Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello ed, Welcome to cool people did cool stuff and
Speaker 2: or people who are pretty cool and maybe kind of
Speaker 2: normal but had amazing adventures and dealt with a lot
Speaker 2: of bullshit and kind of did amazing things. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Margaret Kiljoy, and my guest today is problem.
Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 3: What up, man, I'm here to body roll. You know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying to me? Something good. I don't know
Speaker 3: why I popped in my head not even video.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, that' what's that video? But Sophie and I
Speaker 2: got to watch, and that's what matters.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: Sophie's also here. Sophie's our producer. Hi, Sophie sub So.
Speaker 2: We are on part two of a two parter on
Speaker 2: Hooey ledbetter better known as led Belly. Lots of arguments
Speaker 2: about the whether or not there's a space in there.
Speaker 2: The problem is is that everyone was like mistreating his memory,
Speaker 2: and so it like weirdly matters that, Like, you know,
Speaker 2: he's like, no, why do you keep changing the way
Speaker 2: that my name fucking is?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Let me live. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But where we last left, he's in prison for probably
Speaker 2: self defense, uh.
Speaker 3: And then trying to get out, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Which there's a couple countries where it's legal to try
Speaker 2: and break out of prison, because they're like, well, that
Speaker 2: makes sense. Someone's holding you in a cage.
Speaker 3: Why would you not.
Speaker 2: It's natural at humid it's our job to not let
Speaker 2: you succeed. We can't tell you don't try and get
Speaker 2: food when you're hungry or whatever, which I mean, actually
Speaker 2: that's the entire basis of laws. You can't just go
Speaker 2: get food when you're hungry. But the United States is
Speaker 2: not one of those.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh man, when you are shown a better way,
Speaker 3: how it's just so obvious, like obviously you're going to
Speaker 3: try to escape. Yeah, why would we outlaw the natural
Speaker 3: forces of self? Of course you're going to try to
Speaker 3: do that, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: And even in those countries, it's illegal to hold a
Speaker 2: guard hostage while you're doing it, right, like if you
Speaker 2: shoot somebody, you know, But if you're like digging a tunnel.
Speaker 2: I think in Mexico is one of these countries, they're
Speaker 2: just like, well, that's not against the laway's just gotta
Speaker 2: stop you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh well duh yeah.
Speaker 2: And that's like it almost makes it more like, all right,
Speaker 2: we're just on opposite teams. We're trying to solve this.
Speaker 3: It is what it is, Yeah, I mean, and it's like,
Speaker 3: I mean he got us, Like, what are we gonna do? Yeah,
Speaker 3: we got us, right of katchoo. Yeah, he always.
Speaker 2: Gets himself out of prison, but the way he's gonna
Speaker 2: do it next is even more fucking wild. That's my teaser.
Speaker 2: So prison was a nightmare in the United States during
Speaker 2: World War One. I'm sure that's the only period in
Speaker 2: which it was a nightmare. Yeah, And prisoners were worked
Speaker 2: extra hard on the prison farm and everyone is getting
Speaker 2: whipped left and right. I can't remember. I think at
Speaker 2: this point they've gotten rid of the convict ly scene
Speaker 2: program where they just like literally rent out the convicts
Speaker 2: to different like plantations. So what they do instead, they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: we're not allowed to do that. We make the prison
Speaker 2: a plantation. Often the prison farms are literally on old
Speaker 2: plantations where people are enslaved. Sheees. So he was as
Speaker 2: good of a worker as he could be. He's very canny.
Speaker 2: Whenever he's like being nice to people being shitty to him,
Speaker 2: it's because he's fucking thinking about it, you know. And
Speaker 2: he gets away with a lot that should be gotten
Speaker 2: away with based on white people being idiots and thinking
Speaker 2: that he's just actually like very meek to them or whatever.
Speaker 2: Uh huh, he's a good worker to avoid getting whipped,
Speaker 2: and then he ran for it. This isn't the way
Speaker 2: he gets himself out of jail. They catch him with
Speaker 2: dogs in a nearby lake and they whip him so
Speaker 2: badly he couldn't work for weeks.
Speaker 3: Great.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, reform groups led by women's organizations and unions were
Speaker 2: doing as much research and journalism and outreach about them.
Speaker 2: There's like the whole activist movement to stop this prison
Speaker 2: farm thing. So they turn out some of the first
Speaker 2: statistics to show how racist the prison system was. This
Speaker 2: is the oldest statistic I've found about this. Sixteen percent
Speaker 2: of Texas at the time was black. Forty six percent
Speaker 2: of its prisoners were black, so you know, three times
Speaker 2: more likely. Yeah, and they get a new governor and
Speaker 2: he's a bit of a reformer, but in the way
Speaker 2: where like, well, this guy's probably a Republican, but you
Speaker 2: know how like sometimes democrats are like you're like, ah,
Speaker 2: I think you're doing really good, and then somehow almost
Speaker 2: worse than the other side. The new governor, this reformer,
Speaker 2: he runs on being tough but fair. He is tough
Speaker 2: on crime. He's one of the first American politicians to
Speaker 2: run on being like I'm tough on crime.
Speaker 1: Ew yeah, yeah, great.
Speaker 2: I don't like this guy. Yeah, but his whole thing
Speaker 2: is that he wants better conditions in prison, and so
Speaker 2: he would come by and inspect the prisons to make
Speaker 2: sure everyone's entreated. Sort of Okay, they don't even do
Speaker 2: that now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2: I try to do it at ice facilities and they
Speaker 2: get fucking tear gas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's almost like I hate that this is
Speaker 3: coming out of my mouth, but it's like, okay, for what,
Speaker 3: you're gonna go and see this ice facility, see what
Speaker 3: we already know I know, and then what.
Speaker 2: I will say. There are a bunch of activist causes
Speaker 2: in the past that look like that to me, where
Speaker 2: I'm like, what do you doing? Like this one where
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, we're gonna find all the statistics about
Speaker 2: this prison. I'm like, yeah, but is it gonna change anything?
Speaker 2: Sometimes it does. We covered the gay Irish Knight who
Speaker 2: helped stop the Belgian king fucking killing everybody, and I
Speaker 2: think the Congo and that was because of all of
Speaker 2: these groups getting together and just like straight up doing
Speaker 2: the like numbers where they're like, well, I went around
Speaker 2: and I met this many guys who had their hands
Speaker 2: cut off. So I guess they're lying to you when
Speaker 2: they say no one's getting their hands cut off, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So in a weird way, I feel that way when
Speaker 2: I see people go to the ice facilities and I'm like,
Speaker 2: what are you doing to fucking shut it down?
Speaker 3: Yeah? How you go to so what are we doing guys?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, So the governor goes to go inspect this prison.
Speaker 2: He goes a couple times, and he meets Leadbetter several
Speaker 2: times because I guess he still has his guitar in prison.
Speaker 3: That's funny. The prison was like, well, we're not animals, Like,
Speaker 3: I mean, he's an incredible musician. You got to give
Speaker 3: the guy his guitar. It's like one of the.
Speaker 2: Worst times in places to be in prison in the
Speaker 2: fucking history, and people are dying like every fucking day,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he.
Speaker 2: Could still have his guitar.
Speaker 3: It's really good. It's always like we'd be going against
Speaker 3: God in nature if we don't get it. Guys.
Speaker 2: I think that's kind of the deal. Yeah, and so
Speaker 2: he plays songs for the governor every time he goes.
Speaker 2: The Governor's like, oh, that guy is a guitar. He's
Speaker 2: gonna play for me, which is very like render on
Speaker 2: the Caesar. What is Caesar's or.
Speaker 3: You know it really is. And also it's a way
Speaker 3: for the warden to kind of flex, like to show
Speaker 3: off his goods. He's like, man, we got this guy,
Speaker 3: Oh the bridge of Governor's come in, He's gonna play
Speaker 3: for you. Yeah, come here, you.
Speaker 2: Know, and just totally different than slavery times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally Yeah. I was trying not to say like
Speaker 3: show off in words, trying to be kind to the glue,
Speaker 3: but like, I mean, that's what you're doing, like come
Speaker 3: dance for us. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, And like later we're going to get to how
Speaker 2: everyone was calling honey the N word the whole fucking time,
Speaker 2: and like including the people who are like supposedly on
Speaker 2: his side and all the shit, of course, and then
Speaker 2: like writing fake attributions claiming he's saying it all the time.
Speaker 2: But like later in his life, when after he died,
Speaker 2: people are like he talked about how he hated how
Speaker 2: that word sounded in his mouth.
Speaker 3: He never said it yeah, and you.
Speaker 2: Know he was a drunk gambler. I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 2: he did somebody, but he he wasn't a big fan
Speaker 2: of it, very least.
Speaker 3: YEA.
Speaker 2: So he plays for the governor, but he's fucking smart.
Speaker 2: He plays some classics like Midnight Special, and he also
Speaker 2: sings a song that's basically hey, Governor, you there right,
Speaker 2: specifically by name Governor Nef pardoned me.
Speaker 3: Like, hey, man, I've never heard this song. Sounds like, yeah, man,
Speaker 3: I feel like what it's so crazy. There's already a
Speaker 3: song about me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm famous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm famous.
Speaker 2: Yah.
Speaker 3: Hey sing that song about me again?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It quotes the Bible verses about like you need to
Speaker 2: forgive people their trespasses so that God can't forgive your trespasses.
Speaker 2: Got him, and then has the lines, please Governor Nef,
Speaker 2: let me go back home. Please Governor Nef, be good
Speaker 2: and kind have mercy on my great long time. And
Speaker 2: the one that's quoted the most is if I had you,
Speaker 2: Governor Nef, like you got me, I'd wake up in
Speaker 2: the morning and I'd set you free.
Speaker 3: Ah got him, so just beautifully on this guitar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so Governor ne F even though he like
Speaker 2: was like nicer, right, he actually pardoned fewer people than
Speaker 2: the like more chaotic aggressive governors before. But as a
Speaker 2: lame duck his last day of fucking thing when he's
Speaker 2: writing out his pardons, he pardons led Better for writing
Speaker 2: a fucking good song about him.
Speaker 3: Day got him. So he breaks down a prison say, hey, man,
Speaker 3: it was a really good song man. Yeah, hey, he
Speaker 3: wrote a song about me. It's it's almost like I said,
Speaker 3: you could pull on Trump to be like, well, you
Speaker 3: wrote a song about me. You told you wrote a
Speaker 3: song about me. I gotta let him go.
Speaker 2: That would literally work on Trump.
Speaker 3: I really feel like it would that I can't. He
Speaker 3: did write a song about me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you see it in like any halfway
Speaker 2: decent analysis of like ye oldie racism times in the
Speaker 2: nineteenth century different than ye oldie racist times in the
Speaker 2: twenty first century, how like black people have to pretend
Speaker 2: to be nice to white people in order to the game. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and this is the game played at like the highest
Speaker 2: fucking level.
Speaker 3: You know, so brilliant, so brilliant.
Speaker 2: And he also probably meant that shit about like actually
Speaker 2: we're supposed to forgive each other, like everyone talking about.
Speaker 3: Him later was like he really believed that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he would fuck people up, but like he mostly
Speaker 2: de escalated fights, you know. Yeah, And so how do
Speaker 2: he got out? And he went to Louisiana. He's in Texas.
Speaker 2: Oh fuck, he's in Texas and Louisiana. Various points. I
Speaker 2: sometimes get them mixed up when he's in prison when
Speaker 2: but he goes back right across the Texas line. He
Speaker 2: grew up right across the Texas line and then moved
Speaker 2: right across from the Louisiana line when he moved to
Speaker 2: Texas as a little kid. He didn't move very far.
Speaker 2: And he worked alongside Booker T. Washington in the oil
Speaker 2: industry for a while. Whoa just as a random I
Speaker 2: don't think they have any like great conversation. Like nothing
Speaker 2: changes here, but like, yeah, he worked as a maintenance
Speaker 2: worker and Washington was a truck driver.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was gonna say, but like, you know, we're
Speaker 3: just we're seeing them so many years down the road
Speaker 3: in history. But like there's probably a lot of interactions
Speaker 3: between very you know, notable black people in just in
Speaker 3: terms of living and surviving.
Speaker 2: No, totally. And also like both are very political in
Speaker 2: very very different ways right, Yeah, yeah, but like part
Speaker 2: of a similar culture and influencing each other, you know, totally.
Speaker 2: And he's playing shows and whenever he play shows, he
Speaker 2: packs the house. He has another kid with another woman
Speaker 2: who soon married someone else, but once again, he acknowledged
Speaker 2: the kid as his, and that kid took the name
Speaker 2: led Better and then he dated someone else and they
Speaker 2: filed around on her. And one day, he's forty years old,
Speaker 2: he's walking through town and he sees the Salvation Army
Speaker 2: Band playing and it's all white people playing for all
Speaker 2: white people. And there's a million versions of this story.
Speaker 2: There's no particular reasonab believe any of them. I'm going
Speaker 2: to do my best. He goes in and he dances
Speaker 2: in the crowd anyway, even though he's a black man,
Speaker 2: he's not supposed to be dancing on the street for
Speaker 2: a white band.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, you guys, your methodist, you should be all
Speaker 3: right with this. Yeah, sorry, And.
Speaker 2: A white guy prop picks a fight with him. A
Speaker 2: white guy is like, you need to fucking stop. But
Speaker 2: it's a kid that he'd known since they were little.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: And other people are like, actually, that particular white man
Speaker 2: didn't give him shit at all. I think he did.
Speaker 2: I think the white man, yeah, gave him shit. Need
Speaker 2: to get the fuck out of here. So he cuts
Speaker 2: the white man and he goes to jail again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I am reading so much into this story,
Speaker 3: but you add on top of segregation. And then if
Speaker 3: you know this is a guy you've known since you
Speaker 3: was kids, you know, when this man walks in, he
Speaker 3: is the most talented by miles in everyone in here, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, which probably means you're a better dancer than
Speaker 3: all of us. And I've been dealing with this shit
Speaker 3: my whole life.
Speaker 2: And the white women might be looking at him, and.
Speaker 3: The white women are gonna be look, you bag every
Speaker 3: event you go, and you bag a chick, and it's
Speaker 3: just like leave some crumbs for the rest of us,
Speaker 3: you know. And I'm like, this is the one space
Speaker 3: since I'm really not in any way better than you
Speaker 3: and anything, but at least in this room, yeah, where
Speaker 3: you're not allowed a loud give me something, you know.
Speaker 3: I'm like reading all that into that, but I could
Speaker 3: totally see it.
Speaker 2: No, no, I I believe it. And so they take
Speaker 2: him a jail and he is almost lynched. A white
Speaker 2: mob storms the jail and only those brave sheriffs hold
Speaker 2: them at bay. What a head fuck to be a
Speaker 2: racist white cop in the South who believes in law
Speaker 2: and order, and you're like all of the other racist
Speaker 2: white cops in the South would let you lynch him,
Speaker 2: but not me. I stand for something, which is him
Speaker 2: getting beat to death in prison.
Speaker 3: We get to beat him fair and square. Yeah, you
Speaker 3: gotta follow the law. Yeah okay.
Speaker 2: And it's like they're still the better white person, you know,
Speaker 2: like a yeah, yeah, yeah exactly, Like, oh god, the
Speaker 2: racist white cop is the better person in this story.
Speaker 3: You have the moral high ground, like somehow or another,
Speaker 3: It's like Iran right now, somehow Iran has the moral
Speaker 3: high ground. I don't know how you did that, but yeah.
Speaker 2: I hate that regime so much. But watching fucking America
Speaker 2: fail at invading them, you're like, look, that's funny. I
Speaker 2: know it has worldwide ramifications, and I just hate the
Speaker 2: Iranian regimes. Yeah, I hate the American one too, Yes,
Speaker 2: but it's funny.
Speaker 4: Objectively evil, like objectively evil regime that you have just
Speaker 4: somehow or another made me cheer for because you're so
Speaker 4: inept yea.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and so honey, led better he's back in prison,
Speaker 5: just as the Great Depression hits and it's now while
Speaker 5: in prison and he starts getting famous at a new level.
Speaker 2: But do you know what makes products and services? I
Speaker 2: have no good transition here, oh man, it's the products
Speaker 2: and services that make the show. To support the show.
Speaker 2: They they have products and services, probably actually a lot
Speaker 2: of them, probably just podcasts, but here they are Andrew back. So,
Speaker 2: in case anyone missed it learning about American history, you
Speaker 2: can't do slavery in the United States thanks to the
Speaker 2: thirteenth Amendment except for that tiny, little, tiny loophole in
Speaker 2: the thirteenth Amendment quote except as punishment for a crime
Speaker 2: whereof the party shaw have been duly convicted. So the
Speaker 2: South moved quickly to incarcerate black people, mostly black men,
Speaker 2: like after Civil War and especially Jim Crow era, to
Speaker 2: get them to work for free, doing all the most
Speaker 2: dangerous work. And this was explicit the same way people
Speaker 2: are like, well, the slavery was about Like, no, if
Speaker 2: you just fucking listen to the Confederates, they will tell you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was about this is about states rights, all right. Well,
Speaker 3: let me ask this Confederate soldier, what are we doing
Speaker 3: this for? Slavery homie, like this is.
Speaker 2: Just yeah, yeah, I want to own that guy.
Speaker 3: The natural state of beings is the white man is superior,
Speaker 3: and the the United States government is trying to go
Speaker 3: against nature. So that's why we fight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The number of times are like this
Speaker 2: is for the Anglo Saxons, and you're like, man, they're
Speaker 2: even doing the old time e racism. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, here's the thing, bro.
Speaker 2: Yeah. A delegate to the National Prison Association meeting of
Speaker 2: eighteen eighty three put it like this, Before the war,
Speaker 2: we owned the negroes, but these convicts, we don't own them.
Speaker 2: One dies, get another.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: They're talking about how it's better, this is better.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and thew we get to say, but they criminals don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So it's not our bed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so they would build prisons directly on plantations.
Speaker 2: After the Civil War, the South, you know, tried for
Speaker 2: some liberty with the Black Codes, but by eighteen seventy
Speaker 2: seven reconstruction was over. Federal troops Withdrew Jim Crow laws
Speaker 2: took over. Almost no black men were left and off
Speaker 2: by nineteen hundred, despite more than two thousand black politicians
Speaker 2: having served in the South before that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, there's a word that you passed over, which
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure the listeners know. But I always want
Speaker 3: to like like put a point on this. That part
Speaker 3: of Reconstruction was the military. Yeah, had to come to
Speaker 3: the States to say, guys, you have to stop doing
Speaker 3: this to black people. We're gonna watch y'all to make Okay,
Speaker 3: are you guys gonna be are you cool now? Are
Speaker 3: you guys gonna be cool now? Are you gonna be
Speaker 3: cool now?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: All right, all right, we're right of here.
Speaker 2: And the second they leave, yeah, which is so funny
Speaker 2: because like the South was fighting for slavery and the
Speaker 2: North was fighting for abolition, and the North wasn't not racist, no, right,
Speaker 2: and so like the federal troops still probably most of
Speaker 2: them thought they were better than black people. Yeah, of course,
Speaker 2: but they still were like, we're going to invade the
Speaker 2: South and occupy it because that's how bad you've been
Speaker 2: to black people. Yes, it's that's how bad. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Again, I don't even like these people. Yeah, but like
Speaker 3: your psycho, like, you have to stop this.
Speaker 2: I was reading about how the reason that England moved
Speaker 2: away from public floggings and public hangings in England. Is
Speaker 2: that the English were like, oh, we kind of look
Speaker 2: like Southern Confederates when we do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this kind of making us look like are we
Speaker 3: the baddies? Are we the baddies? We kind of looked
Speaker 3: like this, that's so funny.
Speaker 2: And the president of Louisiana's eighteen ninety eight Constitutional Convention
Speaker 2: said that they disenfranchised black votes to quote perpetuate the
Speaker 2: supremacy of the Anglo Saxon race in Louisiana.
Speaker 3: Hey, why are you guys doing this? Uh so we
Speaker 3: can remain supreme?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, much like the only way to be the
Speaker 2: halfway decent dancer in the room is to not let
Speaker 2: black people in.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The only way that the fucking white race can be
Speaker 2: superior is by not letting anyone else play.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. Well, if they have equal rights, yeah, won't
Speaker 3: get to be supreme. Yeah, which is natural? Which is nature? Absolutely, Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: It's like the same as like not the same as.
Speaker 2: But like, you know, if the gender binary is so natural,
Speaker 2: why do you have to make so many laws about it?
Speaker 2: You know, like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or why women can't be heads of state because
Speaker 3: they're gonna get emotional and start a war and I'm like, ah, well,
Speaker 3: since they have not been heads of state, that meant
Speaker 3: that every war we've had. Yeah, where's your data?
Speaker 2: Like? Yeah? Also like where those people just like not raised?
Speaker 2: Like overall, when I think about people who get angry
Speaker 2: while their parents and are scary, more of them are men.
Speaker 3: It's almost always yeah, like I was almost always. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't understand what you say it like that that
Speaker 3: the ladies gonna get emotional. Okay, so oh, let's just
Speaker 3: use your binary. What happens when a lady gets emotional,
Speaker 3: he cries. What happens when a man gets emotional, he
Speaker 3: burns shit down? So I don't understand what data points
Speaker 3: you use it to make this. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's only logic that works for itself. Like you
Speaker 2: have to be like, I'm going to make the Anglo
Speaker 2: Saxon race the most important, and therefore everything else is justifiable. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and like yeah, they're really fucking explicit about it, and
Speaker 2: I wish it had changed.
Speaker 3: But yeah.
Speaker 2: So in nineteen thirty, when Ledbetter went to prison in Louisiana,
Speaker 2: Louisiana's governor Huey P. Long Junior, this guy is weird.
Speaker 2: I've covered him a little bit on the show before
Speaker 2: it pops up a lot. This guy is like a
Speaker 2: progressive fascist.
Speaker 1: Okay, he came up recently in Bastards too. Is this
Speaker 1: the Kingfish guy?
Speaker 2: I think so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he came up recently in Bastards as like a
Speaker 1: side character. He's fucking weird. We're gonna have to do
Speaker 1: a full bTB on him one day.
Speaker 2: No, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, progressive fascists like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, tell me more crazy. Yeah, the New Deal didn't
Speaker 2: go far enough. He's critical of FDR.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he hates FDR.
Speaker 2: But he wants to run Louisiana like a kingdom with
Speaker 2: him at top. And so he ran the state like
Speaker 2: a dictatorship.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And he was absolutely illegally continuing to rent out convicts
Speaker 2: to private interests for labor, despite that having been banned
Speaker 2: decades prior. And he then gets assassinate not led Beetter,
Speaker 2: but the Quep Long he gets assassinated nineteen thirty five
Speaker 2: by like a judge's son. I have had to research
Speaker 2: this man for the show so many times, and every
Speaker 2: single time, I'm like, I need my three hours of
Speaker 2: you and Robert talking about him before I'm going to
Speaker 2: really be able to understand him.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, well, if we ever do him, you can
Speaker 1: be our guest for that.
Speaker 2: Oh that would be fun. Yeah, because he keeps coming up,
Speaker 2: he keeps coming up.
Speaker 1: He's super vocal about how much he dislikes what FDR
Speaker 1: in the New Deal, and he pops up all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, progressive fascism. Yeah yeah, yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 2: Don't let the right wing hear this though, because they're like,
Speaker 2: we told you it's all that National Socialist Party.
Speaker 1: Yeah okay, but yeah, and he looks exactly like you're
Speaker 1: imagining him.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The name Huey P. Long is a name that's
Speaker 3: just like it's one of those names that are just
Speaker 3: kind of in the air.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But yeah, Like when you said it, I was like,
Speaker 3: I know that guy. Then I was like, wait, do
Speaker 3: you want to know that guy? Yeah?
Speaker 2: No, And I was like when it came up, I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, yeah this guy again.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I've had to do like a paragraph worth of this
Speaker 2: guy like three or four times on this show.
Speaker 1: Look at this guy.
Speaker 3: Oh that's absolutely Huey Long. Yea.
Speaker 2: He is wearing a double breasted pin striped jacket.
Speaker 3: Both his hands up like he's saying so like a.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fucking side part ass, bald man, side part head ass.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Oh, it's so funny.
Speaker 1: That he's a great insult that more people need to use.
Speaker 3: Yes, side part head ass, that's a great.
Speaker 2: So Ledbetter had a rough time in prison once again.
Speaker 2: Ledbetter not a fan of being in prison. He's going
Speaker 2: to get himself out again in yet another way. One
Speaker 2: time he gets ten lashes for laziness and then fifteen
Speaker 2: lashes for impudence. But the guy who's doing this is
Speaker 2: this like terrible man whose name I'm not going to bother,
Speaker 2: including this, who just killed a ton of prisoners by
Speaker 2: beating them to death and then blaming it on sunstroke.
Speaker 2: And he was on a work crew in which three
Speaker 2: people died in one month. There's probably only ten twenty
Speaker 2: people on that work crew, you know. And so he's
Speaker 2: like not having a good time in jail. And then
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty three, a different kind of cruel master
Speaker 2: that showed up to change his life. A guy, a
Speaker 2: folklorist named John Lamox. He's a white man in his
Speaker 2: forties or fifties, and he has his seventeen year old kid,
Speaker 2: Allan Intel, and Alan is going to turn out all right.
Speaker 2: Alan is the one who's going to drop out of
Speaker 2: grad school in order to help this guy out later.
Speaker 2: But Alan as a teenager. This is the whole thing
Speaker 2: about being a kid, as you're not complicit. But he
Speaker 2: starts off hanging out with his dad, his piece of shit.
Speaker 2: John is a folk song collector. Alan is later going
Speaker 2: to do this in a less evil way. But John
Speaker 2: Lamox is a fucking bastard racist. And I thought I
Speaker 2: was going to do episodes about Alan Lamox, but as
Speaker 2: I read more about the Ledbetter part of the story,
Speaker 2: I realized, I like, maybe next week with someone else,
Speaker 2: I'm going to cover Alan Lamox. I needed to cover
Speaker 2: Howdy Ledbetter first.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So John Lamox, his father and uncle fought for the Confederacy,
Speaker 2: and he also kind of bootstrapped himself. But like, if
Speaker 2: you read his biography, it talks about him basically bootstrapping himself.
Speaker 2: If you read Ledbetter's biography, you learn that John's family
Speaker 2: owned people and that's how they boostrapped themselves.
Speaker 3: I love these bootstrapping stories where it's it's like my
Speaker 3: dad gave me a meager loan of a million dollars, yeah,
Speaker 3: and three people, yeah, and three humans that I inherited
Speaker 3: and you know, and I went to work.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And John Lamox he's like a Texan. He was
Speaker 2: born in Louisiana, but he's moved over. God, everyone in
Speaker 2: the fucking story was born in Louisiana moved to Texas.
Speaker 1: Many such cases.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he wants to be an intellectual who's accepted. He
Speaker 2: went to school for like one year at Harvard and
Speaker 2: he's like really trying to be accepted. But he's obsessed
Speaker 2: with folklore but like the American West and cowboys and
Speaker 2: cowboy songs, and by that he means white people. Yeah,
Speaker 2: until he realizes that black music, race music, as it
Speaker 2: was often called YEP, was far more popular and interesting
Speaker 2: to people, partly because it's better music.
Speaker 3: Frankly, here's that.
Speaker 2: Partly also because it's exotification and being like ooh the
Speaker 2: scary other you know. Yeah, And so he and his
Speaker 2: son Alan were traveling around prisons to find black people
Speaker 2: willing to record songs for him. And whenever you read
Speaker 2: the like cliffs notes versions of these stories, they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: they really help bring people's music to light. These folk
Speaker 2: music finders, they copyright the music.
Speaker 3: Damn.
Speaker 2: They go around. There's this rush happening at this time,
Speaker 2: He's not the only one doing this. There's this rush
Speaker 2: to mine black culture and stake acclaim in it, stick
Speaker 2: a legal flag in it, and get the royalties to
Speaker 2: it forever.
Speaker 3: Dang. I mean, part of that made my stomach hurt.
Speaker 3: Part of me is like there's no new ideas. I mean,
Speaker 3: like there's just the music industry dude, like yeah, and
Speaker 3: then it's like I will pay you one hundred dollars
Speaker 3: to play the song and then record it. Yeah, record it.
Speaker 3: We'll pay for your day, you know, and then you
Speaker 3: record the song. And then I mean it's obviously not
Speaker 3: the same because I'm not in jail, but I have
Speaker 3: early on I did what's called a work for hire,
Speaker 3: which is you know, right, no, and then when I
Speaker 3: tell you that thing is in the twenty millions of
Speaker 3: like of plays. Yeah, I mean I've walked into freaking
Speaker 3: conferences with my face on a ten foot banner. Fuck
Speaker 3: because I just I didn't own it, you know, and
Speaker 3: it's like you know what you're doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it has a direct line to slavery colonization totally,
Speaker 2: which I I could have made that comparison in my head,
Speaker 2: you know, But looking at this, you're like, oh, this
Speaker 2: is the same mindset by often the literal same people.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: And this is one of the most basically colonization things
Speaker 2: I've ever read about that isn't literal colonization of land.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's exactly it. I'm gonna go find find it, yeah,
Speaker 3: steal it. Yeah, take all the rights for it, and
Speaker 3: you don't matter now, right.
Speaker 2: And so they show up to this prison and they
Speaker 2: are looking for musicians, and here is this regionally renowned man,
Speaker 2: the King of the twelve String, who knows hundreds and
Speaker 2: hundreds of songs and wrote a lot of them. He
Speaker 2: literally sang his way to freedom once before literally, and
Speaker 2: so basically Hutt he's like, if I kiss this white
Speaker 2: man's ass, I might get out of prison. And ironically,
Speaker 2: that's not how he gets himself out of prison. But
Speaker 2: John Lomax is going to pretend that that's what happened
Speaker 2: for years, being like, this man knows me everything, I
Speaker 2: got him out of prison. But that's like not even
Speaker 2: how he gets out of prison. No, they show up,
Speaker 2: they record a few songs, and the Lomaxes leave, and
Speaker 2: John does not appeal on his behalf. He's like, oh,
Speaker 2: if I record some songs they might try and get
Speaker 2: me out. And John like literally, he's like, we have
Speaker 2: a lot of his letters to his wife and they're
Speaker 2: all just wildly racist, just like really explicitly. And he's like,
Speaker 2: I thought for a moment about helping get this man
Speaker 2: out of prison and writing for clemency on his part,
Speaker 2: and I could probably do it. But could you imagine
Speaker 2: him in the car with us, Uh, Like, what would
Speaker 2: people think?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, well, I mean clearly we're not gonna like
Speaker 3: I mean yeah.
Speaker 2: And so instead of John appealing for Hoddy Howdy appeals
Speaker 2: for Hodey Howey, does jail house lawyer shit to prove
Speaker 2: there's all this, Like I read many many pages of this.
Speaker 2: It kind of boils down to he was pardoned in Texas,
Speaker 2: but that pardon hadn't been transported to Louisiana's like bureaucratic system.
Speaker 2: So the way that he was sentenced in Louisiana was
Speaker 2: based on as if his previous conviction had like stood,
Speaker 2: and so he was able to say, like, you actually
Speaker 2: need to reconsider my case in the following way. I
Speaker 2: should be up for parole, not I'm gonna be. You
Speaker 2: got to pardon me, but I need to be up
Speaker 2: for Pearol sooner based on this, this and this. It's
Speaker 2: fucking smart and it's a slow way for him to
Speaker 2: get out of jail. Okay, Like literally you were talking
Speaker 2: about earlier being like why am I still in jail?
Speaker 2: I proved all this stuff that's gonna happen to him
Speaker 2: for like a solid year. He's like, yeah, going to
Speaker 2: have proven everything, and then he's just like yeah, while
Speaker 2: the bureaucracy is slowly moving, he's like being whipped on
Speaker 2: a fucking chain gang or what daily.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But the Lomaxes they want more out of this guy.
Speaker 2: They only recorded a few songs, and they like it's
Speaker 2: always presented as this thing where like then they had
Speaker 2: this great revelation they invented a new kind of recorder
Speaker 2: so that they could better go exploit people, which makes
Speaker 2: me so sad. I love technology. I want technology to
Speaker 2: do good things. Yeah, totally idea of a field recorder
Speaker 2: or a brilliant idea. I love folk lore, so go
Speaker 2: around and record things if they weren't stealing them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for the purpose of like yeah, god exactly, not
Speaker 3: for the culture, which is what both music was supposed
Speaker 3: to be. Like I thought this was for the culture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so they invent basically I'm
Speaker 2: going to know more about this when I read the
Speaker 2: book on them. I started reading the book on them,
Speaker 2: and that's when I was like, fuck this. They invent
Speaker 2: a recording machine that records directly on twelve inch aluminum discs. Okay,
Speaker 2: and the whole thing. It's portable. It weighs more than
Speaker 2: five hundred pounds, it has one hundred and fifty pounds
Speaker 2: of batteries.
Speaker 3: Great portable. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so Huddy's like, all right, I will sing songs
Speaker 2: for you if you let me sing my dear Governor,
Speaker 2: please pardon me song, and you put it in front
Speaker 2: of the governor. And he also he's smart. He mentions
Speaker 2: his name on the tracks over and over again.
Speaker 3: This song is sung by me. Yeah, my name is
Speaker 3: Lyd Billy. I owned this song because I wrote it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He's fucking smart. Yeah, he records songs. It's unclear
Speaker 2: that the Lomax has actually put that record in front
Speaker 2: of the governor. It's very likely that the reason Huddy
Speaker 2: was released because of his own jailhouse lawyery. But John
Speaker 2: Lomax is like for years. He's like, no, this man
Speaker 2: knows me everything. I'm the one who got him out
Speaker 2: of jail, of course, and John Lomax has promised Huddy
Speaker 2: a job when he's out. He wont Houdey to basically
Speaker 2: sell him his credibility in black spaces, to get the
Speaker 2: best songs out of people. So like, you travel around
Speaker 2: with me, you go places that don't want me, and
Speaker 2: you record them. I get the copy, right, not you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally again, no new ideas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but honey, as soon as he's out, the first
Speaker 2: thing he does, right before he went to jail, E've
Speaker 2: been dating this woman named Martha, and he loves Martha,
Speaker 2: Like this is the woman he stays with. He probably
Speaker 2: sleeps with other people, but this is the woman he
Speaker 2: stays with.
Speaker 3: That's his lady.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And the first thing he does he gets
Speaker 2: out and he shows up at his girlfriend's house. He
Speaker 2: figures how the fuck to get from like Louisiana to Texas.
Speaker 2: He shows up in his cousin's car, rolls up. He
Speaker 2: sees her sitting on the porch and he's like, hey,
Speaker 2: you there, go inside and get Martha just to like
Speaker 2: make a joke, and then they like cry and hug
Speaker 2: and are very happy. And there's a lot of descriptions.
Speaker 2: Every time he reunites with Martha, he cries a lot.
Speaker 3: Oh, there's a side moment that I want to put
Speaker 3: a pin into. Is the thing that he shows up
Speaker 3: in his cousin's car. Yeah, and okay, so follow me. Now,
Speaker 3: this is gonna wind a little bit, all right?
Speaker 1: But oh really, is the story you're gonna tell? Wind
Speaker 1: a little bit?
Speaker 3: Oh really? They're having before us? Where do you go?
Speaker 1: That's crazy?
Speaker 3: Just just hearing about that now, whoa, it's so crazy.
Speaker 3: I apologize. Man, it's just new to me too, new
Speaker 3: to me too. The guy that wrote Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: H his degree is in history and Afro studies.
Speaker 2: Wow, see a white man or black man, a.
Speaker 3: Very white man. We're talking about Project twenty twenty five? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Wait are you talking about the guy who's
Speaker 1: the head of the Heritage Foundation.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: He got a fucking degree in Afro studies.
Speaker 3: He's got a green in history with the emphasis and
Speaker 3: Afro studies. And then his master thesis is about the
Speaker 3: family structures of the African American families in Louisiana. Whoa,
Speaker 3: and how they were able to use their families to
Speaker 3: find liberations.
Speaker 5: WHOA.
Speaker 3: And one of the ways he said is why I
Speaker 3: wanted to put a note on this. One of the
Speaker 3: ways he said is that the black family was not
Speaker 3: a nuclear family. That the family is extended and this
Speaker 3: is how we survived by having extended families, right.
Speaker 2: Just also literally the better way to live literally.
Speaker 3: I mean like for tens of thousands of years, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: and that we survived by organizing through third spaces. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: no churches, picnics, barbecues, cookouts.
Speaker 2: But yeah, playing music by the lake, yes, playing music
Speaker 2: by the lakes.
Speaker 3: But literally, he said, their means of liberation was having
Speaker 3: extended family. So for him to be like, oh I
Speaker 3: got here by my cousins, and why when you read
Speaker 3: Project twenty twenty five, he's like, the cornerstone is the
Speaker 3: nuclear family. It's the father.
Speaker 2: Like did he switch teams or was he studying the enemy?
Speaker 3: I don't know. It feels like he's studying the enemy,
Speaker 3: because I'm.
Speaker 1: Gonna go with study the enemy based on the way
Speaker 1: I because he was at the RNC and I infiltrated
Speaker 1: his party.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is almost one to one everything you learned
Speaker 3: about liberation for black people you are undoing. Yeah, in
Speaker 3: Project twenty twenty five. It's the most bizarre.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have to figure out a way to means
Speaker 2: test like white people in African American studies classes and just.
Speaker 3: Be like so, hey man, what are you doing here?
Speaker 2: Yeah? What's your goal with this?
Speaker 3: Like? Fuck, yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So just that little side note that he's like, oh no,
Speaker 3: that's it's like, well, yeah, that's my family, my cousin,
Speaker 3: I Benaji and my cousin gonna come get me. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I need to check up on his lady. I use
Speaker 3: my car. Yeah, Kevin Roberts, that's the head of the
Speaker 3: Heritage Foundation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I see her trans Foundation. Yeah, he was geeked
Speaker 1: up at the RNC. Yes, there was no way to
Speaker 1: get to him.
Speaker 2: Fuck. Well, dark on that dark revelation. Let's have a
Speaker 2: moment of meditation by listening to these products and services
Speaker 2: that support this podcast. And we're back. And while we
Speaker 2: were listening to the ads, we were making legally actionable
Speaker 2: threats again and maybe you all were too. Anyway, And
Speaker 2: so when he shows up, Martha has a job, she
Speaker 2: works at a steam laundry, and he doesn't have a job,
Speaker 2: so he does the actually good version of the unemployed boyfriend.
Speaker 2: He spends his time there, his week's there, taking care
Speaker 2: of her house and being a good unemployed boyfriend. Like
Speaker 2: whenever she's at work, he's like doing all the chores
Speaker 2: and shit.
Speaker 3: Got it.
Speaker 2: And he's trying to get in touch with John about
Speaker 2: this job, and he finally does. But here's the deal.
Speaker 2: A job is where people give you to do work.
Speaker 2: John Lomax did not pay, howe he led better?
Speaker 3: Oh okay, at first I was about to, you know,
Speaker 3: be like use him as an example, like, hey, fellas,
Speaker 3: look just be reasonable with these ladies. Like that's reasonable. Like, look,
Speaker 3: you ain't working right now, you're trying to work. Just
Speaker 3: take care of the crib, Like this is reasonable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nobody. He goes off and he joins John, and
Speaker 2: over and over again. John wrote about how he saved
Speaker 2: Hoddy and always kept writing about like and this man
Speaker 2: is eternally grateful for me, and like promised to be
Speaker 2: my good and loyal servant for free forever and ever.
Speaker 2: No and shine his shoes, clean his clothes, drive his car,
Speaker 2: and in exchange. While they're off to go do this
Speaker 2: work together, he gets a dollar a day for food
Speaker 2: and a place to sleep. About thirty four dollars a
Speaker 2: day today. Wow, Because while they're traveling, Hodey can't stay
Speaker 2: with John.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course not.
Speaker 2: That's like a look little bit on, Like, there's no
Speaker 2: hotel that's gonna take both of them in fucking Texas
Speaker 2: at the time. But John likes it that way. I'm
Speaker 2: willing to bet money. Yeah. Immediately, John Lomax is like,
Speaker 2: all right, I have this guy. He's gonna help me
Speaker 2: get into black spaces, but I'm also gonna fucking bring
Speaker 2: him around as a I was gonna say a circus act,
Speaker 2: but honestly kind of a zoo act.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was like a zoo animal.
Speaker 2: And immediately John Lomax builds up the idea that he
Speaker 2: is working with a dangerous murderer. He says in an
Speaker 2: interview that he asked Ledbetter what weapons he was carrying
Speaker 2: and was shown a big, long, scary knife. It was
Speaker 2: a small pocket knife that he used as a guitar slide.
Speaker 2: That everyone carried a fucking pocket knife.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's normal. And also it don't help that he'd
Speaker 3: been in jail three times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, he has murdered people well, no, he has
Speaker 2: killed people. It is unknown whether or not he murdered anybody. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but John made up this wonderful racist to change this
Speaker 2: is uh maybe those raist thing I'll read on there
Speaker 2: right now. John was like, quote, whenever you decide you're
Speaker 2: gonna take my money in car, you won't have to
Speaker 2: use this knife on me. Just tell me what you
Speaker 2: want and I'll give it to you without a struggle, Like,
Speaker 2: don't hurt me, scary black man. Oh, And then a
Speaker 2: crying hoodie said back, Oh, I guess I'm gonna read
Speaker 2: it the way it's written. Please do please suh, don't
Speaker 2: talk that way. You got me out of the pen.
Speaker 2: As you a man, you won't ever have to tie
Speaker 2: your shoes again if you don't want to. I'll step
Speaker 2: in front of you. If ever anybody tries to shoot you,
Speaker 2: I'm ready to die for you. Boss.
Speaker 3: Oh man green mild, magical black man to this our
Speaker 3: tie bosh. Oh yes, no, massa good to me, massa
Speaker 3: been good to me. Yeah. Yeah, that trow boy is
Speaker 3: right on. Boy, oh man, it's odd. Look, this is
Speaker 3: all the way down to the sand. Your Bullock movie,
Speaker 3: what's the movie about the football boy? Blind?
Speaker 5: Side.
Speaker 3: Yes, this is blind Side. I haven't seen it. This
Speaker 3: is blind Side. It's the plot, big scary black man
Speaker 3: from the hood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, except the fact that they turned out that there
Speaker 1: was like, hella fucked up shit going on with that movie.
Speaker 1: Remember none of that was like yeah, yeah revision it
Speaker 1: is history.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, but that's the movie plot, you know, just
Speaker 3: again the magical black man. That's a trope, you know,
Speaker 3: the magical black man who's no to Why is just
Speaker 3: how's you massive being good to me? So like, oh,
Speaker 3: he's a good he's a good white man. Yeah. Good.
Speaker 2: And it's probable that Hodey kissed Shawn's ass, but transparently
Speaker 2: that was because if he did it, he probably didn't
Speaker 2: say it like that because later it's gonna be he's
Speaker 2: gonna be kind of willful. But yeah, the safest option in.
Speaker 3: Front of him, he played a game.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And how fucking dumb do you have to
Speaker 2: be the fall for it? You fucking asshole? Fucking Harvard
Speaker 2: asked mother, Yeah, how.
Speaker 3: To look at this man and say, like, what party?
Speaker 4: You?
Speaker 3: Says Okay, when we walk into when we get into
Speaker 3: bat and Rouge, Louisiana and we walk into this juke
Speaker 3: joint where it's all black people and I'm your only
Speaker 3: ticket in, Like, what makes you think I won't be like, Hey,
Speaker 3: this white man tried to kill me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, Like.
Speaker 3: What makes you think I'm not gonna do that? Listen,
Speaker 3: They're okay. So again another side note from probe, Oh
Speaker 3: my god. So there was this organization, this nonprofit whatever
Speaker 3: that like is very white organization. And what they wanted
Speaker 3: to do was it turns out like the new president
Speaker 3: is this you know, fluffy, kind of nice white man,
Speaker 3: but he's originally content. But this is Compton in the fifties,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. So I'm like, that's ain't
Speaker 3: the Compton. I know, you don't see what I'm saying. Yeah, so,
Speaker 3: and also I'm not from Compton, right south Central, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. Anyway, they wanted to do these
Speaker 3: pieces of content where I would basically he's gonna fly
Speaker 3: down to his old neighborhood and he wanted me to
Speaker 3: interview him about kind of walking around you know, his
Speaker 3: up bringing Compton to kind of like just basically for
Speaker 3: me to be you know, led belly for this guy.
Speaker 2: Right, the black man is gonna make it OK for
Speaker 2: the old neighborhood, yes, right where you're not from, but
Speaker 2: he is, but yeah.
Speaker 3: You I don't even have to finish the story where
Speaker 3: I was like, I was like, sir, Like when I
Speaker 3: finally like responded, I remember I was talking about manager
Speaker 3: and then I was responding to the email. I was like,
Speaker 3: first of all, I'm not from Compton. I'm from South Central,
Speaker 3: But even if I was from Compton, I don't know
Speaker 3: nobody over there.
Speaker 1: And it's the most las dude response.
Speaker 3: I can't even.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I couldn't tell you the difference between those neighborhoods.
Speaker 2: I did a lot.
Speaker 3: First of all, they're many miles away from them, very
Speaker 3: far apart, very far apart. Number one and then number two.
Speaker 3: I'm like, the Compton you talking about has been gone
Speaker 3: for forty years, so I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 3: The neighborhood you in even if I was from Confident,
Speaker 3: that means I'm either from the east side of the
Speaker 3: west Side, which is Crip or blood, which means that
Speaker 3: you might be from the wrong side that I'm from. Right,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna walk down this like I don't know, I'm like,
Speaker 3: what what are you talking about and am I going
Speaker 3: to cash in that card with the people that I
Speaker 3: do you think I'm a cash in this card for you?
Speaker 3: I'm good your so what I'm saying like, but just
Speaker 3: this this audacity of just like insert black dude here,
Speaker 3: and you just want me to use my cultural like
Speaker 3: it's first of all, they're non transferable number one. And
Speaker 3: I'm like, and even me saying I'm from South Central,
Speaker 3: do you know the last time I've been on my
Speaker 3: Grandma Street?
Speaker 2: Neither do I You.
Speaker 3: See what I'm saying, And I'm like, and even if
Speaker 3: I did, I don't know them young dudes. Yeah, everybody
Speaker 3: I know went to jail or are gronos. Now they
Speaker 3: out the street.
Speaker 2: So it's just like, but you're a black man and
Speaker 2: that's where black men live, so you'll be fine.
Speaker 3: We know you fine, you just want me to go totally.
Speaker 2: And once got offered a reality TV show and I
Speaker 2: thought they were interviewing me about a documentary. They want
Speaker 2: to do a documentary about anarchism. And I was like,
Speaker 2: all right, I'll do that. I'm down a talking head
Speaker 2: about this shit, you know, And they were like, well,
Speaker 2: it's a docu series, and I was like, do you
Speaker 2: mean reality TV and they were like, no, no docuseries.
Speaker 2: And then slowly I realized they didn't care about any
Speaker 2: of the politics. They wanted me to bring a film
Speaker 2: crew into train yards and squats and all of the
Speaker 2: places that like me, as like a crust punk could
Speaker 2: get into that they couldn't. And then I already knew
Speaker 2: I was going to say no at this point, even
Speaker 2: though I was going to be like the host of
Speaker 2: the show. And then I found out they weren't trying
Speaker 2: to pay me.
Speaker 3: Oh see see on top of it that same experience
Speaker 3: and on top of this for free. Yeah, I'm like,
Speaker 3: are you it's safe? Man. I wish we hadn't known
Speaker 3: each other then, because one of the things I did
Speaker 3: say to them was like, unless you have seventy thousand
Speaker 3: dollars in cash that every time we walk into a
Speaker 3: new street, you just gonna have to hand the homies
Speaker 3: ten k yeah, yeah, fuck yeah, or they're gonna rob you.
Speaker 3: I can't stop them this day neighborhood.
Speaker 2: So and you're exploiting them, that's what you're You're going
Speaker 2: for authenticity. So you should fucking pay them, because if
Speaker 2: they had gone, if this reality TV show had gone
Speaker 2: to squats and train yards, went to a bunch of
Speaker 2: train riders and said, yeah, can we put you in
Speaker 2: our documentary that exploits you. Here's ten thousand dollars. They
Speaker 2: a would have been like, fuck, yes, of course, you know,
Speaker 2: absolutely fucking broke.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you just see what I'm saying. So I'm like
Speaker 3: and then yeah. And then with the street stuff, it's
Speaker 3: like it's either you give us this tank or we
Speaker 3: steal that camera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, totally, and.
Speaker 3: We get our ten k so yeah, and oh sorry,
Speaker 3: I gotta drop it. And they like, hey, who is
Speaker 3: he again? Because they don't know me. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Turns out all black men are not the same as
Speaker 2: each other sons.
Speaker 3: We don't all know each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now, how do he put up with this? And
Speaker 2: I think he put up with it because he knew
Speaker 2: this is how I get to New York City. This
Speaker 2: is how I'm going to fucking make it right. He
Speaker 2: is playing a game and it's a shitty game, and
Speaker 2: he misses his fucking girlfriend and he's being treated like shit.
Speaker 2: But he's like, all right, so a couple months, I
Speaker 2: can do this. This is gonna get me to New York.
Speaker 2: So for a couple of months they travel the South.
Speaker 2: Mostly they visited prisons. John stayed with the wardens. How
Speaker 2: doe he slept at the fucking prisoners. Of course he did,
Speaker 2: but he slept with the trustees, who are the prisoners
Speaker 2: who are trusted to watch over the prisoners with slightly
Speaker 2: better conditions. Yeah, so like the I don't know the
Speaker 2: snitch basically, yeah, good behavior boys, Yeah, got it. And
Speaker 2: they recorded songs everywhere they went. Huddy would go into
Speaker 2: town to find people to record. All the while he's
Speaker 2: also expected, on top of all of this to be
Speaker 2: a man servant. He wakes John up with coffee, he
Speaker 2: draws his bath, he evens the car door for him,
Speaker 2: and shit.
Speaker 3: Oh I'm good.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it takes patience. It takes patience for that. You
Speaker 3: got to keep your eye on the prize with that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Any question about whether or not this man had
Speaker 2: an anger.
Speaker 3: Issue, Yes, it's out the window. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So he's playing shows and it's like a circus actor, honestly,
Speaker 2: a zoo act. In a lot of ways. John sees
Speaker 2: himself as an equal partner in the show because he
Speaker 2: introduces Hoddy and interprets between the songs, explaining all of
Speaker 2: the black vernacular that's happening on stage, and he is
Speaker 2: consciously trying to keep Huddy under his control. He undercuts
Speaker 2: Huddy everywhere they go. No one is allowed to praise
Speaker 2: Honey too much because quote, the praise of his music
Speaker 2: spoils him. That's what he wrote to his wife about it.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Hey, y'all, don't cla too hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, put one hand together and not both hands together.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I had a teacher in fourth grade that
Speaker 3: even though I earned straight a's, he gave me all
Speaker 3: B pluses and he gave me straight B pluses and
Speaker 3: my black panther dad was like, can you explain this
Speaker 3: to me? And he was like, well, we don't want
Speaker 3: him to, you know, he'll have nothing to shoe for.
Speaker 3: He was like, let me get this straight. So you're
Speaker 3: telling me he earned a's, so he's already attained the
Speaker 3: thing that you're saying he needs to shoe for. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they might both My parents been divorced. They still both
Speaker 3: of them still talk about the story to this day.
Speaker 2: Yeah fuck yeah, yeah. They was just like something to
Speaker 2: bring them together up.
Speaker 3: He was gonna jump over that table on that man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which honestly, like literally, we'll get to it. One
Speaker 2: of the ways that Hudey gets out of a really
Speaker 2: bad such of this is just actually by being kind
Speaker 2: of scary, like the fact that like dangerous people like
Speaker 2: the black man is presented as by society, especially in
Speaker 2: this particular context. But all the time, Yeah, it's like
Speaker 2: it's mostly downsides to get treated that way, right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But like every now and then you can be like, oh,
Speaker 2: you afraid of me, Maybe you should be afraid of.
Speaker 3: Me, Maybe you should be You never know, you never
Speaker 3: know what I'm with. Yeah, you don't know where I'm from. Yeah,
Speaker 3: dudes a gang bang of day and eight life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, totally. Whereas that is like perfectly calm, nice,
Speaker 2: kind of a cowboy redneck guy who has absolutely killed
Speaker 2: at least one person and been in a lot of fights.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in their defense, again, the myth don't even need
Speaker 3: to be necessary. Calm dudes are very scary, totally, Like
Speaker 3: some of the scariest dudes I know, somebody scariest about
Speaker 3: those like I grew up with in the Mexican side
Speaker 3: of town. Dudes that are like, hey, bro, you shoul
Speaker 3: just so a little more respect. Yeah, and you're like,
Speaker 3: all right, like that calm, You're like, oh oh my father, Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I know that my stories are kind of pale comparison,
Speaker 2: pun kind of intended.
Speaker 3: But it's good. That was a good one.
Speaker 2: I DJed a goth knight, and goth knights are very
Speaker 2: like We're a bunch of people who are used to
Speaker 2: being picked on and we come into this space and
Speaker 2: it's very precious to us. And I'm done DJing, someone
Speaker 2: else's djying, and this like hipster kid comes in. He
Speaker 2: has a couple of friends with him, and he's like dancing,
Speaker 2: making fun of us, kind of like pointing and being
Speaker 2: like and kind of like copying people. Yeah, And so
Speaker 2: finally I just went up to him and I was like,
Speaker 2: first I went to the bartender and the DJ, and
Speaker 2: I was like, hey, am I start a fighting ah.
Speaker 2: And then I went up to him and I was like,
Speaker 2: hey man, people just like don't like it when you
Speaker 2: make fun of him. And he like pauses and he
Speaker 2: looks around the room and he looks at me and
Speaker 2: he leaves smart.
Speaker 3: Yeah smart. And all you just say was like, hey, people,
Speaker 3: don't I don't like that. I won't like that. Yeahah,
Speaker 3: that was enough. Yeah, I love it. That's great.
Speaker 2: So Honey is getting spoiled by the praise of his music,
Speaker 2: but he spends about half the time being like, fuck,
Speaker 2: I just want to go home with my girlfriend. So
Speaker 2: this shitty job where I'm literally not getting paid, and
Speaker 2: at one point he straight up just asks John for
Speaker 2: a ride home or money to get there and is ignored.
Speaker 2: So he is not free, like he is being not
Speaker 2: paid as he goes around and is sleeping in a
Speaker 2: prison like building copyright for this white man. By the
Speaker 2: end of the couple of months, John decided that Hudey
Speaker 2: couldn't be trusted with the dollar a day because he
Speaker 2: might spend it on alcohol, so starts paying directly for
Speaker 2: the housing and only gave him money before each meal.
Speaker 2: And during those five weeks, this is the like he suffered.
Speaker 2: He went to jail and shit, but this is the
Speaker 2: one that's like cruel and unusual, just this whole fucking thing,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, in those five weeks, John collect his
Speaker 2: six hundred and twenty five page book of American folk music,
Speaker 2: most of it black, and copyrighted it. Yeah, and John
Speaker 2: Lomax almost admitted that what he was doing was fucked up,
Speaker 2: but like in the wrong way or a correct way,
Speaker 2: but not the important way. He wrote, quote worse than
Speaker 2: thieves are ballad collectors for when they capture and imprison
Speaker 2: in cold type of folk song at the same time
Speaker 2: they kill it. It's change in growth or not so
Speaker 2: likely to continue after a fixed model for comparison exists.
Speaker 2: That's like interesting in matters. But he cares more about
Speaker 2: the like song than the singer.
Speaker 3: You know. Yeah, it's like you're still learning the wrong lesson. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like it's a great lesson, it's just the wrong lesson.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. It is a quarter as important as the
Speaker 2: lesson you should learn, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But they drove north. They spent Christmas in DC hut.
Speaker 2: He was probably very lonely having Christmas with a weird
Speaker 2: white family that was making him be a servant. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then they went to an academic conference in Philly
Speaker 2: to cement John as a good and true academic, and
Speaker 2: they made Lead better wear his old prison outfit on stage.
Speaker 2: Overall is in a bandana and a straw hat. This
Speaker 2: is his biggest performance ever in his life.
Speaker 3: Oh, of course it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He is not allowed to attend the banquet at
Speaker 2: which rich white people sang folk songs and sea shanties,
Speaker 2: and for three months he wasn't paid, but it got
Speaker 2: him to New York. As soon as they get to
Speaker 2: New York, he's almost free. He's not free yet. As
Speaker 2: soon as they get to New York, Lomax said about
Speaker 2: figuring out how to make sure he basically still owned
Speaker 2: the man and couldn't have an independent career. Part of
Speaker 2: that was representing Hutty as a wild and vicious, wild
Speaker 2: animal that only he could tame. Headlines said things like
Speaker 2: sweet Singer of the swamp Lands, here to do a
Speaker 2: few tunes between homicides.
Speaker 3: Gangster rap. Yep, you said it exactly. Yeah, he might
Speaker 3: kill you. He might kill you. What a gat.
Speaker 2: Yeah only actually one of the things that they do.
Speaker 2: Even though he did go to prison for stabbing a
Speaker 2: white man, they never say that over and over again.
Speaker 2: He's like, don't worry, he only hurts his own kind.
Speaker 3: And gangster rap, gangster rap, same thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fuck, that's fucking true.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: Wow, oh man, I hate that so much, all right.
Speaker 2: Go yeah, no, no, I mean I'm even thinking about
Speaker 2: like when I was a kid, I was like clearly
Speaker 2: liked gangster rap more than I liked the like alternative
Speaker 2: rock on the radio, but I wasn't like culturally allowed to.
Speaker 2: I had to be like, yeah, I like Smashing Pumpkins.
Speaker 2: I did not like Smashing Pumpkins. Yeah, yeah, totally like.
Speaker 2: I like Notoria's big. It's better music.
Speaker 3: I don't know what to tell you it's better. I
Speaker 3: can't really do it at all, but it's way better. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I actually genuinely thought I didn't like music as a
Speaker 2: kid because all I had exposure to was like nineties rock.
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's just me. Yeah, that's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: there's there's definitely those list of bands that you're supposed
Speaker 3: to like, and you do your best to like you
Speaker 3: just yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Although the worst part by getting old is sometimes now
Speaker 2: I like, I like the Beatles.
Speaker 3: Now now you can see it, yeah yeah, and I'm like, fuck,
Speaker 3: like so funny.
Speaker 2: So led Belly was this huge sensation, and John figured
Speaker 2: out soon enough that if he stayed in New York,
Speaker 2: led Belly would leave him, so he whisked him away
Speaker 2: to a small town in Connecticut to record an album,
Speaker 2: including a memoir that wasn't a transcription of Huddy Talking.
Speaker 2: Because they never recorded Huddy talking. They had him tell stories,
Speaker 2: and then they went and wrote later and they just
Speaker 2: made shit up.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: And this is the book that's supposedly his words, that
Speaker 2: will never be his copyright.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: And interestingly, the historians who looked into it, their writing
Speaker 2: was largely accurate when it was about the good times
Speaker 2: he had with his family, and completely inaccurate when it
Speaker 2: talked about violence. And historian Hazel Carbi said that quote
Speaker 2: the political project of the Lomaxes was to cast the
Speaker 2: blackmail body into the shape of an outlaw. John Lomax
Speaker 2: intended to recover an unadulterated form of black music, and
Speaker 2: then the process actually invented a particular version of black authenticity.
Speaker 2: So this might obviously the like scary blackmail concept has
Speaker 2: been around for a long time. But inventing this type
Speaker 2: of black authenticity, I'm like, this is fucking gangster rep.
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, it's sad too. Like, as a member of
Speaker 3: the culture, the part of the things that we internalize
Speaker 3: in the sense that we didn't stay woke, which is
Speaker 3: why again, like, while I always rocked with Leed Belly,
Speaker 3: is like he was not unaware of the game he
Speaker 3: was playing. Yeah, he just played the cards he was
Speaker 3: dealt like you're not really a boss, like not really
Speaker 3: a star, you know, whereas you know, you fast forward
Speaker 3: so many years and you look at a lot of
Speaker 3: these like young black artists and they're like these record execs.
Speaker 3: Though you a money for a chain, you get a
Speaker 3: chain in a car, you think you made it, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, and it's like and you made it, you know,
Speaker 3: doing all this drill music, which is your music. And
Speaker 3: I'm not even gonna judge you about that, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. But like you're playing into, like you said,
Speaker 3: a perception of what it means to be legit or
Speaker 3: authentic or truly hood. So now we're perpetuating these stories.
Speaker 3: A lot of these kids, like y'all went to like
Speaker 3: great schools with loving parents, but it's not you not
Speaker 3: allowed to be like that, you know what I'm saying, right,
Speaker 3: And that's very frustrating. I Mean, now there's stuff like
Speaker 3: called nerd rap, where like dudes are like legit nerds
Speaker 3: like to.
Speaker 2: Us even more than backpack wrap, because backpack wrap is
Speaker 2: like nerd rap. But this is even more I'm.
Speaker 3: Saying, anime a like nerds, comic book, video game like
Speaker 3: and their whole world is that. So it's like and
Speaker 3: used to be like they just weren't good rap, but
Speaker 3: now a lot of them dudes can.
Speaker 2: Like actually fucking rap.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but they're like amic Khan nerds. Yeah, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. So now there's a world for it
Speaker 3: where you don't have to be just this version of black.
Speaker 3: But then like yeah, but all this like performative you know,
Speaker 3: like stuff like you know, I don't want to pick
Speaker 3: on well, I kind of wanted to pick on very
Speaker 3: particular people, but like like Rick Ross who was like
Speaker 3: Rick Ross was a you worked at a prison. You
Speaker 3: were a security guard at a prison. Jesus, Yeah, like
Speaker 3: your whole persona is like that's your backstory, you know
Speaker 3: me Thos like those guys, they didn't sell drugs. You're
Speaker 3: from a great family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's like that's fine. And what's funny is
Speaker 2: that let bellies from a great family and he doesn't
Speaker 2: pretend otherwise. Other people pretend otherwise about him exactly, yes,
Speaker 2: but like he also still you know, legitimately hard, like
Speaker 2: he's a hard man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's real. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. That's
Speaker 3: what I mean by like there's the like going in
Speaker 3: open eyed, you know, and there's something to be saying
Speaker 3: now obviously fast forward, you know, almost one hundred years later,
Speaker 3: like we don't we have the means of not having
Speaker 3: to play this game anymore, Like you don't have to
Speaker 3: do this now. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. This
Speaker 3: is bad.
Speaker 2: What happened to lead Belly. This is a bad part.
Speaker 2: He bad like it. As soon as he gets out
Speaker 2: of it, he does other shit.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, that's my point. I'm just like, no, you
Speaker 3: don't keep if you're playing the game. The point is
Speaker 3: to do your own shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, totally yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Fuck.
Speaker 2: So they released this book. It's a sixty four page
Speaker 2: book that uses the N word fifty seven times, a
Speaker 2: trillion times. Yeah. The subtitle of the book was King
Speaker 2: of the Twelve String Guitar Players of the World, Longtime
Speaker 2: Convict and the Penitentiaries of Texas and Louisiana. And it's
Speaker 2: divided into two parts. And the first part is the
Speaker 2: Worldly End Word and part two is the Sinful Songs.
Speaker 2: And what's funny is like when they're going around, they
Speaker 2: often would run across people who are like, no, I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna play you the like fucked up like like
Speaker 2: they're like, yeah, I play the weird fucked up songs
Speaker 2: like for my friends, but like, no, no, we we
Speaker 2: like church music. That's where I play some spirituals you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: And then they made him sign this is we'll get
Speaker 2: even more to the modern version of everything. They made
Speaker 2: him sign a fucked up management contract we go, which
Speaker 2: means I can draw a pretty direct line from slavery
Speaker 2: to the exploitation of the music industry.
Speaker 3: There it is. Yep.
Speaker 2: The contract had blank spots for the length of the
Speaker 2: contract and the percentage of income that later they added
Speaker 2: in after it was signed.
Speaker 3: After it was signed that by hand.
Speaker 2: They wrote five years and fifty percent after of course
Speaker 2: all the deductions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, after recoup Okay.
Speaker 2: Soon they changed to thirty three point two thirds whatever
Speaker 2: a third of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thirty three and third God, dirt dog.
Speaker 2: There's no terms on how to end the contract, and
Speaker 2: he had to get Lomax's permission in order to play shows. Okay,
Speaker 2: So in order to sweeten the deal to get him
Speaker 2: to sign it, the Lomax has said, if you sign it,
Speaker 2: we'll pay for Martha to come up here and live
Speaker 2: with us.
Speaker 3: Damn signing bonus yep.
Speaker 2: Whereas Lomax literally wrote to his wife, so Alan and I,
Speaker 2: his son will have two servants to look after us
Speaker 2: in our little wooded village because he's still body servanting.
Speaker 2: And when Lomax describes getting a show for Ladbelly, he
Speaker 2: literally writes, I have just sold him for cash money
Speaker 2: to a party. Now you might think that's subtle. What
Speaker 2: did he mean by that? Fortunately for us, he underlined
Speaker 2: the word sold. Yeah, so, and what I mean is yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah wow. But he signed the contract. Martha came up.
Speaker 2: It had been about five six weeks since it's seen her.
Speaker 2: He cries, and he cries and she moves in with him,
Speaker 2: and the two of them started working for free for
Speaker 2: the Lomaxes because they don't pay them for this, And
Speaker 2: the lo Maxes, of course would complain like I nearly
Speaker 2: starved when that lazy Martha didn't get home to cook
Speaker 2: dinner for us in time for free. Yeah, he was
Speaker 2: forced to work on his wedding day. Like the wedding
Speaker 2: lasts about three hours and then off to work. He
Speaker 2: wasn't allowed to play cowboy songs despite having literally been
Speaker 2: a cowboy. I was like, wait, from Texas. Wait, yeah,
Speaker 2: he has broken horses and wrangled livestock professionally, but that's
Speaker 2: white people's stuff. He's not allowed to play that. Let
Speaker 2: Better started breaking free at this point, and during a
Speaker 2: tour around upstate New York, he started disobeying Lomax by
Speaker 2: not telling him where he was going. He would go
Speaker 2: off and hang out with like black people and then
Speaker 2: go to black parties. He still made it to all
Speaker 2: of his shows in time, but he also was like,
Speaker 2: there's a kid's birthday party, I'm going to go play.
Speaker 2: Fuck you. This has nothing to do with you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And he wasn't being properly deferential to Lomax, so Lomax
Speaker 2: started writing home to his wife being like it's all
Speaker 2: going badly, And one point he refused to give Lomax
Speaker 2: the money that he made passing the hat after songs.
Speaker 3: Mm oh man, he ain't get a mass that they could. Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So what set him free was two things. It's
Speaker 2: a perfect one two punch that fucking Huddy Ledbetter as
Speaker 2: the master of punch one. Lomax believed all the hype
Speaker 2: he had built up about Huddy as a terrifying killer
Speaker 2: and frankly Huddy is both a killer and probably capable
Speaker 2: of being terrifying. Yes, he realized that if he pushed
Speaker 2: the guy around too much he might get killed. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So they were like, all right, we're buying you and
Speaker 2: Martha tickets back to Louisiana or don recording your shit,
Speaker 2: get the fuck out of here. And they sent him
Speaker 2: some checks that they owed him his like one third,
Speaker 2: but they post data the checks so he couldn't cash them.
Speaker 2: Just to be a dick, yeah, yeah, and then not
Speaker 2: just to be a dick, John tried to get him arrested.
Speaker 2: I hate this guy. No, Yeah, like his probation terms
Speaker 2: that like you can go out and work involve good behavior.
Speaker 2: Right when Honey gets the postdated checks, he writes back
Speaker 2: a like, fairly polite letter. We know what the letter publish.
Speaker 2: Fairly polite letter that was, you should probably send me
Speaker 2: the money you visit our website instead of check us out.
Speaker 1: On the iHeart Apple podcasts.
Speaker 2: Lomax wrote the sheriff in fucking Louisiana and was like,
Speaker 2: the scary black man threatened my life and over sending
Speaker 2: postated checks. Now surprise hero of the story, White sheriff
Speaker 2: and Louisiana not only did he not turn on Huddy,
Speaker 2: he instead went and found a white attorney to tell
Speaker 2: Lomax like, fuck you, you need to pay Honey.
Speaker 3: Pay this man is money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's go. That's crazy.
Speaker 3: You find fans anywhere. It's like, I'm talking about this guy, ribs,
Speaker 3: he hasn't been paying you. Goodnight, I bro, come on,
Speaker 3: what you talking about?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so then this attorney goes and represents Honey and
Speaker 2: they go through lots and lots of legal threats and
Speaker 2: do all this crazy shit and they get him out
Speaker 2: of the contract. And so that's his one two punch.
Speaker 2: I'm a scary black man and I know the fucking law.
Speaker 3: That's so crazy. Yeah, that's so crazy. You're bullying this food.
Speaker 3: Then you turn around and that dude says, hey, you're
Speaker 3: gonna stop bullying me now. Yeah, he realizes man has
Speaker 3: been letting you do this to him this Oh, like
Speaker 3: I've been letting you do this.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: He's just like, that's so great.
Speaker 2: And so it's like he has gotten himself out of
Speaker 2: jail by burning a hole in the floor, by singing
Speaker 2: a song, by doing jail house lawyer shit, and then
Speaker 2: he got himself out of it's not the same as jail,
Speaker 2: but he got himself out of a I work for
Speaker 2: free Exploitation's true. The book did still come out about him.
Speaker 2: He didn't have any say over that because it was
Speaker 2: owned by Macmillan, the publisher who actually publishes some of
Speaker 2: my shits. Still Yeah, I was like, they still exist. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and I actually don't know how they are. Villains are
Speaker 2: not about a whole thing. That book came out. Ledbetter
Speaker 2: was pretty upset about it. He wrote about it. He
Speaker 2: was like, look, this is not my words. Just in
Speaker 2: case anyone's curious, I didn't say any of that shit.
Speaker 2: He also wrote that people shouldn't use the N word,
Speaker 2: and it was used fifty seven times in the sixty
Speaker 2: four page book, including in one of the headings. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and people knew him so that the sound of that
Speaker 2: word irritated him. He wanted to write his own book.
Speaker 2: I don't believe he ever did. He was like, I'm
Speaker 2: going to write my own book. It's going to be
Speaker 2: called We Show Walk through the Valley in piece because
Speaker 2: that's more his vibe. That and being kind of a
Speaker 2: weird Christian communist. Yeah, which we'll get to now. He
Speaker 2: moves back to New York and he helps start a
Speaker 2: folk revival there and he plays like there's like only
Speaker 2: like one fucking cafe, like one show venue that's really integrated,
Speaker 2: and that's where he fucking plays over and over again.
Speaker 2: He was arrested one more time, another probable self defense case.
Speaker 2: He likely wrestled a man's knife away from him and
Speaker 2: stabbed the guy with his own knife. And when this happened,
Speaker 2: it was Alan Lomax, who had been seventeen when he
Speaker 2: first met him. Lomax's son who paid his bail and
Speaker 2: then dropped out of grad school to raise money for
Speaker 2: his defense day. And so Alan Lomax he turned out alright,
Speaker 2: he is nothing like his dad. His dad actually sold
Speaker 2: out his own son to the Red Scare and wrote
Speaker 2: the FEDS and was like, I think my son's a communist. Wow,
Speaker 2: So his son had to flee the fucking country for
Speaker 2: eight years. Alan Lomax was out of the country from
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty eight because he was like
Speaker 2: a small c communist. He wasn't a member of the
Speaker 2: Communist Party, but he like.
Speaker 3: I liked the ideas.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Led Belly spent six months at Rikers despite all of
Speaker 2: the defense, but that is less than he usually gets.
Speaker 2: And he was political as fock in his later years.
Speaker 2: He was proudly a union man. The East Coast New
Speaker 2: York Local two on two of the American Federation of
Speaker 2: Musicians was racially integrated, whereas he tried to go out west.
Speaker 2: He wanted to be a cowboy in movies, but the
Speaker 2: union there wasn't racially integrated, so he like couldn't do shit. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he played protests all of the time. He read the
Speaker 2: local leftist newspapers. And I talked with a singer named
Speaker 2: Andy Cohen, someone who didn't know him directly but was
Speaker 2: part of the early sixties movement that he inspired. So
Speaker 2: like the kind of immediately after him scene, Yeah, and
Speaker 2: that man described to me led Belly's politics like this,
Speaker 2: he wouldn't have sung solidarity forever. Rather he would have
Speaker 2: done work songs that were much more direct. And so
Speaker 2: he's like, oh, yeah, how am I going to talk
Speaker 2: about the workers. I'm gonna sing fucking work songs.
Speaker 3: Sing work songs. That's what I know him from. I
Speaker 3: know him from the organizing, the like the New York
Speaker 3: scene of just like just say the thing. Yeah, Like
Speaker 3: that's the songwriting I feel like with him is just like,
Speaker 3: just say it, say it, say the thing. No, totally, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Have you ever heard a song mister Hitler.
Speaker 3: Yes, he's so fucking good.
Speaker 2: He wrote a song. The chorus is We're gonna tear
Speaker 2: Hitler down someday.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just say the thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I read somewhere years ago when he came
Speaker 2: up on a different episode about jail breaks. I can't
Speaker 2: find my source for this because I wasn't as good
Speaker 2: at tracking everything then that he tried to volunteer for
Speaker 2: World War Two to fight the fascists even though he
Speaker 2: was in his fifties.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know that was true or not. But
Speaker 2: Hoodie mentored Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, the like white
Speaker 2: people who are more famously known for starting political folk music.
Speaker 2: He got to go to France to play shows, and
Speaker 2: by the end of his fifties he was diagnosed with
Speaker 2: als Luke Arrick's disease and he needed a wheelchair, and
Speaker 2: he kept playing shows and this part I really like.
Speaker 2: Martha would join him on stage and sing spirituals with him.
Speaker 2: So you go up and he play, and then when
Speaker 2: he got to the spirituals, his wife would come on
Speaker 2: stage and sing with him. Yeah, he closed out the
Speaker 2: very last concert he ever played, joined by his wife
Speaker 2: Martha and sang songs with her. And also she wore
Speaker 2: a suit on stage two at least by the one
Speaker 2: photo I found m h And he died at sixty
Speaker 2: on December sixth, nineteen forty nine, and Alan Lomax worked
Speaker 2: hard to get the rights to led better songs to
Speaker 2: Martha instead of his dad.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, people through a concert for his memorial, and people
Speaker 2: said about him, quote, I would want to know a
Speaker 2: better person. And they said that he wasn't a murderer,
Speaker 2: but that he was a quote self defense man. Someone
Speaker 2: said that quote. He loved children, and he loved people,
Speaker 2: and most of all, he loved himself. And they said
Speaker 2: that he didn't start trouble, but he tried to stop it.
Speaker 2: One of the mothers of his children, the very first
Speaker 2: Margaret that he had kids with before he married Aalifa,
Speaker 2: who he stayed up with, right like, Yeah, he didn't
Speaker 2: abandon his kids, he wrote, quote, he never tried to
Speaker 2: interfere with anyone unless they would give him a cause
Speaker 2: then he would try to defend himself. He just wouldn't
Speaker 2: stand for nobody to punch him in the face. He
Speaker 2: was strong and he could win fights. Oh lord, very.
Speaker 3: Easy, good, Oh no, very easy.
Speaker 2: That's what I got.
Speaker 3: I love that. I think, yeah, what a what a
Speaker 3: giant dude. And then just the unsung again tradition of
Speaker 3: like I don't blame you know, gun three for this,
Speaker 3: but it's just like it's not like he was. He
Speaker 3: just admired the dude, and the dude taught it, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. Totally he became the star. You
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying, Like again time on a tradition. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but I do think the fact that folk music, resistance, communism, feminism,
Speaker 3: and spirituality is all on the same stage is the
Speaker 3: thing that I've had a hard time articulating to like
Speaker 3: the cool zone audience. Yeah, like as like our experience
Speaker 3: as black people. The way I talk so freely about
Speaker 3: Bible stuff and Christianity is because well we come from this,
Speaker 3: yeah you know what I mean. It's not like I
Speaker 3: don't say, like we're not evangelicals, right, Like we're not
Speaker 3: that like so there was no like the idea They're like,
Speaker 3: well if you're well, your dad was kind of a Marxist.
Speaker 3: I thought he was a Christian, And I'm like, well, yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why is this a contradiction. Yeah, like those.
Speaker 3: Aren't contradict Like, those aren't far from each other.
Speaker 2: Marx might, but he's not Marx. He doesn't fucking need
Speaker 2: to be Marx. He's his own fucking person.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly. I'm just like these things are not. Yeah,
Speaker 3: a Christian to be a Communist, I'm like, easy, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally read the fucking Bible.
Speaker 3: I don't know, Yeah, read the book.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Like there's a lot more about hating rich
Speaker 2: people than there is a out like people, a little
Speaker 2: bit of hating gainy people, lots of hating rich people.
Speaker 3: A lot of that. Yeah, a lot of the gayety
Speaker 3: gay people kind of was like also, don't eat cheese
Speaker 3: with beefs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or like misunderstood.
Speaker 3: Let a lot of that shit go.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, totally yeah.
Speaker 3: But like like you said, the little notes of like, look,
Speaker 3: he stuck with this lady all the time. She ain't
Speaker 3: want to do the world stuff, but she wanted to
Speaker 3: do the church stuff. But you do the church stuff
Speaker 3: with the world stuff. It all gets on stage and yeah,
Speaker 3: I won't play that, like of course we have like
Speaker 3: this isn't Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to
Speaker 3: pay no utopia, like the Black Church don't have horrible
Speaker 3: misogyny in it, you know what I'm saying, right, But
Speaker 3: what I'm saying is like we just didn't have We
Speaker 3: had in problems you had, you know, and a lot
Speaker 3: of that was because of like what you're articulating was like,
Speaker 3: this was the reality of our situation. The reality of
Speaker 3: our situation said, the way to our freedom is to
Speaker 3: function like this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like the third space stuff that you were
Speaker 2: talking about earlier about being like it was, it was
Speaker 2: researching episodes a couple of years ago on the show
Speaker 2: that I really started to more understand this thing you're
Speaker 2: talking about, where I'm like, oh no, like the Black
Speaker 2: Church is a center of resistance, so like it's yes,
Speaker 2: the destruction of black churches is more it's racism, and
Speaker 2: it's a well, it's not really anti religious. It's usually
Speaker 2: done by people who are very religious, but in the
Speaker 2: opposite way. But it's specifically the destruction of a symbol
Speaker 2: in an organizing place, like it is like exactly it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: you all are trying to like lift each other up
Speaker 2: with the same thing that we used to put you down.
Speaker 2: So we're going to destroy that. So only like the
Speaker 2: same way is like, the only way to be the
Speaker 2: best dancer is to not let black people in. Yes,
Speaker 2: the only way to be the best Christian is to
Speaker 2: not let black Christianity it, you know, don't let them talk.
Speaker 3: Don't let them talk. Yeah, they don't point it the
Speaker 3: stuff in the book. Yeah, that tells us we wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I'm waiting for fucking advance to realize the
Speaker 2: word Catholic means universal and the entire fucking concept of
Speaker 2: early Christianity was the idea that you can't treat people
Speaker 2: different based on what triber nation they are, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was That was the fucking revolutionary idea that's embedded
Speaker 2: in it. Power structures came out of it. Power structures
Speaker 2: often do real bad things.
Speaker 3: But like, yeah, every time you open your mouth, I'm like, bro,
Speaker 3: you truly don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, but yeah, dude, man,
Speaker 3: what a guy?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 3: I know, what a guy? What a story?
Speaker 2: And I love that. It's just he's a guy.
Speaker 3: He is just a dude.
Speaker 2: He is both cool and flawed in a way that
Speaker 2: just like I fucking I was really excited about this
Speaker 2: and I.
Speaker 3: Mess with it.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for choosing me for this one man,
Speaker 3: because this was like, yeah, like this like put some yeah,
Speaker 3: put some gasoline in the engine here. Man, this guy
Speaker 3: was super excited. You know.
Speaker 2: Well, if people want to listen to your podcast or
Speaker 2: listening to.
Speaker 3: Music, please Yeah. I come from that spirit, man, I
Speaker 3: come from that like say the thing change the world?
Speaker 3: You know again, prop hip hop dot Com for the
Speaker 3: new music the new records called This is Our Fellowship.
Speaker 3: It's about the masculinity crisis. Yeah, so it's like I'm
Speaker 3: talking that talk. Yeah, but hood politics were prop you know,
Speaker 3: spend a great, great time over there. You know. If
Speaker 3: you ever, like Margaret says, you ever looked at the
Speaker 3: headlines and was like wait what Yeah, I feel like
Speaker 3: surely they're not saying It's like yeah they are, and
Speaker 3: this is why they're saying that. Yeah, so like, yeah,
Speaker 3: come to me for that. I'm not breaking news data
Speaker 3: right now, that's you go to it can have it
Speaker 3: here for breaking news.
Speaker 2: No, you got you got the analysis of news that
Speaker 2: I Yeah, it's the analysis and just to continue to
Speaker 2: gas you up on this and why people should listen
Speaker 2: to the show. One of your specific talents is understanding
Speaker 2: the other side and expressing things the way that the
Speaker 2: other side understands them. Yeah, not to be like and
Speaker 2: that's why we should have sympathy for the people who
Speaker 2: are trying to kill you, but instead being like basic
Speaker 2: art of war, you need to know your enemy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is how they got there. And it's
Speaker 3: not so much like I said, yeah, now sympathy, but
Speaker 3: like honestly like us using the white Christian thing for example.
Speaker 3: It's like me and Mahomi was talking about this recently,
Speaker 3: like if somebody walked up to you and said, hey, bro,
Speaker 3: your way of life is going away, like if they
Speaker 3: did like he gave it example, like hip hop, Like
Speaker 3: if somebody was like, listen, the post malones of the world,
Speaker 3: the machine gun kellies of the world, are destroying your culture.
Speaker 3: This is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna build defense
Speaker 3: around it and make it impossible for them to come in.
Speaker 3: And on top of that, I'm gonna invest in everything
Speaker 3: y'all built, right, like sign me the fuck up, yo,
Speaker 3: saying like so I mean, that's what what he telling
Speaker 3: these people you tell me, and it's like they wrong,
Speaker 3: you're sat up saying because like going back to the
Speaker 3: hip hop thing, I'm like, well, you pointed a finger
Speaker 3: at post Malone. I'm like, you ignoring third base, you
Speaker 3: ignoring the Beastie boys, you ignoring eminem like you ignore
Speaker 3: all these other white people who have been amazing parts
Speaker 3: of the hip hop culture. As if you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. So I'm like, well, you you cherry picking,
Speaker 3: But that's not the point. The point is, like you said,
Speaker 3: I need to understand what they say it, and I'm
Speaker 3: gonna help you understand at least what they say it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep, So people should listen to your show figured Out, unless,
Speaker 2: of course, your hate listening to this and trying to
Speaker 2: learn us as the enemy, in which case, don't listen
Speaker 2: to politics.
Speaker 3: Never mind, don't worry about it. Yeah, roll on, Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know what.
Speaker 2: Else should we if you want a book that gets
Speaker 2: into all of this stuff and more, probably the main
Speaker 2: source I used and the best work done to. Like,
Speaker 2: I'm not a historian, I don't work as much with
Speaker 2: the primary sources and do interviews and stuff and like
Speaker 2: hang out in the archives. I am a pop historian.
Speaker 2: I work with secondary sources primarily and try and tell
Speaker 2: you a good story to get you interested in things.
Speaker 2: I like to see myself as a history educator rather
Speaker 2: than a historian, but the actual historian who did the
Speaker 2: work that I am deeply indebted to. I would recommend
Speaker 2: reading Bring Judgment Day Reclaiming Led Belly's Truths from Jim
Speaker 2: Crow's Lie Lies by Sheila Curran Bernard. So if you
Speaker 2: got any you want to plug.
Speaker 1: I just want to go play with my dog at
Speaker 1: this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go play with dogs. Yeah, take care of each other.
Speaker 2: Fuck Ice Free Palestine, and see y'all next week. Go
Speaker 2: Lakers and Go Lakers.
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