Speaker 1: On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media.
Speaker 1: Imagine if artists were held criminally liable for the lines
Speaker 1: they said or acts they portrayed while making.
Speaker 2: Art, like if Jason Bateman was convicted for money laundering
Speaker 2: for his role as Marty in the TV series Ozark.
Speaker 1: Or if police hurt Carrie Underwood singing about taking a
Speaker 1: Louisville slugger to the headlights of her Cheetah Man's car
Speaker 1: and put out a warrant for her arrest.
Speaker 2: As the ysl Rico trial in Atlanta continues, Rapper Young
Speaker 2: Thug doesn't have to imagine happening tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Rapper Young Thug and his co defendants in the ysl
Speaker 1: Rico trial will be Young Thug is accused of leading
Speaker 1: a violent street gang, and prosecutors are using his song
Speaker 1: lyrics as evidence.
Speaker 3: He is the one they're all afraid of.
Speaker 4: He's the one that's King Swan.
Speaker 2: But Young Thug isn't the first rapper to get caught
Speaker 2: in the cross hairs of the weaponization of rap lyrics.
Speaker 2: One of the earliest and most commonly cited cases is
Speaker 2: the nineteen ninety one Foster case, where a Seventh Circuit
Speaker 2: Appeals Court upheld the conviction of Derek Foster, whose prosecution
Speaker 2: relied on rap lyrics he wrote about drugs and narcotics trafficking.
Speaker 2: Another early high profile example was Snoop Dogg's nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: three murder trial.
Speaker 1: We the jury and above and tile action.
Speaker 3: Finally, defendant Calvin Brod is not guilty of the crime
Speaker 3: of murder in the first degree.
Speaker 1: However, it was the people Versus Olgein case in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four that arguably had the biggest influence on the
Speaker 1: use of this tactic. In this case, Cesar Javier Olgein
Speaker 1: and Francisco called ro Mora were convicted and the prosecution
Speaker 1: used rap lyrics as evidence.
Speaker 2: Prosecutors in the aforementioned cases held the same views as
Speaker 2: Fanie Willis Holden County, Georgia's district attorneys.
Speaker 5: Don't confess to climbs on rap lyrics if you do
Speaker 5: not want them used, or at least get out of
Speaker 5: my account.
Speaker 2: These cases mark the beginning of a controversial legal trend
Speaker 2: where rap lyrics were used as evidence in criminal trials,
Speaker 2: sparking debates about racial stereotypes, First Amendment rights, and the
Speaker 2: potential bias against rap music and its artists. I'm Eves
Speaker 2: and I'm Katie. Today's episode Rhyme and Punishment.
Speaker 1: A new documentary, As We Speak explores the weaponization of
Speaker 1: rap lyrics in the legal system, shedding light on the
Speaker 1: use of artistic expression as evidence in criminal trials. Directed
Speaker 1: by Jason Harper and featuring hip hop artists Kimba as
Speaker 1: a guide and character, the film delves into the ways
Speaker 1: in which rap lyrics have been used in court, examining
Speaker 1: the impact of this practice on the music industry and
Speaker 1: its artists.
Speaker 4: Hi Kenva Hi.
Speaker 3: Kimva was going on Yes we Can Perfect, and we got.
Speaker 2: A chance to catch up with Jason and Kimba to
Speaker 2: talk to them about as we Speak and the implications
Speaker 2: of criminalizing in art form. So the beginning of As
Speaker 2: we Speak, we saw you Kimba in the archives looking
Speaker 2: at the criminalization but also like the demonization of black
Speaker 2: music from slave songs to blues to rock enroll and
Speaker 2: now wrap. And I think going into the documentary, you
Speaker 2: can feel like, oh, this is like a really new phenomenon,
Speaker 2: especially being in Atlanta. We're seeing what's happening with the
Speaker 2: but it's the act of policing black expression is really
Speaker 2: quite old. So like, how did both of you feel
Speaker 2: about that connection, that historical connection when you're making this
Speaker 2: film and like unraveling all these details.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean that was one of the first scenes
Speaker 5: in my mind that was really crystal clear. And it
Speaker 5: started from when I found these Dutch slave trader journals
Speaker 5: from sixteen seventy that said, we can hear the Africans
Speaker 5: communicating on the slave ship on the Middle Passage that
Speaker 5: they had written. We can hear them communicating, but we
Speaker 5: don't know what they're saying. We don't understand, And that
Speaker 5: to me sounded like exactly what was happening in courtrooms today.
Speaker 5: And so I thought, if we went back and looked
Speaker 5: at every single uniquely black genre from then all the
Speaker 5: way to today, how many other times did that happen?
Speaker 5: And it turned out that didn't happen every single with
Speaker 5: every single genre that the black community had had created.
Speaker 5: And then it was no surprise that we're experiencing what
Speaker 5: we're experiencing right now with hip hop.
Speaker 3: Even with jazz, there wasn't there's no words the bay
Speaker 3: and I jazz I was like, all right, what is
Speaker 3: this really about?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And I the quote we can hear what they're saying,
Speaker 2: but we don't understand. And when people are in the
Speaker 2: courtroom like oh, like the example of like making a killings, like, well,
Speaker 2: clearly that means you're making a lot of money. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But when you have a jury of maybe mostly white
Speaker 2: people and a judge that's white, and a prosecutor who's white,
Speaker 2: and you know, the big scary black man who said
Speaker 2: he's making a killing, do you think it is like
Speaker 2: really like misinterpretation or just like refusing like willful ignorance,
Speaker 2: refusing to understand.
Speaker 3: I think that's a really big question. Like I think
Speaker 3: part of it is the idea of like they don't
Speaker 3: respect us enough to think that we can speak in
Speaker 3: metaphor that we can see it. They don't. They don't
Speaker 3: see what we do is are And another part of
Speaker 3: it is just how effective of a tool it is,
Speaker 3: Like it doesn't even matter. It gets the job done,
Speaker 3: and so they're going to use.
Speaker 5: It, you know why. I try to understand, And the
Speaker 5: answer for them is there's there's no reason too it's working,
Speaker 5: then don't question it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like it's kind of like a magic
Speaker 2: bullet when you get into the courtroom and you hear
Speaker 2: these lyrics because when you like, when it's not over
Speaker 2: a beat, when just like some you know, uptight.
Speaker 4: White guys really get your life, they really kill the
Speaker 4: folks out here right right right.
Speaker 1: And that came up in the film when they were
Speaker 1: talking about the difference they were doing the study and
Speaker 1: reading the differences between one genre of music and how
Speaker 1: that came out and versus how people were able to
Speaker 1: understand and then a different genre of music.
Speaker 2: Can y'all talk about the Batman Blunder study? Describe it
Speaker 2: and then describe like the not so surprising results.
Speaker 5: Yeah. The study was done by a professor named Adam
Speaker 5: Dunbar who took the same set of lyrics, the same
Speaker 5: lyric which is from a song called Badman's Plunder. Well
Speaker 5: early when he evening out rolling around, I was even
Speaker 5: a kind of mean a shot to get the d
Speaker 5: down from nineteen sixty like the whole kind of country
Speaker 5: folk song. But he showed it to people, and he
Speaker 5: showed it to three different groups. One group he said
Speaker 5: that these lyrics are wrapped, one group he said these
Speaker 5: lyrics are country, and one group he said these lyrics
Speaker 5: are heavy metal. And depending on the group, they all
Speaker 5: interpreted the same set of lyrics differently in relation to
Speaker 5: whether or not they felt that the singer or the
Speaker 5: artist behind the lyrics was more prone to violence. Meant
Speaker 5: what they said literally is supposed to figuratively, et cetera.
Speaker 5: And Kim I can tell you kind of what the
Speaker 5: result of that was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's exactly what you would think it
Speaker 3: would be. People people thought that when when they thought
Speaker 3: the lyrics were by black artists, they were hip hop artists,
Speaker 3: they saw it as more violent, they saw they saw
Speaker 3: the art as less of an art like they thought
Speaker 3: the artist was more likely to actually do those things.
Speaker 3: And it just speaks to the subconscious biases that people
Speaker 3: have and how that can play in the courtroom. It's
Speaker 3: like when when you're reading the lyrics to a jury
Speaker 3: that see, you know, the big scary black man, or
Speaker 3: a judge that doesn't see himself in the person, like
Speaker 3: he doesn't see like his grandkids, his nephew in the person.
Speaker 3: And when the lyrics are sometimes the only evidence you
Speaker 3: get to see how effective it is, it's still extremely effective.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, It's like you're always trying to convince people who
Speaker 1: see you as an other who see you as an
Speaker 1: outsider of your humanity because it so often takes like
Speaker 1: exactly what you said of I see something of myself
Speaker 1: in you are something that I know that I can
Speaker 1: relate to that is more human, which often ends up
Speaker 1: being a family member before somebody is able to even
Speaker 1: form or any sort of connection or empathy. That becomes
Speaker 1: very clear in this case, right, Yeah, And.
Speaker 5: That's empirical too, like in the UK, especially if they've
Speaker 5: done studies with judges and studies that measure what type
Speaker 5: of sentencing, the harshness of the sentencing with white judges,
Speaker 5: with white accused people have been accused of crimes versus
Speaker 5: black people who have been accused of crimes, and there's
Speaker 5: a huge disparity with as you might expect, the the
Speaker 5: young black men who are charged of the same crimes
Speaker 5: are receiving much heavier punishments. And it's exactly because of that.
Speaker 5: There's not there's not a built in empathy there. And
Speaker 5: then there's of course, you know, four hundred plus years
Speaker 5: of institutionalized racism and literal institutions, but also just programmed
Speaker 5: into the culture that they're not aware of or theoretically
Speaker 5: they're not aware of that that's kind of programmed into
Speaker 5: the way that they see the world and see people.
Speaker 5: So it's a it's a lot to fight against an
Speaker 5: almost impossible to fight when you land in that.
Speaker 6: We'll be back with Jason and Kimba after the break.
Speaker 2: What do you think it is that it makes it
Speaker 2: hard for people to separate the art from the artists
Speaker 2: with rat that's.
Speaker 3: A complicated thing too. The idea is to make people
Speaker 3: feel like you're real, you know, like like if we
Speaker 3: don't think an artists is real, then we sort of
Speaker 3: respect them less. And it's not really the same in movies,
Speaker 3: you know, we know that there's a director, we know
Speaker 3: that somebody wrote the script, and other art forms not
Speaker 3: really the same. But and then even in other genres,
Speaker 3: it's not such a focal point.
Speaker 1: Did you find that you had any sort of deepening
Speaker 1: of your love and care for the art or for
Speaker 1: all of the people who came before you in hearing
Speaker 1: these stories about people who were unished so wrongfully.
Speaker 3: Totally, it's difficult to talk to Max Fiffs from your story.
Speaker 6: Mac McKinley Phipps Jr. Was convicted of manslaughter in two
Speaker 6: thousand and one after a prosecutor.
Speaker 3: Not fixed, you know, empathetic, you know, like somebody that
Speaker 3: lost twenty one years of his life for a crime
Speaker 3: he didn't commit and somebody even confessed to it. It's like,
Speaker 3: that's heartbreaking. And I learned that of course, like these
Speaker 3: big cases, big profile cases like young thugs, are important,
Speaker 3: and but there's so many other people that aren't like
Speaker 3: huge profile cases that might be in a small city,
Speaker 3: might be doesn't have a million dollar lawyer, doesn't have
Speaker 3: the people to speak up for them, that they don't
Speaker 3: really have a chance when when this magic bullet like
Speaker 3: you said, is introduced, Uh, it could be the owns.
Speaker 3: Like I said before, it could be the only evidence
Speaker 3: that they use, and you can still you can still
Speaker 3: get put away for it.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And so it definitely deepened my passion. I was just like,
Speaker 3: we should be able to say, you know, we should
Speaker 3: be able to create the art that we that we
Speaker 3: want to create.
Speaker 2: You know, and with mac Fipps, they spliced together lyrics
Speaker 2: from two different songs. There's no physical evidence. So his
Speaker 2: really hit me. It just seemed like just so deeply unfair.
Speaker 2: It was like a very visceral reaction I had. Do
Speaker 2: you decide not to say certain things in your songs
Speaker 2: based on just like the climate of how lyrics have
Speaker 2: been weaponized, not at all.
Speaker 3: I think since learning all of this, I've gone even
Speaker 3: deeper into uh, you know, using metaphor just to show
Speaker 3: how ridiculous it all this, you know, just to really
Speaker 3: exercise that right. But yeah, I feel like once you
Speaker 3: start to sort of censor yourself and not just water
Speaker 3: down the art and people don't really want to hear that,
Speaker 3: I feel like people could, people could tell when you're
Speaker 3: not being your true self.
Speaker 4: Mm hmmm, you're like thinking about how others are gonna Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: watching your back and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know you went to the Bronx Chicago, Atlanta, La, London.
Speaker 2: I don't even think about rap when I think about London.
Speaker 6: Oh really, I do.
Speaker 2: They fun.
Speaker 6: Listen to a lot of.
Speaker 4: Uk up Atlanta's Supremacist Child. But my question.
Speaker 2: Is, because you we saw that lyrics have been used
Speaker 2: in like over seven hundred cases, and those are just
Speaker 2: the ones that you know haven't been pleted out. Do
Speaker 2: we see this same phenomenon happening in countries that are
Speaker 2: a majority black, for instance, like Nigeria or Jamaica. Is
Speaker 2: it the same type of thing going on, or is
Speaker 2: it like you know, United States, United Kingdom.
Speaker 5: I shot a documentary in Senegal which is about about
Speaker 5: the student riots that are happening at the only public
Speaker 5: university there, and there's this really vibrant hip hop movement,
Speaker 5: underground hip hop movement that was happening, which is like
Speaker 5: the main place that the students were able to vocalize
Speaker 5: their descent in a way that could spread. And it
Speaker 5: was very kind of anti anti the government forces that
Speaker 5: were pressing them, but it's a for them. It was
Speaker 5: a much more kind of direct physical thing, like it's
Speaker 5: not like we're going to lock you up three lyrics,
Speaker 5: We're going to beat you or kill you. And so
Speaker 5: that it's difficult because we're what Kim and I are
Speaker 5: kind of exploring in this documentary is the criminal justice system,
Speaker 5: which has its own issues obviously, but in other places
Speaker 5: in Africa, it's a very it's a very different pl dynamic.
Speaker 1: There are a lot more insidious things that people can
Speaker 1: do with technology. So do you see any sort of
Speaker 1: anything around technology coming up in these cases that has
Speaker 1: been interesting to you?
Speaker 5: When evidence is brought into a courtroom, everything is stripped
Speaker 5: away except for the words and so they just used
Speaker 5: the lyrics in this case like the way the music
Speaker 5: was created or any It's like it's almost like they
Speaker 5: are the technology that's flessing things together and it becomes
Speaker 5: this really kind of I don't know what the word is,
Speaker 5: like lunite process, where you're just like, I'm going to
Speaker 5: take citors and cut this out and put it together
Speaker 5: with that and say that that's what happened. And they're
Speaker 5: talking to juries, which they're kind of making it for
Speaker 5: the lowest common denominator. The court room is just a
Speaker 5: totally different place than reality, and we saw that here
Speaker 5: and we also saw them then where the theatricality of
Speaker 5: it is like crank to eleven and they're wearing wigs.
Speaker 5: The judge is wearing, you know, a big gray wig
Speaker 5: like from the seventeen hundreds or something. Everyone's dressed differently.
Speaker 5: The place that you're seated as a defendant. It's like
Speaker 5: you're turned an opposite way from everybody else. It's like
Speaker 5: the architecture of the court room. It's a totally different world.
Speaker 5: This fear all the world's of stage. It's like you're
Speaker 5: out there on a stage as a rap artist, but
Speaker 5: then you walk into a different room and you're not
Speaker 5: on the stage anymore. Where it's still the stage and
Speaker 5: the prosecutors on stage, and they're going to use their tools,
Speaker 5: they're going to use those lyrics and we their artistry
Speaker 5: around it.
Speaker 3: In a way like music videos are brought into coot
Speaker 3: cass to sort of show you could be you could
Speaker 3: be like an extra part of that somebody's onsage or whatever,
Speaker 3: be seen in a music video and then be sort
Speaker 3: of implicated in the same crimes. They'll say you're in
Speaker 3: the gang with them. And as we know, cameras are
Speaker 3: everywhere now like we and we film everything, so it's
Speaker 3: easier than ever to show that you know somebody or
Speaker 3: you're in the same place as somebody. And so in
Speaker 3: that way, the way we use technology, I guess see
Speaker 3: getting people into a lot of trouble. I'm interested in
Speaker 3: seeing in the future how AI plays into all this.
Speaker 3: Imagine all the all the fake songs that they try
Speaker 3: to enter into it into.
Speaker 2: Okay, so do you think prosecutors are all worried about
Speaker 2: public safety or is it purely theater?
Speaker 5: The way that the way that it's been describes me
Speaker 5: not not well. The way that Jay Z ever jay
Speaker 5: Z put it, it is just like prosecutor, doesn't The
Speaker 5: prosecutor is just in a job. It's just a ninety
Speaker 5: five unlike public defenders, like who are you know? These
Speaker 5: are like amazing lawyers are choosing to do like the
Speaker 5: most difficult job. And we had many public public defenders
Speaker 5: come up to us after the screenings and say, like,
Speaker 5: you nailed it, You got it exactly right. This is
Speaker 5: what I had these conversations, like we are public defenders
Speaker 5: in New York and we had this exact conversation with
Speaker 5: defendants every week and thank you. We just feel seen
Speaker 5: for the first time. So like public defenders are like
Speaker 5: these basically basically killer lawyers who are basically social workers
Speaker 5: who are who are doing the best they can in
Speaker 5: the system, which is totally as a David and alive situation.
Speaker 5: But the prosecutors, this is it's a ninety five job.
Speaker 5: Like their job is to convict if they can, if
Speaker 5: they win, then then they get promoted, maybe eventually get
Speaker 5: to be a DA. Maybe maybe you go into politics.
Speaker 5: Uh Kamala Harris for example, like how do you get
Speaker 5: to be that VP? You you earned your earned well,
Speaker 5: you made your way there by climbing up the ladder
Speaker 5: on what is basically like a corporate system. And so
Speaker 5: to them, it doesn't matter if the tools available will
Speaker 5: use it, and so whether or not they care is
Speaker 5: I think I'm not even brought into it. In order
Speaker 5: for the criminal justice system to work, you have to
Speaker 5: have attorneys who're going to just do the job of
Speaker 5: defending whoever's right in front of them, regardless of guilt
Speaker 5: or innocence, And so prosecutors are doing the same thing.
Speaker 5: Who's next on the docket, Okay, my job is to convict. Okay,
Speaker 5: so they're going to convict. I don't think the morality
Speaker 5: of it even comes into the court system. It's such
Speaker 5: a strange world. It doesn't matter if it's right or
Speaker 5: wrong justice. It's not about justice.
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you have any moments that stood
Speaker 1: out with you from audience members who consume rap who
Speaker 1: had no idea about this.
Speaker 6: Maybe if there was a moment.
Speaker 1: Where they were like, I thought that once that these
Speaker 1: people were criminals in their lyrics, and this completely shed
Speaker 1: light on all of that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you'd be shocked. I've seen total conversions happen, especially later.
Speaker 5: What people who I would know before and after story
Speaker 5: is about oftentimes like parents of people who came people
Speaker 5: from a different generation who just didn't even care to
Speaker 5: understand hip hop, who thought one way before they watched
Speaker 5: the film, and then just had a total one eighty
Speaker 5: watching the film. And to me, it's kind of impossible
Speaker 5: not to have that experience. I felt like we're going
Speaker 5: into it with Kimba. It's like, of course, you could
Speaker 5: make like an hour and a half doc on the
Speaker 5: mac Phipps case, for sure, but he's had like twenty
Speaker 5: different news specials and maybe more than that actually about him,
Speaker 5: and people still haven't heard about what happened, and those
Speaker 5: are new specials going out to millions and millions and
Speaker 5: millions of people, and so it's like, you know, people
Speaker 5: won't sit down and listen to this story in a
Speaker 5: way that's just kind of giving you a talking head interview.
Speaker 5: We had to make the documentary like a song and
Speaker 5: kind of wrap you up into it, and that's how
Speaker 5: you can come out the other side having a one
Speaker 5: to eighty change. Because if you can truly see it
Speaker 5: through Kemba's eyes, through the eyes of the artist, then
Speaker 5: I don't know how you can see it the other way.
Speaker 2: More with Jason and Kimba after the break. Do you
Speaker 2: think either of you do you think that the criminalization
Speaker 2: of rap has implications beyond rap lyrics.
Speaker 3: I think we've we've started to see it on social media,
Speaker 3: just the idea that the things that you say could
Speaker 3: either be silence taken down, or you know, it could
Speaker 3: have people. I think we're all I think we're all
Speaker 3: sort of being watched to a certain degree and being
Speaker 3: censored to a certain degree. And I think rap right
Speaker 3: now is just the sort of most extreme form of it,
Speaker 3: and I feel like it's it's a sort of dystopian
Speaker 3: way of seeing life. But I do think it's possible
Speaker 3: that I can get that way for everyone.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's where tools are tested, is on
Speaker 5: the most formal populations and then their scales.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'd be so cool if you can see the
Speaker 2: through line of as we speak, and then it's like, you.
Speaker 4: Know, oh, actually, I feel like it would be crazy.
Speaker 2: Knew Jim Crow had that impact where it didn't stop
Speaker 2: mass incarceration, but people really knew about it more and
Speaker 2: were like against it.
Speaker 6: It swung the consensus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, and that's important, Like that's the first step
Speaker 1: to so many things.
Speaker 6: It's changing people's mindset about something.
Speaker 1: And I also really think, even outside of all of
Speaker 1: the legal stuff, just the emphasis that this places on
Speaker 1: the sophistication of rap, because rap is an art form.
Speaker 6: Like the fact that these people are.
Speaker 1: Taking these lyrics and misconstruing them, I'm like, are you
Speaker 1: are you thinking?
Speaker 6: Do you have a brain at all?
Speaker 1: But I think it just shows how so many people
Speaker 1: try to minimize the artistry of rap and what it
Speaker 1: does for people, and how it's poetry, and how it
Speaker 1: can be used in so many different forms, and how
Speaker 1: it has a legacy in so many of these other
Speaker 1: genres that Black people ate it that we're specifically about
Speaker 1: resilience and specifically about resistance, and this is like y'all
Speaker 1: doing all of this for some rap. Clearly it's something
Speaker 1: that is impactful to people. Clearly they understand the power
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it reminds me of David Banner speaking in front
Speaker 2: of Congress or he was saying.
Speaker 7: How statistics will never show the positive side of rap
Speaker 7: because statistics don't reflect what you don't do, if you
Speaker 7: don't commit a murder or a crime.
Speaker 2: When you see people going so hard at a particular
Speaker 2: art form, whether it's rap, whether it's you know, books
Speaker 2: that talk about racism.
Speaker 6: It's like you're telling on yourself.
Speaker 4: You're telling on yourself.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: Now it's time for Roll Credits, the segment where we
Speaker 2: give credit to a person, place, or thing that we've
Speaker 2: encountered during the week, and we have our guests Jason
Speaker 2: and Kimba joining us. But first, Eves, who are what
Speaker 2: would you like to give credit to today?
Speaker 1: I want to give credit to black hair stylists.
Speaker 6: They are miracle workers. They are sent from God.
Speaker 1: I have had very interesting experience, it's very varied experiences
Speaker 1: with black hair stylists, and honestly, I've been burned like
Speaker 1: literally and figuratively literally and figuratively child So when you
Speaker 1: find someone who actually does well, it feels so affirming.
Speaker 1: But also just in general, I'm thankful for black hairstylists,
Speaker 1: Like it's something that is a profession, but like also
Speaker 1: just has like a deep familial and intimate history in
Speaker 1: black life. I was thinking about how when I was
Speaker 1: a child, I went to the neighborhood person who took
Speaker 1: that hot comb, put it on the stove, and then
Speaker 1: put it on my head. And I didn't really care
Speaker 1: for the experience, but you know it's love, like it's
Speaker 1: loved somebody put in their hands in your head and
Speaker 1: like you know, doing this work, in this magic.
Speaker 6: So I really shout out to black hair stylists.
Speaker 1: I really would love to give credit to them doing
Speaker 1: your thing.
Speaker 2: There we go, Jason, who are what would you like
Speaker 2: to give credit to?
Speaker 5: I will just give credit to my two year old
Speaker 5: daughter just because she Yeah, life, this is crazy. Just look
Speaker 5: at this human being and just everything either it doesn't
Speaker 5: matter or becomes clear or everything matters in a way
Speaker 5: that can be just accepted. And so yeah, just watching
Speaker 5: her sleep this morning. Maybe thank yeah, thankful, thank for her.
Speaker 4: How about you, Kim? Who are what would you like
Speaker 4: to give credit to?
Speaker 3: You know what, I'm going to give credit to my boy,
Speaker 3: my leak Jonathan.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 3: This movie literally would not have been possible without Paramount
Speaker 3: and he he saw through the whole thing.
Speaker 5: He was on the ground with a pod project wouldn't.
Speaker 2: Be possible without all right, all right, Malik Johnson, we
Speaker 2: see you. I would like to give credit to the
Speaker 2: Georgia Archives. They have a lot of information about different
Speaker 2: Atlanta history, Georgia history, and there's so much stuff like
Speaker 2: in boxes in archives that if you never go look
Speaker 2: at them, and if someone doesn't like take them out
Speaker 2: of those boxes, the general public will never know these stories.
Speaker 2: And I was reminded of about that when I saw
Speaker 2: kimbat in the archives looking at the different histories of
Speaker 2: black music, and so it was just a reminder to
Speaker 2: like visit your local archives, see what they got going on,
Speaker 2: even if you don't consider yourself a researcher or academic, Like,
Speaker 2: it's for everybody. Your taxes pay for it anyway, so
Speaker 2: go hit them up. So how can folks keep up
Speaker 2: with y'all?
Speaker 5: The film premie Years in New York's New York Streing
Speaker 5: February twentieth, and then it comes out on Paramount Plus
Speaker 5: on the February twenty seven. And yeah, that's the way
Speaker 5: to reach me. And it's been great to see people
Speaker 5: see back of the problem. It's just on Instagram at
Speaker 5: jam Harper for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hit me on any social media platform at Kimberland,
Speaker 3: come stay with us up.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you so much, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed this conversation in the documentary, of course.
Speaker 1: Yes, looking forward to more people watching it and learning
Speaker 1: from it.
Speaker 3: Thank you guys, this is fun.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having us. Thank you, Bye base.
Speaker 1: If this conversation has sparked your interest, we encourage you
Speaker 1: to watch As We Speak, which comes out on February
Speaker 1: twenty seventh on Paramount Plus. On Theme is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media. This episode was written
Speaker 1: by Eves, Jeffco and Katie Mitchell. It was edited and
Speaker 1: produced by Tari Harrison. Follow us on Instagram.
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