, so do people. It wasn't like

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Speaker 1: individuals were just ignorant living in huts like a stereotype

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Speaker 1: would have people think. No, these were very very well

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Speaker 1: developed societies for the people that had the means to

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Speaker 1: get to them, which is the flaw that they inherently had,

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Speaker 1: which is how they became colonized so easily. You know,

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Speaker 1: they when you have a pyramid system, you just have

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Speaker 1: to knock over the head of the snake, so to speak.

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Speaker 1: That's how they thought of and that's what you do

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Speaker 1: to any society. You say, Okay, I have a pyramid

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Speaker 1: that I wanted to defeat. If you knock off the

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Speaker 1: head of the snake, and everything else comes down. Which

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Speaker 1: is why people have misunderstood American politics for so many

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Speaker 1: is you want to knock go off the head of

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Speaker 1: the snake. But now you're facing the hydra. You're not

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Speaker 1: just facing colonialism through one means, you're facing uh culmination

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Speaker 1: of that religion which paid plays a heavy role in

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Speaker 1: the colonization, not just for Africans and Indigenous people. That's

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Speaker 1: a laughing mythology that I think needs to be confronted no,

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Speaker 1: it's done wonders to enslave white people as well and

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Speaker 1: have them work against their own interests and work against

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Speaker 1: workers rights, which again you're dealing with the clergy. The

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Speaker 1: clergy are uh beyond the bourgeoire institution. The clergy manipulate

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Speaker 1: in every society a bourgeoisre institution and also uh, the

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Speaker 1: workers of all institutions, because all of them have some

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Speaker 1: faith so to speak. There are very few people in

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Speaker 1: our society when we talk about a global a community

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Speaker 1: that are atheists. I mean, I love y'all when I

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Speaker 1: get to meet y'all out there, whatever y'all are watching,

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Speaker 1: the no disrespect. I even took my camera off for y'all.

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Speaker 1: I don't do that for nobody. I love to talk

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Speaker 1: to you all because I think it's an interesting philosophical conversation.

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Speaker 1: But again, the vast majority of the planet believes in God,

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Speaker 1: and someone else has understood that for thousands of years,

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Speaker 1: and it was just really smart to be able to

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Speaker 1: manipulate it to create the bastions of the society we

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Speaker 1: have now. And that's just what, oh my god, they

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Speaker 1: imagine we could talk about all the rest of them,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Gender politics, men, women, you

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Speaker 1: know what I mean, Uh, foreign policy. Sorry, So I'm

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Speaker 1: glad you touched on like the diversity but also in

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Speaker 1: some certain aspects the uniformity of like global cultures with

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Speaker 1: regards to religion. You know, millions and billions people across

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Speaker 1: the world believe in religion, but do so differently. And

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Speaker 1: in recent episodes, we tried to shift our spotlight from

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Speaker 1: North American issues towards a more global perspective, highlighting the

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Speaker 1: work and a recent incarceration of Marxist Lenningist rapper blow

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Speaker 1: A Cell. We talked about the political life of Ugandan

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Speaker 1: rapper turned presidential candidate Bobby Wine. Um and in your

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Speaker 1: own music and activists, and we've often highlighted the struggles

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Speaker 1: against colonialism, particularly global South. Um and I recently, I guess,

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Speaker 1: like last year I was talking with Antela Davis about

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Speaker 1: the importance of international solidarity. And I often have this

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Speaker 1: on my mind, you know, working in local politics myself,

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Speaker 1: when people get frustrated, when they're trying to get like

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Speaker 1: they street paved, like not necessarily seeing the relevance of

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Speaker 1: like what's going on in Haiti or what's going on

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Speaker 1: in Bolivia. So UM, I just wanted to ask you,

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Speaker 1: what do you think we can achieve through displays of

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Speaker 1: international solidarity, both as musicians and as activists. Well, first,

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Speaker 1: I would say that you don't need to have a

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Speaker 1: degree in politics to to understand these things. For anyone

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Speaker 1: out there who thinks that we're asking the impossible of people, um,

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Speaker 1: when we asked them to be aware, there are plenty aware.

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Speaker 1: You know. You see people who live in a jungle

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Speaker 1: who don't live in a big city, they're very aware

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Speaker 1: different things. You live people who live in a big

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Speaker 1: city and they jump through traffic the way I do,

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Speaker 1: like it's nothing. And someone else who doesn't live in

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Speaker 1: a city where there's just gigantic things coming back and

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Speaker 1: forth at eighty miles an hour wouldn't get that. They

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Speaker 1: think you're risking your life, but to me, it's as

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Speaker 1: simple as running through whatever. Um. I think that there's

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Speaker 1: been this sort of um primitive verse uh futuristic um

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Speaker 1: ideology that's been pushed on us that the past or

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Speaker 1: that the things that we've encountered as part of our

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Speaker 1: struggle in our society are primitive and this is the

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Speaker 1: new world where everything is futuristic, but it's just organized barbarism.

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Speaker 1: I remind people that's what your face when you face

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Speaker 1: imperialism and when you talk about the South or when

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Speaker 1: you talk about Africa, where you talk about South America Asia.

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Speaker 1: At the end of the day, whether it's a person

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Speaker 1: of color or a white person or any other person

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Speaker 1: in charge of a society, it's just about the resources.

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Speaker 1: You know. The ideas that all of Latin America was

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Speaker 1: some communist haven for years, No, it wasn't that. It

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Speaker 1: was just that those were the only two things that

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Speaker 1: people were serving, pepsi and coke. You know, whenever a

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Speaker 1: leftist society came into power, they immediately consolidated um um,

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Speaker 1: the different political parties of the left that existed and

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Speaker 1: said no, we're gonna be one party now. And when

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Speaker 1: the right wing came in, it was the same thing.

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Speaker 1: They would consolidate everything that the ideology is secondary, the

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Speaker 1: control of the resources is first, and that again gives

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Speaker 1: way to the listen. I don't want to give you

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Speaker 1: guys quotes that are gonna go viral, but just here's

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Speaker 1: the problem with America. People are are fighting imaginary socialism

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Speaker 1: and they don't know what socialism is. It's just workers

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Speaker 1: controlling the means of their production and everything else is

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Speaker 1: fancy dressing. And if people don't understand that, then they're

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Speaker 1: the ones that are being shorted. If they want to

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Speaker 1: talk about how taxes are legal. Yes, absolutely, all these

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Speaker 1: other things that we have in common with other political

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Speaker 1: fields I can draw truth from. You know, if I

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Speaker 1: run into a religious Christian person and tells me, you know,

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Speaker 1: America is the Satanist society, I say yes, but not

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Speaker 1: because women have access to healthcare. It's because you've killed

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Speaker 1: so many children in the rock and you have no

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Speaker 1: idea about that. You know. Anything left of hunting the

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Speaker 1: homeless for sport is communism and that's but that's the

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Speaker 1: truth of what we see in our society. And the

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Speaker 1: truth is that it's not that we have to worship

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Speaker 1: one political ideology or the other. You can see the

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Speaker 1: truth in either one because everything comes out in the wash.

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Speaker 1: And when there's cold heart facts, what what did the

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Speaker 1: policy produce? You know? What did it make? You know?

428
00:24:51,880 --> 00:24:56,520
Speaker 1: Has trickled down economics ever worked? No? You know, has

429
00:24:57,119 --> 00:25:01,359
Speaker 1: has violent overthrow of a society worked to some degree? Yes?

430
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:04,600
Speaker 1: You know? Is that the only way that a society

431
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:07,320
Speaker 1: can change? No? So I mean I think that that's

432
00:25:07,359 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 1: the real question. You know, their early civil rights organizers

433
00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:15,520
Speaker 1: had to ask fundamental questions to themselves. They said, you know,

434
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:18,760
Speaker 1: do as black people, is the point to have a

435
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:21,920
Speaker 1: country of our own inside America? Get along with white

436
00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:24,600
Speaker 1: folks and make them respect the laws that make them

437
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:27,400
Speaker 1: get along with us, or go back to Africa. This

438
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:29,920
Speaker 1: is this was the Garvey movement. That was the idiot,

439
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 1: that was the focus that he was confronted with. And

440
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:36,040
Speaker 1: you know, being a Harlem might I learned this history

441
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 1: very early that these were the existential questions that people

442
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:42,159
Speaker 1: struggle with. And you can still find a society that

443
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 1: never got a definitive answer for a lot of people

444
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:47,440
Speaker 1: because they say, well, what the hell am I doing here?

445
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:51,720
Speaker 1: I see people relocating back to to to to Africa

446
00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:55,080
Speaker 1: because there's economic opportunity over there. I see people leaving

447
00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:57,679
Speaker 1: the East Coast going to the South saying, hey, you

448
00:25:57,720 --> 00:26:01,040
Speaker 1: know what, there's just uh easier way to set up

449
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:04,720
Speaker 1: a business here. People are in general leaving the United

450
00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:08,560
Speaker 1: States because they don't see it as the hedgemonic power

451
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 1: that it was. Does that mean it's the end of it? No,

452
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:14,640
Speaker 1: um empires don't die quickly that way, But I think

453
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:17,120
Speaker 1: that the writing is on the world for the rest

454
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 1: of the world, that the day that of America just

455
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:24,160
Speaker 1: being able to do business however she wants to around

456
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:29,240
Speaker 1: the world is gone. And you know, human beings again

457
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:32,680
Speaker 1: back to square one, have to deal with those resources.

