Yo yo yo yo yo yo yo, yo, yo yo yo. What's up, y'all. I'm back. It's been a while. Let me explain. Okay, if you don't know, this is her politics. My name is propaganda. This is politics with prop Here's where I've been. I've been writing a book, I've been finishing an album, and it's a global pandemic. So attempting to parent during all of these things while at the same time producing content. And if you know, The Red Couch, the sister podcast of this that this podcast grew out of,
is currently in season. So for my own health and workload, I put this aside for a second. If we don't know what this is. Is built on the idea that if you understood gang life or survived eighth grade, you understand geo politics, because after all, politics is just gang banging in nice suits. Also, the second thing that's been going on with her politics is we are in negotiations with a much larger network. So that's super exciting, which means that like will be bringing this thing coming at you,
smoking hot all the time, probably weekly very soon. You know, I just needed to make sure that you know the bag was secured. As I taught y'all, and that you know I can not just secure the bag for myself but pay my dog Matta Sawski still can't pronounce his name to gore and mix and master. It's a lot that goes into making podcasts. Anyway, No guests today. Moving forward, there probably will only be guests a few times, but most likely it'll be more just like me, just giving
y'all to business about a certain topic. So you're ready to dive in, here we go. Ether. So anybody's been around hip hop for a while in their early two thousands, you understand that ether has become a verb. I think I may have speaked spoken of this before, where it is an action of what you do well. Ether has an origin, and the origin is Ether is a song by Nas Do your googles. If he's not in your top five, I don't think you really love hip hop.
And Ether actually was a dis track. Now, there's a long history and hip hop of a diss track, right. It's a song that specifically a diss towards a certain person, crew, coast, whatever the case may be. And you you you you started making those when y'all start beefing. It came out of the longer history of battle rapping Um, which also came out of a longer history of the Sound Clash. You know, in the sound Clash actually goes all the
way back to Jamaica. But I'm going too far right now, this is too hip hop Nerdery Nas was dissing jay Z. Jay Z hove as y'all may know him. You know Bay and Jay y'all y'all know the the final version of jay Z. The younger jay Z was one of many New York rappers who put out some classic records and obviously changed hip hop as we know it and
aged very well. But anyway, Nas was dissing jay Z. There was a time that them two beefed and jay had put out a number of tracks, a number well, first of all, it was a verse and this verse from this song called Takeover, and it was pretty it was pretty raw, like he he he kind of. He came in nos tough knowing how hip hop works, Like the importance of being the King of New York is just like because that's where hip hop sort of not sort of, that's where hip hop originated from. Like, being
the King of New York was something very important. As an MC, you had to be the king of New York. Really, the king of New York for a long time was Biggie,
right uh. And then after Biggie passed there was almost like a mad scramble for the top of the food chain and the as far as the lyricists were concerned, it was always always belonging to Nos only a lot of Nos had a string of duds and his albums, there's a few albums that were just terrible, but his first record, Illmatic, was so good that it overshadowed the duds that he had after that. Anyway, we could argue, and we do all the time. Ether was probably the
greatest dis track of all time. It's the greatest haymaker anyone has ever thrown. Because you have to remember, Nas was playing from behind. Jay Z was becoming. Like I said, he was poised to be the top of the food chain. As far as lyricists were concerned, people that just liked underground hip hop, it belonged to Nos. Jay Z was a commercial rapper, right, But as far as the public was concerned, Jay was the top of the food chain.
To take a shot at him was very brave, right, But in the in the in the hard and soul of hip hop. Anyone can get it. When you're battling, anyone can get it. So we like to say that NAS through the greatest haymaker of all time. People still
argue who won that battle, Jay or Nas. I like to say it like this, Nas won the battle, but j won the war because Jay went on on to become the hope that we all know of, right and Nas, I'll be honest with you as hard to admit this as like a hip hop guy, but like he didn't age as well as Jay Um as far as making music, style, growth and stuff like that, but he's This is not to take anything away from Nas. Eventually they've squashed it,
moved on. Everything's fine. But since then ether became a verb for when you honestly take somebody out with like a really powerful disc of powerful some bars. Right. So battle making distracks is a part of the bigger culture of battle rapping right in hip hop. More recent examples of this is the Drake and Meek Mill battle, you know, you know, the back to back songs and me kind of like stumbling. I mean, he fumbled bad his response,
but again everything works out. Everybody starts, you know, making records. There was one that was pretty funny, like the J Cole and the Cannabis one. Cannabis is like a legendary battle rapper, but that's all he does. It came at cold, which was like, I don't know, I don't know why you're doing why you're coming at cold. It's not it's not the move. But battle rapping wasn't always just making dis tracks. It's usually a head to head thing. That's
the history where it's like head to head. You guys just kind of like you know, you you you trade bars even though the bars are they're just wrap lines or couplets if you will, it's you know, it's a music measure. We just call them bars. The best example I think some of y'all may know of it is like sort of the U R L, The Grind Times, or of course the movie eight Mile. You know this eminiminiuminium. You know, of course you can't stand it making a
hand seeing which up the damn cabinet? Right, you know, be rabbit, you know what I'm saying. Lose yourself, right, you know? So that scene underground when it's like a crowd of people and you you're supposed to wrap off the head, you know, meaning you're supposed to freeze style. You don't really get to research the person you're battling because it's more like a tournament, you know. You whoever
signs up, and that's the culture I came from. You get there, everybody signs up, and it's like single elimination. You get thirty seconds. The DJ throws on a beat. You guys have to wrap on the same beat, and you gotta come up with the bars right there to serve that fool, right. And it's equal parts style and finesse and and punch lines. And you know, the punch lines are like the knockout punch is the part that
makes the crowd go oh. But it can't just be punch lines, you know what I'm saying, Like, you gotta have some style in finesse. You've gotta still be rapping, you know what I mean, Like it's gotta rhyme, it's gotta be on beat, you gotta be clever. It's the crowd engagement, you know, But it can't be so styled that there's no punch lines. And then it's like he
just wrapped a verse that's not interesting. So there's really all art form to it, right, And some of the strategies you would do is you would get your whole crew on the stage, you know, to like hype you up, gas you up. You know, you have people in the audience.
You know, it's kind of like the home court advantage thing, like if you got a whole crew behind you, a lot of times they cheerleading, you know, and anytime you say some of the silliest bar even if it's not that hard, but if you got a whole crew of people being like, oh, that's the hardest you ever heard, right, then you just create this frenzy. Even if you're not that much better, you still create this frenzy. Now, the
new style of battle rapping is a little different. These young dudes, like I like to call myself like I'm like an OS one. I'm like an iPhone one battle rapper. These dudes are like you know, the iPhone twelves. They just they just move different. They get it's three minutes around, you get three rounds and these dudes have had two months to research each other. And there's like actual money involved, Like you could have a career, you feel me being
a battle rapper. You just write the three minute verses about this person who are all in this like league, if you will, And you get to know these people's track records and history and stuff like that, and then people you sell tickets to come see it. For us, it was three corners or just weekly events. You're wrapping in front of the same people every time. You know what I'm saying, except for whoever else might show up. So this is totally different. So you get to do
your research. You're doing homework. So if you get to research doing homework, you're memorizing these raps. You gotta come with it. You gotta be fumbling those verses, and you had three weeks to play these things. Your little knockout punch is better be hard. But you gotta have strategy. You can't bring out all your big guns in the first round. But at the same time, you gotta establish who's boss in the first round. You gotta try to win the crowd over. You should have your crew there right,
who's already on your side? You feel me? And then I saw you want the battle now. There's sort of a trope among hip hop and it's battle Rappers usually can't write song. The greatest example of that as cannabis. He just you can't write a song. You don't. They
don't make hits. Battle rappers don't make hits. That that's what was so unique about the Jay and Nas and even the Drake and Meek Mill battle is like, well, these guys write songs like they make and make hits for them to come down and just like I had to say, come down. I don't mean like condescend, but I mean that, like, come to this part of hip hop, to where you're just writing dis tracks for each other. It is like, dang, okay, boys got bars. That's dope,
you know what I mean. That's why, as much as I want to dismiss Drake Um as a meme of himself, when it comes down to, like the boy got bars, the boy can write, you know, and I'm sorry, man, stuff is catchy anyway. The consensus is they don't write songs. So just because you a battle doesn't necessarily mean you're the better artist. The opposite is also true. Just because you lost the battle doesn't mean you're the worst artist. Because there's a lot of ways to approach this, so
a battle doesn't necessarily settle. It's almost like in basketball, you play one on one with somebody. That don't mean you're the better player. Because basketball is a team sport. You know, there's a lot of different things that go into being able to play basketball. Just because somebody beat you one on one don't mean they're the better ball player. You should be asking what the hell am I talking about? And remember this is about politics. I am talking about
running campaigns. Y'all. We are in the throws. There's only a few weeks left of the presidential election. Now, before we go further, let me say this about an election. I think it's important to remember at the end of the day, when you cast your vote, mostly probably have already voted, because that's just the statistics of America. But but if you haven't cast your vote just yet, here's
the thing I want you to think about. I know when I went, when I got my ballot, one thing that I thought that was very interesting and telling was that the presidential election, like the voting, the vote to cast for the ballot for the president was the last one on page six. So for six other pages, they were all kinds of other things. There was California propositions.
There were local elections, their city elections, their state elections, there's Congress, there's district all kinds of other things that actually affect me directly. So as much attention that we in the culture, the media, or whatever the case may be, give to the one big one, understand there are so many other ways to affect change. There's so many other
things to vote on. So I just thought it was very telling and a beautiful metaphor for the apart type of importance that you really need to place on the totality of your ballot and not just the last dot on the last page. Having said that, let's get into it. We are at the battle rap stage. You gotta start throwing This is first of all, it starts off with, let me just make my case as to why I'm your dude. That's that's them dropping their albums, they dropping
the mix tapes. I'm the guy, and another guy's dropping mix tapes. I'm the guy. No, I'm the guy. No, I'm the guy. But somebody got to be the king of the and sometimes in hip hop that plays along lines of the coast, who's the king of the West. Well, I mean it's easy, it's Kendrick Lamar. I don't understand why anybody else would ask any other question, who's the King of New York. I don't know. That's not where
culture is at right now. You I mean that that could actually King of New York could go to anybody, is astop mob whatever? Right I don't know. We've sent the West has sent their champion. Maybe New York is not the one we're talking about. Actually, you know hip hops in the South right now, it's I mean, is it coming out of Atlanta? Is it coming out of Houston? One could argue the King of New York right now
is Cardi B You feel me? What could argue the King of the South right now is Megan the Stallion. You understand what I'm talking about. You gotta send your champion. But when you send your champion, your champion gotta be prepared for whatever this is. The other people gonna say, so you bring your bar now. Just like with most of hip hop, at the end of a battle, it's fine. We're all friends. You know, Drake and Meek have done songs together. Jay and Nas you know they've done songs together.
They worked together. Even the versus battles on Instagram through this quarantine, they're not really battles. They're just bringing their hits and ultimately the culture wins. Like there's no real winners and losers in that situation. I don't know if you saw the Brandy and Monica one. I mean, look, dude, who one was us? We just got our groove on during that time. Then they did the d m X and and and and Snoop. Listen, I'm gonna say Snoop won that. But the winner was the culture there early
on there was little John and t Pain. You're just playing hits. The winner is the culture, right. Ultimately, that's what it's supposed to be. The winners the culture. So when you think about president your elections, the winner should be the culture. Right. That's just not where we are right now. This on some Biggie Tupac. Somebody might die
out this book. This would hate the same, right. So when you walk into what we set up presidential debates as they're supposed to be, the winner is supposed to be us. You bring your champion, you bring your best bars. Maybe you maybe you're throwing eat maybe you're throwing you know, heymakers at the opponent, the opponent throwing hay makers back. But at the end of the day, to win us the culture. Right, But that's if you understand how they's
supposed to go. Clear that's not where we are right now. Right now, foods is getting personal one of the things in hip hop culture too, and and especially with battling. You're supposed to be able to let this person say the worst things about you, and you can't get out your skin, you can't get out your comfort. You gotta be able to handle it. You can't get violent, and
you can't you can't take that stuff personal. You gotta be able to just take it on the chin and not let this person wrap You gotta let them get their bars off. You gotta be okay, because it's fine. Once they get their bars off, you get your bars off, and whoever got the best bars win, right. You can't be interrupting fools. That's not how it works. Clearly, that's
not where we are right now. We're in this season that people like to call the October Surprise, and if you remember it back in two thousand sixteen, the October Surprise, it was two October Surprises, which was again, these were these were the greatest hay makers, These were the dis track. You're supposed to be able to take them and punch back. The October surprise for Trump was the Access Hollywood tapes. This was the hay maker. US just supposed to take
you out, right, and it was a punch boy. However, the punch back towards you know, miss Hillary Clinton was her email. Whether one was worse than the other doesn't matter. You gotta get the crowd involved. And if you ask me, Trump got the crowd involved via Russia. That boy, that boy has some goons in the audience. You feel me. You had some people, some cheerleaders that was like, yo, did you see that? That was crazy? You see them emails.
If you get the crowd involved, it don't matter, right because some of y'all might be thinking logical like that. I don't know. It just I mean, I don't understand what these emails proved. Right a matter of fact, if you remember, the Homie Comy came back and was like, yeah, the emails didn't really prove much. It's just you know, I mean, it wasn't really a thing. Too late, crowd already over the whole crowd, like, oh, Hillary couldn't get no bars off. This is the season we're in now.
We saw the first battle, the first battle was the first presidential debate, and it was chaos. Foods couldn't get their bars off. Joe trying to get his bars off that that that boy Trump had he had a plan. The plan was to get that food flustered. And I know battle rappers like that they plant is just to get him flustered. You you troll the guy in a lot of ways. Drake kind of did that to me for a little bit. He was dropping merch, you know what I'm saying, you know, charged up merch, you know
what I'm saying. And like you know, he was sending the trolls out to like out to out to meets like events, you know what I'm saying, stopping him from coming into Toronto, like you get everybody charged up. You feel me, Joe couldn't get no bars off. But in this situation, the losers the culture like we lost. But at the same time, when you see somebody out of pocket, especially at a battle, you like, man, I don't know, man, I don't know, Like you didn't let the other dude rap,
so I don't know if you won this mug. You just kept like shouting over it. You feel me, so like maybe you didn't maybe you ain't got no bars, Like why you being so out? You just let the man get his bars off, you get your bars off. So now we have our version of October surprises. It's going down. The October survise towards Trump was his seven hundred and fifty dollars in Texas. The man paid seven hundred fifty dollars in Texas. And then when they asked
him again, it was like, yo, you that's it. He was like, no, that's not true. Then they pressed them a little more and I was like, Yo, what's up with this four hundred million dollars you owe? Who you owe that too? Wait? What's up with that? He's like, that ain't true. They was like, yo, four hundred million dollars to look, man, I'm looking at you. I'm looking at the papers right now. What's up with this four
hundred million dollars? Who you owe this too? He was like, Yo, no, you know what, it's really not that much man, it's it's it's secured. So this was him trying to defend himself from these bars right from this time, Yeah, it's all good. It's like, man, who do you owe this? To answer the question, who you owe this? To me, and you have you've been following the hood if you know the hood rules. He owed that money to the
big homies, big homies who put him on. Somebody fronted him to work, and he got to pay it back. I got my guesses as to who fronted him to work. I think you got your guesses as to who fronted him to work. Because if politics is just gang banging in nice suits, homie, you know who fronted him to work was the crimlin because thinking for hunting million dollars to rush in now this is all speculation. I don't know, but my aunt tenders telling me, I kind of maybe
know who this thing. I owe this money too, because you can't be talking trash towards people you owe money to. My grandmama used to say, as long as somebody owe you money, you never brought ooka because every dollar Trump made belong to Russia. Uh maybe, So that's the October surprised. Now, the October surprise towards Biden was supposed to be this laptop, these text messages. And now now remember Trump started a long time ago. We're going after Hunter and Barisma and
this oil company out there. That's Hella crooked let me back y'all up for a little bit. Hunter Biden, while Joe Biden was Vice president, got this job with this company in the Ukraine called Barizma. Now Ukraine is notoriously crooked, right, Remember when you're dealing with goons, whether it's Russia or Ukraine, every they all gangsters. So there's really no there's no good guys in this scenario. You're just say what I'm saying,
nobody good in this Everybody has dirty. Right, So Barisma us got an inside person inside of the Ukrainian government right to make sure that, just like the mob here, to make sure that all their contracts go through with no hitch. Right, That's just how it worked over there, supposedly. Now we don't know this stuff. Supposedly Biden get wind to all this, he hits these fools up and he's going, Yo, what's up with all this? Look, man, y'all asking for
aid from us. But like big homie, you got this like prosecutor, you got all this like this your company crooked. You got this prosecutor that's clearly on the pay. Like, y'all gotta get rid of this, dude, So we're not sending your money Ukraine like, man, you can't tell us what to do because he's like, okay, cool, well, you know, we'll do whatever you want. We're just not sending you this money. They was like, well, secure the bag low and behold they got rid of this prosecutor. Prosecutor gets
out Ukraine. Dude goes telling Trump, Yo, we only got rid of that dude because Biden told us to. But you know what, that dude was going to prosecute uh hunter, Biden and this whole company for all the stuff he's doing. So I think, by the hell, this money up because we was gonna go get his son. Don't it. Don't it sound like gangbanging? So Trump was like, yo, hold up, that's why. That's why y'all gotta wait. Hold on. How come nobody's investigating this? That sounds crooked as hell right now.
This is why this is an advantageous to Trump is because Trump had to wear with all to understand that eventually Biden is probably gonna be the candidate coming up. So I need to make sure that this dude got some dirt on him. Y'all know he's shady. He you know, man ain't no man ain't no angel I know I ain't no saint, but neither this nigger. You understand I'm saying. So, that's what he was trying to do right there, This
and this nig ain't no saint either. Look at his old crackhead son is basically what he's trying to say, crooked as everybody else. Right, So that so so, so you gotta back up from there. There's zero evidence that the reason Joe Biden held this money up to get this prosecutor removed was because he was about to prosecute his son. That's there's no evidence of that, right, that's speculation. I don't know. Maybe they all gangsters. The point is, we don't know that, and we can't prove it a
matter of fact. What we can prove is that the whole system is corrupt right now, whether Joe knew that or not, or Joe had anything to do with that corruption. You, I mean you, we don't know. You know what I'm saying, like you can't. We can only spay. We just know.
My antennas. I'm be real with y'all. My antennas is like I mean, I mean, Joe ain't no sat You feel me, there's probably something in there, but it only rise to high crimes and treason, just like Trump, oh and the Kremlin four n million dollars before he was a resident. Don't raise the high crimes and treason, you know what I'm saying, Like you just you made a deal, y'all,
was moving money. Is what happened. Fast forward to now, Rudy Giuliani gets ahold of this laptop you understand I'm saying, and releases the content of this laptop that is supposed to be the spoken gun that says Yo, Biden knew about all this stuff and was involved with his crackhead son right doing a lot of these shady works. So all this stuff, uh that we knew that we were trying to tell y'all during Trump's impeachment. That's like why y'all worried about me. This fool is the one doing
the actual crimes. According to Rudy Giuliani, This laptop supposed to prove all that. But we saw the content of the laptop, and the content of the laptop that we've seen so far is these text messages between Joe and his son. And if you read these messages, it's just it's a loving father while his son is in the depths of his depression about getting caught up in some ship he wasn't able to handle right, mainly being strong out on cocaine and him saying, Yo, I know I
might be messing up your your chances with election. Man, I'm sorry, I'm such a funk up man, and and his daddy being like, son, I love you, I need you. Only don't worry about me. Man. You worry about getting clean, you worry about rehab. That's all that it's about for you. It's just these messages of his loving father. So I'm thinking this, if you're making a distract about Joe Biden, all the things you could say, Hell, call him boring, call him, calling him on them, Joe baracker yours said,
like saying that you ain't nothing. But you ain't nothing but like like a j v Obama Like there's so many things you could say about him. You ain't got no plans. On a matter of fact, you was the last choice of your party. Your party wanted Bernie because your party wanted Elizabeth Warren. You feel me, you had to get this black lady on your team because ain't nobody want you. There's so many things you could say
about you. But the thing you chose, the bars you went with, is he's a loving father of a son who had a drug problem and he didn't kicked him to the curb. I saw a tweet yesterday of these like clearly professional pictures of Joe hugging Hunter and kissing him on the head, right, And they're like, Yo, does that look appropriate? And I'm like, nigga, yes, it looked like a daddy who loves is not like this is your These are the bars you covering with, Like you
gotta come with bars, cume. It's like, I don't understand why, how is this? How is this what you're coming with? Now? Flip the tables, Joe, get your bars off, cause I don't understand why you can't get your bars off. And it's really not that hard in a lot of ways. All you got to do is just repeat what Trump says. That's all you got to do. I saw a speech with Barack Obama in Philadelphia, Brock getting his bars off. He like, Yo, a pandemic would be hard for everybody.
Don't get me wrong, anybody who was the president. This would be hard for y'all. He was like Korea found they first case the same day America did. Korea only got one percent of the death we got per capita. FAM, you failing, Like that's a bar. He was like, I don't understand what Trump talking about with jobs. We was on the incline the whole time. Family, I brought back the car companies. What are you talking about? You here for for American manufacturing. I brought back the car companies.
I handed you a great economy. Barrock was like, Fam, you feel to be the first president since Herbert Hoover, my nigga to not increase jobs. You you're gonna have to. You're gonna be the first president since Herbert Hoover, my nigga wind Herbert who president? Exactly. That's what he's trying to say. Those are bars. Now, whether they're true or not, whether you can it depends on how you bend the statistics. But the point is, there's so many receipts you could
pull out and be like, FAM. One of the greatest things, one of the greatest bars Obama got off was like, Yo, this isn't a reality show. It's reality and we have all suffered from President Trump not taking this job serious. It's like, yo, you could tweet from your bed and watch Fox News. If you won't do He's like, I'm not gonna do that. Another bar Trump tried to get off was if Joe Biden gets elected, he's gonna listen
to scientists. What wait, that's a diss bro. That's not a fami, that's not a diss that's not a disk fool. But what Yes, Yes, he gonna listen. Yes, there's experts, he's gonna listen to a Come on, there's so many things you could say about Joe Biden, like work, come over, then get your bars off. Here's my thoughts. My thought is, I think he's just counting on his crew. Trump is counting on his crew to start being in the crowd going, oh did you see that? You hear that? Did you
hear that? You know how I know because it ran just sin thousands and thousands and thousands of emails to anybody signed up as a registered Democrat and the email said, yo, we're a right wing Republicans and if you vote Democrat, we will come find you. Here's your name and address. I ran did it. It was like they got he got a squad. Trump got Trump got cheerleaders, He got
a squad. Out there. He counted on his squad. He's like, I don't have to have bars because a little, a little bit, I gotta get amplified by the people in the room. You feel me. I got this, I got this loyal following that even if my bars is weak, it don't matter. My following hypes me up. He count on it. I mean, we'll see. And he's such a boss. He got the GOP scared. Now here's here's my last prediction.
It's funny how people that were like die hard meat fans really started wavering when Drake was throwing them bones, like, you know, don't mean me cool. I guess you know what I'm saying. Maybe I ain't know, and they really right with them anyway, you know what I'm saying, saying like, I have this feeling about the GOP because this is
how always work when the boss gets taken out. The question is do you go down with the boss or do you try to figure out who's gonna be the next boss and get yourself nice and cozy to keep yourself safe. My thoughts is the latter. I'm thinking if old Trumpy Trump loses, these foods gonna come out the woodworks talking about you know, Loki. I really never really rolled with him anyway. I mean, I'm just thinking, man, like, you know what, just let me be around. I'm gonna
be a check on Joe. But yeah, let's let's get the party back to center, back to where we wanted it to be. I never really rolled with Trump anyway, Like what all of a sudden, you wasn't really feeling him. That's that's what happening right now, all of a sudden, I think that's what's gonna happen. I mean, Mark, I look, look, I know gangbanging, and I know what happens when the
boss gets gets taken out. Either go down with the boss and you never get seen again, or you are just to secure your own position, you tell me anyway. So I just thought i'd give y'all this special episode. Uh, this is me propaganda for Hood Politics. Were prop This episode was scored, mixed, and mastered by your boy Matt I was, I was, I was South Ski I was. I still can't say his name. And our Twitter we
gotta Twitter now is Hood Politics Pod. Uh. You can follow us on Twitter, um follow me prop hip hop on all the things, and uh, our theme music is by the one and only DJ Sean Pete. We'll see y'all next time, kay m h.