Get Yo Barz Up

Afghanistan and a like how it started? How is it going over there? With the Taliban situation? Like, oh word, like y'all was gonna be the new and improved Taliban, Come on, family, like you already knew that wasn't gonna You already knew they was gonna be the same Taliban they always was. You don't need me to to you know, we're about to be in mid terms. You know what I'm saying. You know, uh biting out here talking about we need to fund the police. We expect them to

do everything. We expect them to be psychologists and psychiatrists and counselors and therapists, which is all the reasons why we're saying we need to defood because you're asking them to do stuff they died trade and do. So, how about you hire to train with professionals and fund them to do that. Take the money you're taking it in. It's just like you get his whole reason for funding the police is the exact reason to defund them. It's pretty funny. But you all need me to explain all

that you already you're already in there. I want to take time today to give y'all some reading assignments or listening. It's up to you either way. We're gonna get your weight up today. You go get your bars up. I'm gonna give you some book recommendations. Good politics, y'all. In case you don't know, get your bars up is a this is gonna. It's it's always weird to like explain stuff that like you never had to like actually give an actual definition to because it's like you didn't even

know where to start. It would be if you were to make some sort of reference to like all the forces strong with this one, like how many things you have to unpack to give context for for that phrase to make sense? Right? And then it it's almost not as fun anymore. Getting your bars up is a rap phrase, right. Bars are measurements of song, of sound, of lyrics like you know, one to three one one two three two one two three three bars right, and it became a

ubiquitous colloquialism for rapping, right. If you know, back in the nineties he was like, y'all got sixteen bars. What you're saying is like I have a verse, right, because versus traditionally and during that time versus we're sixteen bars, you do twelve, you do do an eight? Right. Pop music is a little different. Pop music is usually eight bar versus eight bar chorus, right, and then now the

whole phrase get to the chorus for you boris right? Uh. Then the second versus usually four bars into a four bar bridge or four bars into a course again four bar bridge or eight bar bridge, big finale a bar ending pop music. Right. But if we're saying like y'all get your bars up, like it would be something to tell a person like man, you need to like practice your wrapping. You need to get better at what you're doing.

And one of the untold things about hip hop music, especially if you're gonna do it at a particular level of excellence? Is it actually require er is a decent amount of interdisciplinary like sort of Polly Maath knowledge of culture, right, if you're gonna do it well, you'd be surprised at how smart a lot of the best rappers are, Like y'all know, two Chains went to Tuskegee, like like like these a lot of these people are very, very very

smart people. It's the same with comedy, Like for comedy to be really as sophisticated and funny as it can be, you kind of gotta know what you're talking about and no, well, what you're talking about to be able to point out absurdities and and and satires and and and make the jokes and make the connections, you have to know what

you're talking about. Of course there's slapstick and stuff like that, but slapstick comedy also you kind of gotta know what you're talking about to know to know how to make fun of it. So for you know, foods making like double and triple and quad druple and andres like, you have to know what you're talking about. You have to be able to make references from history, pop culture, science, literature to bring it all together for this all it's not just like got it out the mug. We're turning

up in the club, you know what I'm saying. It's not just that even if, because you can only do that for so many songs. Eventually you're turning up in the club has to have some sort of similar to it, like a something, and it can't be something you didn't say it a million times or is corny right for for the type of rapping I'm talking about. Of course, there's something for everybody. You know, there's exceptions to this rule. Some stuff is all vibe, some stuff is all feel.

And if we were making a comparison to politics, that would be your Trump's of the world. This is all vibe. Ain't no content, This is candy and the content he given is ridiculous, right they he got no bars. It's all styles. It's all cadence, right, Cadences uh in this time era if pop, cadence is king. Cadence is like the way you say your stuff. So that's why you can remember how a song goes, but not the lyrics. It's the cadence, you know. Sammonde Damond de Damond, Dan Damond,

You're dumb bo see something Zabama's Dedamina dud. That's the cadence. And then you just drop words into it. Oh, hey, who do you know rocking on Mike and I'm killing that flow? Hey what do you see stepping the crowd and I'm rocking? It's me. It's just cadence. I didn't say anything. It's just the cadence. Right, But those are bars. On the other hand, when you're all bars and no finesse, this is backpack rapper. This is like there's no there's

nothing to lie latch onto. It's just rapid e raps and a lot of the rapidi rap stuff, which is what I came from. Right, You're not gonna bang it in the car, you know. It's like it's like headphone music. You know what I'm saying, Like, it's not you ain't gonna hear it in the club. This the the you know. I spit similarlys ripped mikes and mentioned me, mentioned me. I spit similarly top of them Brain Rick in Dye, Rick and Shorty Border, Rick and Mortar, sort of bipolar

Ryan Thrower Rancher. You know what I'm saying, It's like, okay, cool whatever I mean. I guess you know. But if you could put Bars and Cadence together, you get Kendricks, you get calls you know what I'm saying, and you get certain elements of Drake right, you get greatness out of your music when you could put the two together.

So as far as your knowledge of world history, politics, and the world we're getting into and especially moving into these mid terms, especially being able to have a decent conversation about the air quotes, culture wars we have in some people all Cadence, it's all live liberal shot now a cave. I'm like, okay, well, what do you what do you mean by that we kill the black people? Black Lives Matter? Okay? What do you mean by nord

else is killing black people? I'm saying saturated fats, food, deserts. Get your bars up. Do you know what we're talking about here when we say all cops are bastard? Where you know you're the fund the police? Okay? So why with the mainstream media? Okay? What's wrong with mainstream un Okay? Get your bars up. Well you know it's it's critical race theory. Okay, what is it? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Get your bars up, Get bars and Cadence, know what you're talking about, and know how to talk about what you're talking about, because good lord, if you could put those things together, Dang, you're bad Bunny Rihanna and Beyonce and Kendrick wrapped in one. Could you imagine that? So, yeah, this episode, it's a little different than normal in the sense that I kind of want to give y'all some like reading material. Some of the feedback we got over this show is that you guys tend to enjoy the

educational aspect of the show. We talked about like how something works and histories of things, and and I think it might be because you know, we're kind of drowning in news, like sometimes you kind of need to break you feel me, like, so when we be dropping jokes or making comparisons, but ultimately like kind of schooling you on some like bigger picture stuff. It the feedback we're getting is that's a lot more helpful. And you know, we can't please everybody, so that might not be true

of you listening right now. You might like, you know, the hot text about like current events, and I'm not gonna stop doing that, but I do think a little more content on like the educational side, Uh would do a little good. I've been asked all the time, Hey, what books are you reading? Hey? Where did you get that? Where did you learn? This? Is so cool? You know, I think today I'm just gonna lay out a couple of things Jacker read in your own time and leisure.

But I'm also going to give you a couple of you know, caveats and disclaimers. All right, so take notes if you're up to it. If not, just you know, save this here episode and you can come back to this list work. All right, let's go. So, as you know the premise of this show is the merging of street knowledge with book knowledge. Right, you're urban outside experience and using that to understand you're in the Ivory Tower experience. And if you can merge the two, uh, the possibilities

are endless. That being said, you ain't got but so much brain space, right, So I don't expect you, and I'm not calling you to derail your hold trajectory and read these super dense books. Yeah, in between trying to make rents. That's not what I'm saying. But I do want to give you a list of books that you could possibly you know what I'm saying, kind of be playing in the background, you feel me. Some of these are very dense and very sort of edge you speech.

Others are simpler reads, a little more narrative. And my hope is again not to shame you, not to make you feel like you don't know what you're talking about, but just to give you some gems so that you kind of have a baseline for when you're gonna drop bars on folks about how you feel about things, that you can actually be like, well, actually, here's this study,

here is this person, here is this thing. Here's what I understand about how that works, so that nobody like kind of like, you know, kind of sell you the wolf tickets. Don't be selling me no wolf tickets, right. But the list I can give you is on the educational side, the street knowledge, the urban knowledge. I don't it ain't in the books. That comes from lived experience, and I think but ultimately, even whatever your lived experience is, my hope is that you learn how to tap into

that to help you understand the world around you. I'm getting a little deep here, anyway, Okay, here we go. Let's start first with uh culture war stuff. First book. I want to give you. First person I will introduce you to is Dr Kimberly Crenshaw, Harvard Grad Law professor at U c L, A certified g absolutely brilliant black woman.

And the thing about Dr Kimberly Crenshaw is the fact that you've been hearing her words and people been putting words in her mouth for the past eight years, which is crazy because the words that we're putting in her mouth she wrote many books about and you can just see what she wrote. There needs to be no mystery around the things that she came up with, and it is the leading expert on Dr Kimberly Crenshaw is the

leading expert in critical race theory. We hear CRT. People have been talking about it and the see this critical race theory and uh wokeness has been merged together into one thing, which is absurd. Dr Kimberly Crenshaw in critical race theory is a law theory. Okay, now I'm gonna give you some books to read or at least to listen to, or maybe even just to skim if you if you don't feel like you could get all the

way into it, you can skim. You know what the name of the one of the books you could read that she wrote about critical race theory. It's called critical Race Theory, the key writings that formed the movement. Yeah, she wrote a book, y'all. There needs to be no

confusion as to what this means. And when you hearing your little right wing politicians, your little conservative politicians talk about how it's a scourge and we don't want to teach our kids that, you could read what it is and you could see that I, like almost every other black person who grew up in the school system, the American public school system, unless you was in an exceptional school or had you an exceptional teacher, you ain't know

nothing about this. The extent of what you knew about your race is that slavery happened, and then Dr Martin Luther King. That's all we get taught. So for somebody to tell you you learned critical race theory CD, I nobody learned. I don't know what that was till college, and that's because I was at Nick Studies major. It's a LOWD theory. She has another book that is called Identities and Inequalities, exploring the intersections of race, class, gender,

and sexuality. Now, this isn't Dr Kimberly Crenshaw. This is by David Newman, and it's built on some of her work. The point I'm trying to make is there needs to be no mystery about what critical race theory is. There's literally a book about it and multiple books that came from that. It's like it's and y'all like listen, just you know, audible, just listen to it. Now for that book to make sense, you may have to step back a little further and read something like called the sixteen

nineteen project. Right, um, the year sixteen nineteen. Why that's so important is it's the the year that the first African slave set foot in America. It was the essentially like the beginning of the slave trade, you know what I'm saying. So there was this whole thing, you know, when the New York Times tried to do a sixteen nineteen project during two thousand nineteen, and then that's when everybody was like, no, sev seventy six project, you know,

all reactionary. Whatever the case may be, at least know what you're talking about. Here's another caveat. I'm not trying to tell you that any of this stuff is factual or true. Or the way you need to see the world.

I'm just trying to say, if everybody talking about the dangers of critical race, they why don't you learn what it is and then see maybe they don't know what the hell they're talking about, which is why somebody like me most times don't engage when somebody asked me about well, that's just critical race theory, like, well, you don't know it, you don't know what that is. So it's a it's a law theory, a theory about the law. Okay, so just go check it out. Dr Kimberly Crenshaw Devour everything

she writes. Another book I would recommend is The New Gym Crow. It's by Michelle Alexander, and it's about, you know, slave trade to mass incarceration and why mass incarceration is a thing that the things that are sinister about it, Like these things are like baselines. This is the background knowledge.

This is like these things when you when when you hear me talk, right, Uh, these are the types of things that it's it's almost like if you're watching Game of Thrones and you've just accepted that dragons exist in this universe. You're saying and you understand Valerian steal and you know the Iron Throne, you know, and you just already know the map, right, and you know the wild wings in the North Wall. Like if you already know

all that stuff and you're just in the world. But if somebody just drops in and you're just like, yo, what the hell is a wildling? It's like I already know the map, right, you know if I just dropped you into like a talking story and I was like, oh, we're gonna go to Rivendale, like what you know what I'm saying, Like, you gotta know the map already, So these are things. At least just know the map. Again, you ain't gotta believe all this stuff. At least know

the map. But these people got our receipts, so you can at least have your bars up all right now, this is your These are your law books. Of course, it's not complete or exhaustive. These are just some suggestions and you ain't gotta take them all, just you can pick a few. Next, I want to talk about some culture books. Let's take a break. M m m all right, culture books, culture and injustice, I think would be a good way to put this. One thing you've heard me

mentioned this book before. I highly recommend it. It's called Simply Justice by Michael Sandow. Okay, it is I think very I Again, I've talked about this before, but let me just rehash it. It really helps um frame conversations when we're talking about what is justice, what is equality? What is right? Right? And it's it's theoretical, like he doesn't really take a stance. He just tries to give you sort of buckets to put your understanding of things.

So he talks about like, if justice means um. I think I've said this before, but again you need to hear it. If justice means um the greatest amount of good for the most amount of people. That's usually like sort of the liberal and progressive thing to where it's like you have these big programs that can help the most people. It's not gonna help everybody because everybody don't need help, but what is the greatest amount of goods you could do for the most amount of people. That's

usually a liberal perspective. Then he has that is what's just. Then he has the staining of like if justice is like freedom to flourish, where it's like leave me alone, let me make the right decisions and if I fail, I fail, and if I succeed, I succeed. But don't like putting nothing in my way. Just let me do

it right, let me make the right choices. That's more of a libertarian approach, right, and then the idea of of the more conservative approach is like justice is what things ought to be, meaning there is a there is a right and a wrong, and it's above us and it is up to us to fit our lives into

whatever that thing is. You know, that's that is what's justice, That is what's just You You have this idea of there's a fixed idea of what the world should be, and we need to submit ourselves to that rather than we're creating the world that we're in. Right, So what is justice? And he gives a lot of examples about

that um in this book. So I highly recommend that So that because I'm telling you this will help you understand at least the person sitting across from you why they are outraged about what they're outrage, why they don't understand when you say, well, I mean, don't send a cop to a domestic violence thing, you know what I'm saying, Like you know, or why they're like you know, trans people shouldn't be in the military. You know, it's like, Okay,

I see why you're saying that. You know what I'm saying, uh because of their idea of justice or they're just bigoted, I don't know anyway, So that's what Another book is called The Sacred Canopy. Now this one is freakishly dense, but it's about the shaping and the creation of culture. What even is culture? I think I talked about this in the Culture Wars uh uh in the Ops episode right, like what is it? Well? I mean, it's us and

how do you make it? It's very dense, but if you can even if you can get through like the first couple of chapters, like I'm telling you, you'll realize like how silly we sound often everybody because we just really don't understand our culture is made and where we're getting our norms. That makes sense. And the last on this tip is a book called A Different Mirror. It's

very old. I ain't gonna hold you very old, but sometimes books that are old or out of dated or some of the takes are kind of like just didn't age well. It teaches us about culture, period. It teaches us about where we were. You feel me? Um, can I get crash with y'all because this is her politics. And there was a time in hip hop where rappers would brag about how they don't go down on girls, that they don't they don't eat the couchie. I know that's crass. I just need to make a point that

it was considered not hard, not manly. Boy has times changed? YO, saying like Yo, that take a age? Well, Fam, you know what I'm saying, uh because uh man listen anyway. Um, The point I'm trying to make is it gives you a window into what was going on back then. I remember the time where rappers will talk about how they didn't listen to R and B and they don't do R and B. It's like, oh, y'all niggas don't sing, y'all don't like girls. Fam, that's what's going on right now. No,

we're hard. I'm like, okay, all right, I guess you know what I'm saying. Enter Drake one of the biggest artists in the world. He like R and B. You feel me? So. So the point is, even with some of these books that I'm giving you again, like I keep saying, you ain't gotta take it all. I'm not saying all of this is like this ain't gospel, you feel me, But it is any any piece of content like this is a window into who we are as a species at that moment of time. It's a snapshot.

It's a polaroid of the way we were thinking about things. You know what I'm saying. Again, you don't have to agree with none of the takes. I'm just saying, get your bars up. So A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki Um. It's a book about all of the different sort of immigrations of all the other ethnic minorities into the America's it's their stories. It's not just the pilgrims, you know

what I'm saying. So it's just a window into all these different experiences of people immigrating to America from all over the world. It's just a good window, you know what I'm saying. Um. And again, it's very old, so some of the content is dated, but it it's a good it's a good anchor snapshot. Another book you could check out is um, Guns, Germs, and Steel. It's about colonization.

It's asking the question like, Okay, why did Europe go and conquer all these other places rather than the other places coming and conquering your were the Spanish concase the doors a more advanced society. Did they really overpower them? Was it? It? Was it? Some other stuff? Could it have been? Maybe something else? So it's a it's an examination of that. Now again this this book has very

mixed reviews, and it again is also dated. But it's a good window again into like asking that because I was a question I asked a bunch of times too. I was like, man, why why I go this way? Why Europe going? What? What? What? What was in y'all that made y'all think you should do this? Is there such thing as a superior culture? What is what is high culture? And why would we even use that term?

Goes into stuff like that. And lastly, which is the probably the most shockingly scary one, is a book called The Death of Democracy. Now, if you're a fan of the Bastard's Pod, this book has been used before. And this book is about the time between uh World War One and World War Two. It's Vonemar Germany, and it talks about the trajectory of going from this freakishly progressive ahead of its time country, but of course it's problems,

but it was way ahead of its time. Vonemar Germany with with kaiserville Helm in there and there you can say whatever you want, but do sent into Nazism and like like, man, what you know what I'm saying that? And it just examines that. And what sucks is it looks like, you know, somebody holding a mirror in front of us. It's pretty freaky. Um, So it's a little scary, but I'd say take a peek. And last is a book I just finished listening to. It's a it's a

fiction piece, but it's called Invisible Things. It's super fun. It's it's it's it's also supposed to be a mirror to us. But essentially the premises there's a terrari um like a a human colony fish bowl that's the size of an American city and its surrounding suburbs living inside the dome on the moon of on a moon in Jupiter on Europa, and nobody knows how it got there

and why it's there and how to leave. It's it's pretty dope because it's and it's like and the the city and there is just a regular ass American City. So yeah, I highly recommend that's. Again, it's fiction, but it's it's supposed to be like a little allegorical for us. In the biographies, I suggest Frederick Douglas is Frederick Douglas is a slave who was born a slave and basically saved America. You think I'm playing. He became super cool

friends with Abraham Lincoln. And the more you understand about Frederick Douglas and his life, the more you might see that, like, yo, this man was in Abraham Lincoln's ear who essentially taught him that the abolition of slavery is the only cause. Joe said like that, that this is a moral issue because if you follow Abraham Lincoln's trajectory, he's you know, he's a dynamic character too, that he was. He didn't jump on. He's trying to say to you and your money.

He had to be convinced, and he grew and uh and a lot of his growth was Frederick Douglas. So I'd say, I'd say, peep that out now. I'm pretty sure y'all got a list of books too that would really really help. Oh, I forgot this one. I can't believe I forgot this one. This one's a biggie. It's a biggie because it's probably what you might think would be the opposite of where my stances are. Uh, and

I am with it. Okay. This book is called My Grandmother's Hands Okay, and it's a book about the privilege and trauma carried in white bodies. You heard me, white bodies. This person, this author had been actually giving like trauma informed therapy to cops and about what's going on in their bodies and in their their hearts and how if you are Another therapy book is like if it's called The Body, Keep Score, um, which is something as a side note i'd also recommend to. But this this book

is like he's an interviewing cops. Mama told you before all cops a cab. Okay, well let's let's get in their brains. I'm gonna leave y'all with this one, because Yo, you're gonna walk away from that thing, like you know, the meme of a black dude with his mind blown leaning back like, oh, that's what this one is. I

was very it. I was shook. Okay. My wife recommended this one and then she, uh, we did a little talk on our Patreon about it, and like I'm telling you, dude, you'd be You'd be surprised how much empathy would grow in you after you you really understand, um, really, how how trauma is carried in the body, and also how the white supremacy project doesn't just hurt non white people, how it really hurts white people too, and but that I don't want to get into the book. I want

you all to get into yourself. So here's a bunch of things. I'll link them in the show notes and yeah, get your bars up. I know it's a different episode. But oh, one more book. Read Oliver North's book. Oh yeah, read his book, all right, y'all Little politics. Yeah, it's here. Thing was recorded by me Propaganda and he slow Spoil Heights, Los Angeles, California. This smug was mixed, edited, mastered, and scored by Matt Ososki. I can totally say his name, guys,

it was it was a stick. He's going by Matt now again because he got to legal situations with the name headlights. You know, common used to be called common sense. You know tip t I was tipped Sometimes it happens. Executive produced by the One and Only Sophie Lichtman or Cool Zone Media, and the theme music by the one and only Gold Tips Gold Tips d J Shawn p So y'all just remember listening every time you check in.

If you understand city living, you understand politics. We'll see how next week eight