458
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:35,120
Speaker 1: You know, where can we get them cheaply? Who can

459
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 1: we get them to make us for Let's set up

460
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 1: a global society so we can buy them with pieces

461
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:43,119
Speaker 1: of nothing on a computer. It used to be pieces

462
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:45,959
Speaker 1: of paper which meant nothing. Before that it was actually

463
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:49,800
Speaker 1: metal which was worth something. And now we have numbers

464
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 1: on the screen, glitches in the computer. So um, it's

465
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:55,679
Speaker 1: a it's a lot to impact. But going along with

466
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:59,439
Speaker 1: that line, how do you feel about like America's current

467
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:01,720
Speaker 1: political on it? Because like I, for one, I grew

468
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:04,320
Speaker 1: up I mean I'm I'm from Liberia and I grew

469
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 1: up in Africa most of my childhood, so I mean,

470
00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:10,400
Speaker 1: I know tribalism when I see it. And we all

471
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:14,400
Speaker 1: know that Democrat Republican there are a lot of similarities

472
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:16,439
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. We all know Biden is

473
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 1: a center right Republican with a D next to his

474
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:22,040
Speaker 1: name at the end of the day. But with that said,

475
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:27,120
Speaker 1: there is like a clear fascist bent with America's right

476
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:32,119
Speaker 1: wing right now, and it just from from from my

477
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:34,639
Speaker 1: gut and from the way things are looking, it's not

478
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:37,359
Speaker 1: looking like that's gonna let up anytime soon. How do

479
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:40,520
Speaker 1: you feel about that? Well, with respect to the right wing,

480
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:44,000
Speaker 1: I think what we're we all need to keep in

481
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:49,240
Speaker 1: perspective is that, regardless of how we think they're fascist,

482
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:52,919
Speaker 1: these people see themselves as fighting evil. And I'm not

483
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:56,160
Speaker 1: gonna say the ones that are part of a religious

484
00:27:56,200 --> 00:27:59,320
Speaker 1: society that secretly go home and and shake their hands

485
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:02,479
Speaker 1: together and say, ohaha, look what I've accomplished, like I

486
00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 1: have to believe in this ship publicly, but it's all

487
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 1: bullshit to me. They're gonna be people like that in

488
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:11,879
Speaker 1: every ideology around the world. But a vast majority of

489
00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:16,120
Speaker 1: right wing Christians believe in something called the Seven Mountains,

490
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:19,400
Speaker 1: and the Seven Mountains the theory based on the reclaiming

491
00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:25,720
Speaker 1: of institutions in the United States, education, um, you know, entertainment,

492
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 1: all these things. The Seven Mountains are the retaking of

493
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:33,919
Speaker 1: the soul so to speak, of the United States that

494
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:38,760
Speaker 1: they believe has been destroyed. Now they found a convenient

495
00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:42,440
Speaker 1: target with liberalism. The idea that all of a sudden,

496
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:45,760
Speaker 1: this this idea that somehow connected to the left or

497
00:28:46,080 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 1: it's far left or no, I mean Donald Trump beat

498
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton running with far left talking points, so to speak,

499
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 1: far left right? What's far left confronting the United States

500
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:02,920
Speaker 1: about having these horrible predatory relationships with other countries that

501
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:07,160
Speaker 1: produce clothes. God, I are Republicans talking about that now?

502
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 1: And this is what it fostered, having no gatekeepers to

503
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:15,720
Speaker 1: to knowledge. So you have elites complaining about other elites.

504
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: You know, look at Brexit. The people that were pushing Brexit,

505
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:22,080
Speaker 1: we're talking about elites, and they went to to Exeter,

506
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:25,280
Speaker 1: they went to they went to Oxford, and these are

507
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 1: the people talking about these elites want to take everything

508
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 1: from you. No, it's just that you garner the benefit

509
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:34,720
Speaker 1: of a global society. And now people want people to

510
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 1: pay their due. And I think that's what individuals have

511
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:41,200
Speaker 1: a problem with. You know, why does Hades still have

512
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 1: to keep money in a French bank? Why do West

513
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:47,560
Speaker 1: African nations still have to do that? That that's absurd.

514
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:49,880
Speaker 1: Um In the moment they do a deal with the

515
00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 1: Chinese or with Russia, they're called communists and they're alienated.

516
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 1: But again it just goes back to those resources. That's it.

517
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 1: And and again I hate and bring it back full

518
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:04,360
Speaker 1: circle to that all the time, but that essentially what

519
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:07,080
Speaker 1: it is. So I mean, do you have like a

520
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 1: sense that we're coming towards um, if not just in

521
00:30:11,080 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 1: the US, just globally, do you think we're coming towards

522
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 1: uh reckoning of their being limited resources on this earth? Um?

523
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:21,960
Speaker 1: I think for certain things, yeah, I think people are

524
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 1: going to have to deal with a lot of renewable

525
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:27,040
Speaker 1: stuff for a while if we can get the society

526
00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:29,840
Speaker 1: to reboot in that way. Um. A lot of people

527
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:32,200
Speaker 1: thought that was what the pandemic was about, but no,

528
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:38,520
Speaker 1: it was just about creating. Uh. You know, listen, I'm

529
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 1: not one of these people that think it's fake. Please no, listen.

530
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:44,800
Speaker 1: I didn't go that far out there in my time

531
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:48,200
Speaker 1: away from making music. But I definitely think the government

532
00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 1: overplayed its hand in controlling things, and you know, took

533
00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 1: advantage of this time, which is exactly what governments do.

534
00:30:55,560 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 1: I mean, when people talk about Russia or China interfering

535
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 1: in our elections, I say, if they could, they would.

536
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:06,200
Speaker 1: If we could intervene in China, Russia's elections. We absolutely wouldn't.

537
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:11,560
Speaker 1: We have intervened in elections around the world. So, I mean,

538
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 1: that's where the pearl clutching gets crazy for me, because I,

539
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 1: as a student of history, just look at it and say,

540
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 1: you know, are we gonna have a giant civil war?

541
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:25,120
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know, but I know that if

542
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 1: we do, it will be just to the benefit of

543
00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:32,640
Speaker 1: global powers like China, Russia, any emerging African union or

544
00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:35,560
Speaker 1: Latin American union that comes out. You know, we're talking

545
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 1: again about a global society, and and and that will

546
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:41,520
Speaker 1: give birth to other superpowers, the ones that we've kept down.

547
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:45,680
Speaker 1: You know, it's no secret that the war in between

548
00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:48,840
Speaker 1: I Rock and Iran destabilized both of those countries to

549
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 1: the benefit of the other superpowers around them, because then

550
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:55,400
Speaker 1: they've flowed in and said, well, now you have to

551
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 1: become dependent on me and and and that's an interesting

552
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:02,120
Speaker 1: way of looking at it. But before it was the

553
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 1: Baptists in in in in Iraq who were supported by Russia.

554
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 1: Now you know you have the Iranians that are being

555
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 1: supported by RESIS. So again, you know, these these are

556
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 1: the politics that people have in the beginning of our

557
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 1: fight against ISIS it was the Kurds who were on

558
00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 1: the front line, and then you know, two years later

559
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 1: they were abandoned and thrown to the wayside. And that's

560
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 1: politics and that's business, and you know, I think people

561
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 1: get emotionally attached to one side because it represents something

562
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:33,960
Speaker 1: that you know, it is intertwined with all of their

563
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:36,960
Speaker 1: personal relationships. So it's difficult to ask a person to

564
00:32:37,040 --> 00:32:39,720
Speaker 1: change their politics. You're asking them to change all of

565
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:42,960
Speaker 1: their friends, You're asking them to change all of their associations.

566
00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 1: You're not just asking them to change their opinion, You're

567
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 1: asking them to change who they are, which is why

568
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:51,239
Speaker 1: it's very difficult for people to confront some of the

569
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:55,120
Speaker 1: things that they've been told because their reality and their

570
00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 1: their identity rely on those beliefs to be true. You know. Now,

571
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:02,080
Speaker 1: when you get something as ridiculous is like trailer park

572
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:06,480
Speaker 1: scientology Q and non bullshit that people buy into, then

573
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 1: you become one of the people that has to recreate

574
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:13,360
Speaker 1: these fantasies about, oh my god, when is this overthrow

575
00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:17,360
Speaker 1: actually coming? Just like a person who gets sucked into

576
00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:20,959
Speaker 1: another fantasy and gets asked about, Okay, when is this

577
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 1: great change coming from our progressive society. Where are these

578
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 1: these these platforms they keep running on that they keep

579
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:31,680
Speaker 1: promising us this is the last election before America goes

580
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:34,800
Speaker 1: into fascism, And the rest of us are like, okay,

581
00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:37,160
Speaker 1: but you're offering a diet coke version of that. You're

582
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 1: not actually offering the change because that requires you to

583
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 1: not be funded by major corporations and they need that money.

584
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 1: There you go, I feel like some of what you

585
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:55,520
Speaker 1: had to say about like are reckoning with the finite

586
00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:59,000
Speaker 1: resources we have? And then prettily when you touched upon, uh,

587
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 1: you know, US intervention in various forms of foreign interntion

588
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:04,280
Speaker 1: in places like Iraq and kind of started making me

589
00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 1: think a little bit about I don't know if you've

590
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 1: read Naomi Nami clients the shock Doctrine, um, but so yeah, yeah,

591
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 1: but sort of what she has to say about disaster capitalism,

592
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:15,560
Speaker 1: and that brought me to my next question about the

593
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:17,799
Speaker 1: way that a lot of Americans have seen, you know,

594
00:34:17,840 --> 00:34:21,279
Speaker 1: outside of like what happened in two thousand five and

595
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:25,200
Speaker 1: down in with Katrina, the privatization of various relief efforts

596
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:27,440
Speaker 1: as a way for people to make money off of

597
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:31,200
Speaker 1: death and no economic forcarity. I think on a massive

598
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:34,160
Speaker 1: scale across the country. We've been seeing people come to

599
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:38,279
Speaker 1: reckon with the reality of disaster capitalism through the pandemic.

600
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:42,680
Speaker 1: As you know, billionaires gained seventies six billion dollars in

601
00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:45,000
Speaker 1: wealth over the course of the pandemic as more people

602
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 1: are shopping with Uber and Amazon. Meanwhile, the rest of

603
00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:50,160
Speaker 1: us can't pay our rent. And this I think has

604
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:54,880
Speaker 1: also accelerated some radicalization among the public. Um. You know,

605
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:58,520
Speaker 1: just seeing are the government's failure to the well not

606
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:01,600
Speaker 1: really failure, the government's prior ization of the economy over

607
00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:04,359
Speaker 1: human life, and things like that. In addition to you know,

608
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:08,960
Speaker 1: the uprising last summer increasing people's awareness of racial injustice

609
00:35:09,040 --> 00:35:11,960
Speaker 1: and the reality of the police state. Um And we've

610
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:13,960
Speaker 1: also seen a lot of artists who were previously a

611
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:17,520
Speaker 1: political suddenly having an opinion about what's going on with

612
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:21,239
Speaker 1: mixed results. So I wanted to ask your opinion on

613
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:24,680
Speaker 1: these trends about you know, people's radicalization during the pandemic,

614
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 1: as well as the artistic response we've seen, as well

615
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:32,360
Speaker 1: as how COVID has impacted your activism and artistry personally.

616
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:35,400
Speaker 1: I think for me, one of the reasons why I

617
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:40,560
Speaker 1: formed the charity Rebel Larbie runs is because during the pandemic,

618
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:44,839
Speaker 1: my sales actually went up. Obviously I couldn't tour because

619
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:47,719
Speaker 1: there was no touring and you couldn't even be indoors

620
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:53,080
Speaker 1: many places, but online the following that I had UH

621
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 1: continued to come out and droves and support, and I

622
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:02,440
Speaker 1: had new people are buying UM from all over the

623
00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 1: world that wanted to hear that kind of music UM.

624
00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:09,600
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, there's an old saying to

625
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:13,080
Speaker 1: to who much has given, much is expected. And I

626
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 1: thought to myself, if I'm doing good, let me just

627
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:19,960
Speaker 1: spread the well. Make sure people know that I want

628
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:22,160
Speaker 1: to take care of the community. I want to make

629
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:25,480
Speaker 1: sure harlem Is is doing well. And also because during

630
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:28,360
Speaker 1: this time, I went to the grocery store my parents

631
00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 1: and I actually witnessed one of those little mini riots

632
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 1: over like toilet paper and other essentials. And I said,

633
00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:39,600
Speaker 1: this is a very very low intensity version of what

634
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:43,160
Speaker 1: really a lack of resources will have. And it did

635
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:46,839
Speaker 1: show me. It showed I saw rich people that you know,

636
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 1: normally wouldn't shove someone else for lettuce and kale and

637
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:56,080
Speaker 1: milk and and other resources do terrible things to one another,

638
00:36:56,360 --> 00:36:59,279
Speaker 1: which is why I think it reinforces to me the

639
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:02,560
Speaker 1: absolute disgusted I have in a society that blames poor

640
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 1: people for their own conditions. Let's see you not eat

641
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:08,200
Speaker 1: for a few days, We'll see how you act in line.

642
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:11,279
Speaker 1: How about this, Let your child not have dinner the

643
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:13,400
Speaker 1: night before. We'll see how he does on the test

644
00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:16,240
Speaker 1: the next day. These things that people take for granted

645
00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:18,880
Speaker 1: when they have their bellies full, and I'm no exception,

646
00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:21,719
Speaker 1: so when I see things like that, obviously I've seen

647
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:23,759
Speaker 1: a lot of terrible things in my life. But I

648
00:37:23,800 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 1: think what that tuned me into is once you get

649
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:31,280
Speaker 1: over the initial trauma of what you've seen, you digest Wow,

650
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:33,600
Speaker 1: this is just how the world works. And you know

651
00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:36,239
Speaker 1: it's not a question of you wanting to change the

652
00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:39,759
Speaker 1: nature of human beings. Sure you can, you just have

653
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:43,240
Speaker 1: to painstakingly go through each human being. I tell people,

654
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:47,560
Speaker 1: if you want to make people do something quickly fast,

655
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:51,879
Speaker 1: sure you can brainwash them into some political movement, and

656
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:55,279
Speaker 1: that has had positive and negative results for people. But

657
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:58,719
Speaker 1: making real hard change is a community change. It's a

658
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 1: small scale change that first it takes years to build,

659
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:04,880
Speaker 1: and what makes it so vulnerable is that the people

660
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:07,640
Speaker 1: who have the greatest vision for it are always the

661
00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:10,719
Speaker 1: ones that are ripped down and destroyed, and there is

662
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:13,720
Speaker 1: no place holder. And if you rely on those people

663
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:17,040
Speaker 1: to bring you through your your your struggle and your fight,

664
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:20,719
Speaker 1: you realize how fallible a human being can actually be.

665
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:23,839
Speaker 1: And you see that many of the heroes that we've

666
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:28,399
Speaker 1: had throughout our history have done things that would make

667
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:32,880
Speaker 1: them definitively canceltable in our society today. That is just

668
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 1: like wow, okay. But at the same time, when you

669
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:39,520
Speaker 1: look at them for what they've done and and what

670
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 1: they partook in, just being able to have that that

671
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:49,040
Speaker 1: armament of knowledge I think is necessary whenever you meet

672
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:52,840
Speaker 1: someone who's so entrenched in their own politics that you

673
00:38:52,920 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 1: just take them out of it. I had friends of

674
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:57,920
Speaker 1: mine I go down in Miami. Good God, you know,

675
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:00,520
Speaker 1: I have arguments to people down there, but I always

676
00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:02,400
Speaker 1: tell them and we laugh because I tell if you

677
00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:06,080
Speaker 1: don't the difference between George Washington and Czech of Bara,

678
00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 1: they're both the fathers of their country. They both killed

679
00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:13,880
Speaker 1: prisoners of war, but George Washington actually owned slaves and

680
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:16,359
Speaker 1: Chegivara just said a bunch of racist ship when he

681
00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:18,919
Speaker 1: was in Africa because he was frustrated with how things

682
00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 1: were going, and he grew up as a white Latino

683
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:24,120
Speaker 1: in a really privileged fucking society that he wouldn't have

684
00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:26,719
Speaker 1: even been able to acknowledge as much politics as he

685
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:29,440
Speaker 1: had with everything else. So where do you want me

686
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:31,440
Speaker 1: to go with all this? I mean that when you

687
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:34,560
Speaker 1: bring stuff like that into the conversation, it just forces

688
00:39:34,600 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 1: people to say, all right, let me just take a

689
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:40,200
Speaker 1: hard look at my society. What what? How did everything

690
00:39:40,239 --> 00:39:42,840
Speaker 1: get to be this way? You know, why why is

691
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:45,439
Speaker 1: the world this way? And you know, there's no one

692
00:39:45,560 --> 00:39:49,839
Speaker 1: simple reason, there's no one simple uh riddle that when

693
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 1: it's answered, is gonna give you all the answers to life.

694
00:39:52,960 --> 00:39:55,840
Speaker 1: But there are small victories that you can gain. And

695
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:58,760
Speaker 1: I think that's why people look for the quick and easy.

696
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:01,640
Speaker 1: You know, mac that that's why people want the fast

697
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:05,000
Speaker 1: solution Mariah to politics, which is always okay, let's build

698
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:07,840
Speaker 1: a movement really quickly get something we want. But the

699
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:11,400
Speaker 1: American left big failure is, you know, we want a

700
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 1: bigger slice of the pie, never asking whose hands are

701
00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:18,440
Speaker 1: in that pie? How many children were working for you know,

702
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:20,920
Speaker 1: twenty hours on a conveyor belt to make that pie.

703
00:40:21,200 --> 00:40:23,920
Speaker 1: You know what's actually the ingredients of the pie? You

704
00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 1: want a slice of this? What if America goes to

705
00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:30,440
Speaker 1: ship now you want equity in the company? What are

706
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:35,400
Speaker 1: you doing? Again? Back to Marcus Garvey's existential question for

707
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:37,640
Speaker 1: black and brown people, do you want to country in

708
00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:39,799
Speaker 1: your own? Do you want to go back to where

709
00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:42,520
Speaker 1: you to where people stole you from? Or do you

710
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:45,120
Speaker 1: want to just get along with the people here? That's

711
00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 1: it and again to me, I would rather live with

712
00:40:50,640 --> 00:40:55,720
Speaker 1: human beings. I definitely see the right wing in Europe

713
00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:58,080
Speaker 1: is different than the right wing in America because there's

714
00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 1: much more of an anti multiculturalist society vibe there, but

715
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:05,319
Speaker 1: that's definitely growing here in the United States. I think

716
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:08,799
Speaker 1: the difference is that, you know, the religious right makes

717
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 1: it uh or encourages there to be black and brown

718
00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:16,440
Speaker 1: people that are conservative, to give not just the movement

719
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 1: I would say, dressing, no, but to actually give it

720
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 1: foot soldiers and to give it believers and donors. You know,

721
00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:28,160
Speaker 1: Latino conservatives. I laughed, and people talk about, oh, I

722
00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:30,759
Speaker 1: can't believe Mexicans voted for Trump, and I say, well,

723
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:33,040
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? A lot of Latinos have

724
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:37,000
Speaker 1: grown up in a very conservative society. That's what Reagan's

725
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:41,000
Speaker 1: vision was that a lot of presidents before Trump were

726
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:45,960
Speaker 1: very I wouldn't say better than Democrats, but relative to

727
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:49,840
Speaker 1: the way Democrats were deporting people, gave more opportunities for

728
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:53,439
Speaker 1: individuals to be there, and not just Cubans. But that's

729
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:56,879
Speaker 1: just an unfortunate reality that we see. And the top

730
00:41:56,920 --> 00:42:01,799
Speaker 1: deport the top deporters have lately been Democrats. So, I mean,

731
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:04,320
Speaker 1: when you look at the way the left has poised

732
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:08,479
Speaker 1: itself as this huge defender of immigrants, and that's really

733
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:10,799
Speaker 1: hasn't been what it's been, you know what I mean.

734
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:13,200
Speaker 1: It's like the show I Love My Brother Iced Tea

735
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:16,240
Speaker 1: is on a great show, s vu Man, wonderful show.

736
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:18,759
Speaker 1: But go report a sex crime in New York. You're

737
00:42:18,800 --> 00:42:22,800
Speaker 1: not gonna get smilet detectives. Sometimes people who care you

738
00:42:22,920 --> 00:42:25,920
Speaker 1: find real human beings who are swamped with eighty cases,

739
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 1: a hundred cases. They don't know what to say in

740
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:34,120
Speaker 1: many situations, I don't know. I think that for what

741
00:42:34,239 --> 00:42:38,480
Speaker 1: I can control, for what I can put out there. UM,

742
00:42:38,520 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 1: my message to people has always been, um, keep asking

743
00:42:43,680 --> 00:42:47,399
Speaker 1: those questions that make people uneasy, you know, make sure

744
00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:51,239
Speaker 1: that if we do believe in a multicultural society like

745
00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:54,279
Speaker 1: I mentioned, and that we don't allow a right or

746
00:42:54,280 --> 00:43:01,360
Speaker 1: a left wing um shove because of a nine eleven effect. Um,

747
00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:05,040
Speaker 1: we don't allow that to interrupt the idea that listen,

748
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: we're just human beings with different female types. You know,

749
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 1: if if you read I think you asked me at

750
00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 1: the very beginning, what book I was reading? Um? Or

751
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:18,759
Speaker 1: is it? I think it's DA. I was rereading D

752
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:22,400
Speaker 1: Civilization Barbarism, and I thought it was great because it

753
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 1: talked about the early uh kind of society that human

754
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 1: beings lived in when they were not the dominant speecies

755
00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 1: on the planet, when they were just trying to hold

756
00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:36,319
Speaker 1: it together. And the whole idea that people say, oh, well,

757
00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:40,560
Speaker 1: capitalism is this futuristic thing and socialism is a primitive principle,

758
00:43:40,640 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 1: And I say, well, that primitive principle is about as

759
00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:46,520
Speaker 1: primitive as it is making fire, and that's what everybody needs.

760
00:43:47,320 --> 00:43:51,080
Speaker 1: People still need fire today, you moron, like the primitive

761
00:43:51,080 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 1: principle of sharing and having some communal society where people

762
00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:58,480
Speaker 1: have a game for what they put in. Yeah, we

763
00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:01,359
Speaker 1: have a diet coke version of the at with you know, uh,

764
00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:06,279
Speaker 1: social security that it's probably gonna be canceled. UM and

765
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:09,640
Speaker 1: the other government programs that don't really address the need

766
00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:13,279
Speaker 1: for a lot of people that are left out. I

767
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 1: hate the backtrack, but you mentioned the Rebel Army runs earlier.

768
00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:19,440
Speaker 1: Could you explain to people exactly what that is and

769
00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:23,480
Speaker 1: what y'all do? Oh, but thank you. It's something that

770
00:44:23,719 --> 00:44:28,759
Speaker 1: I modeled off the UM the Black Panther Parties, free

771
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 1: breakfast program UM. But something that I always remember it

772
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 1: is one of my o G s was um. Uh.

773
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:43,920
Speaker 1: He was from the Black Panthers. But one of the

774
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:46,760
Speaker 1: things that I learned, God rest his soul. He passed away.

775
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:49,360
Speaker 1: His name is Elder Brother smith so all the o

776
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:52,960
Speaker 1: G Black Panthers know him. Um. But he explained something

777
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:54,520
Speaker 1: to me when I was a kid, and he said,

778
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:59,920
Speaker 1: never forget that the Black Panthers were not these adults

779
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:03,640
Speaker 1: that you see play them on TV. These were It's

780
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:07,600
Speaker 1: the reason that I was there as not because I

781
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:10,800
Speaker 1: was going to be a Panther, is because I joined

782
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:13,840
Speaker 1: the b l A, the Black Liberation Army at that time.

783
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:18,000
Speaker 1: And Elder Brother Smithy was a Vietnam veteran who had

784
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:22,640
Speaker 1: spent years at war and understood all these tactics, and

785
00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:26,680
Speaker 1: I think that, UM. One of the things that I

786
00:45:27,120 --> 00:45:33,560
Speaker 1: clearly remember learning UM and adapting from his example, was

787
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 1: that the movement is built by young people, right, and

788
00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:43,479
Speaker 1: in order for them to have any success, they're gonna

789
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:46,959
Speaker 1: see the elders fail in some way, shape or form,

790
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:51,400
Speaker 1: and UM, we have to learn from these failures and

791
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:56,120
Speaker 1: these successes. And he said, never forget. The thing that

792
00:45:56,160 --> 00:45:59,000
Speaker 1: we remember the most is when people cut the supply line,

793
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:02,680
Speaker 1: then there's nothing an army awadge marches on its stomach.

794
00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:07,040
Speaker 1: And I said to him, okay, wow. So seeing a

795
00:46:07,080 --> 00:46:10,920
Speaker 1: pandemic struck New York City, I said to myself, we

796
00:46:11,040 --> 00:46:15,239
Speaker 1: need to reach out to Brooklyn, Queen's Harlem. And we

797
00:46:15,320 --> 00:46:19,960
Speaker 1: even did one UM in philling with the move organization

798
00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:24,600
Speaker 1: people because I've always been a big supporter of MoMA. UM.

799
00:46:24,640 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 1: But I think that it was just seeing that need

800
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:31,319
Speaker 1: and when people say there was a toilet paper shortage,

801
00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:34,239
Speaker 1: there wasn't just a toilet paper shortage, brother, there was,

802
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 1: um a shortage of feminine products, which is crazy, a

803
00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:44,280
Speaker 1: shortage of baby food and diapers, all kinds of other stuff.

804
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:48,200
Speaker 1: So we basically jumped in to fulfill the need. Only

805
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:51,680
Speaker 1: that instead of servicing young people because you can't have

806
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:56,239
Speaker 1: soup kitchens during the pandemic, you can't be indoors with anybody.

807
00:46:56,520 --> 00:46:58,920
Speaker 1: You can't even give people food with the same spoon.

808
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:01,960
Speaker 1: You gotta go watch the school after it's in their bowl.

809
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:05,880
Speaker 1: So at that point we got these nonperishable goods, about

810
00:47:05,920 --> 00:47:09,439
Speaker 1: two weeks worth of food UM, and we started giving

811
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:13,320
Speaker 1: them to the senior centers at UM the Nightsha housing

812
00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:16,760
Speaker 1: projects in New York City. So we serviced at first

813
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:21,360
Speaker 1: UM three projects, UH the Grant Houses which are by

814
00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:25,560
Speaker 1: where my old block was. UM. Then we had the

815
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:30,040
Speaker 1: Albany Houses which was in Brooklyn UM my Troy Avenue,

816
00:47:30,719 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 1: and then we had the Dikemand Houses. So these were

817
00:47:34,680 --> 00:47:37,600
Speaker 1: the first three places that we were really supporting UM,

818
00:47:37,640 --> 00:47:41,120
Speaker 1: and then we've extended ourselves to a few other locations

819
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:47,040
Speaker 1: as well. And it's just been heartwarming and heartbreaking because

820
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:49,920
Speaker 1: there have been government programs that I paid attention to

821
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 1: that would have been around for the better part of

822
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:55,880
Speaker 1: fourteen fifteen years that were recently canceled, like during the

823
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 1: pandemic or right before, and you know that wasn't taken

824
00:47:59,560 --> 00:48:01,839
Speaker 1: into a out. A lot of people don't get their

825
00:48:01,920 --> 00:48:05,000
Speaker 1: check or sometimes a check is laid or whatever it

826
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 1: may be. So postal system acting up made that even worse. Um,

827
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:13,920
Speaker 1: so people became reliant on some of these food drops.

828
00:48:14,400 --> 00:48:18,160
Speaker 1: And the heartbreaking part is when you go there once

829
00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:21,600
Speaker 1: a month and you see that somebody has obviously made

830
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:24,880
Speaker 1: a two week pack stretch for a whole month and

831
00:48:25,120 --> 00:48:27,439
Speaker 1: they're they're really right there back on it. And these

832
00:48:27,440 --> 00:48:31,480
Speaker 1: people aren't on drugs, they're they're hard working, they're working

833
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:34,680
Speaker 1: whatever job they can get. And it's offensive to me

834
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 1: again when I see people blame poor people for their

835
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 1: conditioned like, oh, I look at this homeless person, Go

836
00:48:41,120 --> 00:48:44,120
Speaker 1: get a job. Yeah, I wonder what that motherfucker's resume

837
00:48:44,239 --> 00:48:47,279
Speaker 1: looks like. Man, you know, you gotta clean himself up first.

838
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:50,719
Speaker 1: Here all those ten years of missing can't go positive

839
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:53,080
Speaker 1: in a job interview. What kind of social skills as

840
00:48:53,120 --> 00:48:54,960
Speaker 1: a person have and what do they have to be

841
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 1: retaught and helped with. If a society really is taxing

842
00:48:59,160 --> 00:49:02,680
Speaker 1: people to the point of, you know, they're not being

843
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:05,239
Speaker 1: able to pay their other bills, you know, then what

844
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:08,359
Speaker 1: about the services that it provides? And at the end

845
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:10,640
Speaker 1: of the day, that's not what it's here for. That

846
00:49:10,800 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 1: is the window dress them. We're here because we have

847
00:49:13,560 --> 00:49:17,920
Speaker 1: a militaristic society that has gain control of resources, and

848
00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:20,879
Speaker 1: I'm doing whatever I can on the ground to give

849
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:24,279
Speaker 1: those resources. I'm bringing it all the way back. I'm

850
00:49:24,400 --> 00:49:28,919
Speaker 1: giving out those free resources to the community. So from

851
00:49:28,960 --> 00:49:34,720
Speaker 1: the beans, pound of rice, um and milk UM, the

852
00:49:34,760 --> 00:49:39,600
Speaker 1: two weeks supply of oatmeal. Uh, we have mac and

853
00:49:39,680 --> 00:49:45,719
Speaker 1: cheese soups UM. I think ravioli is just a ton

854
00:49:45,719 --> 00:49:48,520
Speaker 1: of good stuff. We try to keep a low sodium

855
00:49:48,719 --> 00:49:51,000
Speaker 1: for a bunch of the products that we have because

856
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:54,120
Speaker 1: again we're dealing with elders. But because we deal with elders,

857
00:49:54,160 --> 00:49:57,919
Speaker 1: we always get inshore, which I've realized is a god

858
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:02,480
Speaker 1: send to two elderly poe. UM. We gave away hats

859
00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:07,080
Speaker 1: and gloves um during the coldest part of the winter. UM.

860
00:50:07,160 --> 00:50:10,680
Speaker 1: And then we have penia light and like pepto bismol.

861
00:50:11,440 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 1: Just because I know a lot of the elders, they

862
00:50:13,239 --> 00:50:15,360
Speaker 1: take care of kids and a lot of black and

863
00:50:15,440 --> 00:50:19,200
Speaker 1: Latino families. So while the parents is working, the grandparents

864
00:50:19,239 --> 00:50:23,440
Speaker 1: is at home with the kids. So leave them, you know,

865
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:29,520
Speaker 1: whatever other stuff they get pampers, kids medicine every year,

866
00:50:29,560 --> 00:50:32,640
Speaker 1: every every week we're making a drop somewhere, so there's

867
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:35,720
Speaker 1: a there's a page for it on Instagram at Rebel

868
00:50:35,760 --> 00:50:38,399
Speaker 1: Lorbie Runs. I think one of the most beautiful things

869
00:50:38,440 --> 00:50:41,640
Speaker 1: that's emerged from the pandemic is this awareness of an

870
00:50:41,680 --> 00:50:44,440
Speaker 1: engagement in mutual aid and just communities coming together to

871
00:50:44,480 --> 00:50:47,719
Speaker 1: support each other, support those that are without, so that

872
00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:50,120
Speaker 1: there may be a time in the future that person

873
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:52,959
Speaker 1: can get back to someone who previously had their back.

874
00:50:53,680 --> 00:50:56,400
Speaker 1: And you know, like as an elected official like I

875
00:50:56,480 --> 00:50:58,680
Speaker 1: also embraced that kind of work. I understand that so

876
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:01,040
Speaker 1: much community building used to be done outside of the

877
00:51:01,080 --> 00:51:03,560
Speaker 1: state because like we don't we don't necessarily have a

878
00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:06,520
Speaker 1: highly functional government at various levels of the United States.

879
00:51:06,719 --> 00:51:09,640
Speaker 1: But ultimately when you when you scale up projects like that,

880
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:12,279
Speaker 1: there's so much of the federal government locally even state

881
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:14,960
Speaker 1: governments can do that, like ordinary people can't do like

882
00:51:15,040 --> 00:51:18,240
Speaker 1: y'all out here buying like pedialite, Like imagine how mupedia

883
00:51:18,320 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 1: light the federal government could be buying in bulk. They

884
00:51:20,560 --> 00:51:23,200
Speaker 1: get just they get the nationalized pedia life, the nationalized

885
00:51:23,239 --> 00:51:25,799
Speaker 1: corporation and everybody get free. PI lie right and so

886
00:51:26,320 --> 00:51:28,799
Speaker 1: um to you, what would you say it's like the

887
00:51:28,840 --> 00:51:33,600
Speaker 1: biggest like piece of public like public policy issue at

888
00:51:33,640 --> 00:51:35,680
Speaker 1: the federal level that you think needs to be addressed.

889
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:37,720
Speaker 1: Right now. We've talked a lot about how these systems

890
00:51:37,719 --> 00:51:41,799
Speaker 1: interconnect with militarism, imperialism, oligarchy, all these things, but like

891
00:51:41,840 --> 00:51:43,560
Speaker 1: if there could be like a single piece of public

892
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:46,520
Speaker 1: policy that you can put the current news cycle, Yeah, yeah, yeah,

893
00:51:46,520 --> 00:51:48,560
Speaker 1: you know. So, yeah, Well, here's what the thing that's

894
00:51:48,600 --> 00:51:50,960
Speaker 1: interesting that I see is happening little by little. It

895
00:51:51,160 --> 00:51:54,759
Speaker 1: just happened in New York, the legalization of marijuana. And

896
00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:58,440
Speaker 1: I remind people before we start partying and rolling up joints.

897
00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:05,799
Speaker 1: Um at John Jay uh College of Criminal Justice, I

898
00:52:05,880 --> 00:52:07,880
Speaker 1: was there to see Jim Bretto's and I was there

899
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:11,279
Speaker 1: to see Dr Cornel West and had a wonderful conversation

900
00:52:11,320 --> 00:52:15,400
Speaker 1: about something called restorative justice. And what that means is

901
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:19,520
Speaker 1: that if the government is paying its bills with weed money,

902
00:52:19,719 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 1: then it shouldn't be putting you in jail or being

903
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:25,840
Speaker 1: able to take away your voting rights. Are doing the

904
00:52:25,880 --> 00:52:28,120
Speaker 1: same thing or having done the same thing at some

905
00:52:28,200 --> 00:52:32,360
Speaker 1: point in time. So even though as a public policy issue,

906
00:52:32,440 --> 00:52:34,759
Speaker 1: I know that people think this is already dealt with

907
00:52:34,760 --> 00:52:38,680
Speaker 1: where we legalize that it's done. Now, that's the catch.

908
00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:41,799
Speaker 1: You have to follow through the whole way, and I

909
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:46,360
Speaker 1: think that's where people find whatever movement lacking. You know,

910
00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:48,640
Speaker 1: there has to be more followed through in that sense.

911
00:52:49,040 --> 00:52:52,680
Speaker 1: So before people say, okay, let's just open up dispensaries

912
00:52:52,719 --> 00:52:56,240
Speaker 1: and all this stuff, what about those people who haven't

913
00:52:56,239 --> 00:52:59,759
Speaker 1: been able to get a job because of that the

914
00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:04,040
Speaker 1: criminal history. But those those felonies on their record for possession,

915
00:53:04,200 --> 00:53:07,759
Speaker 1: or people that have done no harm to anybody but themselves.

916
00:53:08,800 --> 00:53:10,560
Speaker 1: You know, you look at a lot of people who

917
00:53:10,640 --> 00:53:14,719
Speaker 1: use drugs, the person who, unfortunately they've heard most is themselves.

918
00:53:15,080 --> 00:53:19,560
Speaker 1: Now when you couple this with other horrific crimes, all right, uh,

919
00:53:19,960 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 1: you're gonna find me to be less sympid than it obviously.

920
00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:26,760
Speaker 1: But um, I think for the vast majority of people

921
00:53:26,760 --> 00:53:30,160
Speaker 1: who are have been caught with drugs or have drugs

922
00:53:30,160 --> 00:53:33,960
Speaker 1: on their record, it's been something that it has been racialized,

923
00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:38,120
Speaker 1: politicized every size in the world. And I think that

924
00:53:38,239 --> 00:53:41,280
Speaker 1: it's it's a giant issue because it's not just something

925
00:53:41,320 --> 00:53:44,759
Speaker 1: that you know, our government uses for slush money, for

926
00:53:44,800 --> 00:53:48,279
Speaker 1: slush funds. No, it upholds a huge part of the

927
00:53:48,320 --> 00:53:51,840
Speaker 1: American economy, but people to to not know what the

928
00:53:51,840 --> 00:53:55,640
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical industry is. It's a cartel in the United States

929
00:53:55,640 --> 00:54:00,000
Speaker 1: of America, like Narcos, except better dressed than everybody speaks

930
00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:03,000
Speaker 1: shitty English. Yeah, so this is what I mean, this

931
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:06,239
Speaker 1: is what we're doing. Yeah. So something that I don't

932
00:54:06,239 --> 00:54:09,120
Speaker 1: think a lot of people know about you or doesn't

933
00:54:09,160 --> 00:54:12,640
Speaker 1: really get talked about with you as often as I

934
00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:15,960
Speaker 1: think it should. This might be some two insider, some fanship,

935
00:54:16,400 --> 00:54:20,120
Speaker 1: but um, I think like around two thousand nine, two ten,

936
00:54:20,480 --> 00:54:23,560
Speaker 1: you helped build an orphanage in a school in Afghanistan,

937
00:54:24,200 --> 00:54:27,600
Speaker 1: And like I remember that was like around the time

938
00:54:27,640 --> 00:54:30,480
Speaker 1: that that was happening. I had I'd known about you

939
00:54:30,600 --> 00:54:34,080
Speaker 1: and I had heard your music, but that was when

940
00:54:34,120 --> 00:54:36,200
Speaker 1: I think I was like kind of really becoming a

941
00:54:36,239 --> 00:54:39,120
Speaker 1: fan just of your music just in general. And then

942
00:54:39,160 --> 00:54:42,439
Speaker 1: that I heard about that happening, you know, like that's

943
00:54:42,440 --> 00:54:44,200
Speaker 1: something that you were doing outside of music, I just

944
00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:48,480
Speaker 1: remember thinking, why isn't this like a bigger deal, you

945
00:54:48,520 --> 00:54:51,319
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. So I'm just just did you

946
00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:53,879
Speaker 1: ever end up how how how did that whole thing

947
00:54:54,640 --> 00:54:56,920
Speaker 1: come about? And did you end up ever doing anything

948
00:54:56,960 --> 00:55:01,600
Speaker 1: like that again. Throughout the years since UM, I was

949
00:55:01,640 --> 00:55:05,400
Speaker 1: invited to Afghanistan, as I met these people from an

950
00:55:05,480 --> 00:55:10,360
Speaker 1: organization call me and this is a hard grouping, super

951
00:55:11,520 --> 00:55:14,200
Speaker 1: hard group of young people that were making changes in

952
00:55:14,239 --> 00:55:17,600
Speaker 1: their community. And they approached me after a show about

953
00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:23,360
Speaker 1: UM potentially doing some collaborative UM. I didn't know anything

954
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:27,760
Speaker 1: about orphanage building or anything else at the time school

955
00:55:27,760 --> 00:55:33,960
Speaker 1: building UM. But UM through a painstaking process of learning

956
00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:43,520
Speaker 1: slowly and really exercising the most amount of star power

957
00:55:43,600 --> 00:55:46,040
Speaker 1: that I could at the time to fundraise a good

958
00:55:46,320 --> 00:55:50,200
Speaker 1: hundreds and some five thousand dollars. I had the exact figures,

959
00:55:50,239 --> 00:55:52,960
Speaker 1: but UM, so everything had to be done by the

960
00:55:52,960 --> 00:55:56,000
Speaker 1: book had to be on paper. UM. And then to

961
00:55:56,200 --> 00:56:00,120
Speaker 1: actually go out there and oversee the final stage is

962
00:56:00,160 --> 00:56:08,640
Speaker 1: of construction. UM myself was just life change. UM. I

963
00:56:08,680 --> 00:56:14,239
Speaker 1: think I learned a lot about humanity in general and Afghanistan. UM.

964
00:56:14,440 --> 00:56:17,080
Speaker 1: I think that I learned from the moment I got

965
00:56:17,120 --> 00:56:20,080
Speaker 1: there that the only reason we hold that country is

966
00:56:20,120 --> 00:56:25,120
Speaker 1: because we paid off all of these war lords. UM.

967
00:56:25,239 --> 00:56:29,680
Speaker 1: I think that it's strategically close to China, and people

968
00:56:29,719 --> 00:56:33,160
Speaker 1: forget that too as much. People have forgot that more

969
00:56:33,200 --> 00:56:35,200
Speaker 1: than they forgot that I went there and build an orphanage.

970
00:56:35,760 --> 00:56:39,000
Speaker 1: People forget that we have hundreds of thousands of troops

971
00:56:39,320 --> 00:56:42,640
Speaker 1: at the border of China. Does China have hundreds of

972
00:56:42,680 --> 00:56:45,719
Speaker 1: thousands of troops anywhere near the border of the United States?

973
00:56:45,760 --> 00:56:48,920
Speaker 1: When we talk about Russia being worried about us, you know,

974
00:56:49,320 --> 00:56:53,080
Speaker 1: did we overthrow Canada the way that they overthrow Canada?

975
00:56:53,120 --> 00:56:55,759
Speaker 1: The way we overthrew the Ukraine? You know, just seeing

976
00:56:55,840 --> 00:56:58,959
Speaker 1: the lives, the everyday lives of the people in Afghanistan

977
00:56:59,640 --> 00:57:02,320
Speaker 1: really gave me some hope for the human race because

978
00:57:02,360 --> 00:57:05,799
Speaker 1: I said, for every you know, soft hearted individual that

979
00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:07,600
Speaker 1: I don't think it's gonna make it that I run through,

980
00:57:07,880 --> 00:57:11,320
Speaker 1: uh run into here in the United States. These people

981
00:57:11,400 --> 00:57:14,319
Speaker 1: here that it survived nuclear winter, like these are just

982
00:57:14,400 --> 00:57:18,080
Speaker 1: tough people. But again the reality of what their toughness

983
00:57:18,160 --> 00:57:21,280
Speaker 1: is was brought to mind. You know, I had a

984
00:57:21,320 --> 00:57:26,600
Speaker 1: conversation with a young guy who was a professor, right

985
00:57:27,160 --> 00:57:30,720
Speaker 1: and he was a very soft spoken, very well mannered.

986
00:57:31,120 --> 00:57:36,400
Speaker 1: Legs crossed I email and I asked him. I was like,

987
00:57:36,480 --> 00:57:38,320
Speaker 1: you know, not to be rude. I just wanted to know.

988
00:57:38,920 --> 00:57:40,880
Speaker 1: I said, you know, what did you do during the

989
00:57:40,960 --> 00:57:43,760
Speaker 1: Jahat and he in a very soft spoken man and

990
00:57:43,840 --> 00:57:47,600
Speaker 1: said to me that there are the RPG teams were

991
00:57:47,680 --> 00:57:51,640
Speaker 1: divided into two people, and that one person was the

992
00:57:51,640 --> 00:57:55,920
Speaker 1: shooter and the other carried fourteen or fifteen RPGs in

993
00:57:55,960 --> 00:57:58,960
Speaker 1: a back pack and he had to be really careful

994
00:57:59,120 --> 00:58:02,880
Speaker 1: so he didn't blow And I said, Jesus Christ, I said,

995
00:58:02,880 --> 00:58:05,640
Speaker 1: so what did you do? And he said, I carried

996
00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:08,440
Speaker 1: RPGs for most of the war. And he goes, you know,

997
00:58:08,560 --> 00:58:10,720
Speaker 1: usually people blow up, but I had a really good gunner,

998
00:58:10,800 --> 00:58:14,640
Speaker 1: and you know, and he looked like an average ordinary guy,

999
00:58:15,200 --> 00:58:17,720
Speaker 1: not a heartful person. Is the type of dude you

1000
00:58:17,760 --> 00:58:21,360
Speaker 1: would see in Soho waiting online for a latte. And

1001
00:58:21,400 --> 00:58:24,920
Speaker 1: here he was a battle hardened warrior. And not that

1002
00:58:25,000 --> 00:58:27,000
Speaker 1: he wore it on his shoulder like some badge of

1003
00:58:27,000 --> 00:58:31,080
Speaker 1: honor like people like to put in movies. No, but

1004
00:58:31,200 --> 00:58:34,240
Speaker 1: his lesson of the day was even more horrific. It said,

1005
00:58:34,920 --> 00:58:40,200
Speaker 1: we lost an entire generation of poets, teachers, lawyers, doctors.

1006
00:58:40,800 --> 00:58:42,600
Speaker 1: So anyway, he had the brother just told me about

1007
00:58:42,640 --> 00:58:44,919
Speaker 1: all the people in his society that he had lost

1008
00:58:45,240 --> 00:58:47,919
Speaker 1: in that generation. He said, that's the price of freedom,

1009
00:58:47,960 --> 00:58:51,080
Speaker 1: that's the price of being a quote unquote unconquerable people,

1010
00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:54,880
Speaker 1: you know, of everyone saying, well, the USSR failed here,

1011
00:58:54,920 --> 00:58:59,520
Speaker 1: and England failed here, and uh, the United States is

1012
00:58:59,680 --> 00:59:01,760
Speaker 1: on its way out as well. This is the price

1013
00:59:01,800 --> 00:59:04,640
Speaker 1: we've pay. You know, during the Russian invasion, we lost

1014
00:59:05,160 --> 00:59:08,680
Speaker 1: almost a million people and they lost eighteen thousand people,

1015
00:59:08,960 --> 00:59:12,800
Speaker 1: and we were willing to trade six seven lives for one.

1016
00:59:13,200 --> 00:59:18,200
Speaker 1: But imagine how many people were lost, how many brilliant minds,

1017
00:59:18,240 --> 00:59:24,240
Speaker 1: how many uh, you know, creative intellect intellects were snuffed out.

1018
00:59:24,800 --> 00:59:28,320
Speaker 1: And that's the price of freedom, That's the price of

1019
00:59:28,320 --> 00:59:33,280
Speaker 1: of being unconquered. That's the real price of revolution. If

1020
00:59:33,320 --> 00:59:35,880
Speaker 1: you're in a room full of revolutionaries, just take a

1021
00:59:35,920 --> 00:59:39,080
Speaker 1: look around you and imagine the revolution is over and

1022
00:59:39,320 --> 00:59:41,200
Speaker 1: more than half of them are gone. Because that's how

1023
00:59:41,240 --> 00:59:44,800
Speaker 1: it is. That's the price that you have to pay

1024
00:59:44,880 --> 00:59:47,400
Speaker 1: to change lives, is to put your life up on

1025
00:59:47,560 --> 00:59:50,120
Speaker 1: the line. And it doesn't always have to be in

1026
00:59:50,200 --> 00:59:56,360
Speaker 1: some like messianic sacrificial way. No, Sometimes it's a slow

1027
00:59:56,480 --> 01:00:00,120
Speaker 1: burn of putting your entire life into something so you

1028
01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:02,400
Speaker 1: can move the needle a little bit, because you know

1029
01:00:02,520 --> 01:00:06,320
Speaker 1: that moves everything else. You know that that that was

1030
01:00:06,360 --> 01:00:10,240
Speaker 1: my experience in Afghanistan. Um, it was a success in

1031
01:00:10,320 --> 01:00:13,680
Speaker 1: every sense of the word. Um Did I ever do

1032
01:00:13,720 --> 01:00:16,200
Speaker 1: anything like that? Afterwards? Yeah, I was involved in the

1033
01:00:16,280 --> 01:00:20,120
Speaker 1: program UM called Arms Around Haiti and Hip Hop for Haiti,

1034
01:00:20,400 --> 01:00:22,480
Speaker 1: which came out of s O. B S which is

1035
01:00:22,520 --> 01:00:24,720
Speaker 1: a club in downtown New York where a lot of

1036
01:00:24,760 --> 01:00:31,040
Speaker 1: the staff were Haitian Caribbean um and basically in general

1037
01:00:31,120 --> 01:00:34,360
Speaker 1: we wised raised a ton of money doing a show

1038
01:00:34,840 --> 01:00:39,920
Speaker 1: with um Uh styles p and Uh Cormega and White Cleft.

1039
01:00:40,360 --> 01:00:42,320
Speaker 1: And this is the thing I always tell people, like

1040
01:00:42,680 --> 01:00:46,440
Speaker 1: when when people talk about White Cleft and all that thing,

1041
01:00:47,000 --> 01:00:50,240
Speaker 1: the stuff that happened with Yelle and Haiti, I say,

1042
01:00:50,360 --> 01:00:52,360
Speaker 1: they can't say a bad word to me about that man,

1043
01:00:52,880 --> 01:00:57,320
Speaker 1: because I physically was there and I saw that there

1044
01:00:57,320 --> 01:01:01,520
Speaker 1: were a series of apartment structures that had elapsed and

1045
01:01:01,560 --> 01:01:05,320
Speaker 1: they were like forty children that were homeless and they

1046
01:01:05,320 --> 01:01:09,200
Speaker 1: were finding their parents. And White Cleft had these forty

1047
01:01:09,280 --> 01:01:13,080
Speaker 1: children living in in like the background of the house

1048
01:01:13,120 --> 01:01:16,440
Speaker 1: had like a nursing staff, people doing for other people.

1049
01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:18,760
Speaker 1: I saw people digging people out of the rubble. I

1050
01:01:18,800 --> 01:01:23,120
Speaker 1: saw a human spirit that is just unbroken. As for

1051
01:01:23,200 --> 01:01:26,000
Speaker 1: whatever happened afterwards, I can't answer for that. But when

1052
01:01:26,040 --> 01:01:29,320
Speaker 1: I was down there, I saw people that were really

1053
01:01:29,360 --> 01:01:31,840
Speaker 1: committed to making a change. And what we did is

1054
01:01:31,880 --> 01:01:36,960
Speaker 1: that we purchased two homes for an older woman who

1055
01:01:37,040 --> 01:01:39,080
Speaker 1: had brought some of these orphans into the house. So

1056
01:01:39,080 --> 01:01:42,479
Speaker 1: it wasn't the exact same thing as over there, because

1057
01:01:42,520 --> 01:01:46,640
Speaker 1: obviously we were in the shadow of a lot larger

1058
01:01:46,760 --> 01:01:50,240
Speaker 1: and more well structured organizations. But for whatever we did,

1059
01:01:50,280 --> 01:01:54,600
Speaker 1: you know, we raised you know, but things like dollars

1060
01:01:54,600 --> 01:01:56,440
Speaker 1: at the show, and then we went out there. We

1061
01:01:56,520 --> 01:01:59,480
Speaker 1: got these homes and a bunch of kids had places

1062
01:01:59,760 --> 01:02:02,720
Speaker 1: to sleep, and we had food to feed them. And

1063
01:02:02,800 --> 01:02:05,960
Speaker 1: you know, the other people, I think they're fund uh.

1064
01:02:06,360 --> 01:02:08,840
Speaker 1: One thing that I saw them do is actually they

1065
01:02:09,040 --> 01:02:13,200
Speaker 1: restructured water purifier that was broken, So I saw a

1066
01:02:13,240 --> 01:02:17,600
Speaker 1: real change happening there. There is a incredible amount of corruption,

1067
01:02:17,960 --> 01:02:20,720
Speaker 1: but I think that that is not something that the

1068
01:02:20,800 --> 01:02:23,360
Speaker 1: United States should be ever pointing the finger at Haiti

1069
01:02:23,400 --> 01:02:26,120
Speaker 1: about it. So it's important to recognize these things and

1070
01:02:26,240 --> 01:02:28,760
Speaker 1: put them into perspective. So when people say, oh, Haiti

1071
01:02:28,840 --> 01:02:32,680
Speaker 1: is so corrupt, I say, yeah, sure, up front at

1072
01:02:32,720 --> 01:02:35,040
Speaker 1: the airport, Yeah you're gonna see corruption in general. But

1073
01:02:35,080 --> 01:02:37,160
Speaker 1: here in the United States, how do you think bills

1074
01:02:37,200 --> 01:02:40,680
Speaker 1: get past? Like here, there's plenty of corruption. It's just

1075
01:02:40,760 --> 01:02:43,000
Speaker 1: the stakes are higher and you have to be in

1076
01:02:43,000 --> 01:02:46,360
Speaker 1: the right room. And they don't take money from strangers.

1077
01:02:47,160 --> 01:02:51,520
Speaker 1: That's it. Understand corruption in the United States versus corruption

1078
01:02:51,560 --> 01:02:54,480
Speaker 1: in the third world. They'll take the money from strangers

1079
01:02:54,640 --> 01:02:57,760
Speaker 1: in the United States and in other developed worlds, they'll

1080
01:02:57,760 --> 01:03:00,520
Speaker 1: take your money. They just want to know that you're

1081
01:03:00,560 --> 01:03:02,880
Speaker 1: not a fed or a cop and you're gonna get

1082
01:03:02,880 --> 01:03:05,920
Speaker 1: them in trouble. So they won't take money from strangers.

1083
01:03:06,080 --> 01:03:09,600
Speaker 1: That's it. But if they know you when you in

1084
01:03:09,640 --> 01:03:13,200
Speaker 1: France and you got to connect, don't take your money.

1085
01:03:13,480 --> 01:03:29,200
Speaker 1: If you need something, everything's for sale. There you go. Okay,

1086
01:03:29,240 --> 01:03:33,160
Speaker 1: before I let you go. When I first heard that

1087
01:03:33,240 --> 01:03:36,240
Speaker 1: The Middle Passage was going to be the name of

1088
01:03:36,320 --> 01:03:43,560
Speaker 1: your next album, I'm pretty sure George W. Bush was

1089
01:03:43,600 --> 01:03:48,840
Speaker 1: still president, I dude, so like, what's up for real?

1090
01:03:49,240 --> 01:03:52,520
Speaker 1: The long awaited Middle Passage album? I'm asking that kind

1091
01:03:52,520 --> 01:03:56,280
Speaker 1: of selfishly, as you know, on some immortal technique fanboy ship.

1092
01:03:56,400 --> 01:03:58,959
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm sure that our listeners who enjoy

1093
01:03:59,040 --> 01:04:01,520
Speaker 1: you too, who right now follow you on Instagram and

1094
01:04:01,560 --> 01:04:05,720
Speaker 1: whatnot what's up with that? When's it coming out? Or

1095
01:04:05,760 --> 01:04:08,320
Speaker 1: I don't even want to ask it like that. I'm

1096
01:04:08,320 --> 01:04:11,560
Speaker 1: in the studio tomorrow. I was in the studio UM

1097
01:04:11,600 --> 01:04:15,120
Speaker 1: in California about a week ago with Chino exceled so

1098
01:04:15,160 --> 01:04:17,200
Speaker 1: we finished a song with him and one of the

1099
01:04:17,280 --> 01:04:22,600
Speaker 1: artist UM Global Artist UM. And I think it's just

1100
01:04:22,680 --> 01:04:26,160
Speaker 1: been a process of trying to get it coupled with

1101
01:04:26,200 --> 01:04:30,520
Speaker 1: everything else going on in my life. UM. I wish

1102
01:04:30,560 --> 01:04:33,520
Speaker 1: I could blame it on one thing, like just procrastination

1103
01:04:33,680 --> 01:04:36,720
Speaker 1: or just you know, the issues that I dealt with.

1104
01:04:36,800 --> 01:04:39,320
Speaker 1: But there were there were some technical stuff that we

1105
01:04:39,360 --> 01:04:43,640
Speaker 1: had to do and that involved some people that were

1106
01:04:43,680 --> 01:04:47,440
Speaker 1: on the record that UM no longer be on it

1107
01:04:48,200 --> 01:04:53,479
Speaker 1: see UM. Then I think that for me, having learned

1108
01:04:53,520 --> 01:04:58,280
Speaker 1: the business, I didn't want to sample as much so

1109
01:04:59,400 --> 01:05:04,360
Speaker 1: UM I wanted to use interpolations, so we had to

1110
01:05:04,440 --> 01:05:07,800
Speaker 1: replay a lot of the music. Also, one thing that

1111
01:05:08,000 --> 01:05:10,280
Speaker 1: was important to me about the recording of this record

1112
01:05:11,000 --> 01:05:13,480
Speaker 1: is that I wrote a lot of old songs. UM.

1113
01:05:13,600 --> 01:05:15,240
Speaker 1: Some of the songs I probably five or six of

1114
01:05:15,280 --> 01:05:18,280
Speaker 1: them months actually really old songs that are from the

1115
01:05:18,360 --> 01:05:20,840
Speaker 1: era in which I really started working on this, And

1116
01:05:21,080 --> 01:05:23,240
Speaker 1: I just reworked the concept and of course and a

1117
01:05:23,320 --> 01:05:29,680
Speaker 1: better lyricist than I was back then. Um, But I

1118
01:05:30,200 --> 01:05:33,080
Speaker 1: let people know that when you make a record that's

1119
01:05:33,120 --> 01:05:38,560
Speaker 1: honoring uh an African genocide. So so the album is

1120
01:05:38,560 --> 01:05:41,720
Speaker 1: gonna be like about the middle Pass. Well, there's definitely

1121
01:05:41,800 --> 01:05:43,960
Speaker 1: aspects of that, but things that are related to it

1122
01:05:44,000 --> 01:05:46,440
Speaker 1: as well and how that built the society that we

1123
01:05:46,480 --> 01:05:50,080
Speaker 1: live in now. But when you make a a record

1124
01:05:50,120 --> 01:05:54,160
Speaker 1: about something like that, there has to be a certain

1125
01:05:54,160 --> 01:05:58,760
Speaker 1: amount of respect paid for to the ancestors. So there

1126
01:05:58,760 --> 01:06:05,000
Speaker 1: won't be any y, any N word or the middle words. Um.

1127
01:06:05,320 --> 01:06:09,080
Speaker 1: And as a matter of fact, going forward in my music, UM,

1128
01:06:09,080 --> 01:06:11,120
Speaker 1: we're not gonna have none of that neither. I think

1129
01:06:11,160 --> 01:06:14,240
Speaker 1: that it's not it's not that I'm going to criticize

1130
01:06:14,280 --> 01:06:17,280
Speaker 1: other people who still use it. I think that in

1131
01:06:17,400 --> 01:06:21,600
Speaker 1: terms of me making this record and studying that that

1132
01:06:21,800 --> 01:06:25,600
Speaker 1: that's suffering and that pain and the way it was

1133
01:06:25,640 --> 01:06:32,760
Speaker 1: actually broken down and systematically done and build up the

1134
01:06:32,760 --> 01:06:35,400
Speaker 1: blueprint of something that was done to other people as well.

1135
01:06:36,880 --> 01:06:40,960
Speaker 1: I just feel like it's just an evolution and who

1136
01:06:40,960 --> 01:06:44,160
Speaker 1: I am, and that's why we're not doing that word.

1137
01:06:45,520 --> 01:06:50,320
Speaker 1: So where can um people find all things and Wortal Technique. Oh,

1138
01:06:50,400 --> 01:06:53,680
Speaker 1: you can go to Viper Records dot com. You can

1139
01:06:53,720 --> 01:06:58,080
Speaker 1: find me on the internet at uh tech, Immortal and

1140
01:06:58,200 --> 01:07:05,280
Speaker 1: i G and base Book and then Mortal Tech on Twitter. Yeah. Hey,

1141
01:07:05,280 --> 01:07:09,600
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you for coming on and talking to us. Yeah. Well,

1142
01:07:09,640 --> 01:07:12,320
Speaker 1: I appreciate your time. Thank you very much to you

1143
01:07:12,480 --> 01:07:15,480
Speaker 1: Mac m ran for having me on the show. Um,

1144
01:07:15,520 --> 01:07:20,280
Speaker 1: and I hope that somebody got something from it out there. Oh,

1145
01:07:20,360 --> 01:07:25,120
Speaker 1: I'm sure they will. A Mortal Technique ladies and gentlemen. Hey, please, man,

1146
01:07:25,360 --> 01:07:28,360
Speaker 1: I can't do another two presidential terms for that album.

1147
01:07:28,440 --> 01:07:30,760
Speaker 1: We come on, let's get it once again. Thank you

1148
01:07:30,800 --> 01:07:32,880
Speaker 1: for coming on, man, thank you so much for having

1149
01:07:32,920 --> 01:07:36,280
Speaker 1: me in there. You have it, ladies and gentlemen. That

1150
01:07:36,400 --> 01:07:40,320
Speaker 1: was the one and only Immortal Technique. We're gonna give

1151
01:07:40,320 --> 01:07:43,040
Speaker 1: a big shout out to him for stopping buying having

1152
01:07:43,080 --> 01:07:45,000
Speaker 1: a little chat with us. What we got coming up

1153
01:07:45,040 --> 01:07:48,880
Speaker 1: next week? Man, So UH I recently had the opportunity

1154
01:07:48,920 --> 01:07:51,840
Speaker 1: to speak with Eugene per Year, who is a founily

1155
01:07:51,880 --> 01:07:54,160
Speaker 1: member of the Party of Socialism in Liberation and ran

1156
01:07:54,240 --> 01:07:57,480
Speaker 1: as their vice presidential candidate UH in two thousand eight

1157
01:07:57,480 --> 01:08:01,400
Speaker 1: and two thousand sixteen and it's also a journalist with

1158
01:08:01,760 --> 01:08:05,160
Speaker 1: Breakthrough News UM and he traveled down to Haiti with

1159
01:08:05,480 --> 01:08:09,040
Speaker 1: the Breakthrough News team uh I think maybe a month

1160
01:08:09,200 --> 01:08:11,960
Speaker 1: and a month or so ago to cover the uprising

1161
01:08:12,000 --> 01:08:15,760
Speaker 1: that's happened down there UM recently. It's kind of a

1162
01:08:15,800 --> 01:08:18,920
Speaker 1: simmering unrest that kind of broke into a boil and

1163
01:08:19,040 --> 01:08:23,960
Speaker 1: overflowed in the streets regarding um the president uh Moy's

1164
01:08:24,720 --> 01:08:28,080
Speaker 1: and his refusal to leave office, and you know, corruption

1165
01:08:28,320 --> 01:08:32,720
Speaker 1: and authoritarianism on the rise down in Haiti. So we're

1166
01:08:32,720 --> 01:08:34,800
Speaker 1: gonna talk to Eugene a little bit about his experiences

1167
01:08:34,840 --> 01:08:36,600
Speaker 1: down there and as well to some more of the

1168
01:08:36,640 --> 01:08:39,559
Speaker 1: socio political context in which the uprising has taken place

1169
01:08:40,040 --> 01:08:44,200
Speaker 1: and listen to some dope patient hip hop of course. Yeah,

1170
01:08:44,320 --> 01:08:48,759
Speaker 1: And as for this one, we're done until next week.

1171
01:08:49,360 --> 01:08:51,760
Speaker 1: But you know we can't go out just in silence.

1172
01:08:52,360 --> 01:08:56,120
Speaker 1: Joe my man, can you drop a beat for the people?

1173
01:08:58,560 --> 01:09:14,160
Speaker 1: Oh uh huh uh huh yeah so so so get it.

1174
01:09:15,080 --> 01:09:18,320
Speaker 1: Yeah yeo yo, I got an old history. There's no

1175
01:09:18,479 --> 01:09:22,560
Speaker 1: flinching me. So simply smoked rappers like Rotiss Andy More infamys,

1176
01:09:22,560 --> 01:09:25,559
Speaker 1: your souldiers gonna live with me, folk Liss Andy, explode

1177
01:09:25,600 --> 01:09:28,160
Speaker 1: your whole limousine. If I ruled the world and everything

1178
01:09:28,280 --> 01:09:31,080
Speaker 1: in it, I turn every hospital to a free clinic.

1179
01:09:31,160 --> 01:09:33,800
Speaker 1: We eat spinach, free fellas with a steep sentence, but

1180
01:09:33,840 --> 01:09:36,479
Speaker 1: it didn't really you'll sweeten what you think this is. Look,

1181
01:09:36,600 --> 01:09:39,479
Speaker 1: wait before the nafter disasters are get involved. They're gonna

1182
01:09:39,479 --> 01:09:42,520
Speaker 1: come with ratchets and flatten the city hall, crooking politicians

1183
01:09:42,600 --> 01:09:44,680
Speaker 1: with cashing their pity. Pause. You know what, give a

1184
01:09:44,720 --> 01:09:46,559
Speaker 1: funk up our fashions. We kill the ball. I tell

1185
01:09:46,640 --> 01:09:48,840
Speaker 1: them give me the d like I'm fashioned by Biggie Smalls.

1186
01:09:48,960 --> 01:09:51,200
Speaker 1: Passengers that are shoot in the back of your pretty car.

1187
01:09:51,439 --> 01:09:53,160
Speaker 1: Take him up from the bursts and slumps of the

1188
01:09:53,200 --> 01:09:55,320
Speaker 1: city's all. Put them out in the curve and tell

1189
01:09:55,400 --> 01:09:58,160
Speaker 1: them to get a jaw. These niggas Hollywood trying to

1190
01:09:58,200 --> 01:10:00,200
Speaker 1: get a star. I put my hands in the ash.

1191
01:10:00,320 --> 01:10:02,040
Speaker 1: Light me up in the car. Now, my MoMA and

1192
01:10:02,120 --> 01:10:04,360
Speaker 1: my girls. Trying to get a charge with the cops

1193
01:10:04,479 --> 01:10:07,240
Speaker 1: is all dirty. Nobody respects sage. Hope that you listen.

1194
01:10:07,439 --> 01:10:09,600
Speaker 1: No one forgiving my showing in prison. I hope the

1195
01:10:09,680 --> 01:10:11,639
Speaker 1: decision leads to more of them throwing in the system.

1196
01:10:11,800 --> 01:10:13,640
Speaker 1: Feel like a WindMan in your stofmach You know that

1197
01:10:13,760 --> 01:10:16,080
Speaker 1: it isn't real bad boy like a nigger. Just roll

1198
01:10:16,120 --> 01:10:20,800
Speaker 1: with the pistons. Should that be gentle with myself because

1199
01:10:20,840 --> 01:10:23,200
Speaker 1: the show been. Shouldn't find a megaphone is shouting to

1200
01:10:23,320 --> 01:10:25,680
Speaker 1: the snow class. Should have simply vote every four year.

1201
01:10:25,720 --> 01:10:28,000
Speaker 1: Should have become a lawyer like the system from inside

1202
01:10:28,040 --> 01:10:30,040
Speaker 1: the roo is it's so totally broken that we've gotta

1203
01:10:30,080 --> 01:10:32,040
Speaker 1: stud up. But what the whole thing? Should I present

1204
01:10:32,160 --> 01:10:34,320
Speaker 1: myself to Twitter? Hell, hopeuls it's gonna lend. All I

1205
01:10:34,400 --> 01:10:36,599
Speaker 1: really know is we might have napped that apple still

1206
01:10:36,600 --> 01:10:40,519
Speaker 1: if we have wrapped with Holy Points in North Jades. Hey,

1207
01:10:40,680 --> 01:10:44,360
Speaker 1: this is dope knife, I'm little Franca. We are waiting

1208
01:10:44,439 --> 01:10:49,600
Speaker 1: on reparations. See you next week. Listen to Waiting on

1209
01:10:49,720 --> 01:10:53,120
Speaker 1: Reparations on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

1210
01:10:53,120 --> 01:10:54,439
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts