Speaker 1: You're listening, waiting on reparations production of our Heart radio.
Speaker 1: Uh huh uh huh check check yeah, I love you all, man,
Speaker 1: I'm lying. I smoke a ball while the planet is dying.
Speaker 1: Man of buying with a flow that expand horizons if
Speaker 1: you lame them, we beef like the vamis and likings.
Speaker 1: It's the feeling with somebody swear you bottom lip, fight
Speaker 1: for freedom. So you gotta dip like a side of dip.
Speaker 1: Waiting on reparations that hip hop politics and my homie
Speaker 1: Joela is on the mix. That's a hot assist. They
Speaker 1: call me dope because when I spent that you gotta
Speaker 1: fix since the psychedelics and legal now that I gotta trip,
Speaker 1: what's the side? Is this a lot messed up? All right?
Speaker 1: What's going on? What's good? People? Dope knife? We are
Speaker 1: waiting on reparations. Hurry it up. So today we have
Speaker 1: a statue for you another one. We are going to
Speaker 1: be talking about civil rights activists Assada Shakur, getting to
Speaker 1: her activism, her story if you haven't heard it, and
Speaker 1: we're also going to talk about her connection to hip
Speaker 1: hop and the legendary Tupac Shakur of whom she's the
Speaker 1: godmother too. Interestingly, very little can we found online about
Speaker 1: the relationship of Tupac to his step on and godmother Asada,
Speaker 1: but um she was very much um a part of
Speaker 1: just like black revolutionary struggle in the nineteen sixties and
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. As we're Afenni Shakur, Mutula Shakur um Tupac's parents,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about how this sort of permeated the
Speaker 1: life of Tupac and sort of set him up for
Speaker 1: the person that he was. In addition to detailing, you know,
Speaker 1: in specifics a lot about whose Asada was as this
Speaker 1: notorious figure that today is still being persecuted by the
Speaker 1: United States government. When did you first like become aware
Speaker 1: of Assata Shakur in your activism. I think around the
Speaker 1: time I started studying like abolition, Like when I first
Speaker 1: started like reading the work of ANGELA Davis and like realized,
Speaker 1: you know, like we in school get this very sanitized
Speaker 1: version of what the civil rights movement was. We don't
Speaker 1: learn about the Black Panthers. You don't learn about people
Speaker 1: like angel Davis because they were doing crimes like they
Speaker 1: were they were breaking people out of jail, they were
Speaker 1: robbing Briggs trucks and like Pilofolice office and like crazy
Speaker 1: ship that you know, as like like genuine, genuine revolutionary activity.
Speaker 1: And so around that time is what, you know, what
Speaker 1: I learned about Angela Davis and her advocacy for UM
Speaker 1: political prisoners. And that's what I learned about Asata and
Speaker 1: her advocacy for Asada. When Asada was imprisoned for a
Speaker 1: killing cholice officer. I think I first became aware of
Speaker 1: Assata Shakur, probably with the common song. I mean, we're
Speaker 1: gonna get into that later on in the episode, but
Speaker 1: I would have to say it was a common song
Speaker 1: for as Sata. I think I was watching a hip
Speaker 1: hop documentary years ago and then I saw come and
Speaker 1: make note of it, and then I was remembered, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that song was on that like Water for Chocolate album.
Speaker 1: So that was my introduction into her. I mean, like
Speaker 1: a lot of other you know people, I guess I
Speaker 1: kind of just assumed, oh, a side of Shakur, that's
Speaker 1: Tupac's mom, you know. So I kind of just had
Speaker 1: that idea in my head and ran with it until
Speaker 1: I found out more about who she was. So yeah,
Speaker 1: We're gonna get get into that, but before we do,
Speaker 1: How's how's your week been? You know, she has been crazy.
Speaker 1: We've had like five, I guess now six shootings here
Speaker 1: in the last week or so. Last Saturday, like all
Speaker 1: police shootings or just shooting. Oh, just people just killing
Speaker 1: each other, Just people just killing each other. We had
Speaker 1: a twenty year old kid shot and killed last Saturday.
Speaker 1: This Saturday, there was a man who lost his life.
Speaker 1: The suspect in that shooting was fifteen years old. And uh,
Speaker 1: surprisingly a few leaders are speaking out about it. I
Speaker 1: think because many folks kind of take it for granted,
Speaker 1: this assume that this is what life can be. But
Speaker 1: like in the last couple of days, I've been very
Speaker 1: involved in like reaching out to the families and the
Speaker 1: victims of the shootings. Um. I attended the funeral of
Speaker 1: the of E. B. Montana, who was killed last Saturday,
Speaker 1: twenty year old rapper in town. And uh, it's interesting
Speaker 1: to me and speaking with these families what they think
Speaker 1: the solutions are. Like I gathered with them, I like
Speaker 1: helped you know, of Montana's family organized a candelie vigil
Speaker 1: and one of our community centers on Friday and speaking
Speaker 1: with people out there, they were like, we need to
Speaker 1: be investing in these young people. We need to be
Speaker 1: you know, these people don't internal jobs, ain't got no
Speaker 1: programs to be involved in. And so it's interesting, like
Speaker 1: I think that like people in this discourse around policing recently,
Speaker 1: people like who aren't involved, who aren't impacted, who aren't
Speaker 1: who never lost anyone, are prescribing all these solutions like, oh,
Speaker 1: we need you know, uh more policing, We need all
Speaker 1: these things. You go talk to the people who lose
Speaker 1: family members that that's not even something that comes to
Speaker 1: their mind. That's not even something that's a part of
Speaker 1: the conversation for them, And no one is and I
Speaker 1: don't think anyone is asking them what their opinion is.
Speaker 1: And so it's just been like as we also approached
Speaker 1: like budget season, you know, it was like this time
Speaker 1: last year that like the fund, the police became a
Speaker 1: thing just thinking about just trying to show up for
Speaker 1: these families that are in a lot of pain right
Speaker 1: now and also think about like centering them and how
Speaker 1: we go about creating policy, but particularly for you know, Montana,
Speaker 1: Rest in peace, um beloved Young Rapper um here in
Speaker 1: Athens um who you know himself, had came out had
Speaker 1: some gun charges and had warned out for his arrests,
Speaker 1: and so there's you know, in the media like kind
Speaker 1: of painting him as like, well he was no angel.
Speaker 1: But it's like, what do you do you think these
Speaker 1: kids are gonna do if you don't give them anything
Speaker 1: to believe in in this world? And so that's just
Speaker 1: been my world for the last like week or so.
Speaker 1: But then there's crazy ship happening everywhere. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: i've gun violences. I don't know for certain that it's
Speaker 1: like on any sort of record pace, but it seems
Speaker 1: like shit is getting out of control. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: not just the mass shooting statistics, but like you have
Speaker 1: you know, individual every day like of occurrences of of
Speaker 1: gun violence that doesn't even get national coverage because not
Speaker 1: only is it just like part of the like ubiquitous cycle,
Speaker 1: but then it's like only two people died, so it's
Speaker 1: not a big story, or it's only a person here,
Speaker 1: or just somebody got injured. All the all the shootings
Speaker 1: that happened, when people get injured that you never hear of.
Speaker 1: Remember the rapper Pop Smoke who died last year. Recently,
Speaker 1: it came out that the killer of him was a
Speaker 1: fifteen year old who saw him on Instagram and tried
Speaker 1: to get his watch and it's not And it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, like if we don't right, I think
Speaker 1: maybe a Frederick Douglas quote like it's easier to build
Speaker 1: strong children than repair broken men. But like it's I mean,
Speaker 1: we're like the children are broken. Yeah, Like it's not
Speaker 1: even like oh and then they grow up and become
Speaker 1: adults and started doing crazy like the kids, and you
Speaker 1: fail to invest in them. That return in the lack
Speaker 1: of investment manifestly. It's just like these times that we
Speaker 1: live in, everything is just accelerated as well. So you know, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna switch, We're gonna switch gears, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna get into this whole thing with a Sada
Speaker 1: Shakur and the amazing at times story of her life
Speaker 1: will be back with all of that and more after
Speaker 1: the jump. Let's talk a little bit about what I
Speaker 1: saw him was from her early life. Sada Aliba Shakur
Speaker 1: was born Joanne Debara Byron and Queens, New York in
Speaker 1: nineteen and grew up in Walmington North Carolina UM. She
Speaker 1: began her involvement in political activism while attending Manhattan Community
Speaker 1: College and City College of New York UM and she
Speaker 1: recalled a conversation about communism with the African students at
Speaker 1: the spark of some of her revolutionary leanings. She said,
Speaker 1: I never forget. I've never forgot that day. We were
Speaker 1: taught at such an early age to be against communists,
Speaker 1: yet most of us don't have the famous idea of
Speaker 1: what communism is, only a pool at somebody else tell
Speaker 1: them who his enemy, And I think it's a good point.
Speaker 1: She of course spent a short period of time with
Speaker 1: the Black Panther Party, organizing protests and community education programs.
Speaker 1: She even was leading the Black Panther Party chapter in
Speaker 1: Harlem for a while, coordinating with the free breakfast program
Speaker 1: for children, free clinics, community outreach. She would eventually join
Speaker 1: the Black Liberation Army due to some dissolution and meant
Speaker 1: with what was going on in the Black Panther Party
Speaker 1: at the time, she said, with a few exceptions, be
Speaker 1: political education classes for party members turned out to be
Speaker 1: just the opposite. The basic problem stemmed from the fact
Speaker 1: that BPP had no systematic approach to political education. They
Speaker 1: were reading from the Red Book, where they didn't know
Speaker 1: who Harry Tupman, Marcus Garvey or not Turner work. A
Speaker 1: whole lot of them barely understood any kind of history Black,
Speaker 1: African or otherwise. So that's something that I never really
Speaker 1: thought about in detail much. Is like that not everybody
Speaker 1: was on the same page with everything. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: looking at the modern left like and like it, it's
Speaker 1: almost heartening to know that there were these schisms always
Speaker 1: of like people who found the organization's lacking and would
Speaker 1: move on to others. Or you know that there were
Speaker 1: these like like like even these figures and even these
Speaker 1: institutions that our memorialized so notoriously. It's just like just
Speaker 1: mind blowing legendary work that they did. Like it, We're
Speaker 1: not perfect, and that it's almost it's almost hardening. It's like, oh, nope,
Speaker 1: you can make a lasting impact in history even if
Speaker 1: you don't have your ship. Tell me together some other
Speaker 1: stuff that I kind of found about this, but I
Speaker 1: never I didn't really find anything that she says specifically,
Speaker 1: but um, apparently there was some feeling on her part
Speaker 1: that there was a lot of macho ship going on
Speaker 1: in the Black Panther Party at the time. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: then so she joined the Black Liberation Army or b
Speaker 1: l A, which was an underground revolutionary organization from nineteen seventy.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like the Black Panthers. It's composed
Speaker 1: to former members and also former members of another organization,
Speaker 1: the Republic of New Africa. But the group's mission statement
Speaker 1: was to take up arms for the liberation and self
Speaker 1: determination of black people in the United States, not fucking around.
Speaker 1: So they had some principles that they kind of went by.
Speaker 1: So one that we are anti capitalist, anti imperialist, anti racist,
Speaker 1: and anti sexists too, that we must of necessity strive
Speaker 1: for the abolishment of these systems and for the institution
Speaker 1: of socialistic relationships in which black people have total and
Speaker 1: absolute control over their own destiny as a people. And
Speaker 1: then three that in order to abolish our systems of oppression,
Speaker 1: we must utilize the science of class struggle, develop the
Speaker 1: science as it relates to our unique national condition. In
Speaker 1: our opening statement in court in nineteen SATA would say,
Speaker 1: the Black Liberation Army is not an organization. It goes
Speaker 1: beyond that. It is a concept, a people's movement and idea.
Speaker 1: The concept of the b l A arose because of
Speaker 1: the political, social, and economic oppression of black people in
Speaker 1: this country, and where there is oppression, there will be resistance.
Speaker 1: The b l A is part of that resistance movement.
Speaker 1: The Black Liberation Army stands for freedom and justice for
Speaker 1: all people. In nineteen seventy, she was a doctor's assistant
Speaker 1: volunteering at Alcatraz Prison. At the time, there was a
Speaker 1: protest going on with some Native Americans about broken treaties
Speaker 1: and expectation by the U. S. Government. She went on
Speaker 1: to say, I will never forget the quiet confidence as
Speaker 1: they went about their lives calmly, even though they were
Speaker 1: under the constant threat of invasion by the FBI in U. S. Military.
Speaker 1: They had many of the same problems we had, and
Speaker 1: for damn sure the same enemy. They were doing as
Speaker 1: bad as we were, if not worse. I didn't save
Speaker 1: any one was when she changed her name to Asada
Speaker 1: ballow skor. Asada is a West African name derived from
Speaker 1: the Arabic name Aisha said to me and he she
Speaker 1: who struggles Alshakerman thankful one in Arabic, all the following
Speaker 1: savior and your bum She said, the name Joanne began
Speaker 1: to irk my nerves in her autobiography, had changed a
Speaker 1: lot and moved to a different beat. I didn't feel
Speaker 1: like no Joanne or no Negro in norma. I felt
Speaker 1: like an African woman my mind, heart, and soul. I'd
Speaker 1: gone back to Africa, but my name was still stranded
Speaker 1: in Europe somewhere, which then prompted her change. Over the
Speaker 1: next few years, she would be charged with a slew
Speaker 1: of crimes, including two bank robberies in New York, the
Speaker 1: kidnap and murder of a drug dealer, an armed robbery
Speaker 1: during which she was shot in the attempted murder of
Speaker 1: a police officer in an ambush she was convicted of.
Speaker 1: None of these is all either acquittals or case dismissals,
Speaker 1: which is interesting because that she is. But like the
Speaker 1: memory of her being charged with these crimes outlives the
Speaker 1: reality of her acquittals or case dismissals, like we will
Speaker 1: remember her. It's just like bad as like fucking crazy,
Speaker 1: you know, doing crimes. Yeah, like outlaw, but like most
Speaker 1: of the ships she was you know, got dismissed, so
Speaker 1: she was acquitted for but anyway, and then also it's
Speaker 1: like the other thing too, is just like you know,
Speaker 1: if you just do a casual just casual little research,
Speaker 1: if you're like, you know, wanting to know who she is,
Speaker 1: that you know, most of what you're gonna find is
Speaker 1: about like this sort of stuff, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: She was involved in this, and she was involved in that.
Speaker 1: There was a shootout with this, and a shoot out
Speaker 1: with that, and it's like you have to dig like
Speaker 1: a lot harder to like actually find what it was.
Speaker 1: Obviously most of her life, you know, which was activism
Speaker 1: in in you know, I mean community service and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, which then recalls for me, I mean,
Speaker 1: like I was talking about at the top the recent um,
Speaker 1: you know tragedy with this kid Montana where uh he
Speaker 1: you know, was allegedly involved in a shootout like a
Speaker 1: week prior. He may have been in the car the car,
Speaker 1: may have been shooting in self defense in any regard,
Speaker 1: like he had warrants out because they thought he'd suspected
Speaker 1: his involvement. And so the front page of the newspaper
Speaker 1: on Sunday was you know, like slay and Rapper had
Speaker 1: Gonne warrant and you know charges warrant out for gun
Speaker 1: charges is um, despite the fact that, like it's not
Speaker 1: clear if he was involved in the crime. He may
Speaker 1: even if he was in the car. He when i've
Speaker 1: been personal shooting, even in the person in the car
Speaker 1: had been shooting, it may have been self defense. But
Speaker 1: the story that gets told is that he had warrants
Speaker 1: out for his arrest, which is very much un contrasted
Speaker 1: when we speak to his family or like when I
Speaker 1: attended his service yesterday, people talking about how he made
Speaker 1: TikTok challenges for kids, and he you know, would take
Speaker 1: out his neighbor's trash, and he would waived all the
Speaker 1: city bus drivers and all of these other things that
Speaker 1: like aren't his splashy and so don't get picked up,
Speaker 1: and like the are collected, you know, and imprinted in
Speaker 1: our collective memory of who these people are. And then
Speaker 1: when those things do come to light, they don't really
Speaker 1: have to go back and correct both headlines because and
Speaker 1: then yeah, and then like yeah, nothing ever happens, and
Speaker 1: that's just like that what the memory remains. The FBI
Speaker 1: has Joint Terrorism Task Force was issuing nearly daily briefing
Speaker 1: sashakur status and allegations against her. Years later, some police
Speaker 1: officers argued that her importance in the deal that had
Speaker 1: been exaggerated by the police, with one saying that they
Speaker 1: themselves had created a myth to DEMONI Schaker because she
Speaker 1: was educated, young, and pretty. Doc documentary evidence suggests that
Speaker 1: Shakur was targeted by the investigation named Chez Rob, which
Speaker 1: was attempted to hook Asada Shakur to virtually every bank
Speaker 1: robbery or violent crime involving a black woman on the
Speaker 1: East Coast God Damn. Although named after Shakur, Chez Rob,
Speaker 1: like its predecessor Nu Kill, was not limited to her.
Speaker 1: So they were just like just coming for her regardless.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's almost like a parody of what you
Speaker 1: would have, you know what I mean, Like it almost
Speaker 1: like if somebody just told you it, it would sound like, no,
Speaker 1: that's like a movie, you know, But it's like, no,
Speaker 1: that sounds like some conspiracytion. I mean, a lot of
Speaker 1: the stuff of the FBI do that is true, Like
Speaker 1: when in hindsight, like a lot of that Jagger Hoover
Speaker 1: FBI stuff is literally the plots of movies that have
Speaker 1: been made. So then came the infamous shootout at the
Speaker 1: New Jersey Terrified. According to the official New Jersey Police
Speaker 1: UH spokespersonan Asada was on our way to a new
Speaker 1: hideout in Philadelphia and heading ultimately for Washington, and a
Speaker 1: book in the vehicle contained a list of potential b
Speaker 1: l A targets. She testified the heading to Maryland for
Speaker 1: a waitress drop skor and her two associates were stopped
Speaker 1: by state trooper for a broken tail light. Haven't we
Speaker 1: heard that before many many times? And the result was
Speaker 1: a shooting that left the trooper, Werner Forster, dead and
Speaker 1: one of the men that Asada was with, Zaid Malik Shakore.
Speaker 1: He was killed and inside of herself was shot in
Speaker 1: both arms and her shoulder. For The Guardian, it was
Speaker 1: in hospital that she first met Letics Hines, the National
Speaker 1: director of the National Conference of Black Lawyers. In the
Speaker 1: history of New Jersey, no woman, pretrial, detainee or prisoner
Speaker 1: has ever been treated as she was continuously confined in
Speaker 1: men's prison under twenty four hour surveillance, without adequate medical
Speaker 1: attention and exercise, he said. Cursed Defense team filed a
Speaker 1: civil suit against the state, charging that her condition for
Speaker 1: cruel and inhumane. She was held for more than a
Speaker 1: year in solitary confinement in the basement of Middlesex County
Speaker 1: stale that they held there. In the men's present, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: oh oh yeah, oh yeah, she ascribed to all her
Speaker 1: conditions a unifying fame. Oh god, the smell. I don't
Speaker 1: care what jail had been in. They all stink. They
Speaker 1: all have a smell on like any smell on earth,
Speaker 1: like blood and sweat and feet and open sores. And
Speaker 1: if misery had a smell like she was in carded
Speaker 1: into nine seven when she finally got to have her
Speaker 1: case in court for The Guardian, there's much evidence to
Speaker 1: suggest the trial wasn't fair. Transcripts in the jury selection
Speaker 1: show that at least two jurors expressed prejudice before the
Speaker 1: start of the trial. There's evidence of the offices of
Speaker 1: the defense team were being bugged, and materials relating to
Speaker 1: her case went missing from the home of the lawyer
Speaker 1: Stanley Cohen, were later found with New York City police.
Speaker 1: They're not even like they weren't even trying, you know.
Speaker 1: Ship um Hines called the trial allegal lynching in a
Speaker 1: kangaroo court. The defense could not get an expert witness
Speaker 1: to testify. The Core noted it was obvious I didn't
Speaker 1: have one chance in a million of receiving any kind
Speaker 1: of justice. She testified, holding onto a photo of her daughter,
Speaker 1: conceived with fellow b l A member Kamayu Sadiki while
Speaker 1: they were both in jail and born in nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 1: The jury reached a verdict out of twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: She was found guilty on all seven counts. As Haines explained,
Speaker 1: under New Jersey law, if a person's presence at the
Speaker 1: scene of a crime can be construed as aiding or
Speaker 1: betting the crime, that person can be convicted of the
Speaker 1: substantive crime itself. Shakur was handed a mandatory life sentence.
Speaker 1: So while in president Shakura was introduced liberation theology, which
Speaker 1: is a synthesis of Christian theology and socioeconomic analyzes that
Speaker 1: emphasize the social concern for the poor and political liberation
Speaker 1: for a press people's actual like Jesus type stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like Jesus, but like real Jesus was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: Homie was hanging out with the homeless and prostitutes and
Speaker 1: was like murdered by the state, And like, what does
Speaker 1: this mean for us today in terms of how we
Speaker 1: enact you know, a good life as a Christian, to
Speaker 1: upend and disrupt oppression of various kinds. Here's something interesting
Speaker 1: I found on Wikipedia. Shakur was identified as a political
Speaker 1: prisoner as early as October eighth, nineteen seventy three, by
Speaker 1: Angela Davis and in April third, nineteen seventy seven the
Speaker 1: New York Times advertisement purchased by the Eastern Coalition of
Speaker 1: Human Rights. An international panel of seven jurist was invited
Speaker 1: by Hines to tour a number of US prisons and
Speaker 1: concluded in a report filed with the United Nations Commission
Speaker 1: for Human Rights that the conditions of her solitary confinement
Speaker 1: were totally unbefitting of any prisoner. Their investigation, which focused
Speaker 1: on alleged human rights abuses of political prisoners, sided Shakur
Speaker 1: is one of the worst cases of such abuses. So
Speaker 1: it's interesting that her particular predicament then led to this
Speaker 1: larger indictment of the prison system and the practice of
Speaker 1: solitary confronement in the United States, which is totally boring
Speaker 1: if you ask me, but so nineteen seventy nine, three
Speaker 1: members of the b l A walked into the Clinton
Speaker 1: Correctional Facility for women with guns and stick of dynamite,
Speaker 1: took two guards hostage, commandeered two vans, and broke Asada
Speaker 1: out of prison and what coopering? Well escape the guards.
Speaker 1: To be clear, we're left in the parking lot and
Speaker 1: no I was injured, but they just broke her ass out.
Speaker 1: They were like, y'all keeping my girl, and Saul say,
Speaker 1: pretty daring, you know what I think? Do you think
Speaker 1: that like with this um new surgeons of like black cinema,
Speaker 1: do you think we're gonna get like a definitive of
Speaker 1: Satisha core movie? Do we not have one yet? I
Speaker 1: don't think we do. I can't recall one at least
Speaker 1: nothing that's that you know that's like popping the mind
Speaker 1: that's like worth noting right now. I can't really think
Speaker 1: of one, but just just you know, getting to this
Speaker 1: part of the story, it's like, oh, yeah, now I
Speaker 1: need to see this filmed. Like what what was the
Speaker 1: stick of dynamite for? What? Do we Apparently there was
Speaker 1: a there was a documentary Joannes that came out and
Speaker 1: came out in two nine. Uh. I don't know a
Speaker 1: lot about it, but but I think more of what
Speaker 1: we're talking about in the line of like, yeah, exactly
Speaker 1: like or like you know, Denzel cast like you know,
Speaker 1: a little bit of a little bit of you know,
Speaker 1: fiction and a little bit of historical, you know, one
Speaker 1: of those blurring the line sort of, you know. So
Speaker 1: she was at large fugitive for years after that. In
Speaker 1: New York, three days after her escape, more than five
Speaker 1: thousand demonstrates more than five thousand demonstrators organized by the
Speaker 1: National Black Human Rights Coalition carried signs with slip with
Speaker 1: her name on the slogan. At that rally, a statement
Speaker 1: from Shakur was was circulating, condemning the U s prison
Speaker 1: conditions and calling for an independent New African state. She
Speaker 1: was granted political asylum in Cuba, and it's been living
Speaker 1: in exile there ever since. Over the decades, there have
Speaker 1: been four or five attempts to try to extradite her
Speaker 1: back to the United States, with the last being in
Speaker 1: June two thousand seventeen, when President Donald Trump gave a
Speaker 1: speech canceling the Cuba the Cuban Thaw policies of its predecessor,
Speaker 1: Barack Obama. A condition of making a new deal between
Speaker 1: the United States and Cuba was the release of priltical
Speaker 1: political prisoners and the return of fugitives from justice, Trumps
Speaker 1: specifically calling for the return of cop killer Joe and
Speaker 1: Chest But I remember when that all went down, and
Speaker 1: that's cool because it kind of let's just transition into
Speaker 1: our music discussion a little bit. But I remember when
Speaker 1: that all went down. There was like a brief period
Speaker 1: of time where a bunch of outlets were like posting
Speaker 1: it as Trump goes after Tupac's mother, and that that's
Speaker 1: all they were saying. People don't even like that. They
Speaker 1: were really like like digging in it like that. I
Speaker 1: guess they were just hearing Shakur and then I guess
Speaker 1: seeing that there was a connection with between the two
Speaker 1: and there was like a slue a headlines that was
Speaker 1: like Trump going after Tupac's mother. I remember waking up
Speaker 1: that day and looking on Twitter. It's like wait, wait
Speaker 1: what huh. But now it's transition to talking a little
Speaker 1: bit about Tupac and the revolutionary uh. Just like bedrock
Speaker 1: of who he became. That echo is very much a
Speaker 1: lot of what we have learned about Asada to this point.
Speaker 1: So Asada was tupac step on and godmother. Not much
Speaker 1: is known publicly about their relationship, and though they were
Speaker 1: not related by blood, much of her revolutionary activity in
Speaker 1: Stance can commonly be found in the Hikert family bloodline.
Speaker 1: Tupac's birth mother, if Finney, was also an active member
Speaker 1: in the Black Panther Party. She wrote the Black Panther
Speaker 1: Party newsletter Panther Post, and led a successful campaign that
Speaker 1: tricked the FBI to believe the party was fading. In
Speaker 1: April nineteen sixty nine, she and a number of other
Speaker 1: Black Panthers were arrested and charged several counts of conspiracy
Speaker 1: to bomb police stations and other public places in New York.
Speaker 1: Sure those were real charges. When the trial came, A Finny,
Speaker 1: who was pregnant with Tupac at the time, who had
Speaker 1: not attended law school, and who was facing down a
Speaker 1: three hundred year prison sentence, chose to represent herself in court.
Speaker 1: One month before giving birth to Poc. She was acquitted
Speaker 1: of all charges. Pap was very close to his mother,
Speaker 1: who sometimes also served as his publicist, and he famously
Speaker 1: dedicated his song Dear momitor A Finny and her children
Speaker 1: moved to Baltimore, Maryland during his time at the Baltimore
Speaker 1: School for the Arts in the late eighties, Tupac became
Speaker 1: attending meetings in the Baltimore branch of the Young Communist
Speaker 1: League USA, which he had since renamed itself too, which
Speaker 1: has since renamed itself the TUPACSA Corp Club in his honor. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we could find little about his time with a Young
Speaker 1: Communist League and the research, but I think the influence
Speaker 1: as well as his time with the Black Panther had
Speaker 1: been heard in his anti imperialist class. Consciously so. If
Speaker 1: Any's first Hump husband, La Mumba, was a leader of
Speaker 1: the Black Panthers in Harlem and married if Any nine.
Speaker 1: Their marriage unraveled after the revolution. Their marriage unraveled after
Speaker 1: the revelation came forth that La Mumba was not Tupac's
Speaker 1: biological father. In the aftermath, if Any married Mutula Shakurry,
Speaker 1: Lamumba's adopted stepbrother. Mutula was politically active with the Revolutionary
Speaker 1: Action Movement, a US based revolutionary black nationalist group that
Speaker 1: applied the philosophy of Maoism to conditions of black people
Speaker 1: in the United States. He later joined the new the
Speaker 1: Republic of New Africa that we referenced earlier to the
Speaker 1: Black Nationalists and separatist group that sought reparations as well
Speaker 1: as to establish an independent black majority nation in the
Speaker 1: southern United States. Mutula shared a close bond with Cock,
Speaker 1: and together they wrote the famous Code of Thug Life,
Speaker 1: a set of rules discouraging unprovoked violence between gangs. Mutula
Speaker 1: was currently serving a sixty year prison sentence for his
Speaker 1: involvement in the ninety and eighty one robbery of a
Speaker 1: Brinks armor truck, in which Matulu several other members of
Speaker 1: the Black Liberation Army, in coalition with four members of
Speaker 1: the radical left organization of the Weather Underground, stole one
Speaker 1: point six million dollars, killing a guard and two police
Speaker 1: officers in the act. Interesting fun fact, another conspirator in
Speaker 1: the robberty another conspirator in the robbery, Kathy Buddin, is
Speaker 1: mother of Chess Budden, who was in two thousand nineteen
Speaker 1: elected the District Attorney of San Francisco. Damn, it's a
Speaker 1: fucking small world when you're robbing Brace trucks. Damn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's a crazy story. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and so I think and I think it it speaks
Speaker 1: to the fact that like under like you know, neoliberal
Speaker 1: and the conservative policies of the you know, seventies and eighties,
Speaker 1: a lot of people, you know, you either became a
Speaker 1: revel luctionary or you became a criminal, or the line
Speaker 1: between you know, you became a song or the line
Speaker 1: between them was very blurred. Like what was the difference
Speaker 1: between being a revolutionary and be a thug? If this is,
Speaker 1: like if undermining the state is what its mean? You know,
Speaker 1: if if this is, you know that they're engaging in
Speaker 1: very similar activities, arguably to different ends. With when on
Speaker 1: the one end, if you're like you know, song life
Speaker 1: for the accumulation of capital for you know, getting yourself
Speaker 1: out of poverty, for life refuse set versus like the
Speaker 1: other group of folks that we're shooting police officers in
Speaker 1: crazy ship like that, but with the aims of like
Speaker 1: establishing a separatist black state and like things is. And
Speaker 1: so I think, like in the larger conversation that we
Speaker 1: have on the show about the relationship between hip hop
Speaker 1: and politics, like I think studying the lives of if
Speaker 1: Any in Utulou and the Sada show us like the
Speaker 1: many ways that the activity of both hip hop and
Speaker 1: revolution um overlap. And yeah, and I think that it's
Speaker 1: also good just in a historical context to not not
Speaker 1: whitewash events or eras and things like that. It's like
Speaker 1: the Civil rights movement as we know it to be
Speaker 1: wasn't like every day was that I have a dream speech.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. It's like like it involved
Speaker 1: like thousands of people like with you know, hundreds of
Speaker 1: individual stories of how people were like contributing to that
Speaker 1: whole fight, and not all of it was pretty you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, like obviously, And that's that's another
Speaker 1: theme that I think we're going to continue to explore. Um,
Speaker 1: but let's get into like the direct music discussion. Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, just talking about that whole thing with Tupac.
Speaker 1: Fun fact about me. My godmother is May Jamison, who
Speaker 1: was the first black woman in space the more you know,
Speaker 1: also on Star Trek. Yeah, she was also the first
Speaker 1: real life astronaut on Star Trek. I think that's the trivia.
Speaker 1: I love that in my response, like, oh, it's not
Speaker 1: impressive enough to me that she went to motherfucking space.
Speaker 1: I'm like, but whatna starting? Alright, so I don't have
Speaker 1: a cool godmother story. I'm sorry, but you have so
Speaker 1: many cool stories about I just got that one. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty. It's pretty. But yeah, let's turn to look
Speaker 1: a little bit about look at some of ASADA's impact
Speaker 1: on hip hop music as well as the revolutionary ideology
Speaker 1: so that she, if Annie and others shared trickled into
Speaker 1: the music of Tupacs. So the first song that we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about is the two thousand. I guess
Speaker 1: the only way to describe it as an epic. It's
Speaker 1: a six minute long epic song by Common called Song
Speaker 1: for Asada. It's off of his album Like Water for Chocolate,
Speaker 1: produced by James Posner. Let's check that out real quick.
Speaker 1: Put Mason, the eyes threaten, the blast, my race still
Speaker 1: things got still open. As for you last season next
Speaker 1: to a best friend who got killed, commons words about it.
Speaker 1: He said it stemmed from me just reading her autobiography.
Speaker 1: I read the book two or three times. I went
Speaker 1: down to Cuba. I had to feel every element I
Speaker 1: could to get so I could write that story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he talked about making this move until it's freedom for
Speaker 1: all those who are oppressed, all those in struggle, and
Speaker 1: then gets into like in very very graphic detail, you know,
Speaker 1: the gunshots firing, laying in a puddle of blood and
Speaker 1: blood bubbling from her chest, and you know the feel
Speaker 1: of like the gunshot, like the open wound of the gunshot, um,
Speaker 1: you know, before she was later questioned by the police.
Speaker 1: Like it's very you know, it's like very viscerally first person,
Speaker 1: not vivot. Like the thing that it's stands out to
Speaker 1: me is obviously like the length of it, because you know,
Speaker 1: you don't really see too many six minute long rap songs,
Speaker 1: even when it's about something serious, you know, and we
Speaker 1: there's decades and decades to discuss what we were just
Speaker 1: talking about. How oh that story is so wild that
Speaker 1: somebody should make a movie of it, you know, or
Speaker 1: is there a movie of it? And this is kind
Speaker 1: of the hip hop version of that, you know. It's
Speaker 1: it's a very vivid, very detailed and visually so recounting
Speaker 1: of the story that we just told you guys all
Speaker 1: in um the course of this episode. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like I did this Ted talk thing not too long ago,
Speaker 1: and it was like about how when you rap lyrics
Speaker 1: seep in more in in information when presented as rap,
Speaker 1: can you know, be retained easier and be ingrained in
Speaker 1: the mind more. And I think the song kind of
Speaker 1: you know, proves that because like this is like a
Speaker 1: summary of our whole episode just now in the six minutes,
Speaker 1: but it's like a dope to it. Yeah, you can
Speaker 1: listen to this. You all should have just gone listen
Speaker 1: to songs for Rosada to completely honest our apologies for
Speaker 1: listing your time. So what you got next? So you know,
Speaker 1: she gets a shout out on public enemies rubble without
Speaker 1: a pause. But I think that turning to look at
Speaker 1: some of the influence of Black Panther and other black
Speaker 1: radical ideology and the music of Tupac is it's really
Speaker 1: interesting regularly if you look at keep your head up,
Speaker 1: you know, which we all know, but then sort of
Speaker 1: looking at it through the lens of the influence of
Speaker 1: strong black female leaders in Tupac's life and then sort
Speaker 1: of gives more context to like when he says some
Speaker 1: say the black of the barrils, we have the juice
Speaker 1: to say, the dark of the flesh, of deep of
Speaker 1: the roots. I gave holl it to my sisters on
Speaker 1: well payer Tupac hairs if don't nobody else care, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, encouraging women to dry your eyes, never let up,
Speaker 1: keep your head up, and not accept the disrespect of
Speaker 1: black men in our community who may not have seen
Speaker 1: like the what's how much I say, man, I've exposed
Speaker 1: to like the power of like, you know, truly strong
Speaker 1: black leaders in the way that he was in his
Speaker 1: young life. I think it's one of those interesting things
Speaker 1: about Tupac that unfortunately, just like a lot of things
Speaker 1: in history, gets lost because when people pass away, it's
Speaker 1: like the lot of the imagery of him that people
Speaker 1: that sticks with people is like the wild like the
Speaker 1: dude getting in trouble that people don't realize the Tupac
Speaker 1: is a guy that was raised by women, that like
Speaker 1: cared very much about his sister and was like really,
Speaker 1: you know, for for all the contradictions that rappers have,
Speaker 1: I don't think I don't think that there was like
Speaker 1: any like uh. I mean, I guess there's there's definitely
Speaker 1: misogynistic Tupac lyrics, but not like de human I seeing
Speaker 1: like misogynistic Tupac lyrics that makes sense. I mean, we
Speaker 1: could definitely find worst examples. Yes, we could definitely find
Speaker 1: like the worst examples. So White Man's World was a
Speaker 1: ninety kid came out September. Um, it's it's a Outlaws
Speaker 1: number e D. I mean provided some background in permation
Speaker 1: on the song. And so it's a personal record. It's
Speaker 1: like an open letter to his mother and his sister.
Speaker 1: It's like he's writing from jail and just apologizing for
Speaker 1: a lot of ship at we're all trying to grow
Speaker 1: up and change figures out. A lot of people don't
Speaker 1: remember that he you know, he's only twenty five. At
Speaker 1: the time, he was still a kid. Um and so um,
Speaker 1: this is sort of like a letter to his family
Speaker 1: of like, YO, apologize, but in it it's got an
Speaker 1: interesting couple of lines um about like one of the
Speaker 1: lessons of never falling for riches, apologizing to his true sisters. Um,
Speaker 1: far from bitches. Um that they helped, you know, help
Speaker 1: me raise my black nation. Reparations are due, and that
Speaker 1: it's so true caught up in this world, I took
Speaker 1: advantage of you. But tell them babies how I love them,
Speaker 1: precious boys and girls born black and most white man's world.
Speaker 1: So there's like hinting at like the ways that underlike
Speaker 1: hint under the boot of like racial capitalism, like we
Speaker 1: get pitted against each other, like the black men versus
Speaker 1: black women. Um, you know, black men versus black men,
Speaker 1: lower class wicks versus the you know, lower class blacks
Speaker 1: when you know, and we're falling for the riches we're
Speaker 1: when really, uh, we're all valuable and really if we
Speaker 1: got our fair share, you know, we could rise up.
Speaker 1: And not dealing was one of those uh posts songs
Speaker 1: after he died. It's one of the earlie songs. I
Speaker 1: always wonder um because a lot of the thing with
Speaker 1: like a lot of those songs to me that's always
Speaker 1: stuck out is like none of that stuff feels like rushed.
Speaker 1: It's usually like a lot of it is the type
Speaker 1: of songs that you have to think about, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like as far as like that, you
Speaker 1: would imagine somebody who's writing it has to think about.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel like, oh, this is just some bullshit
Speaker 1: that I'm doing in the studio. It's like really still
Speaker 1: like politically charged or very emotional songs and stuff like
Speaker 1: that that he did at some point when he was
Speaker 1: still alive by like the tens, just he just did
Speaker 1: like albums and the album's worth of songs like these
Speaker 1: that are hidden gems throughout because I have never even
Speaker 1: like thought about this ship. I've heard this album a
Speaker 1: couple of times back in the day, but I've never
Speaker 1: even recalled this song. And this is like kind of
Speaker 1: following on the same themes that he was going when
Speaker 1: he was making Dear Mama. It's like that same sort
Speaker 1: of uplifting like, you know, like uplifting black women in
Speaker 1: the community even though they're not getting their proper due
Speaker 1: respect from everybody else. Sort of vibe that that song
Speaker 1: had to it. And then our last uh, especially on
Speaker 1: a song it's a poem. I didn't know that Tupac
Speaker 1: released a book of poetry that poems that he wrote
Speaker 1: between Nights and nine and Night to any One Um
Speaker 1: published by It's like through MTV Books. I don't know
Speaker 1: MTV printed. Didn't about that. I mean, I remember that,
Speaker 1: I remember that book The Rose that Grew from Concrete,
Speaker 1: but I didn't I didn't know published by MTV Books.
Speaker 1: And so I guess most Death did an interpretation of
Speaker 1: a Tupac poem that in the original evokes Black Panther
Speaker 1: Party for self Defense Etho and the pad and the
Speaker 1: Panther is she just own um? When they talk about
Speaker 1: can you see the Pride of the Black Panther as
Speaker 1: he grows in splendor, and Gray's top one obstacles placed
Speaker 1: in the way of the regression of I don't think
Speaker 1: I ever heard that ship before. Again, like I knew
Speaker 1: about this book, I didn't know that they put out
Speaker 1: a whole album where different artists were doing interpretations of
Speaker 1: it though. But that's something that I've kind of always
Speaker 1: wanted them to just rappers to start doing in general.
Speaker 1: It's like, I think cats should not be afraid to
Speaker 1: do covers in hip hop the way they do another
Speaker 1: forms of music, because you know, like a rock band
Speaker 1: can be like, hey, we want to give a shout
Speaker 1: out to Smashing Pumpkins and then do their interpretation of
Speaker 1: a Smashing Pumpkin song. But how come, you know, like,
Speaker 1: how come you can't get like me Gooes doing their
Speaker 1: version of a Ludicrous song or something like that. Like
Speaker 1: I would want to see that. I would want to
Speaker 1: see one of these new rappers like give a shout
Speaker 1: out to DMX and do their version of rough Rider's
Speaker 1: Anthem or something like that. So this is fresh. I
Speaker 1: gotta check this out. That's no learn something today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we are going to be back with you next week.
Speaker 1: What are we gonna do next week? Do we know yet?
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's gonna be a mystery. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be a mystery. But whatever it is, it's gonna be dope.
Speaker 1: But you know how we always close it off. We
Speaker 1: gotta get that beat so that we can spit some rhymes.
Speaker 1: Joe my good man. Can we get a instrumental? Oh?
Speaker 1: Oh wait, no reparations, Wait, no reparation. Got it? I
Speaker 1: thought the market in me would be that simple, that single.
Speaker 1: Let's get linked. What to be a sex symbol? I said,
Speaker 1: I got it's actually I'm delectable, but intellectually on my
Speaker 1: Jetta cheese for cholesterol. Hella, hella elevated. You are lowell
Speaker 1: and I look well. I bet you seven cents to
Speaker 1: be there this later. I bet your thirty seventh cents.
Speaker 1: A thorny feminists about the time that we will recoint
Speaker 1: it femininity. That's funny. Enemies from the sender ravenus to
Speaker 1: do what the tendency? If you're looking for honey, lovench,
Speaker 1: tenderly and the sheets, Yes again, mother fuck, I'm frenzied indusprit.
Speaker 1: Not a lot of mcs to try to rock to this.
Speaker 1: I say I'm dope. You perceive that as confidence. I
Speaker 1: got green plant seeds like a botanist, and I got speed.
Speaker 1: You're gonna need that rabotan Nick the rocial Concrete. I
Speaker 1: do it like to Pocalypse and neat these rappers like
Speaker 1: the chocolate Chip. I could not resist hit the pressure
Speaker 1: points until you call me spotting ship waiting a reparation
Speaker 1: certified to be rocking there. Yeah, yeah, it's like dope dope,
Speaker 1: dope dope. Hey, my name's Dope Knife. You are waiting
Speaker 1: on reparations next week. Listen to Waiting on Reparations on
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts