Colser Media.
Blackness.
Yes, it is that time of year, the bi annual State of the Blackness Address.
I will be your tour director.
My name is Parapaganda and this is hood politics with prop The State of the Blackness Address, Part one, twenty to twenty five. Matt dropped the track on him.
Okay, welcome, welcome, Welcome.
The bi Annual State of the Blackness Address twenty twenty five has been quite.
A show so far.
I know we all feel like this that January was such a long month and then we blinked and it was June.
We're already here.
So many things have happened, so let's stop and let's take a second to acknowledge.
The blackness.
Now, last year started out, came out swinging with Club Shaysha, and you have an unusual alliance with losers and that's not like you, you know, and all the things that your boy Kat Williams gave us.
Oh man, it came out so fun. You know.
We had the guy that jumped over the bench, you know, went flying to tackle the lady after he got sentenced. We had some good ones, and of course last year gave us the Fall of Drake and the Kendrick and Drake that gave us Stay Night like us and man, the culture was very strong and probably I think now we can say, like the biggest and greatest disc song
in all of hip hop. I just I don't know, man, I used to think like I mean, I thought all those, all those I thought all the Kendrick songs, we were amazing. Of course, Wes West, but were they in the history of hip hop. I'm like, I think, man, I think Ether has been dethroned. I think it's it's hard to hard to defeat it. I'm realizing I'm not wearing my headphones now, That's why I don't hear myself. There we go anyway, I'm really tired because of the club real
ones yesterday and shout out Ian Dude. Ian pulled up Ian producer Ian that produces a lot of these clubs clubs see cools one media shows. Ian came out with his with his lovely better half and we had us a good time. So yeah, twenty twenty five stated of blackness, let's get to it.
First.
You got to start off in January with the La Fires. Now, while we got to start there is because while a lot of the news was covering what was happening in the Palisades and Malibu. A lot of our local eyes were on the city of Altadena. I know, I did a small, short kind of breakdown of Altadena inside of the Block is literally hot episode when I talked about the La fires.
And Altadena is.
The northern part of Los Angeles County on the east side, in the foothills under the Angelus Mountains. Now the Hollywood Hills is a part of a mountain range right with a valley in between, which is how you get over to the valley. But that range kind of stretches up and it becomes like, you know, like I said, the Angelus Crest all the way over to the Azusa Mountains down to Mount Baldy and then you get out to
Big Bear as you're going east or inland. But nestled at the foothills the east side is an enclave called Altadena. And Altadena was one of the few standing black communities that most likely, I think it's it's fair to say that most likely your.
Grandma lived in Altadena.
She probably bought a house right after the Vietnam War, because this was one of the first like middle class, like working class middle class black neighborhoods where you could you could get an affordable home working a regular ass job. Now as time went on, those homes became quite pricey because won their location and to their build They're these like super dope kind of break mid century modern like
it just it's just a great neighborhood. You know, merce talked about how when he moved to the six to six that's where his church was. A lot of times if you lived in the rest of the spots, like down in West Covina or Baldwin Park, like you lived with the Vatos, like a lot of times your barber was up in Altadena, you know, or in Pasadena. You know, the Pasadena Rubber Rebels. You know, that's a very local reference.
But the loss of that neighborhood is some thing that as far as locally has been concerned, was our focus. There was an African American library there. There was all these like kids programs that where a lot of us learned about the diaspora of Africa and drumming circles and stuff like that. Like if you wasn't going out to
Lamert you know, you were staying. Lamert Park is in the Crenshaw District, which is on the West Side, and sometimes because of unfortunately because of gang festivities and activities, that's sometimes not an option. But a lot of times you were moved as a child out of those areas. But you don't want to lose what it means to have a black community, just as simple as like where to get your hair grease, not having to explain what hair grease is, you know what I'm saying, Like those
things become the seasonings. I remember I was trying to make some greens. Uh one time last summer, I just needed a smoke turkey leg. Whole Foods ain't got no smoke turkey leg. I went to the rest of the grocery store around here. Y'all know I live in a Mexican neighborhood. They're like, yo, we only have smoke turkey
during the holidays, during Thanksgiving. So I'm like, uh, yeah, I need to go to Altadena because I was like, I need to go where black people live because I know they're gonna have They're gonna have hamhocks, they gonna have.
The things I need just to cook.
So sometimes now granted this Altadena and a lot of like ethnic neighborhoods were created because of redlining and because
of prejudice. But inside of that, you create a community of the things that we all need and those little things that I feel like a lot of times white people are people of the dominant culture, you know, really can't appreciate, like why other ethnicities feel even more like a fish out of water when they're in, you know, neighborhoods that don't represent them, you know what I'm saying.
It's little stuff like that.
You know, I couldn't find the right kind of shampoo for a long time too, because that mug said you at the store and it said this is for normal hair texture.
I'm sorry, what the hell is normal hair? Well?
You know what they mean by that, don't you exactly? So little things like that where I don't have to like concern myself.
You know.
Altadena is a beautiful, beautiful city, and most of the fundraisers focused around la especially again in the black community, was around rebuilding Altadena and it's still going on. There are still links in my bios to support a lot of these families. One of the people up there was
mad Lib. Mad Lib again in the state of hip hop is a behemoth of a producer, The Mad Villain album that everybody talks about with m F Doom, mad Lib, Jlib is him and Jay Dilla, you know, the champion sound stuff man mad Live is a if you are a rapper, no matter what part of the country you're from, mad Lib should be on your bucket list to get
production from. Yeah, he lost his home too, you know, And there was a bunch of fundraisers that we've done in hopes to save his own and his record collections and those things. So rather than coming out swinging for black people with funniness, we came out swinging with a little bit of pain.
Next is the Ballad of p.
Diddy, y'all.
This topic has clearly spanned a number of State of the blacknesses because Diddy is now finally on trial. As we've known, Diddy was one of the worst kept secrets in Hollywood, hip hop and black culture. We all knew that man was weird now unfortunately, because use homophobia is a normal, normalized thing among the black community, although black queer is also a ginormous part of our culture.
So weird how we do this?
People still have kind of changed pause to ah No Ditty, which is essentially a way to say.
I'm not gay, like I'm not doing gay stuff.
Unfortunately, that the gayness was the line that the culture finally drew. But as the case is going on, we're seeing that man was even more bizarre than we all thought. The story about one of the male escorts said, no, this was Cassie's story that she was forced to make live to this male escort while Ditty was in a
job with just the little eyes showing watching them get down. Boy, that man kid cutty two for two with his mentor choices because both of them went crazy cut He said that man showed up at his house and set his car on fire. Obviously he didn't do it himself. Why you set that man's car on fire? Did he look like he aged seventy two years inside of jail? Oh you know you ain't got your skincare routine and the pan Do you listen?
Oh?
Man?
Did he out here wildly in the state of the blackness. Maybe let's stay in hip hop before we move into other topics. The continuation of Kendrick Tamar's curb stomping of the culture moves on. While this tour that the GNX Tour that is now broken records for touring ever, and then he broke his own record as this tour game
went on as far as ticket sales. The argument against k Dot apparently, which I didn't agree with, was that he don't make bops, that he don't make hits, and that the songs are not.
Made for radio.
That's what everybody's argument with, Like mister Morale was like, there's no there's no radio songs. He come back with these these hits with Sizz, which of which he took on tour and gave her, which what I love about it equal amount of time on stage because he's just a good man. He continues to break streaming records, he continues to break toward ticket sale records, and just continues to put the West.
On the map.
Now while that was happening out on the East Coast, on the Beast Coast, my homeboy Joey Badass. Now Joey is not my homeboy because I ain't never met this man, but we do share a manager, which would be like, damn man, can y'all connect this please?
Anyway?
What I love about this moment in hip hop is that it's kind of just for us because the rest of the people I'm about to name, unless you really tapped into hip hop, y'all know who these people are. But if you're in our culture, this has been some of the funnest few months of bringing which is what
Kendrick said he tried to do. Bring that competition back, that goon competition back, the sport of hip hop, the sport of battling, of beating your chest and spinning in bars and having bought and having something to come back, having a response, the competition part of hip hop. That is about we're sparring. This is art for art's sake, this is this is battle raps for battle rap sake. There has been a battle going on between Joey Badass
and essentially all of the West, right. Joey had said in a song a while back, in reference to a line that Jay Z said years ago, which was like it's too much West Coast dick licking right. He was making an observation that the West is up right now, the West is hot, you know, and y'all need to stop jocking this, like, don't forget the East Coast started hip hop essentially, like I feel a way that I'm not in the conversation about the top rappers of my era.
This is Joey Joey Badass is a sort of premise and like y'all acting like New York don't run things still, and they don't, partially, I believe, because New York gave up its sound because it started doing drill and like the ASoP rocky stuff, the French Montana stuff. There was no way you'd know they were from New York because they don't have they don't have a sound, but Joey has that sound. Dudes like Griselda and you know, Westside Gun and all this stuff that they're doing is bringing
a New York sound back. So in some stances, I feel like New York gave up its flavor, but it's cool to see it pop smoke, Like y'all didn't know he was from New York unless Mike told you. He didn't sound like it. They're they're redefining their sound anyway. In this battle, he takes shots at the West but Kendrick over it, so everybody else jumped in. Ray Vaughan is an artist on TDE also and Homie can rap rap rap, And then it became this like sort of
a brawl because another man named Daylight. Now Daylight is super interesting because Daylight again comes from the battle scene. I believe Watts right. He also his ghostwriting pen is insane. He wrote a number of Drake songs. He's also very close with ab Sol. And you have to remember about the thing about ab Sol, who's also a part of
Top Dog. Absol of the of Black Hippie, Black Hippie is j Rock, Kendrick, Schoolboy Qan Absole like the first the kind of the founding members of Top Dog Entertainment. Of them, Kendrick's obviously the hit maker, the star of the show.
Jay Rock's the street.
Goon, you know, and then Schoolboy is the like almost like the melodic street goon, you feel me. Absol, that's the rappers rapper, he's the that's the caviar, like the the We would be here for seven months trying to break down his lyrics, like he's the wordplay intricate, like I said I'd said before, which I love. He's like backpack rap with a gat in it, Like so it's a backpacker but he got a gun in it because he's still a street dude.
But he's the caviar. Now when he got in.
There's Red Bull has this thing where they do this like three sixty site for the first one I saw was of.
Soul's a Mischief.
But what they do is they get like three or four rappers in and they spit, you know, freestyles, not like I call freestyles, but freestyle's into this thing. And this one was Big Sean, Joey and Absol. Now Joey had already taken shots at Daylight and at Ray Vaughn. But because they're all friends, right, AB finally or not? Yeah, ab Soul finally addresses it in this circle where he was like, listen, Joey, you put me in this predicament
that like, I know me and you are friends. But it's not like I'm not gonna stand with my syndicate.
You know what I'm saying.
He's takes so he's taking shots at at Joey standing there, and then when it's Joey's turn, Joey taking shots at Ab standing there. So for a few weeks reason Daylight, Ray Vaughn, Joey Badass. These are like, again, you're not in the culture. These are rappers, rappers, right, They are spitting because GENA views is part of the show called effective immediately with DJ head gena Is was like, I'm get off the internet and get in the booth, like nigga rap.
Why are y'all not rapping rap?
Right?
And guess what niggas is rapping.
The beauty of this is everyone agrees in this that we are having fun. As vicious and cutting as these words are, this is almost like black people getting to be black without the white gays. How do we talk when y'all not around, when we don't have to worry about things being misinterpreted. This is what's happening inside of hip hop right now when we ain't got to explain.
There's no New York Times.
I don't have to explain to you why BBL drizzy is funny, Like I don't like. This is one of those things where it's like cool, we get to just speak our own language. We ain't gotta translate and just enjoy what's happening in hip hop right now. That's what's going on right now, man, and it is fun and they're all talking about how fun it is. The Hommy Curtis King was like, listen, bro, if we were gonna if you're gonna hop online and play two K or
Madden with your friends. You gonna talk trash. I'm trying to win, like I like, I am truly trying. I'm trying to destroy you. This is the same a hip hop.
This is what I love.
This is what I felt love about battle rap is after telling someone the worst possible things you could ever say to somebody, we all left and went to Denny's. This stuff isn't personal. This is fun with somebody. If you was slapboxing with your friends outside that there's rules, but we're still being physical. I'm gonna get slapped in the face, and I feel like I want you to try.
Like that's the thing.
Like if you playing pickup ball, like that's a lot, that's another way to clate battle rap like this.
It's like street ball, Like you know, these are pickup games.
There's gonna be more elbows, it's gonna be a little more aggressive, but you gotta hold your mud.
You know what I'm saying.
You gotta stand your ground, you gotta spit back, and the best bars win. This is also what's beauty about beautiful about this moment. It's like without the gaze of pop culture talking about numbers and streams and all that good stuff that's not a part of the conversation because these artists have not poked into mainstream or pop culture.
These are rappers. So all this is about is bars.
And it's been good to enjoy this with hip hop because this is something we needed. You know, you get Mac Miller's death, you get Pop Smoke's death, you know Triple X at Tassion, all these like really sad stories. You got young thugs, all these rappers going to jail. You know, just not a good look. This was a
moment we all needed, moving out of hip hop. Let's go to this little more politics next, all right, for some reason, the desire that for some reason this year it kind of worked where black people got real solidified over Target. And I think partially because Target took such serious strides towards being present for us in supporting black businesses. And then when DEI was attacked, they removed their DEI program.
Here's where this becomes complicated. They still sold the products, the black products that they already had, they just decided to stop being upfront about it.
Now.
It's not so much that we care as black people about the name DEI. It's the principle of it in the sense that you stood up for us, and when the white supremacists came to tell you to stop doing it, you just folded, and I know you folded in a way that was supposed to be looking at us and winking saying we're still there.
We're just gonna you know.
But when you just wink and look over there and say I'm still gonna do it, but I'll still please you by changing this name, you still give them a win because they still believe that they have the authority to bully you, and that perception, the visual and the belief is all they need because then they're gonna come do it again, and then you're gonna change the name again and try to figure it out. Either way, you're still taking a submissive position to a group that needs to understand.
The principalities of the thing. So black people.
Decided some of it was organized through church, others was just organized through social media, that we were just gonna not shop at Target.
No more than the businesses that were in Target. They all got websites.
We'll still support y'all. You don't have to lose money because it is so we still buy a products. We're just not shopping at Target. Target, they took a massive l Black people used to spend twelve million a day at Target.
That's gone.
They made that CEO get a fifty percent pay cut because black folks decided when we was done shopping there. It's crazy that when we actually decide, when we finally done, when you get to the go ahead, chief, you got a champ when we get to that, like when we're done, we're done, which is what's going on with Kanye.
We're done. That's why not on the news no more. We're done.
Sell your swastikas, go ahead. Br niggas is over it. It's one thing I do enjoy about us is we are long suffering. We will stick with you for a while. But when we're done, I said, because it's all you, you.
Got a chief.
Sticking in the politics section, Larry Hoover, founder of the Gangster Disciples, Leonard Peltier, freedom fighter from the sixties, political prisoner, and believe this, NB A Young Boy all got released from prison, Larry Hoover specifically, and NBA Young Boy got they sentence commuted, commuted from a dut Trump organization. Now, no one could have imagined this timeline that this would happen commit black people.
Y'all get it? What the lick read? The lick is to exploit the divide.
Of gender among the black community because we're having some sort of some sort of a civil war among us, and Trump is making strides in gaining support with black men. Part of that is because we're trying to get this money and we just want to be getting money, Muff, because you understand what I'm saying, but it's complicated. And then when you start doing stuff like this, because we understand prison reform, we understand our need to like a lot of young brothers have been put in jail, you know,
on some untrumped up charges. So this is supposed to feel good. Now, this is not to be little any of the things that Larry Hoover has done it better himself. I'm not putting that aside. I'm talking about Trumps rereading Trump's lick because this man may do these gestures to try to make us feel better, but this is the same man that's ending head Start programs, the same man that looked at our Haitian brothers and sisters and was
like they eating pets, literally eating cats and dogs. That's what they said about our brothers and sisters in the diaspora. This the shithold country's man. This the same man that's removing the medicaid, that's making medicaid hard.
For my DNM. That man don't love you.
And I feel like we understand this because I have a lot of the similar memories you have when the pusher come through the city or come through the neighborhood in the Cadillac you start handing out twenty dollar bills or taking us off to the ice cream truck. You know, doing backpack drives you feel me. But that man is why your auntie strung out. That man is while you
went to your cousin's funeral last week. He may tell you sorry and promised to take care of you, of you and your mother, you and your auntie, your cousin, your auntie. He promised to take care of him, But I tell you what, he also got him killed. So I need you to remember that this man is really not on your side. That being said, welcome home the NBA, young boy, and Larry Hoover. Now I brought up Leonard Peltier because can you believe it? Do your googles all right?
Next is our continual war with state sponsored violence Rodney Hiitton Junior. This happened out there in Cincinnati, Ohio, where a young man and his friends stole a car and were pursued by the police. One of them hopped out the car. The cop says he saw a gun. The guy dropped the gun and run ran. The little boy took four shots to his back and died. After the little boy's father got to see the police surveillance video, he was so distraught that the next day he drove
his car into an officer who was directing traffic. The complications of this story puts the reality of radicalization into focus even more because this is a sad story for all parties involved. It's a clear case of temporary insanity. But also it is what I've been trying to tell y'all about Palestine. It's that state sponsored violence always creates terrorism. As I don't know of any terrorist group that wasn't
a response to state sponsored violence. So the continual insurgent force that is the police department in America towards or at least what it feels like towards black people, is gonna eventually drive us to these types of actions. So this man was like, listen, you not gonna see justice. These people killed my son and now they protecting the man that killed my son. I don't know if you know, but Derek Chauvin is getting out also by the same
administration that freed Larry Hoover. So don't think this man is full of us. Derek Chauvin is the person that killed George Floyd. So Rodney was on trial. Rodney hidden Junior and gave us one of the most epic moments where thirty officers showed up for this trial for his uh, for his first arraignment, and that man chin up full of pride, like you're not gonna have me down. You're not gonna have me sad. I stood up for my son. I found justice for my son because I know you
would never do this for me. So he kept his head up. Now, I'm sure you're not asking me this because you listen to the show and you know what it is that I am not giving a defense for vigilanteism or murder. I'm not I'm saying I understand it.
This is what I'm saying. I am a father.
And sometimes watching movies and I'm seeing somebody's child. If you see the if the if the parents are part of the storyline, and you see somebody's child going through some suffering, if you.
Care about your fathering.
You, it's hard for me to see that without feeling like deep feelings and emotions and sometimes rage like I'm like, boy, I wish a mother, I wish you would talk to my daughter like that. I wish you would put my child's life in danger.
Like you feeling froggy than jump. So I think I understand that. And lastly, in the State of the Blackness.
The memes, Ladies and Gentlemen twenty Drew Hills, Now, a father saw his son being disrespectful to his mother.
And if you understand.
Something about the black nuclear family, won't play not about our wives. Ain't nowhere in the world you're gonna let your child be disrespectful today.
Mother.
That's something we just don't that's not not we don't abide by that, and especially if it's your boy.
Now I have daughters, so that's a different story.
But black men and their sons when it talks about how when you think about how you want your boys to treat they, Mama, boy, you been not in my presence, I bet not ever catch I bet not ever see you.
Be out of pocket with your mother. That's it. We don't.
That's that's not something we play around with. So a lot of men I've seen my homeboy Triune makes they kid do. He used to make his son, his step son do laps, so he would go to the high school on the court and he go make him run laps. The homy La Cree used to have his kids do wall sets. Right, we're trying to break these generational curses of whipping our children.
Okay, so forgive us. But this man said, we're doing twenty Drew Hills.
Now, if you know nineties R and B, you already know exactly what he talking about. It is a dance from a video that has a step and a jump and it's almost a burpie. Because when he said I gave my son twenty Drew Hills, we all knew exactly what he meant. And then the video cut to his son do it.
Cause it's a workout.
One man said twenty Drew Hills. And lastly, one hundred men versus one gorilla. You may or may not know, but that whole discussion actually came out of black Twitter. Now I know there is no such thing as Twitter anymore, but it actually comes from black Twitter can now is
a stand in term just for black. Social media started off on Reddit a long time ago, got brought back via the Black social media Pipeline, and then spilled out to the rest of the world, charting out some of the greatest moments of extra ness about stuff that don't matter people right now charts bringing in anthropologists and people who study apes just sometimes we just need some fun.
Another trend in social media, which has to do with sort of all of this, is how, for the most part, a lot of the anti Trump rallies don't have no Black people there. A lot of the anti fascism ones don't really add to black people there. Let me tell you why, because we try to tell you we fought all we could. Nobody y'all ain't we told y'all about this man. Ain't nobody We tried.
We tried.
We did a whole movement in twenty twenty, got laws changed, really saw some results, just for y'all to put this man back in charge again.
You know what, y'all got it. Y'all got it. That is not so much that we don't want to stand in solidarity with you. It's that this is yo.
Turn my feet hurt. Been trying, but I tell you what, I'm gonna go on to this brunch and Mimosa's. You let me know how it goes.
So.
I can say.
The state of the blackness is strong. We still got the rest of the year ago. We're gonna see the complete fall of Diddy and hopefully we keep the city laughing because that's how we handle things.
Good politics.
All right, now, don't you hit stop on this pod. You better listen to these credits. I need you to finish this thing so I can get the download numbers. Okay, so don't stop it yet, but listen. This was recorded in East Lost Boil Heights by your boy Propaganda. Tap in with me at prop hip hop dot com. If you're in the Coldbrew coffee we got terraform Coldbrew. You can go there dot com and use promo code hood
get twenty percent off get yourself some coffee. This was mixed, edited, and mastered by your boy Matt Alsowski killing the Beast Softly. Check out his website Matdowsowski dot com.
I'm a speller for you because I know m A T. T O S.
O w s Ki dot com Matthowsowski dot com. He got more music and stuff like that on there, so gonna check out.
The heat.
Politics is a member of cool Zone Media, Executive produced by Sophie Lichterman, part of the iHeartMedia podcast network. Your theme music and scoring is also by the one and Noble mattow Sowski. Still killing the beats softly, so listen. Don't let nobody lie to you. If you understand urban living, you understand politics. These people is not smarter than you. We'll see y'all next week.