Speaker 1: You're listening to Waiting on Reparations the production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Yeah, it's waiting on reparations and we're back
Speaker 1: in effect. We had to kick it off this way.
Speaker 1: In case you askeds forget wrappers. The flags try to
Speaker 1: clash with the best package of fresh. They can't keep up,
Speaker 1: so they're asking the ref Now, I'll put you on
Speaker 1: in case you didn't follow it on the show, we
Speaker 1: bridged the gap between hip hop and politics. Acknowledge it.
Speaker 1: If you pass the lesson, then we give you all
Speaker 1: a scholarship war university. But you don't need no hollo tips.
Speaker 1: The prop spit fell on the ground. That's when the
Speaker 1: peace was born, trying to tell the whole thing down.
Speaker 1: Suck your police reform, you got hot takes. I'll start
Speaker 1: to get your ratio to bait me bro dope and
Speaker 1: I heart my reparations. Yo. Uh it's like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like this, and like that, waiting on reparations doesn't
Speaker 1: matter of fact. This is linga franca, dope knife. They
Speaker 1: call me mac why, Hey, yo's good. We're back. Lots
Speaker 1: is good. This dope knife lingua franca and we are
Speaker 1: waiting on reparations. Delayed no further. It is. I'm super
Speaker 1: excited for some of the stuff we got coming up.
Speaker 1: Got some some some dope interviews with some dope people
Speaker 1: who got some interesting new topics and angles that we're
Speaker 1: gonna be approaching this go around. And you know, the
Speaker 1: whole show was first launched during the beginning week of
Speaker 1: the George Floyd Uprising last summer, and so it's oddly
Speaker 1: poetic that here we are beginning our second season of
Speaker 1: the show as things have come full circle with the
Speaker 1: Derek Chauvin verdict having been verticized. I was just about
Speaker 1: to ask if anything happened while we were gone, anything anything,
Speaker 1: nothing ever happens, Please don't kill anyone ever. What was
Speaker 1: your what was your whole feelings in that verdict? Well,
Speaker 1: I think that there was in general, like a clenching
Speaker 1: in the jaw and like a like a like a
Speaker 1: balling of the fists, like for the full hour where
Speaker 1: that I learned that it was coming, um, knowing even
Speaker 1: then like regardless that it didn't really I mean like
Speaker 1: in the grand scheme of things, the work would go
Speaker 1: on and in fact having a sense of fear that
Speaker 1: like if that like a guilty verdict would then allow
Speaker 1: like reformists and liberals to like say, look, the system works,
Speaker 1: we don't need to do anything, like we're good to
Speaker 1: go pack it up and and since then, you know,
Speaker 1: it was reported Axios that members some members of Congress
Speaker 1: have felt that um Derek Chauvin's guilty verdict um has
Speaker 1: lessen the pressure on them to enact criminal justice reform,
Speaker 1: which so my fears are coming true. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, they can think that if they wanted.
Speaker 1: I think the reason that that is not going to
Speaker 1: happen is because the Republicans are just the right wing
Speaker 1: in general feel it's it's almost like they have all
Speaker 1: fully gone in on Chauvin is innocent in the aftermath
Speaker 1: of things, which was I don't want to say shocking,
Speaker 1: it's not the right word, just go with surprising. I
Speaker 1: was surprised that they took that heart of a turn
Speaker 1: because if you remember back during the summer, it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, the Ben Shapiros of the world and the
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson's of the world, where they were using the
Speaker 1: George Floyd uh incident to almost as a tool so
Speaker 1: they could downplay other things, so they would be like, look,
Speaker 1: we all agree that Derek Chauvin is a terrible person,
Speaker 1: that George Floyd was murdered, so you know, there's more
Speaker 1: to Brianna Taylor. It's not you know, they would they
Speaker 1: would use it in that way, and so I was
Speaker 1: expecting them to keep going on that end, kind of
Speaker 1: using this as like they're, hey, this is the one
Speaker 1: the one incident that we all agreed was bad, so
Speaker 1: that proves that we're not racist, or that systemic racism
Speaker 1: doesn't exist because the system worked, yuta, YadA. But no,
Speaker 1: it's like literally the second that the verdict was was read,
Speaker 1: they were like, this is horseship desert sen. I can't
Speaker 1: believe that this is the PC capital culture of them.
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of nuts. It's kind of nuts. But
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the right just from a
Speaker 1: political standpoint. I don't know if going to the Choban
Speaker 1: was innocent is the slogan that they want to be using. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean I kind of hope they're right,
Speaker 1: and that like the whole oh, the Wolke mob scared
Speaker 1: the jury into like you know, you know, denying the
Speaker 1: evidence before them. Like I mean, I like eight, I
Speaker 1: very very like obsessed with and like planned a lot
Speaker 1: of seeds of hoping like the power of the people,
Speaker 1: and like I know it's just one case out of
Speaker 1: the thousand people that are murdered by the police every year. Um,
Speaker 1: but like if millions of people rising up can like
Speaker 1: bring a modicum of justice even if it's not transformational,
Speaker 1: Uh good? But how do we how do you deal
Speaker 1: with the volume of it? Because even now, you know,
Speaker 1: we're sitting here talking about the Chauvin verdict was what
Speaker 1: a week two weeks ago, and we're in the aftermath
Speaker 1: two other high profile police shootings right now. We're waiting
Speaker 1: new body cam footage coming out from Elizabeth Town was
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Elizabe City, North Carolina. Yeah, so that one's supposed
Speaker 1: to be bad. They're on a state of emergency. It's
Speaker 1: like it almost never ends, you know. It's it's kind
Speaker 1: of depressing to think about in that way, especially so
Speaker 1: soon after the verdict was one for for people who
Speaker 1: did take some solace in it and found it as
Speaker 1: like a a small victory and an ocean of bad ship.
Speaker 1: It's like the bad ship just ding. Yeah, like literally
Speaker 1: maybe six or seven minutes after like I watched the
Speaker 1: live stream of the Verdict reading like I learned about
Speaker 1: McCay brian and uh, just a see thing with rage
Speaker 1: that like the like the the casualties we will sustain
Speaker 1: in this like war for like transformation, like where there's
Speaker 1: so many people that are gonna die like in the
Speaker 1: year to come, that's in the years that it may
Speaker 1: take to like transforming system. So I think maybe we
Speaker 1: should tackle the abolish the police or police reform or
Speaker 1: something again in the future. Yeah, I definitely come back
Speaker 1: around to it. We're not going to waste or any
Speaker 1: more time because we have a pretty long one for
Speaker 1: you guys today. We are about to have a long,
Speaker 1: in depth conversation with the one and only rapper activist
Speaker 1: Immortal Technique. I I'm trying real hard not to fanboy
Speaker 1: the funk out right now doing a terrible job blowing
Speaker 1: on you got it a bit. When it was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk to a border just a little bit,
Speaker 1: he was like, what I'm really enjoyed about this conversation
Speaker 1: is really two things. His humility, like his his willingness
Speaker 1: to this like chat for He was just like, yo, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was good, Like let's talk for as long as
Speaker 1: you all want to talk. I'm just kicking it. And
Speaker 1: also is continual, uh we framing of our conversation around
Speaker 1: the contexts and conditions for the things that he does.
Speaker 1: So like when we asked him about like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you built a fucking school in Afghanistan, instead up being like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I went over there and then I met kids, we
Speaker 1: played soccer, and I like, you know, ate the traditional food.
Speaker 1: He was like, yeah, let me talk to you about
Speaker 1: like foreign intervention in the Middle East and like it's
Speaker 1: impacts and like imperialism in the military industrial complex, like
Speaker 1: all is bringing it back to like these larger systems
Speaker 1: that like that that like spur him to do what
Speaker 1: he does. And I found that really really like inspiring
Speaker 1: that Like yeah, I mean obviously from his music you
Speaker 1: can tell like he thinks very systemically, but like he
Speaker 1: don't know if he knows how to turn it off,
Speaker 1: which is kind of fucking sick thing. I really dug is.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not that I had any reason to
Speaker 1: not think that this would be the case, but it's
Speaker 1: just he seems like a really really nice guy, you know,
Speaker 1: like like a genuine nice, good dude. So you know,
Speaker 1: without further ado, we're gonna get into that and we
Speaker 1: will holler at y'all we're gonna have that interview coming
Speaker 1: up for you after the junk. Y know, today we
Speaker 1: are going to be talking with legendary m C Immortal Technique, Immortal,
Speaker 1: how you doing so? On this show, what we try
Speaker 1: to do is bridge the gap between politics and hip
Speaker 1: hop and discuss things that you know, always revolve around
Speaker 1: how those two things intersect and how they affect each
Speaker 1: other vice versa. And you, you know, for better or worse,
Speaker 1: you're known as like the at this point, you're like
Speaker 1: the political rapper, you know what I'm saying. We even
Speaker 1: had a little poll on Instagram that we did when
Speaker 1: we first launched the show when we were like, what
Speaker 1: do y'all think of when you think of political rap
Speaker 1: or political hip hop? And most people said, oh, Mortal,
Speaker 1: oh Mortal, yeah, Mortal Technique. You know. So, my question
Speaker 1: is what influenced you when you were coming up in
Speaker 1: terms of like that specifically not necessarily your rap style
Speaker 1: or your rhyme scheme style, but what MCS or music
Speaker 1: did you look towards when you were writing and you
Speaker 1: were like, oh, that's the angle that I can take
Speaker 1: or that that I should take. UM well, I think
Speaker 1: I had a lot of different influences coming up. One
Speaker 1: of the main ones obviously was care and rest one
Speaker 1: and rock Him. So I grew up listening to people
Speaker 1: that were well versed in the art of lyricism, so
Speaker 1: that was a major influence from day one. Um. I
Speaker 1: was always a big uh. I was always a person
Speaker 1: who was big on lyrics. I had a lot of
Speaker 1: respect for the people that I've seen do it because
Speaker 1: I knew it wasn't easy. Um. I think for me
Speaker 1: as an adult looking back and at this stage in
Speaker 1: my career when I'm out here, you know, still making
Speaker 1: music or trying to put some new stuff out now, UM,
Speaker 1: I just tend to look back and make those same
Speaker 1: kind of assessments about my life before you guys asked
Speaker 1: a question like that. It's just funny. I tend to
Speaker 1: think about these things and wonder, you know, who were
Speaker 1: the individuals who set me on this path. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't just famous rappers, but it was also the example
Speaker 1: of people in my community, um, revolutionary figures, and they
Speaker 1: definitively influenced the style of of music that I have
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't have this style. I wouldn't be doing
Speaker 1: what I do without them, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: even the not just the ones that we remember from
Speaker 1: the past that are all heralded and have movies about them,
Speaker 1: but the ordinary folks that I met in my life
Speaker 1: that I learned, um, not just revolutionary politics from, but
Speaker 1: an understanding of what it was like to exist as
Speaker 1: a person UM who was black or brown in the
Speaker 1: United States of America about twenty or thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: as opposed to going through that childhood experience at like
Speaker 1: the nineties, UM in my twenties in the early two
Speaker 1: thousand's when I was paroled. So I just enjoyed that
Speaker 1: that different wealth of knowledge that was bestowed upon me.
Speaker 1: But I would say in terms of hip hop, it
Speaker 1: was those two that I learned and was influenced by,
Speaker 1: and then later on in life also you know, obviously
Speaker 1: the Panthers and Malcolm, but also Ma Mia bou jamal Um.
Speaker 1: I feel like patrous Lamumba is a person who's overlooked
Speaker 1: a lot. And I think, UM sometimes when we look
Speaker 1: at indigenous figures of revolution um or whitewashed and written
Speaker 1: out of history. So it's important to go back and
Speaker 1: talk to those indigenous people about what their struggles actually
Speaker 1: were before it gets redefined to us by you know,
Speaker 1: mainstream society, which will paint something very you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. They don't really give you the opportunity to
Speaker 1: represent yourself in the best way, which is why I
Speaker 1: guess I always wanted to do independent music. I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to you a little bit about your verse
Speaker 1: on are the Ruggomans Who Do We Trust? Which came
Speaker 1: out in January on the track Your Reference thinkers like
Speaker 1: Leo Strauss and Robert Michaels, and one of our listeners
Speaker 1: wanted to know if there was any early revolutionary writing
Speaker 1: that inspired your own writing. And I'm personally also curious
Speaker 1: what you've been reading these days. Um uh. I think that, um,
Speaker 1: what I enjoy reading, or have always enjoyed reading, is
Speaker 1: a very very detailed historical account of how things were.
Speaker 1: And I think that it's one thing to talk about
Speaker 1: revolutionary politics and ideology, but unless you can define the
Speaker 1: time period upon which it happens, I think that is
Speaker 1: essential to revolutionary change. For example, um, we'll all love
Speaker 1: boxing in the UFC, but one of the first times
Speaker 1: in which we know that this was done to people.
Speaker 1: A gladiatorial arts was born. The birth of it was
Speaker 1: during the Servile Wars in the Roman Republic, not the
Speaker 1: Empire yet the Republic where everything was supposed to be fixed,
Speaker 1: and there was a certain area that refused conscription, and
Speaker 1: so the survivors of this revolt were made to fight
Speaker 1: to the death against UM. Everyone now sees this in
Speaker 1: a different, you know, format on tele vision in one
Speaker 1: way or another. But just remember that the Third Servile
Speaker 1: War was where we heard the name Spartacus, which is
Speaker 1: the only gladiator gladiator from ancient Rome that people remember, really,
Speaker 1: I mean, we struggled to find another one. But it
Speaker 1: was after that that the Roman Republic collapsed within fifties
Speaker 1: and became an empire that was more efficient but less
Speaker 1: free in many ways than people thought. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, the degree of freedom that the Republic bestowed
Speaker 1: upon people um wasn't seen by individuals on the bottom
Speaker 1: tiers of that society. And we see that reflection in
Speaker 1: the United States of America, and music is just a
Speaker 1: reflection of that, and people who want to give that
Speaker 1: a voice in our society or or or remind individuals
Speaker 1: of what we've gone through and everything has its place.
Speaker 1: So you know, I always tell people, yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: the person that you're most likely going to hear banging
Speaker 1: in the background of the stre club. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, the music that I make is not club music,
Speaker 1: so to speak. Sure there's some stuff that's catchy that
Speaker 1: moves you, but it was made to to generate thought,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. In the same way a
Speaker 1: book has flashy metaphors and great concepts, but unless there's
Speaker 1: a point to it all, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Unless there's a plot, then what the hell did I
Speaker 1: just read for four hundred pages? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Where where is this going? So I think that's always
Speaker 1: been something that I've emphasized, and now I'm doing a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of other stuff scriptwriting. Um I'm reading for
Speaker 1: a couple of parts that people have asked me to
Speaker 1: come aboard. I'm not an actor by trade, but I
Speaker 1: guess they think I look scary and I know how
Speaker 1: to I can. I can memorize like ten pages and
Speaker 1: a day and it's super easy. And I had just
Speaker 1: literally got aboard with this type of stuff. So basically
Speaker 1: just that, um, I was in a extend the stuff
Speaker 1: that I've been doing musically, two books and film, not
Speaker 1: just for adults but for kids, which is weird because
Speaker 1: you've got to relearn how to rhyme like a kid,
Speaker 1: which is funny. You've got to make it the most
Speaker 1: basic format possible, which I'm not used to doing. I'm
Speaker 1: used to taking the most complicated words and phrases and
Speaker 1: putting them together, so you know what I mean. It's
Speaker 1: like asking someone who's a chess player to play checkers.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're a chess player, man, you're great
Speaker 1: at chess. But a checkers player, right, white people off
Speaker 1: the board and the checkers because it's a different game.
Speaker 1: That's how you see, you know, boxing, m m m a.
Speaker 1: Some people are really good at one sport, Please don't
Speaker 1: get in the other because it's a different game, right,
Speaker 1: I remind people. Um. So, something that we're interested in
Speaker 1: is the concept of using like hip hop as a
Speaker 1: tool for education, UM or even activism or organizing. What
Speaker 1: are your thoughts on that? Um? I think you could
Speaker 1: definitely say hip hop could be used, but any musical
Speaker 1: form I think could be used. And I think what
Speaker 1: I've discovered on this journey of writing the middle Passage
Speaker 1: is that that's exactly what the world before we call
Speaker 1: it the New World or or European colonialism from the
Speaker 1: fourteen to the eighteen centuries, nineteenth century in many places.
Speaker 1: But I think when we look at that, all forms
Speaker 1: of learning were done through a musical system. Even now, Um,
Speaker 1: none of us learned the alphabet through a numerical system,
Speaker 1: although in some languages letters have a significant number attached
Speaker 1: to him, but all of us learned the alphabet A, B, C, D,
Speaker 1: very as a as a musical skain Um. Everything that
Speaker 1: was taught to us as a society was done through music.
Speaker 1: One of the most riveting things that was brought to
Speaker 1: my attention, that is just the truth people have known
Speaker 1: for a long time but escaped me, was that there
Speaker 1: were tens of thousands of individual African instruments that were
Speaker 1: destroyed during the course of the Middle Passage, and these
Speaker 1: were the rhythms, these were the songs, These were the
Speaker 1: lessons that were taught to young people about what it
Speaker 1: means to be a warrior, what it means to be
Speaker 1: a man, what it means to be a person. Where
Speaker 1: your places in life, where your places with your people,
Speaker 1: where your places in the universe. Yes, abstract concepts like
Speaker 1: that existed very much, so do people. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: individuals were just ignorant living in huts like a stereotype
Speaker 1: would have people think. No, these were very very well
Speaker 1: developed societies for the people that had the means to
Speaker 1: get to them, which is the flaw that they inherently had,
Speaker 1: which is how they became colonized so easily. You know,
Speaker 1: they when you have a pyramid system, you just have
Speaker 1: to knock over the head of the snake, so to speak.
Speaker 1: That's how they thought of and that's what you do
Speaker 1: to any society. You say, Okay, I have a pyramid
Speaker 1: that I wanted to defeat. If you knock off the
Speaker 1: head of the snake, and everything else comes down. Which
Speaker 1: is why people have misunderstood American politics for so many
Speaker 1: is you want to knock go off the head of
Speaker 1: the snake. But now you're facing the hydra. You're not
Speaker 1: just facing colonialism through one means, you're facing uh culmination
Speaker 1: of that religion which paid plays a heavy role in
Speaker 1: the colonization, not just for Africans and Indigenous people. That's
Speaker 1: a laughing mythology that I think needs to be confronted no,
Speaker 1: it's done wonders to enslave white people as well and
Speaker 1: have them work against their own interests and work against
Speaker 1: workers rights, which again you're dealing with the clergy. The
Speaker 1: clergy are uh beyond the bourgeoire institution. The clergy manipulate
Speaker 1: in every society a bourgeoisre institution and also uh, the
Speaker 1: workers of all institutions, because all of them have some
Speaker 1: faith so to speak. There are very few people in
Speaker 1: our society when we talk about a global a community
Speaker 1: that are atheists. I mean, I love y'all when I
Speaker 1: get to meet y'all out there, whatever y'all are watching,
Speaker 1: the no disrespect. I even took my camera off for y'all.
Speaker 1: I don't do that for nobody. I love to talk
Speaker 1: to you all because I think it's an interesting philosophical conversation.
Speaker 1: But again, the vast majority of the planet believes in God,
Speaker 1: and someone else has understood that for thousands of years,
Speaker 1: and it was just really smart to be able to
Speaker 1: manipulate it to create the bastions of the society we
Speaker 1: have now. And that's just what, oh my god, they
Speaker 1: imagine we could talk about all the rest of them,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Gender politics, men, women, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Uh, foreign policy. Sorry, So I'm
Speaker 1: glad you touched on like the diversity but also in
Speaker 1: some certain aspects the uniformity of like global cultures with
Speaker 1: regards to religion. You know, millions and billions people across
Speaker 1: the world believe in religion, but do so differently. And
Speaker 1: in recent episodes, we tried to shift our spotlight from
Speaker 1: North American issues towards a more global perspective, highlighting the
Speaker 1: work and a recent incarceration of Marxist Lenningist rapper blow
Speaker 1: A Cell. We talked about the political life of Ugandan
Speaker 1: rapper turned presidential candidate Bobby Wine. Um and in your
Speaker 1: own music and activists, and we've often highlighted the struggles
Speaker 1: against colonialism, particularly global South. Um and I recently, I guess,
Speaker 1: like last year I was talking with Antela Davis about
Speaker 1: the importance of international solidarity. And I often have this
Speaker 1: on my mind, you know, working in local politics myself,
Speaker 1: when people get frustrated, when they're trying to get like
Speaker 1: they street paved, like not necessarily seeing the relevance of
Speaker 1: like what's going on in Haiti or what's going on
Speaker 1: in Bolivia. So UM, I just wanted to ask you,
Speaker 1: what do you think we can achieve through displays of
Speaker 1: international solidarity, both as musicians and as activists. Well, first,
Speaker 1: I would say that you don't need to have a
Speaker 1: degree in politics to to understand these things. For anyone
Speaker 1: out there who thinks that we're asking the impossible of people, um,
Speaker 1: when we asked them to be aware, there are plenty aware.
Speaker 1: You know. You see people who live in a jungle
Speaker 1: who don't live in a big city, they're very aware
Speaker 1: different things. You live people who live in a big
Speaker 1: city and they jump through traffic the way I do,
Speaker 1: like it's nothing. And someone else who doesn't live in
Speaker 1: a city where there's just gigantic things coming back and
Speaker 1: forth at eighty miles an hour wouldn't get that. They
Speaker 1: think you're risking your life, but to me, it's as
Speaker 1: simple as running through whatever. Um. I think that there's
Speaker 1: been this sort of um primitive verse uh futuristic um
Speaker 1: ideology that's been pushed on us that the past or
Speaker 1: that the things that we've encountered as part of our
Speaker 1: struggle in our society are primitive and this is the
Speaker 1: new world where everything is futuristic, but it's just organized barbarism.
Speaker 1: I remind people that's what your face when you face
Speaker 1: imperialism and when you talk about the South or when
Speaker 1: you talk about Africa, where you talk about South America Asia.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, whether it's a person
Speaker 1: of color or a white person or any other person
Speaker 1: in charge of a society, it's just about the resources.
Speaker 1: You know. The ideas that all of Latin America was
Speaker 1: some communist haven for years, No, it wasn't that. It
Speaker 1: was just that those were the only two things that
Speaker 1: people were serving, pepsi and coke. You know, whenever a
Speaker 1: leftist society came into power, they immediately consolidated um um,
Speaker 1: the different political parties of the left that existed and
Speaker 1: said no, we're gonna be one party now. And when
Speaker 1: the right wing came in, it was the same thing.
Speaker 1: They would consolidate everything that the ideology is secondary, the
Speaker 1: control of the resources is first, and that again gives
Speaker 1: way to the listen. I don't want to give you
Speaker 1: guys quotes that are gonna go viral, but just here's
Speaker 1: the problem with America. People are are fighting imaginary socialism
Speaker 1: and they don't know what socialism is. It's just workers
Speaker 1: controlling the means of their production and everything else is
Speaker 1: fancy dressing. And if people don't understand that, then they're
Speaker 1: the ones that are being shorted. If they want to
Speaker 1: talk about how taxes are legal. Yes, absolutely, all these
Speaker 1: other things that we have in common with other political
Speaker 1: fields I can draw truth from. You know, if I
Speaker 1: run into a religious Christian person and tells me, you know,
Speaker 1: America is the Satanist society, I say yes, but not
Speaker 1: because women have access to healthcare. It's because you've killed
Speaker 1: so many children in the rock and you have no
Speaker 1: idea about that. You know. Anything left of hunting the
Speaker 1: homeless for sport is communism and that's but that's the
Speaker 1: truth of what we see in our society. And the
Speaker 1: truth is that it's not that we have to worship
Speaker 1: one political ideology or the other. You can see the
Speaker 1: truth in either one because everything comes out in the wash.
Speaker 1: And when there's cold heart facts, what what did the
Speaker 1: policy produce? You know? What did it make? You know?
Speaker 1: Has trickled down economics ever worked? No? You know, has
Speaker 1: has violent overthrow of a society worked to some degree? Yes?
Speaker 1: You know? Is that the only way that a society
Speaker 1: can change? No? So I mean I think that that's
Speaker 1: the real question. You know, their early civil rights organizers
Speaker 1: had to ask fundamental questions to themselves. They said, you know,
Speaker 1: do as black people, is the point to have a
Speaker 1: country of our own inside America? Get along with white
Speaker 1: folks and make them respect the laws that make them
Speaker 1: get along with us, or go back to Africa. This
Speaker 1: is this was the Garvey movement. That was the idiot,
Speaker 1: that was the focus that he was confronted with. And
Speaker 1: you know, being a Harlem might I learned this history
Speaker 1: very early that these were the existential questions that people
Speaker 1: struggle with. And you can still find a society that
Speaker 1: never got a definitive answer for a lot of people
Speaker 1: because they say, well, what the hell am I doing here?
Speaker 1: I see people relocating back to to to to Africa
Speaker 1: because there's economic opportunity over there. I see people leaving
Speaker 1: the East Coast going to the South saying, hey, you
Speaker 1: know what, there's just uh easier way to set up
Speaker 1: a business here. People are in general leaving the United
Speaker 1: States because they don't see it as the hedgemonic power
Speaker 1: that it was. Does that mean it's the end of it? No,
Speaker 1: um empires don't die quickly that way, But I think
Speaker 1: that the writing is on the world for the rest
Speaker 1: of the world, that the day that of America just
Speaker 1: being able to do business however she wants to around
Speaker 1: the world is gone. And you know, human beings again
Speaker 1: back to square one, have to deal with those resources.
Speaker 1: You know, where can we get them cheaply? Who can
Speaker 1: we get them to make us for Let's set up
Speaker 1: a global society so we can buy them with pieces
Speaker 1: of nothing on a computer. It used to be pieces
Speaker 1: of paper which meant nothing. Before that it was actually
Speaker 1: metal which was worth something. And now we have numbers
Speaker 1: on the screen, glitches in the computer. So um, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a lot to impact. But going along with
Speaker 1: that line, how do you feel about like America's current
Speaker 1: political on it? Because like I, for one, I grew
Speaker 1: up I mean I'm I'm from Liberia and I grew
Speaker 1: up in Africa most of my childhood, so I mean,
Speaker 1: I know tribalism when I see it. And we all
Speaker 1: know that Democrat Republican there are a lot of similarities
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. We all know Biden is
Speaker 1: a center right Republican with a D next to his
Speaker 1: name at the end of the day. But with that said,
Speaker 1: there is like a clear fascist bent with America's right
Speaker 1: wing right now, and it just from from from my
Speaker 1: gut and from the way things are looking, it's not
Speaker 1: looking like that's gonna let up anytime soon. How do
Speaker 1: you feel about that? Well, with respect to the right wing,
Speaker 1: I think what we're we all need to keep in
Speaker 1: perspective is that, regardless of how we think they're fascist,
Speaker 1: these people see themselves as fighting evil. And I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna say the ones that are part of a religious
Speaker 1: society that secretly go home and and shake their hands
Speaker 1: together and say, ohaha, look what I've accomplished, like I
Speaker 1: have to believe in this ship publicly, but it's all
Speaker 1: bullshit to me. They're gonna be people like that in
Speaker 1: every ideology around the world. But a vast majority of
Speaker 1: right wing Christians believe in something called the Seven Mountains,
Speaker 1: and the Seven Mountains the theory based on the reclaiming
Speaker 1: of institutions in the United States, education, um, you know, entertainment,
Speaker 1: all these things. The Seven Mountains are the retaking of
Speaker 1: the soul so to speak, of the United States that
Speaker 1: they believe has been destroyed. Now they found a convenient
Speaker 1: target with liberalism. The idea that all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: this this idea that somehow connected to the left or
Speaker 1: it's far left or no, I mean Donald Trump beat
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton running with far left talking points, so to speak,
Speaker 1: far left right? What's far left confronting the United States
Speaker 1: about having these horrible predatory relationships with other countries that
Speaker 1: produce clothes. God, I are Republicans talking about that now?
Speaker 1: And this is what it fostered, having no gatekeepers to
Speaker 1: to knowledge. So you have elites complaining about other elites.
Speaker 1: You know, look at Brexit. The people that were pushing Brexit,
Speaker 1: we're talking about elites, and they went to to Exeter,
Speaker 1: they went to they went to Oxford, and these are
Speaker 1: the people talking about these elites want to take everything
Speaker 1: from you. No, it's just that you garner the benefit
Speaker 1: of a global society. And now people want people to
Speaker 1: pay their due. And I think that's what individuals have
Speaker 1: a problem with. You know, why does Hades still have
Speaker 1: to keep money in a French bank? Why do West
Speaker 1: African nations still have to do that? That that's absurd.
Speaker 1: Um In the moment they do a deal with the
Speaker 1: Chinese or with Russia, they're called communists and they're alienated.
Speaker 1: But again it just goes back to those resources. That's it.
Speaker 1: And and again I hate and bring it back full
Speaker 1: circle to that all the time, but that essentially what
Speaker 1: it is. So I mean, do you have like a
Speaker 1: sense that we're coming towards um, if not just in
Speaker 1: the US, just globally, do you think we're coming towards
Speaker 1: uh reckoning of their being limited resources on this earth? Um?
Speaker 1: I think for certain things, yeah, I think people are
Speaker 1: going to have to deal with a lot of renewable
Speaker 1: stuff for a while if we can get the society
Speaker 1: to reboot in that way. Um. A lot of people
Speaker 1: thought that was what the pandemic was about, but no,
Speaker 1: it was just about creating. Uh. You know, listen, I'm
Speaker 1: not one of these people that think it's fake. Please no, listen.
Speaker 1: I didn't go that far out there in my time
Speaker 1: away from making music. But I definitely think the government
Speaker 1: overplayed its hand in controlling things, and you know, took
Speaker 1: advantage of this time, which is exactly what governments do.
Speaker 1: I mean, when people talk about Russia or China interfering
Speaker 1: in our elections, I say, if they could, they would.
Speaker 1: If we could intervene in China, Russia's elections. We absolutely wouldn't.
Speaker 1: We have intervened in elections around the world. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's where the pearl clutching gets crazy for me, because I,
Speaker 1: as a student of history, just look at it and say,
Speaker 1: you know, are we gonna have a giant civil war?
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know, but I know that if
Speaker 1: we do, it will be just to the benefit of
Speaker 1: global powers like China, Russia, any emerging African union or
Speaker 1: Latin American union that comes out. You know, we're talking
Speaker 1: again about a global society, and and and that will
Speaker 1: give birth to other superpowers, the ones that we've kept down.
Speaker 1: You know, it's no secret that the war in between
Speaker 1: I Rock and Iran destabilized both of those countries to
Speaker 1: the benefit of the other superpowers around them, because then
Speaker 1: they've flowed in and said, well, now you have to
Speaker 1: become dependent on me and and and that's an interesting
Speaker 1: way of looking at it. But before it was the
Speaker 1: Baptists in in in in Iraq who were supported by Russia.
Speaker 1: Now you know you have the Iranians that are being
Speaker 1: supported by RESIS. So again, you know, these these are
Speaker 1: the politics that people have in the beginning of our
Speaker 1: fight against ISIS it was the Kurds who were on
Speaker 1: the front line, and then you know, two years later
Speaker 1: they were abandoned and thrown to the wayside. And that's
Speaker 1: politics and that's business, and you know, I think people
Speaker 1: get emotionally attached to one side because it represents something
Speaker 1: that you know, it is intertwined with all of their
Speaker 1: personal relationships. So it's difficult to ask a person to
Speaker 1: change their politics. You're asking them to change all of
Speaker 1: their friends, You're asking them to change all of their associations.
Speaker 1: You're not just asking them to change their opinion, You're
Speaker 1: asking them to change who they are, which is why
Speaker 1: it's very difficult for people to confront some of the
Speaker 1: things that they've been told because their reality and their
Speaker 1: their identity rely on those beliefs to be true. You know. Now,
Speaker 1: when you get something as ridiculous is like trailer park
Speaker 1: scientology Q and non bullshit that people buy into, then
Speaker 1: you become one of the people that has to recreate
Speaker 1: these fantasies about, oh my god, when is this overthrow
Speaker 1: actually coming? Just like a person who gets sucked into
Speaker 1: another fantasy and gets asked about, Okay, when is this
Speaker 1: great change coming from our progressive society. Where are these
Speaker 1: these these platforms they keep running on that they keep
Speaker 1: promising us this is the last election before America goes
Speaker 1: into fascism, And the rest of us are like, okay,
Speaker 1: but you're offering a diet coke version of that. You're
Speaker 1: not actually offering the change because that requires you to
Speaker 1: not be funded by major corporations and they need that money.
Speaker 1: There you go, I feel like some of what you
Speaker 1: had to say about like are reckoning with the finite
Speaker 1: resources we have? And then prettily when you touched upon, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, US intervention in various forms of foreign interntion
Speaker 1: in places like Iraq and kind of started making me
Speaker 1: think a little bit about I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: read Naomi Nami clients the shock Doctrine, um, but so yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but sort of what she has to say about disaster capitalism,
Speaker 1: and that brought me to my next question about the
Speaker 1: way that a lot of Americans have seen, you know,
Speaker 1: outside of like what happened in two thousand five and
Speaker 1: down in with Katrina, the privatization of various relief efforts
Speaker 1: as a way for people to make money off of
Speaker 1: death and no economic forcarity. I think on a massive
Speaker 1: scale across the country. We've been seeing people come to
Speaker 1: reckon with the reality of disaster capitalism through the pandemic.
Speaker 1: As you know, billionaires gained seventies six billion dollars in
Speaker 1: wealth over the course of the pandemic as more people
Speaker 1: are shopping with Uber and Amazon. Meanwhile, the rest of
Speaker 1: us can't pay our rent. And this I think has
Speaker 1: also accelerated some radicalization among the public. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: just seeing are the government's failure to the well not
Speaker 1: really failure, the government's prior ization of the economy over
Speaker 1: human life, and things like that. In addition to you know,
Speaker 1: the uprising last summer increasing people's awareness of racial injustice
Speaker 1: and the reality of the police state. Um And we've
Speaker 1: also seen a lot of artists who were previously a
Speaker 1: political suddenly having an opinion about what's going on with
Speaker 1: mixed results. So I wanted to ask your opinion on
Speaker 1: these trends about you know, people's radicalization during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: as well as the artistic response we've seen, as well
Speaker 1: as how COVID has impacted your activism and artistry personally.
Speaker 1: I think for me, one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: formed the charity Rebel Larbie runs is because during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: my sales actually went up. Obviously I couldn't tour because
Speaker 1: there was no touring and you couldn't even be indoors
Speaker 1: many places, but online the following that I had UH
Speaker 1: continued to come out and droves and support, and I
Speaker 1: had new people are buying UM from all over the
Speaker 1: world that wanted to hear that kind of music UM.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, there's an old saying to
Speaker 1: to who much has given, much is expected. And I
Speaker 1: thought to myself, if I'm doing good, let me just
Speaker 1: spread the well. Make sure people know that I want
Speaker 1: to take care of the community. I want to make
Speaker 1: sure harlem Is is doing well. And also because during
Speaker 1: this time, I went to the grocery store my parents
Speaker 1: and I actually witnessed one of those little mini riots
Speaker 1: over like toilet paper and other essentials. And I said,
Speaker 1: this is a very very low intensity version of what
Speaker 1: really a lack of resources will have. And it did
Speaker 1: show me. It showed I saw rich people that you know,
Speaker 1: normally wouldn't shove someone else for lettuce and kale and
Speaker 1: milk and and other resources do terrible things to one another,
Speaker 1: which is why I think it reinforces to me the
Speaker 1: absolute disgusted I have in a society that blames poor
Speaker 1: people for their own conditions. Let's see you not eat
Speaker 1: for a few days, We'll see how you act in line.
Speaker 1: How about this, Let your child not have dinner the
Speaker 1: night before. We'll see how he does on the test
Speaker 1: the next day. These things that people take for granted
Speaker 1: when they have their bellies full, and I'm no exception,
Speaker 1: so when I see things like that, obviously I've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of terrible things in my life. But I
Speaker 1: think what that tuned me into is once you get
Speaker 1: over the initial trauma of what you've seen, you digest Wow,
Speaker 1: this is just how the world works. And you know
Speaker 1: it's not a question of you wanting to change the
Speaker 1: nature of human beings. Sure you can, you just have
Speaker 1: to painstakingly go through each human being. I tell people,
Speaker 1: if you want to make people do something quickly fast,
Speaker 1: sure you can brainwash them into some political movement, and
Speaker 1: that has had positive and negative results for people. But
Speaker 1: making real hard change is a community change. It's a
Speaker 1: small scale change that first it takes years to build,
Speaker 1: and what makes it so vulnerable is that the people
Speaker 1: who have the greatest vision for it are always the
Speaker 1: ones that are ripped down and destroyed, and there is
Speaker 1: no place holder. And if you rely on those people
Speaker 1: to bring you through your your your struggle and your fight,
Speaker 1: you realize how fallible a human being can actually be.
Speaker 1: And you see that many of the heroes that we've
Speaker 1: had throughout our history have done things that would make
Speaker 1: them definitively canceltable in our society today. That is just
Speaker 1: like wow, okay. But at the same time, when you
Speaker 1: look at them for what they've done and and what
Speaker 1: they partook in, just being able to have that that
Speaker 1: armament of knowledge I think is necessary whenever you meet
Speaker 1: someone who's so entrenched in their own politics that you
Speaker 1: just take them out of it. I had friends of
Speaker 1: mine I go down in Miami. Good God, you know,
Speaker 1: I have arguments to people down there, but I always
Speaker 1: tell them and we laugh because I tell if you
Speaker 1: don't the difference between George Washington and Czech of Bara,
Speaker 1: they're both the fathers of their country. They both killed
Speaker 1: prisoners of war, but George Washington actually owned slaves and
Speaker 1: Chegivara just said a bunch of racist ship when he
Speaker 1: was in Africa because he was frustrated with how things
Speaker 1: were going, and he grew up as a white Latino
Speaker 1: in a really privileged fucking society that he wouldn't have
Speaker 1: even been able to acknowledge as much politics as he
Speaker 1: had with everything else. So where do you want me
Speaker 1: to go with all this? I mean that when you
Speaker 1: bring stuff like that into the conversation, it just forces
Speaker 1: people to say, all right, let me just take a
Speaker 1: hard look at my society. What what? How did everything
Speaker 1: get to be this way? You know, why why is
Speaker 1: the world this way? And you know, there's no one
Speaker 1: simple reason, there's no one simple uh riddle that when
Speaker 1: it's answered, is gonna give you all the answers to life.
Speaker 1: But there are small victories that you can gain. And
Speaker 1: I think that's why people look for the quick and easy.
Speaker 1: You know, mac that that's why people want the fast
Speaker 1: solution Mariah to politics, which is always okay, let's build
Speaker 1: a movement really quickly get something we want. But the
Speaker 1: American left big failure is, you know, we want a
Speaker 1: bigger slice of the pie, never asking whose hands are
Speaker 1: in that pie? How many children were working for you know,
Speaker 1: twenty hours on a conveyor belt to make that pie.
Speaker 1: You know what's actually the ingredients of the pie? You
Speaker 1: want a slice of this? What if America goes to
Speaker 1: ship now you want equity in the company? What are
Speaker 1: you doing? Again? Back to Marcus Garvey's existential question for
Speaker 1: black and brown people, do you want to country in
Speaker 1: your own? Do you want to go back to where
Speaker 1: you to where people stole you from? Or do you
Speaker 1: want to just get along with the people here? That's
Speaker 1: it and again to me, I would rather live with
Speaker 1: human beings. I definitely see the right wing in Europe
Speaker 1: is different than the right wing in America because there's
Speaker 1: much more of an anti multiculturalist society vibe there, but
Speaker 1: that's definitely growing here in the United States. I think
Speaker 1: the difference is that, you know, the religious right makes
Speaker 1: it uh or encourages there to be black and brown
Speaker 1: people that are conservative, to give not just the movement
Speaker 1: I would say, dressing, no, but to actually give it
Speaker 1: foot soldiers and to give it believers and donors. You know,
Speaker 1: Latino conservatives. I laughed, and people talk about, oh, I
Speaker 1: can't believe Mexicans voted for Trump, and I say, well,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? A lot of Latinos have
Speaker 1: grown up in a very conservative society. That's what Reagan's
Speaker 1: vision was that a lot of presidents before Trump were
Speaker 1: very I wouldn't say better than Democrats, but relative to
Speaker 1: the way Democrats were deporting people, gave more opportunities for
Speaker 1: individuals to be there, and not just Cubans. But that's
Speaker 1: just an unfortunate reality that we see. And the top
Speaker 1: deport the top deporters have lately been Democrats. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: when you look at the way the left has poised
Speaker 1: itself as this huge defender of immigrants, and that's really
Speaker 1: hasn't been what it's been, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's like the show I Love My Brother Iced Tea
Speaker 1: is on a great show, s vu Man, wonderful show.
Speaker 1: But go report a sex crime in New York. You're
Speaker 1: not gonna get smilet detectives. Sometimes people who care you
Speaker 1: find real human beings who are swamped with eighty cases,
Speaker 1: a hundred cases. They don't know what to say in
Speaker 1: many situations, I don't know. I think that for what
Speaker 1: I can control, for what I can put out there. UM,
Speaker 1: my message to people has always been, um, keep asking
Speaker 1: those questions that make people uneasy, you know, make sure
Speaker 1: that if we do believe in a multicultural society like
Speaker 1: I mentioned, and that we don't allow a right or
Speaker 1: a left wing um shove because of a nine eleven effect. Um,
Speaker 1: we don't allow that to interrupt the idea that listen,
Speaker 1: we're just human beings with different female types. You know,
Speaker 1: if if you read I think you asked me at
Speaker 1: the very beginning, what book I was reading? Um? Or
Speaker 1: is it? I think it's DA. I was rereading D
Speaker 1: Civilization Barbarism, and I thought it was great because it
Speaker 1: talked about the early uh kind of society that human
Speaker 1: beings lived in when they were not the dominant speecies
Speaker 1: on the planet, when they were just trying to hold
Speaker 1: it together. And the whole idea that people say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: capitalism is this futuristic thing and socialism is a primitive principle,
Speaker 1: And I say, well, that primitive principle is about as
Speaker 1: primitive as it is making fire, and that's what everybody needs.
Speaker 1: People still need fire today, you moron, like the primitive
Speaker 1: principle of sharing and having some communal society where people
Speaker 1: have a game for what they put in. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: have a diet coke version of the at with you know, uh,
Speaker 1: social security that it's probably gonna be canceled. UM and
Speaker 1: the other government programs that don't really address the need
Speaker 1: for a lot of people that are left out. I
Speaker 1: hate the backtrack, but you mentioned the Rebel Army runs earlier.
Speaker 1: Could you explain to people exactly what that is and
Speaker 1: what y'all do? Oh, but thank you. It's something that
Speaker 1: I modeled off the UM the Black Panther Parties, free
Speaker 1: breakfast program UM. But something that I always remember it
Speaker 1: is one of my o G s was um. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was from the Black Panthers. But one of the
Speaker 1: things that I learned, God rest his soul. He passed away.
Speaker 1: His name is Elder Brother smith so all the o
Speaker 1: G Black Panthers know him. Um. But he explained something
Speaker 1: to me when I was a kid, and he said,
Speaker 1: never forget that the Black Panthers were not these adults
Speaker 1: that you see play them on TV. These were It's
Speaker 1: the reason that I was there as not because I
Speaker 1: was going to be a Panther, is because I joined
Speaker 1: the b l A, the Black Liberation Army at that time.
Speaker 1: And Elder Brother Smithy was a Vietnam veteran who had
Speaker 1: spent years at war and understood all these tactics, and
Speaker 1: I think that, UM. One of the things that I
Speaker 1: clearly remember learning UM and adapting from his example, was
Speaker 1: that the movement is built by young people, right, and
Speaker 1: in order for them to have any success, they're gonna
Speaker 1: see the elders fail in some way, shape or form,
Speaker 1: and UM, we have to learn from these failures and
Speaker 1: these successes. And he said, never forget. The thing that
Speaker 1: we remember the most is when people cut the supply line,
Speaker 1: then there's nothing an army awadge marches on its stomach.
Speaker 1: And I said to him, okay, wow. So seeing a
Speaker 1: pandemic struck New York City, I said to myself, we
Speaker 1: need to reach out to Brooklyn, Queen's Harlem. And we
Speaker 1: even did one UM in philling with the move organization
Speaker 1: people because I've always been a big supporter of MoMA. UM.
Speaker 1: But I think that it was just seeing that need
Speaker 1: and when people say there was a toilet paper shortage,
Speaker 1: there wasn't just a toilet paper shortage, brother, there was,
Speaker 1: um a shortage of feminine products, which is crazy, a
Speaker 1: shortage of baby food and diapers, all kinds of other stuff.
Speaker 1: So we basically jumped in to fulfill the need. Only
Speaker 1: that instead of servicing young people because you can't have
Speaker 1: soup kitchens during the pandemic, you can't be indoors with anybody.
Speaker 1: You can't even give people food with the same spoon.
Speaker 1: You gotta go watch the school after it's in their bowl.
Speaker 1: So at that point we got these nonperishable goods, about
Speaker 1: two weeks worth of food UM, and we started giving
Speaker 1: them to the senior centers at UM the Nightsha housing
Speaker 1: projects in New York City. So we serviced at first
Speaker 1: UM three projects, UH the Grant Houses which are by
Speaker 1: where my old block was. UM. Then we had the
Speaker 1: Albany Houses which was in Brooklyn UM my Troy Avenue,
Speaker 1: and then we had the Dikemand Houses. So these were
Speaker 1: the first three places that we were really supporting UM,
Speaker 1: and then we've extended ourselves to a few other locations
Speaker 1: as well. And it's just been heartwarming and heartbreaking because
Speaker 1: there have been government programs that I paid attention to
Speaker 1: that would have been around for the better part of
Speaker 1: fourteen fifteen years that were recently canceled, like during the
Speaker 1: pandemic or right before, and you know that wasn't taken
Speaker 1: into a out. A lot of people don't get their
Speaker 1: check or sometimes a check is laid or whatever it
Speaker 1: may be. So postal system acting up made that even worse. Um,
Speaker 1: so people became reliant on some of these food drops.
Speaker 1: And the heartbreaking part is when you go there once
Speaker 1: a month and you see that somebody has obviously made
Speaker 1: a two week pack stretch for a whole month and
Speaker 1: they're they're really right there back on it. And these
Speaker 1: people aren't on drugs, they're they're hard working, they're working
Speaker 1: whatever job they can get. And it's offensive to me
Speaker 1: again when I see people blame poor people for their
Speaker 1: conditioned like, oh, I look at this homeless person, Go
Speaker 1: get a job. Yeah, I wonder what that motherfucker's resume
Speaker 1: looks like. Man, you know, you gotta clean himself up first.
Speaker 1: Here all those ten years of missing can't go positive
Speaker 1: in a job interview. What kind of social skills as
Speaker 1: a person have and what do they have to be
Speaker 1: retaught and helped with. If a society really is taxing
Speaker 1: people to the point of, you know, they're not being
Speaker 1: able to pay their other bills, you know, then what
Speaker 1: about the services that it provides? And at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, that's not what it's here for. That
Speaker 1: is the window dress them. We're here because we have
Speaker 1: a militaristic society that has gain control of resources, and
Speaker 1: I'm doing whatever I can on the ground to give
Speaker 1: those resources. I'm bringing it all the way back. I'm
Speaker 1: giving out those free resources to the community. So from
Speaker 1: the beans, pound of rice, um and milk UM, the
Speaker 1: two weeks supply of oatmeal. Uh, we have mac and
Speaker 1: cheese soups UM. I think ravioli is just a ton
Speaker 1: of good stuff. We try to keep a low sodium
Speaker 1: for a bunch of the products that we have because
Speaker 1: again we're dealing with elders. But because we deal with elders,
Speaker 1: we always get inshore, which I've realized is a god
Speaker 1: send to two elderly poe. UM. We gave away hats
Speaker 1: and gloves um during the coldest part of the winter. UM.
Speaker 1: And then we have penia light and like pepto bismol.
Speaker 1: Just because I know a lot of the elders, they
Speaker 1: take care of kids and a lot of black and
Speaker 1: Latino families. So while the parents is working, the grandparents
Speaker 1: is at home with the kids. So leave them, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever other stuff they get pampers, kids medicine every year,
Speaker 1: every every week we're making a drop somewhere, so there's
Speaker 1: a there's a page for it on Instagram at Rebel
Speaker 1: Lorbie Runs. I think one of the most beautiful things
Speaker 1: that's emerged from the pandemic is this awareness of an
Speaker 1: engagement in mutual aid and just communities coming together to
Speaker 1: support each other, support those that are without, so that
Speaker 1: there may be a time in the future that person
Speaker 1: can get back to someone who previously had their back.
Speaker 1: And you know, like as an elected official like I
Speaker 1: also embraced that kind of work. I understand that so
Speaker 1: much community building used to be done outside of the
Speaker 1: state because like we don't we don't necessarily have a
Speaker 1: highly functional government at various levels of the United States.
Speaker 1: But ultimately when you when you scale up projects like that,
Speaker 1: there's so much of the federal government locally even state
Speaker 1: governments can do that, like ordinary people can't do like
Speaker 1: y'all out here buying like pedialite, Like imagine how mupedia
Speaker 1: light the federal government could be buying in bulk. They
Speaker 1: get just they get the nationalized pedia life, the nationalized
Speaker 1: corporation and everybody get free. PI lie right and so
Speaker 1: um to you, what would you say it's like the
Speaker 1: biggest like piece of public like public policy issue at
Speaker 1: the federal level that you think needs to be addressed.
Speaker 1: Right now. We've talked a lot about how these systems
Speaker 1: interconnect with militarism, imperialism, oligarchy, all these things, but like
Speaker 1: if there could be like a single piece of public
Speaker 1: policy that you can put the current news cycle, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. So, yeah, Well, here's what the thing that's
Speaker 1: interesting that I see is happening little by little. It
Speaker 1: just happened in New York, the legalization of marijuana. And
Speaker 1: I remind people before we start partying and rolling up joints.
Speaker 1: Um at John Jay uh College of Criminal Justice, I
Speaker 1: was there to see Jim Bretto's and I was there
Speaker 1: to see Dr Cornel West and had a wonderful conversation
Speaker 1: about something called restorative justice. And what that means is
Speaker 1: that if the government is paying its bills with weed money,
Speaker 1: then it shouldn't be putting you in jail or being
Speaker 1: able to take away your voting rights. Are doing the
Speaker 1: same thing or having done the same thing at some
Speaker 1: point in time. So even though as a public policy issue,
Speaker 1: I know that people think this is already dealt with
Speaker 1: where we legalize that it's done. Now, that's the catch.
Speaker 1: You have to follow through the whole way, and I
Speaker 1: think that's where people find whatever movement lacking. You know,
Speaker 1: there has to be more followed through in that sense.
Speaker 1: So before people say, okay, let's just open up dispensaries
Speaker 1: and all this stuff, what about those people who haven't
Speaker 1: been able to get a job because of that the
Speaker 1: criminal history. But those those felonies on their record for possession,
Speaker 1: or people that have done no harm to anybody but themselves.
Speaker 1: You know, you look at a lot of people who
Speaker 1: use drugs, the person who, unfortunately they've heard most is themselves.
Speaker 1: Now when you couple this with other horrific crimes, all right, uh,
Speaker 1: you're gonna find me to be less sympid than it obviously.
Speaker 1: But um, I think for the vast majority of people
Speaker 1: who are have been caught with drugs or have drugs
Speaker 1: on their record, it's been something that it has been racialized,
Speaker 1: politicized every size in the world. And I think that
Speaker 1: it's it's a giant issue because it's not just something
Speaker 1: that you know, our government uses for slush money, for
Speaker 1: slush funds. No, it upholds a huge part of the
Speaker 1: American economy, but people to to not know what the
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical industry is. It's a cartel in the United States
Speaker 1: of America, like Narcos, except better dressed than everybody speaks
Speaker 1: shitty English. Yeah, so this is what I mean, this
Speaker 1: is what we're doing. Yeah. So something that I don't
Speaker 1: think a lot of people know about you or doesn't
Speaker 1: really get talked about with you as often as I
Speaker 1: think it should. This might be some two insider, some fanship,
Speaker 1: but um, I think like around two thousand nine, two ten,
Speaker 1: you helped build an orphanage in a school in Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: And like I remember that was like around the time
Speaker 1: that that was happening. I had I'd known about you
Speaker 1: and I had heard your music, but that was when
Speaker 1: I think I was like kind of really becoming a
Speaker 1: fan just of your music just in general. And then
Speaker 1: that I heard about that happening, you know, like that's
Speaker 1: something that you were doing outside of music, I just
Speaker 1: remember thinking, why isn't this like a bigger deal, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. So I'm just just did you
Speaker 1: ever end up how how how did that whole thing
Speaker 1: come about? And did you end up ever doing anything
Speaker 1: like that again. Throughout the years since UM, I was
Speaker 1: invited to Afghanistan, as I met these people from an
Speaker 1: organization call me and this is a hard grouping, super
Speaker 1: hard group of young people that were making changes in
Speaker 1: their community. And they approached me after a show about
Speaker 1: UM potentially doing some collaborative UM. I didn't know anything
Speaker 1: about orphanage building or anything else at the time school
Speaker 1: building UM. But UM through a painstaking process of learning
Speaker 1: slowly and really exercising the most amount of star power
Speaker 1: that I could at the time to fundraise a good
Speaker 1: hundreds and some five thousand dollars. I had the exact figures,
Speaker 1: but UM, so everything had to be done by the
Speaker 1: book had to be on paper. UM. And then to
Speaker 1: actually go out there and oversee the final stage is
Speaker 1: of construction. UM myself was just life change. UM. I
Speaker 1: think I learned a lot about humanity in general and Afghanistan. UM.
Speaker 1: I think that I learned from the moment I got
Speaker 1: there that the only reason we hold that country is
Speaker 1: because we paid off all of these war lords. UM.
Speaker 1: I think that it's strategically close to China, and people
Speaker 1: forget that too as much. People have forgot that more
Speaker 1: than they forgot that I went there and build an orphanage.
Speaker 1: People forget that we have hundreds of thousands of troops
Speaker 1: at the border of China. Does China have hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of troops anywhere near the border of the United States?
Speaker 1: When we talk about Russia being worried about us, you know,
Speaker 1: did we overthrow Canada the way that they overthrow Canada?
Speaker 1: The way we overthrew the Ukraine? You know, just seeing
Speaker 1: the lives, the everyday lives of the people in Afghanistan
Speaker 1: really gave me some hope for the human race because
Speaker 1: I said, for every you know, soft hearted individual that
Speaker 1: I don't think it's gonna make it that I run through,
Speaker 1: uh run into here in the United States. These people
Speaker 1: here that it survived nuclear winter, like these are just
Speaker 1: tough people. But again the reality of what their toughness
Speaker 1: is was brought to mind. You know, I had a
Speaker 1: conversation with a young guy who was a professor, right
Speaker 1: and he was a very soft spoken, very well mannered.
Speaker 1: Legs crossed I email and I asked him. I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, not to be rude. I just wanted to know.
Speaker 1: I said, you know, what did you do during the
Speaker 1: Jahat and he in a very soft spoken man and
Speaker 1: said to me that there are the RPG teams were
Speaker 1: divided into two people, and that one person was the
Speaker 1: shooter and the other carried fourteen or fifteen RPGs in
Speaker 1: a back pack and he had to be really careful
Speaker 1: so he didn't blow And I said, Jesus Christ, I said,
Speaker 1: so what did you do? And he said, I carried
Speaker 1: RPGs for most of the war. And he goes, you know,
Speaker 1: usually people blow up, but I had a really good gunner,
Speaker 1: and you know, and he looked like an average ordinary guy,
Speaker 1: not a heartful person. Is the type of dude you
Speaker 1: would see in Soho waiting online for a latte. And
Speaker 1: here he was a battle hardened warrior. And not that
Speaker 1: he wore it on his shoulder like some badge of
Speaker 1: honor like people like to put in movies. No, but
Speaker 1: his lesson of the day was even more horrific. It said,
Speaker 1: we lost an entire generation of poets, teachers, lawyers, doctors.
Speaker 1: So anyway, he had the brother just told me about
Speaker 1: all the people in his society that he had lost
Speaker 1: in that generation. He said, that's the price of freedom,
Speaker 1: that's the price of being a quote unquote unconquerable people,
Speaker 1: you know, of everyone saying, well, the USSR failed here,
Speaker 1: and England failed here, and uh, the United States is
Speaker 1: on its way out as well. This is the price
Speaker 1: we've pay. You know, during the Russian invasion, we lost
Speaker 1: almost a million people and they lost eighteen thousand people,
Speaker 1: and we were willing to trade six seven lives for one.
Speaker 1: But imagine how many people were lost, how many brilliant minds,
Speaker 1: how many uh, you know, creative intellect intellects were snuffed out.
Speaker 1: And that's the price of freedom, That's the price of
Speaker 1: of being unconquered. That's the real price of revolution. If
Speaker 1: you're in a room full of revolutionaries, just take a
Speaker 1: look around you and imagine the revolution is over and
Speaker 1: more than half of them are gone. Because that's how
Speaker 1: it is. That's the price that you have to pay
Speaker 1: to change lives, is to put your life up on
Speaker 1: the line. And it doesn't always have to be in
Speaker 1: some like messianic sacrificial way. No, Sometimes it's a slow
Speaker 1: burn of putting your entire life into something so you
Speaker 1: can move the needle a little bit, because you know
Speaker 1: that moves everything else. You know that that that was
Speaker 1: my experience in Afghanistan. Um, it was a success in
Speaker 1: every sense of the word. Um Did I ever do
Speaker 1: anything like that? Afterwards? Yeah, I was involved in the
Speaker 1: program UM called Arms Around Haiti and Hip Hop for Haiti,
Speaker 1: which came out of s O. B S which is
Speaker 1: a club in downtown New York where a lot of
Speaker 1: the staff were Haitian Caribbean um and basically in general
Speaker 1: we wised raised a ton of money doing a show
Speaker 1: with um Uh styles p and Uh Cormega and White Cleft.
Speaker 1: And this is the thing I always tell people, like
Speaker 1: when when people talk about White Cleft and all that thing,
Speaker 1: the stuff that happened with Yelle and Haiti, I say,
Speaker 1: they can't say a bad word to me about that man,
Speaker 1: because I physically was there and I saw that there
Speaker 1: were a series of apartment structures that had elapsed and
Speaker 1: they were like forty children that were homeless and they
Speaker 1: were finding their parents. And White Cleft had these forty
Speaker 1: children living in in like the background of the house
Speaker 1: had like a nursing staff, people doing for other people.
Speaker 1: I saw people digging people out of the rubble. I
Speaker 1: saw a human spirit that is just unbroken. As for
Speaker 1: whatever happened afterwards, I can't answer for that. But when
Speaker 1: I was down there, I saw people that were really
Speaker 1: committed to making a change. And what we did is
Speaker 1: that we purchased two homes for an older woman who
Speaker 1: had brought some of these orphans into the house. So
Speaker 1: it wasn't the exact same thing as over there, because
Speaker 1: obviously we were in the shadow of a lot larger
Speaker 1: and more well structured organizations. But for whatever we did,
Speaker 1: you know, we raised you know, but things like dollars
Speaker 1: at the show, and then we went out there. We
Speaker 1: got these homes and a bunch of kids had places
Speaker 1: to sleep, and we had food to feed them. And
Speaker 1: you know, the other people, I think they're fund uh.
Speaker 1: One thing that I saw them do is actually they
Speaker 1: restructured water purifier that was broken, So I saw a
Speaker 1: real change happening there. There is a incredible amount of corruption,
Speaker 1: but I think that that is not something that the
Speaker 1: United States should be ever pointing the finger at Haiti
Speaker 1: about it. So it's important to recognize these things and
Speaker 1: put them into perspective. So when people say, oh, Haiti
Speaker 1: is so corrupt, I say, yeah, sure, up front at
Speaker 1: the airport, Yeah you're gonna see corruption in general. But
Speaker 1: here in the United States, how do you think bills
Speaker 1: get past? Like here, there's plenty of corruption. It's just
Speaker 1: the stakes are higher and you have to be in
Speaker 1: the right room. And they don't take money from strangers.
Speaker 1: That's it. Understand corruption in the United States versus corruption
Speaker 1: in the third world. They'll take the money from strangers
Speaker 1: in the United States and in other developed worlds, they'll
Speaker 1: take your money. They just want to know that you're
Speaker 1: not a fed or a cop and you're gonna get
Speaker 1: them in trouble. So they won't take money from strangers.
Speaker 1: That's it. But if they know you when you in
Speaker 1: France and you got to connect, don't take your money.
Speaker 1: If you need something, everything's for sale. There you go. Okay,
Speaker 1: before I let you go. When I first heard that
Speaker 1: The Middle Passage was going to be the name of
Speaker 1: your next album, I'm pretty sure George W. Bush was
Speaker 1: still president, I dude, so like, what's up for real?
Speaker 1: The long awaited Middle Passage album? I'm asking that kind
Speaker 1: of selfishly, as you know, on some immortal technique fanboy ship.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm sure that our listeners who enjoy
Speaker 1: you too, who right now follow you on Instagram and
Speaker 1: whatnot what's up with that? When's it coming out? Or
Speaker 1: I don't even want to ask it like that. I'm
Speaker 1: in the studio tomorrow. I was in the studio UM
Speaker 1: in California about a week ago with Chino exceled so
Speaker 1: we finished a song with him and one of the
Speaker 1: artist UM Global Artist UM. And I think it's just
Speaker 1: been a process of trying to get it coupled with
Speaker 1: everything else going on in my life. UM. I wish
Speaker 1: I could blame it on one thing, like just procrastination
Speaker 1: or just you know, the issues that I dealt with.
Speaker 1: But there were there were some technical stuff that we
Speaker 1: had to do and that involved some people that were
Speaker 1: on the record that UM no longer be on it
Speaker 1: see UM. Then I think that for me, having learned
Speaker 1: the business, I didn't want to sample as much so
Speaker 1: UM I wanted to use interpolations, so we had to
Speaker 1: replay a lot of the music. Also, one thing that
Speaker 1: was important to me about the recording of this record
Speaker 1: is that I wrote a lot of old songs. UM.
Speaker 1: Some of the songs I probably five or six of
Speaker 1: them months actually really old songs that are from the
Speaker 1: era in which I really started working on this, And
Speaker 1: I just reworked the concept and of course and a
Speaker 1: better lyricist than I was back then. Um, But I
Speaker 1: let people know that when you make a record that's
Speaker 1: honoring uh an African genocide. So so the album is
Speaker 1: gonna be like about the middle Pass. Well, there's definitely
Speaker 1: aspects of that, but things that are related to it
Speaker 1: as well and how that built the society that we
Speaker 1: live in now. But when you make a a record
Speaker 1: about something like that, there has to be a certain
Speaker 1: amount of respect paid for to the ancestors. So there
Speaker 1: won't be any y, any N word or the middle words. Um.
Speaker 1: And as a matter of fact, going forward in my music, UM,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna have none of that neither. I think
Speaker 1: that it's not it's not that I'm going to criticize
Speaker 1: other people who still use it. I think that in
Speaker 1: terms of me making this record and studying that that
Speaker 1: that's suffering and that pain and the way it was
Speaker 1: actually broken down and systematically done and build up the
Speaker 1: blueprint of something that was done to other people as well.
Speaker 1: I just feel like it's just an evolution and who
Speaker 1: I am, and that's why we're not doing that word.
Speaker 1: So where can um people find all things and Wortal Technique. Oh,
Speaker 1: you can go to Viper Records dot com. You can
Speaker 1: find me on the internet at uh tech, Immortal and
Speaker 1: i G and base Book and then Mortal Tech on Twitter. Yeah. Hey,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you for coming on and talking to us. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I appreciate your time. Thank you very much to you
Speaker 1: Mac m ran for having me on the show. Um,
Speaker 1: and I hope that somebody got something from it out there. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sure they will. A Mortal Technique ladies and gentlemen. Hey, please, man,
Speaker 1: I can't do another two presidential terms for that album.
Speaker 1: We come on, let's get it once again. Thank you
Speaker 1: for coming on, man, thank you so much for having
Speaker 1: me in there. You have it, ladies and gentlemen. That
Speaker 1: was the one and only Immortal Technique. We're gonna give
Speaker 1: a big shout out to him for stopping buying having
Speaker 1: a little chat with us. What we got coming up
Speaker 1: next week? Man, So UH I recently had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to speak with Eugene per Year, who is a founily
Speaker 1: member of the Party of Socialism in Liberation and ran
Speaker 1: as their vice presidential candidate UH in two thousand eight
Speaker 1: and two thousand sixteen and it's also a journalist with
Speaker 1: Breakthrough News UM and he traveled down to Haiti with
Speaker 1: the Breakthrough News team uh I think maybe a month
Speaker 1: and a month or so ago to cover the uprising
Speaker 1: that's happened down there UM recently. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: simmering unrest that kind of broke into a boil and
Speaker 1: overflowed in the streets regarding um the president uh Moy's
Speaker 1: and his refusal to leave office, and you know, corruption
Speaker 1: and authoritarianism on the rise down in Haiti. So we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk to Eugene a little bit about his experiences
Speaker 1: down there and as well to some more of the
Speaker 1: socio political context in which the uprising has taken place
Speaker 1: and listen to some dope patient hip hop of course. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And as for this one, we're done until next week.
Speaker 1: But you know we can't go out just in silence.
Speaker 1: Joe my man, can you drop a beat for the people?
Speaker 1: Oh uh huh uh huh yeah so so so get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeo yo, I got an old history. There's no
Speaker 1: flinching me. So simply smoked rappers like Rotiss Andy More infamys,
Speaker 1: your souldiers gonna live with me, folk Liss Andy, explode
Speaker 1: your whole limousine. If I ruled the world and everything
Speaker 1: in it, I turn every hospital to a free clinic.
Speaker 1: We eat spinach, free fellas with a steep sentence, but
Speaker 1: it didn't really you'll sweeten what you think this is. Look,
Speaker 1: wait before the nafter disasters are get involved. They're gonna
Speaker 1: come with ratchets and flatten the city hall, crooking politicians
Speaker 1: with cashing their pity. Pause. You know what, give a
Speaker 1: funk up our fashions. We kill the ball. I tell
Speaker 1: them give me the d like I'm fashioned by Biggie Smalls.
Speaker 1: Passengers that are shoot in the back of your pretty car.
Speaker 1: Take him up from the bursts and slumps of the
Speaker 1: city's all. Put them out in the curve and tell
Speaker 1: them to get a jaw. These niggas Hollywood trying to
Speaker 1: get a star. I put my hands in the ash.
Speaker 1: Light me up in the car. Now, my MoMA and
Speaker 1: my girls. Trying to get a charge with the cops
Speaker 1: is all dirty. Nobody respects sage. Hope that you listen.
Speaker 1: No one forgiving my showing in prison. I hope the
Speaker 1: decision leads to more of them throwing in the system.
Speaker 1: Feel like a WindMan in your stofmach You know that
Speaker 1: it isn't real bad boy like a nigger. Just roll
Speaker 1: with the pistons. Should that be gentle with myself because
Speaker 1: the show been. Shouldn't find a megaphone is shouting to
Speaker 1: the snow class. Should have simply vote every four year.
Speaker 1: Should have become a lawyer like the system from inside
Speaker 1: the roo is it's so totally broken that we've gotta
Speaker 1: stud up. But what the whole thing? Should I present
Speaker 1: myself to Twitter? Hell, hopeuls it's gonna lend. All I
Speaker 1: really know is we might have napped that apple still
Speaker 1: if we have wrapped with Holy Points in North Jades. Hey,
Speaker 1: this is dope knife, I'm little Franca. We are waiting
Speaker 1: on reparations. See you next week. Listen to Waiting on
Speaker 1: Reparations on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts