Curious Incidents in Cancel Culture

I'm dope knife and we are waiting on reparations. Harry, please do so what you got going on on my end?

You know, it's UM Black History Month, as we all know, and I'm very pleased that this month, after almost two years of working on UM trying to get reparations for folks displaced by urban renewal here in Athens in the nineteen sixties, is I feel, like I've discussed on previous episodes, we finally have UM resolution UM recognizing the harm that was done to them and their families when the university and the city of Athens conspired to have them moved

out of their neighborhood for dormitory expansion in in the nineteen sixties. UM, we're gonna be building a wall of recognition on the site where their neighborhood used to be, so that UM students that traverse that corridor frequently can understand a bit of the history of the land which they stand. And we're hoping it's the beginning of continued work and getting some state laws changed so that we're going to provide some material redress for the losses UM

they incurred. These properties that were taken from their families would today be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and so thinking about how we can get that money back in their hands and sort of recoup some of the financial losses to stay and as a part of that UM. It's ongoing work, but we're really pleased we finally made it this are and the Mayor of Athens will be reading a proclamation formally apologizing for urban renewal later this month.

So we're like not only just talking about black history in terms of forgotten figures in our national historical landscape, but thinking locally about the history of black communities here in Ankananda. Then this month, which I think think it's really exciting and she gotten you know, just chilling living. Oh, my mom's got her first dose of the vaccine, so

that's cool. Been making music, oh, speaking of you know, I feel like since we've been doing this, I've been pretty good at being ethical, Like I don't get up here in hawk music at people all the time. But I do have a new song that I'm putting out on the twelfth of February, so I think like next Friday. So that's exciting getting ready for that's doun A little bit about the song. Oh, it's called Sundance. It's a little love song and put know for Valentine's Day, so

it's like a wildly off brand. Actually it's it's a funny story behind it. My um there was an ex that I had and I had written it for her. It was like a sweet ass, you know, love song just about our relationship and ship like that, and then we broke up like maybe two weeks after I wrote it, so I never really used it for anything because I was like, man, I don't even feel it into this ship anymore. But next thing you know, it's been like

seven or eight years, me and her are still good. Friends, and uh, I don't know how it came up, but I let her hear a demo and she was like, oh yo, why didn't you ever put that out? So you know, she she got on me enough that I ended up rerecording it as part of like all these new songs that I was making, So you know, it's a good, good, different thing to have there. I'm gonna be putting out a lot of ignorant ship afterwards, so it's like a good way to get my feet back

into ship. But yeah, and I'm excited about it. Um it's been it's been a minute since I put out some new music, so there's all the excitement that comes with that sort of ship. And I'm gonna start, you know, putting out like songs on the regular while I'm working on an album, you know, just so I'm not inactive and shipped. So it's exciting times for me. I'm excited for people to hear my lockdown raps that I wrote.

So that's gonna be February twelfth, and it'll be on all the streaming ship wherever you listen to ship, you'll be able to find it. Alright, let's get to it, So to set up what we're gonna be talking about today, kind of gotta give you a little bit of a backstory as to why I was thinking about this in the first place. So it very much involves recent events and things that are going on in politics right now.

So in the wake of the Capital Rights a few weeks ago, while Republican politicians have stood pretty strong by their former disgrace president, there's been a wider public backlash against the Trump Field assault. Not only do a awhelming majority of Americans not support what happened, but fifty eight percent of Americans directly blame Trump according to MPR PBS poll. Now, if you ask ani like meent is not nearly enough,

so everyone should be alarmed by that. But um, there is eight percent of Republicans who fully support the ship like they are behind what happened on January six, and apparently that's who elected Republicans in Congress are representing at this point. Regardless, the backlash has been severe for them

so far. A lot of America's biggest companies are suspending our Nation to Republican congress members who objected to the Electoral College's votes, including American Express, the Cross Blue Shield, Commerce, bankdal Chemical, Marriott, AIRBNBA, Amazon A, t n D, Comcast, Disney, MasterCard for Google, Facebook, and more. UM. Speaking in Facebook as many of us problem only know social media companies vanished,

Trump permanently suspending his Twitter account. He's been kicked off Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook tools like TikTok and others um, though it's unclear the permanence of those suspensions. The conservative alternative for Twitter, Parlor was banished from app stores and essentially rendered inaccessible as it became a cesspool for q and On and Nazis just straight up planning kidnappings and murders out in

the open and shipped. Then there was Senator Josh Holly, who was one of the leading members of the Trees and Caucus, who was so upset that he couldn't make black people's votes not count that he just had to help Trump inspire a riot that killed a cop, but he ended up losing his Simon and Schuster's book deal,

and he's asked her about that. All this, along with the fact that people who participated in the riots have been getting put on no fly lists, lit their jobs, getting divorced, and ma called terrorists, the American riot has being out a screech about their new favorite part of the culture war inns the culture as I feel, all this accountability is part of arguments that they're being canceled.

So today we're gonna be talking about cancel culture, what it is, what it isn't, what we think of it, and what his hip hop's reaction been to it in this new climate that we're in. Later on, we're also going to be chatting with hip hop artists and professor at Bryant and Stranton College and Buffalo, n Y, Chucky Campbell, about his newest album, The Curious Incidents and Cancel Culture, and see if he can help us shed some light on this a little bit. We're gonna get into all

of that after the job. Okay, So what is cancel culture. Well, you guys know how I love my Wikipedia results, So let's see what Wikipedia has to say. Okay, So if you search cancel culture in Wikipedia, what it says is cancel culture is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of a social or professional circle, either online on social media, in the real world, or both. Those who are subject to this ostracism are said to

be canceled. Marion Webster's notes that to cancel, as used in the context, means to stop giving support to that person, while dictionary dot com it says in its pop Cultural Dictionary defines cancel culture as withdrawing support or canceling a public figure and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. The expression cancel culture has mostly negative connotations and is commonly used in debates on

free speech and censorship. The notion of cancel culture is a variant of the term call out culture and constitutes a form of boycott involving an individual, usually a celebrity, who is deemed who have acted or spoken in a questionable or controversial manner. For those at the receive even end of cancel culture, the consequences can lead to loss of reputation and income that can be hard to recover from. So that's what you have in on Wikipedia. I mean,

I mean, I guess I agree with that. When you know, if I hear the term cancel culture, I imagine that most reasonable people kind of are thinking this when they hear the term cancel culture. I mean, scratch that, I don't even know what people think now. I mean, there's been so much. It's been propagandized so much that it's like,

I don't even know what people are thinking. And maybe everyone just like automatically thinks of like screeching hordes of purple haired Antifa or something now because they think of cancel culture people being canceled. I don't know, what do you think about this definition? I feel like, um, the Wikipedia definition of cancel culture does neglect that financial element. I mean, I guess if you're thrust out of your professional circle, with that comes some um financial harm like

loss of income, salary. Um we're seeing, you know with the Republican Party, UM, loss of donations from big companies, which actually I want to point out that some of these companies UM have suspended donations all political campaigns. So it's like great collapropment getting money out of politics. But like this both sides is UM, that's a little ridiculous. It's kind of funny, but UM, yeah, I mean I think these are pretty apt to Miriam Webster, you know,

stop giving support for that person. Support can be material, social, um, et cetera. Stuff like that gets at it pretty well. I would I would, um say that the key thing that's missing composition is discussion of accountability. That this to me is a form of accountability. UM, that's like, Yo, we're gonna hold you accountable by you know, punishing you for what you've done. It's interesting to me that that accountability is not really included among the way this uh

future of our society and media landscape is defined. Conservative political analysts Ross do That wrote a piece for The New York Times titled tenth Thesis about cancel culture, and it's an interesting piece of insight into how traditional conservatives interpreted these things. To his credit, he doesn't frame it as a First Amendment issue, which many conservative types too. Perhaps the most time of thing is what he what

he chose as his first thesis. Cancelation he says, properly understood or first to an attack on someone's employment and reputation by a determined collective of critics based on an opinion or an action that it alleged to be disgraceful. It is qualifying. Reputation and appointment are key terms here. You're not simply you're not being hanceled if you um have been canceled, if you're really being heckled or insulted. So like what are your overall it's just your your

overall view on cancel culture. I mean, I have interesting thoughts on cancel culture as an abolitionist one that does believe in transformative justice, as a means of holding people accountable for the harm that they do others, but also calling them in to see see what they've done wrong, to understand how they've harmed others, to change their behavior, change their thinking so that they don't harm others in future.

And so I worry at times that cancel culture UM replicates like carcero logics, uh, banishing someone just putting them some other place, be in a physical space of a prison, or casting them out of social circle, or you know, uh, UM stripping them of their of their networks. UM. That is ultimately is ultimately harmful. But at the same time, I don't really understand what you I don't really understand what else you can do with some people like UM.

Take for example, Marjorie Taylor Green having UM express support for the executions of prominent democratic lawmakers UM and things like that, and seeing how the rhetoric of UM you know, stole an election, inspired a deadly mob then ended up you know, seeing the lives of five people taken that you know, two police officers who took their own lives

in the aftermath of the storming of the capitol. Um like the lack of remorse, the lack of self um reflection, willingness to engage in like yeah, like reflection on once actions, uh,

resistance to accountability of any kind. Like I really don't understand what else we can do with these people other than like, all right, you're in time out until uh you get your act together, and if you don't, at least you're not enable to continue harming people by having the material resources to um engage in campaigns that you know, wage war on the vulnerable, or you know, having these platforms where you can inspire further violence. Things like that. Like,

I really don't know what else we can do. I'm really interested to hear others and read others way in on this From annapoligious perspective, it's like, if somebody really doesn't want to gain accountability, really really doesn't want to engage in process accountability, like what else are you supposed to do with them? So, I mean, I don't know. I don't think it's a bad thing to hold people accountable.

I don't think it's I think it can be helpful to inspire that reflection by showing people like your actions have consequences, like you can't have your fancy platform or your a she job if you funk around and hurt people. Um So maybe step back and be listen. All right, this sucks. Um maybe I should think about how all

my actions have harmed others. Um So, yeah, I don't really know whether option we have in this day and age, though I do think like engaging with singing around what accountability can look like that brings people in and helps transform your behavior is really important to do. I tend

to look at what is the opposite of that. So if there's there's definitely mad instances where quote unquote cancel culture can be like cringe, and there's even some instances where it can kind of be dangerous and can kind of just be like a go with the mob whatever whatever, I'm mad, But the opposite of that is like just straight up bigotry. And you know, so, I don't know, like I can deal with the annoyance and cringe factor better than I could deal with it if just nobody

gave a fuck and there was zero accountability for anything. However, I personally don't see the use in using activism or organizational or boycott energy over stupid ship, you know what I'm saying. And amongst stupid ship, I would be like, Yo, why why are we organizing over like who's getting a Netflix special or who's going to be in this movie or who's voicing this character or whatever? You know what I'm saying. It's like, I would rather that energy solely

be put to more important ship. And then once we get through the checklist of important ship that we have to do, then I guess we can direct some energy to that. And I know people can chew gum and walk at the same time, so whatever. But again, at the end of the day, that's the aspect of the ship that bothers me is like, damn, you know, y'all are using all this energy over over that ship. But

other than that, yeah, it's just it's just annoying. It's not really like I don't see it as a as like this thing that is dominating society and is going to make society collapse. Right by the name of Sarah Hagee wrote an article for Time magazine called Cancel Culture Isn't Real at least not in the way that people think. And she made a pretty good point in this passage here she says the idea is that if you do something that others deemed problematic, you automatically lose all your currency,

your voice of silence. You're done. Those who condemn cancel culture usually imply that it's unfair and indiscriminate. The problem with this perspective is cancel culture isn't real, at least not in the way that people believe it is. Instead, it's turned into a catch all for when people in power face consequences for their actions or receive any type

of criticism something that they're not used to. And that right there at the heart of it is why I just don't really funk with people who complain about cancel culture like that. And I would disagree with her that it's not necessarily a thing about rich or powerful, it's just people in general, like people are starting to wrap

that ship up at any and all criticism. I think um ms Haggy is completely on point with this um it is turning into a catch all for when people in power face any kinds of consequences for their action or receive any type of criticism. UM, Like, I don't know if J. K Rowling has experiencing sort of financial hardship as a result of her transportic comments that have led her to, you know, cry cancelation, Um, like from what I understand, but still that books coming out and ship.

So I mean like when people are so Bela getting heckled online as I believe Mr do that was talking about in his New York Times piece, and they want to call it cancelation. It's like yo, Like, still, the internet is a harsh place. You funk around, you find out period. Um. Getting heckled, getting criticized is not is not the same as being deep platform and people need

to start stop complaining the two. So I mentioned J. K Rowling, even Murby Atwood, No Chomsky, Gary Kasparov, someone Rushdie and over a hundred and forty other intellectual cultural figures UM signed on an open letter UM called the Letter on Justice and Debate for Harper's Magazine, which criticized the current tour and public shaming and ostracism, ostracism, public shaming and ostracism of those proposing views I e. Canceled culture.

But then with the letter, is that caught a lot of it caused a huge cur fluffle at the time, is that there's some dope people who signed it. There's some respect to people, there are some grifters, there's definitely some kuks. The diversity of people signed it was kind

of the gimmick of it. Journalist Jeff Yang criticized the letter, writing for CNN dot com, it's hard not to see the letters merely an elegantly written affirmation of elitism and privilege, and he said that the signatories, in the face of result and backlash, dismissed rebuttals and positioned themselves as be leaguered victims of a current culture, turning their support for open debate and free expression into an example of stark

hypocrisy or sly gas lighting. Public Seminar criticized the letters timing, stating that the letter primarily blamed cancel culture for disrupting free and open conversation at a moment during the George Floyd protest when it was becoming clear what influences institutions

had on controlling the debate. There's a dope article in the Washington Post about the letter by one of the people who signed it, Phoebe Maltz Bovy who also wrote the Perils of Privilege, and she breaks down in a nutshell pretty much what the problem is with the freak out over the cancel culture boogevan, and why it's important you know that regular people don't get caught up in

that scene. She describes how she agreed with her understanding of the gist of the letter quote that writer should get to choose their topics and that progressive over correction helps trump all free speech. Sometimes there's as an euthemism for the right to hold forth allah archie bunker. It's being bigger trade from the comfort of an armchair, consequence free.

I happen to believe that's all of this, and she continues, but on a more principal level, I credit here was a list made up of largely uncancellables Margaret Atwood, J K. Bowling and high profile and high profile you hold suspects Marklima, Stephen Pinker and yes a few expected and yes a few unexpected names here and there, Noam chom Ski. The message was is sound the messengers as a collective risk

obscaring it. I mean, no Times has gotten trouble before for I think defending if I recall correctly a holocaust, and I are not for his beliefs for his right to publish work. Um uh, you know about his beliefs, and so I you know, I wasn't super surprised to see his name there. Oh I don't fucking I don't

care about UM. But the thing, it's interesting that like it's like an interesting reflection of like how cancel culture works, where UM people are like on board with the idea until they realize that people are agreeing with them that they don't like UM or it's like oh wait, wait, that person is down with this, that person is now on this, where like cancel culture is okay as long as it's not happening to you or to someone that

you agree with. Yeah, funk with that heavy. I mean it's like we all want free and open debate, but it's like I don't wanna just me personally. It's like I don't want to be associated with any whack ship when I'm trying to make like a good point, you

know what I'm saying. So I don't know, it's like whatever objections to quote unquote cancel culture that I may have, it's like I don't want to express that ship because I don't want to be fucking associated with Ben Shapiro or Dave Ruben like that if you you listen to those motherfucker's like, cancel culture is worse than fucking climate

change and ship. So it's like when they're mucking up that argument against it, it's like, you know, it's not really that important enough an argument for you to make. I'm just gonna sit this one out. So today we are talking with a good friend of mine, Chucky Campbell. He is a professor at the Bryant and Stratton College and buff Low and Why, where he teaches media and ethics, public speaking, information, literacy, learning, communities, and almost any other

writing and communication course at the college. He has a PhD in English Literature, Creative Writing, and Composition Rhetoric from the University of Southern Mississippi. He's the winner of the Eastern Kentucky University Fiction Award, uh the Julia Visor Award presented by the National College Learning Center and Association, and numerous other awards. He's also a national touring hip hop artists. Who's the newest album, Curious Incidents in Cancel Culture? That's

out right now? How are you doing, Chucky? I'm doing well. Thank you guys for inviting me on. Yeah, it's great to have you. Good to have you. How are you holding up in these times? Um about like everybody else, very confused about the strange things happening. But uh, for

the most part, I'm doing well well. I mean I'm We're always curious as to, you know, people who are working artists and things like at to how the new way of life as it is is like affected your craft and what you've been doing and how you have to change things up. UM. Well, for somebody who's been supported by the gig economy for so many years and relied so heavily on live shows and live events, UM, it's been troubling trying to put together things to coordinate people,

and UM it shifted everything online. A lot of my uh, I would say, other work in terms of education, UM is all remote learning. So that's a that's definitely a shift and a change. And it's shifted the way I do art out of the live environment, less of a performance space and more into the virtual world. So I've

had to adjust to some of that. How in your experience with remote learning, if at all, have you encountered, um, issues of educational equity with different folks access to things like odd Brand and now down here UM in Georgia. I've had a number of students who come from rural areas and have had to like sit in the parking lot of the McDonald's to get WiFi to attend the synchronous portions of our teaching. And I was wondering if you had experienced anything similar with your UM past remote

learning during this time as well. Absolutely, I have a lot of students that, especially if you come from a disadvantaged background or low income background, you have less access to technology, less access to the internet, and uh, a lot of those students have been forced to try to find different methods um of joining in in remote learning.

In terms of the college, the college is offered some laptops and things of that nature to try to help those students out, but unfortunately there's only so much you can do, especially and a lot of your students are from the background and from places like my students come from. And uh, what you were talking about in terms of rule environments, a lot of those same things carry over

to more urban city based environments as well. So just to backtrack a little bit, so could you tell us a little a little about your your story as it were, because you're you're hip hop artists, your professor. So how did that come about? Um? So, I'm I'm basically a child of hip hop. Hip hop raised me so to speak, um, and I grew up with it. It was initially you know, I'm from a low income, high crime environment. Um, I grew up and uh spaces besides the color of my skin,

I really um, it wasn't in a privileged environment. Um. And so hip hop was like my access to learning about my voice, my entrance into the world of ideas. It was like the reason I wanted to read books and challenge my thoughts, challenged myself with thoughts that were just not readily available to me, I would say at that moment. Um. So, I started out like in Kentucky. Actually, like I'm from Richmond, Kentucky. Um and I used to with one of my friends, traveled down and participate in

some of the mic battles. And uh, that's how I really kind of was ushered into hip hop. It was a community, um that I was just a part of in that kind of way of life, a way of learning how to speak and talk and walk and you know, as I got older, you know, it became something else to me. I was not just a student of it. I became someone who also wanted to get back to it. So, like, what what type of what what artists were you listening to around that time? A lot of different ones because

I was, I guess Kentucky is a strange place. It's like not in the South, and it's not in the North. It's like kind of not even Midwest either. So, um, I was listening to everything you know coming up. Um, everything from like Tupac and Biggie two, Outcast Too, No Limit to Freestyle Fellowship two. I mean, it was just

so many different influences coming together. Um, there were a lot of like strict lines and divides in our hip hop community because um, a lot of those people who kind of are part of those different factions don't get along. What I mean is that all like it all converges in Kentucky like this was there is there no strong was there no strong local scene at the time. There was there was a strong local scene, but there were

hard lines that divided it. So a lot of the a lot of the scene that was in coming out of Lexington. You would have a lot of like really really strong down South rap, you know, a lot of then the I would say vogue of say like no Limit Cash Money records. And then on the other side of that you had some very heavily like Wootang East

Coast influenced music. And those two groups, while they were part of the same community, didn't necessarily, um talk to each other collaborate very much, so there wasn't a lot of like cross pollination between those two styles. Yeah, those two bases, it kind of divided the community. So Okay, So at this time, hip hop captures your imagination and you're kind of learning about your voice through it. So then what makes you actually pick up the pen and

the mic and start rapping. I had a friend, Dame Ralph prador Uh, and he was in a group called Microphone Microphone Fanatics at that time, and they were collaborating with another group named Mad Militia and Lexington and UM. I went to some battles with him, and then when I got like kind of brave enough to step on stage and do my own thing, UM because he kind of pushed me into that, UM, I found out that

it was something that I really liked. UM after kind of that cultivated itself, me and Ralph started doing projects together, and uh, that grew its own legs in a certain way. Um, it wouldn't be too many years later that I would start releasing stuff like publicly and it was first under a moniker named soul Asleep. Um, it was the when I first started putting out music. No one knew me

as Chucky Campbell. So so I mean if you were doing all of that at the same time that you know, obviously you were getting yourself educated and ready to like get into the career path that you're in. So was that something that you always knew was going to be the case? The joys know, you were gonna be putting as much time and effort into your music as you were as you are your your teaching career. Um, not

really at all. I mean at first, I mean, like a lot of people that come from like local, low income, high crime environments, like I really wasn't into um my education very young. I came from a public school that was really not funded well, um, and it had its own issues, you know, And so I didn't have a lot of people on that side of education, and that was that were influencing me and valued what I was doing.

So initially gravitated towards athletics. So I was a basketball player, and uh I earned a scholarship to play basketball at Lee University. UM I played four years of college basketball there, um and then after that for a very short stint some professional basketball before my knee. And then when I came back after my knee injury, UM, I had at that time kind of been balancing my academic life with

hip hop and rap music. So I had dropped like a couple of EPs, and they had did um I guess pretty well at that time for what for the kind of industry that there was for independent art, And so I decided when I came back after I hurt my knee, that I was gonna move to Nashville, Tennessee without producer. And we lived there for about a year, and um, so I ran out of money. So I ran out all the money that I had professionally and

built up from playing basketball. And then so when we were forced to go back to Kentucky together, I was there probably for about five or six months before Ralph had moved back from Seattle, Washington, and so me and Ralph were talking about doing some stuff again, forming a live band and doing hip hop together. And um, then there was and um an issue between me and Ralph. I don't know if you want me to tell that story, but my um, my job was broken in two places,

so I have two metal plates in my face. UM, and uh that with the doctors. Initially after that happened, they told me I was not going to be able to rap again. So I stopped rapping for like seven years. Um. And during that time, my mother kind of helped me condition myself where I was able to articulate and speak again in a somewhat normal fashion. Most people can't tell that I've ever had that happened to me now, UM,

but yeah, I wouldn't. I went off after that and channeled all that creative energy, went back to school d Skentuck University, got my masters, and then uh won some awards and did some did some work in academia, and then decided that I wanted to continue that work is teaching English as a second language. So I moved to China for price six to eight months and taught in Beijing and Hining and Shanghai, and then I got into a PhD program. How was the time that you spent overseas. Oh,

it was fun. I enjoyed it very much. That I was learning some Mandarin Chinese at the time. It was like a language program, exchange program. And uh, A lot of the kids that we were teaching, we were teaching language English, language through English by our American culture, I would say. And uh, a lot of the kids were

very young, you know, elementary UM or middle school. So with the things that you learned and experience being an m C and performing and you know, talking to crowds of people or even just putting ideas out there for people to respond to, does any of that translate into being an educator? Oh? Yeah, I think I've almost learned the backward you know, like it was almost like him seeing was what taught me how to teach instead of like teaching help my m seeing out. So it was

like kind of learning to project my voice learning. Uh, authenticity leads to true authority. Um. You know, some of the values that carry over and in the culture of hip hop work well in the classroom, and they also work well to inspire especially kids that have been kind of um have troubled educational histories or backgrounds that don't necessarily lend themselves to um to wanting to read literature or engage and uh and some more academic kinds of activities.

So I think that hip hop is kind of what taught me about community and what allows people to come together and and stitch those uh, those ideas into one thing. Do hip hop texts or practices of wreck? I'm into uh, composition classrooms in terms of analysis or is a jumping off place to discuss um social issues or anything like that all the time. I use Kindrick Lamar a whole lot um. I use Lauren Hill a whole whole lot um. Who's some other people. Recently I've used Blueprint and some

of his music. He has a song called Perspective that is a really good one. Um lupe Fiasco. He has a song named Jennala Forever which is pretty like craftably

written and uh. We use that in terms of understanding reading, not just as words on a page, but reading in a more uh kind of critical thinking, since seeing the deep structure of things understanding that meaning often is kind of like him hemming ways iceberg theory, like, so the top and tip of the iceberg is what you see, but most of the meaning lies beneath it, and that meets kind of hand in hand theoretically with another communication

theorist that I implement, Michael Polani, who talks about communication has a tacit dimension where we often when we speak, we mean more than we say, and we say more than we mean. So I kind of take those kinds of propositions into the classroom. Um. That's especially true of hip hop, the way we sort of circumlow qute through metaphor and through um slang and stuff like that, sort of obscuring the meeting, so that we do have this

tip of an iceberg that is um very aesthetic. But what do you you know, do repeated listens or sort of breakdown what people are saying. There's a lot more meaning there. Um. So there's a lot of rich potential for um exploration of hip obtects in the classroom generally. But interesting to hear what a particular artists have come

into play in your classrooms specifically. Right. I also think it's important that I have students that are performatively kind of expressing themselves through not just rap music but the culture of hip hop in the classroom as well. You know, like so It's not as if I'm kind of just using hip hop as a bridge. I'm actually giving hip hop a voice in the classroom, you know. So it's not that I'm forcing them into academic culture. It has to be a gateway instead. Academic culture and hip hop

don't have to contradict themselves. You So, now, like that is kind of a question for both of you, because y'all are two people who I know personally in my life who are to teach and do hip hop. So do you guys like see even broader use for hipolo? Do you think that that, um, there's a more of a there's a more of an opportunity for teachers who have of backgrounds like you guys to utilize just different aspects of hip hop to like, you know, get messages

across into more effectively teach classes. Like does it work

that way? Is there any yes? For sure? I mean, I mean, my whole I don't know if you've talked about this techy, but my whole dissertation is on like hip hop paedagogy and like the many decades of research people have put in to look at how we can use um poetic devices within hip hop to teach poetic devices and Shakespeare to use hip hop to respond to literature, so giving students the opportunity to respond to works of art and using wrap as well as practices or you know,

mind states akin to like being in the cipher for example, some way to structure dialogue in the classroom to both like the use of hip hop text and then the hip hop practices more broadly with regards to like stance as we take or um sort of activities we engage in to build community as as you were kind of saying,

checky um. But I but I guess the problem we've seen in the research of that very often times these practices of pedagogy are taken up by hip hop heads and not as frequently actual hip hop practitioners as it were, like folks like Chuckie and I um and so uh. It is interesting to hear from someone that does do hip hop what that looks like for them in their classroom, right.

And I think it doesn't just extend to education. I think it speaks to the importance of civil discourse and what education where those two lines come to come together or overlap, you know, I mean hip hop as even what Mariah has done, you know politically, you know, the it trains you and conditions you for those places once you evolve to to take them on, you know. So it's it's a place, it's where, like I mean, it doesn't prepare you completely for all the things that are

gonna happen to you, um once you take that spot. Um, but I think it's a training ground. So if um just your your your opinion the way that you see it, what is the probably like the biggest obstacle in the way right now, like America's education system. Um, I think it's the opposite thing of what most people think. It is, like a lot of people think that, you know, the university system is all like left wing. In my experience,

it's almost the opposite. It's very um conservative, and uh you know, I think that that's also being propped up right now by a number of voices and talking heads that are dangerous to civil discourse in our country, people like uh Canadian Jordan Peterson or Sam Harris, Ben Shapiro. Yeah, those are all the dirt problems, the surf one. I haven't heard that one that like that. Yeah for sure. Yeah, I was really curious about some of your advocacy. I know that for a while you ran hip Hop as

Revolution the music series and collaboration with Push Buffalo. I was wondering if you talk to us a little bit about that, right, Push Buffalo's incredible organization. You know, uh pushes responsible for you know, keeping people up the streets almost at this point, like with rent control and all of those issues. And then they're also deeply kind of entrenched in some of the more revolutionary time talk about sustainable housing and the environment and where that meets economically

with government. And so I collaborated with guy named John Washington, and John and me had this idea to uh cover it up and and begin a hip hop platform that not only brought in heavily influential political hip hop artists and match them with some local artists that also have that kind of tilt to their music and their their art,

but also um and form the public too. So those events were you know, used to get people involved in other parts of not just their political education, but also taking taking part in changing some of the unfair properties about the way our society is form and institutionalized. So what was the role of hip hop as Resolution in some of the organizing what they were doing was like sort of recruitment space, educational like what how how were you using that event to advance some of their prerogatives.

But we tried to bring in like anyone in the community that had a part in hip hop, so anyone that was related even like from culinary arts and food to UM, an entire like booths that have UM you know, inform a about how to organize UM, I mean the artists themselves, kind of propping them up and giving them a stage to say what they need to say and voice their opinions, and then matching them with UM artists

that already have an audience and a crowd. So you're bringing out people that normally wouldn't come to an independent arts event and then kind of using that as a springboard to get people interested in some of the more important positions of our day. UM. Because it's I mean really at this point, like we're in a slippery slope I feel like almost a turning point in society, and it's all of the there's been many things that are working together to cause that two come about and get

this outcome that we're all working through right now. So, So can you tell us a bit about the new album, Oh curious incidents and cancel culture all right, Um, really the point of the uh the point I really at this point, like for years I've been collaborating with like bigger artists and um, taking a whole different approach to rap music and kind of like instead of just doing whatever with stereotypical, just being as free as I could artistically.

And so I had like the band and all of these different moving parts that where we're doing all the touring and doing really high in music videos and um, you know, collaborating with singers across the aisle from like folk music. That's the thing I wanna I just need to interject, You'll need to check out Chucky's music videos because especially in the indie scene, like Chucky's videos are especially like it looked like Martin Scorsese films and ship

uh this I think this project right here. We um, so we we noticed that most of what's happening with independent music right now is a lot of things are going visual, you know, and since we're kind of confined this virtual platform right now and we can't perform live. Um, Instead, what I've done is that packaged an entire EP into a video project, and so there are six interconnected videos feature song. Um right now, I think we've learned the

song too. UM. But there's just a lot of heavy symbolism, symbolism, and I wanted to speak directly to some of the confusion and chaos um things like, um, you know, the loss of the apprentice becomes president, murder hornets, you know, like these these crazy things that you could not have

possibly foreseen, potentially you know, kind of happening. And I feel like that's all too kind of put into like this, this entire discourse about what cancel culture is too, because they're good things that cancel culture does, like a lot of a lot of there's a lot of good aspects to woke to wokeness and woke culture and to cancel culture. Because some some of these people who are being called out deserved to be, and we should believe the people

who are calling them out. I mean, I think it's I think a lot of them we were getting called out deserve to be. I just for me, the thing that really grates me about the crowd that is like goes out of their way to be anti cancel culture is just they treat it that the things about cancel culture or woke culture, whatever you want to call it,

that are at the worst annoying. They treat it as if it's like some giant incident that's gonna make Western civilization collapse if if we don't quell it right now, and it's like, well, the opposite of cancel culture is people just you know, kind of being openly bigoted and ships. So it's like right, auntability from ones like I don't know, yeah, bigotry or transgressions are just harm that are done to others.

I kind of think that cancel culture is you know, like a lot of things good and bad, so um. Mostly I feel like it's a form of descent, and a good form of descent, a good form of kind

of protesting. It'st um things in society that are unfair or target unfair groups or people without lots of power, And so cancel culture is good in the respect that it kind of um allows the voices of the people to speak up against some of the injustices that consistently society doesn't do a good job regulating or um protecting people from on the other side of some of this, it is a kind of um I would say, unchecked

um form of of power. I mean, it's power in the people's hands, but sometimes that can be good and bad depending on how much powers in whose hands. So one of the things that UM has commonly been I would say issue in our current media climate is that UM social media has made UM information flow in such a way where there's not UM a real UM kind

of fabric in society that we can truly trust. So UM I would say that when you ruin like that, that feeling of trust in the society, then also solidarity kind of diminishes, and UH that can be problematic for a lot of different reasons because UM, there's no editor to edit all of these different pieces of information that are going out and coordinating to make meaning and make

sense of the world for people. UM. And it's not that we would prefer like all corporate entities kind of control this and that the power flow from top to bottom all the time. But when there's no one checking to make sure something is true, then now you've put all narratives on an equal playing field. So people who

have any sort of opinion UM. And it seems that nowadays everybody thinks that they not only have a right to an opinion, but that all opinions are equal, it makes it harder to siphon out the good opinions from the bad opinions, a higher truth from a lower truth. And obviously, like there are differences between that. I would much rather take an informed opinion, like let's say, on race um, from someone like Martin Luther King, than I

would and Adolf Hitler. You know, so, Um, the the idea there is that um, when you put with narrative is the only thing that we have here, then you have nothing to quy, defy, to test um, to prove factually right. So when you put facts up against alternative facts, it's just whoever has more power because each story is

going against the other story. And uh, that's that's definitely an issue if you have, like, let's say, a president who's saying fake news to everything that he doesn't like, and it's just kind of using the power of his pulpit to tell people whatever stories he wants them to believe, which could be kind of what happened at the capitoling. You know, so what, um, what made you want to like tackle this on your album? I think just because it's confusing, you know, Like I think that there's no

real straightforward, perfect answer. Two. Um, there's the current social climate we're in. We're we're in a pretty dark place. And I feel that what I was trying to tackle specifically is, uh, the cognitive dissonance that comes with that. UM also some of just the confusion about who to believe and what to believe, and UM, how the degradation of that entire fabric kind of leads us to this space where almost nothing is believable. We're in a very

strange existential kind of situation. UM. So I felt that very real. You know, like, UM, some of the songs on the album tackle um ag is m you know the idea that you know, you have this older generation uh coming up and the younger people are calling them boomers and saying they don't they don't understand the current generation and the way to do things, and that they mounted up this huge amount of debt and put these

and put these young kids in that debt. And then on the other side of the older narration is looking back and saying, well, you guys know nothing about the world. You're obsessed with um social media and with your Instagram pictures and snapchat, and UM, there's wait to both of that to those things you know there is, But then it kind of gets stupid because like I had motherfucker trying to call me a boomer and ship it was like, yo, no, I think I just think you're wrong. I'm six years

older than you. Shut the buck up, right right? No, absolutely, that's I mean, that's where I'm kind of getting. I mean, if I had to stand on one side of cancel culture, I would stand with the people who are marginalized and and fight for their voices to be heard. Um. I would. I would fight for you know, women to be believed when they called out someone as you know, a rapist or someone who's committed some of these grotesque kinds of

crimes to just commit consistently go on checked. Um. But then there's someone like, you know, maybe Dave Chappelle stands up and starts poking holes in some of that stuff, and it makes me think, I'm like, okay, well, you know, should we be able to call people out and make them guilty before proven innocent and the um social court

of law? You know, um? And so it does make me stand in that gray area because I don't want to just slam the gabble and and commit myself that everybody might be guilty of something that they've just been accused of before really taking my time to sift through the information and get my mind wrapped around some of this stuff. And you know, I was dealing with this.

I feel like it's been coming for a long time. Um. You know some of the names that I just used on the album, like Tommy Laren and you know, Brett Kavanaugh and um, you know Kyrie Irvin. You know, like whether you're talking about flat earth or you're talking about extreme right wing politics, UM, that to me leads to

almost fascism. Um. You know, all of that creates this kind of climate, and then when you combine that with this isolation of the pandemic, you kind of have the perfect petri dish for um for you know, yeah, no, for real, UM, what are some standout tracks to you? Um? I really personally, and I always like the tracks that I think other people don't get into as much, you know, I think because I mean when you're behind it writing and it's different. But I really like the second track

swipe Right. I feel like it's um that line, um, and every human heart there's a guide shaped whole you know that comes from uh Sartre and existentialism, and you know, um, we do. I think everyone kind of fills that up with all of this stuff that is um really kind of unhealthy and it's really you can never achieve that original plnitude of being a whole with everything again um and so I feel like that's what's really appealing about existentialism,

especially right now. UM. But UM, I think it sums up almost perfect what people would do just for any sort of love right now, whether like they're getting likes or comments on Instagram or or Facebook or whatever it might be, or um, why they're listening to some of the stuff that sounds just ridiculous, you know, whether it's Alex Jones saying so I think he said something about yeah, so, I mean some of the things that people are believing, you would think would be way too outrageous or out

of bounds for them believe. But then again they're in, um a space that they've never been in, and it's a terrifying space full of fear. And so you know, someone believing like a Q and on um, you know, conspiracy about you know, wayfair selling children on the internet. You know, like as if is it was a couch or something. You know, like, um, that sounds crazy, but in someone's mind where they're reinforcing these narratives consistently, what

really makes sense? Right now? You know that we're in a world wide pandemic and before storming the capital and they're believing that the president, uh, the election was still run. You know, well, what is how do you feel about like hip hop's place in this social climate of cancel culture existing? And no, I think that I think that a lot of people, you know, just because they're not being agreed with, they're using cancel culture as an excuse to um to kind of hold beliefs that they shouldn't

be holding. You know, instead of thinking critically about what's going on or looking at the D structure of a situation, they would rather um point fingers, which is easier, you know. And what's missing here is the fine nuance you know to some of these arguments. You know, someone uh says something is as absurd like the Kanye West thing, you know, like slavery is a choice thing. Obviously you have to

check them. You know, immediately I got just the complete absurdity of something like that just deserves to be called out. It's not canceling at all. That's telling me the truth. Do you think do you think you were able to like capture that and express that on the album? I don't. I don't know. I think all artists kind of fail

at their vision, you know. Um yeah, but I did my best to to to kind of shape that in a way that I think other people would be um asking questions about it, you know, like, instead of kind of preaching at them or telling them what they're supposed to think or telling them what's supposed to be true, I thought that the bigger win would be to have them question and think about it for themselves and come to those conclusions by presenting them kind of evidence in

a different way, you know. And I feel like that's what art's supposed to do. Instead of being like didactic didactic and telling you what, uh this means, you're supposed to kind of interpret it and kind of find the meaning to you know. So it's like a co construction. So I don't know if I I don't know if I achieved what I wanted to achieve. Um, but I am very proud of the record. Well for folks listening who want to answer that question for themselves. Where can

they go check out your music? The best place to go is to my website. It's w W dot Chucky Campbell music dot com and Chucky with an I and E. It's not like a demonic possess. Okay, it's Curious Incidents and cancel culture um or if you google it, it'll pop up all over the place. It's it's on Spotify and it's been it did really well. It's an ep so um I was. I was happy the way the way it performed, especially during the pandemic. Yeah. Yeah, you gotta make sure you go check out Jackie Campbell and

his his work. It's all on YouTube and all on the internet. Man, thank you for coming through again. Yeah, alright and blessings. Author Michael Eric Dyson said something when talking about Colin Kaepernick that kind of stuck with me. He said, cancel culture is the internalization of the of an ethic of white supremacy. And it's with the Colin

Kaepernick situation that should pretty much inform you. Whenever you're talking to someone or whenever you hear somebody complaining about cancel culture, just think about Colin Kaepernick, point blank, period, Like,

just think about the situation. Right, you have somebody who did something that wasn't politically correct, and as a result, he had a rabid PC mob that wouldn't hear him out and wouldn't show empathy and refuse to lend any sort of good faith interpretation to the context of his side of the story, and as a result, he got

fire from his job. So whenever you hear any of these motherfucker's talking about, Okay, how's the culture this, how come I can't speak on this college campus, I guarantee you of them saying that would tell you all college camra Dick he used to shut up. He needed to do what he's told to stand out for the flags with the troops. So you know that's why at the end of the day, a lot of this ship is capped and I don't I don't buy any of it. We've talked a lot in recent episodes about um the

Maga rappers, who like in the sense we're canceled. I mean, they were like criticized online, but as we discussed as well in previous episodes, like I'm not sure I've really had hurt their pockets so that it came out in support of Trump or anything like that. Um Trina. As another example, rapper Trina called protesters during the George Floyd protests animals, and she was allegedly canceled for it. Um

apparently super disturbing to me. A little boozy paid an adult woman to give oral sex his son and pup and publicly a tacked fame basketball players transgender son, and he was canceled allegedly. I say allegedly because I think if they were to put out new music, its success would be determined how hot they are, and by none

of those contrapartues. I mean, I can to like he talked about Llewayne and on one of the most recent episodes, like his new album was new music, like probably like I don't know how it was doing, but I wouldn't be surprised if a flop because it sucks, and not necessarily because he came out in favor of Trump. It's really about your artistic production and how people value it because people and you know, end up bobbing their heads and like this in the club to all sorts. A

problem matter rappers all the time. It's really about the quality of your music. I mean, does anybody famous barring them committing like serious crimes and ship like that. But is anybody famous ever been successfully canceled for some ship

that they said? I, I mean, has that happened? I'm not I'm not sure, But like you know, whenever they've dug up somebody's old tweets or somebody has been caught on cameras, has this like actually tangibly affected anybody's career Because none of the people that we just talked about, I don't think their career is going to be affected by you know, like you just said, if people aren't gonna buy a new Trina album, it's gonna be because nobody is really checking for new treat of music as

opposed to ah Man. I was a treat A fan. But then she said, like, I don't just think. I don't think her fans are even looking at caring about that ship. I would, but I don't think her fans are. Little Wayne is definitely not canceled. You know what I'm saying. He's he's gonna he's gonna do do his numbers when he comes out, Kanye West, whatever he drops a new album, he's gonna do his numbers. So Lynn Minuel Miranda Face claims his renowned musical, Hamilton's whitewash crimes of the u

S founding Fathers. That's cool, but what had happened? There's a good one of hip hop bands grind cancel culture despite the man of self tweeting all criticisms. The valid is your tonage of complexities and failings of these people. I couldn't get or wrestled with boot cut I took six years and fits as much as they could into a two and a half hour musical have been my best.

It's all fair game. That's interesting. The people who are super opposed to cancel culture, we'll freak out about celebrities. They like receiving criticism, even in those celebrities themselves embrace that process of accountability. In my opinion, that's pretty much just what Chucky was saying, and Lynn had the right sort of perspective of it. But it's like, YO, shut the funk up. Just because people don't like something that

someone did doesn't mean that they're being canceled. That means that a motherfucker is telling you they have a problem with you, and you can either be like, oh damn, you have a problem with me. Damn, what did I do wrong? How can I fix this, How can I be better? Or you can say, yeah, I don't give an if you got a problem with meks my ass, but don't fucking cry about your being canceled. And oh this is canceled culture. Oh my god, did you hear

those four hundred people? Four hundred of my million Twitter followers are upset that I did something? Why are you canceling me? It's it sounds fucking pathetic. After a point, Atlanta rapper t I Mr t I P. Do they still call t t I P? Anyway? T I said, all this cancel culture I think is fake. Like jay Z said, first they hate you, then they love you, then they hate you again. You'll cancel Kanye. You canceled someone like Kanye. Now, I don't agree with his views.

There are a lot of things he says, a lot of positions and perspectives he speaks from that I have no agreeance with. But that's not going to take away from the fact that he's a phenomenal artist and he makes great music. T I said, but you'll cancel him. But at the same time, when someone like Gucci does black face, then you're cool with that, so you'll keep wearing Gucci, but you canceled Kanye. No, nigga, you'll keep wearing Gucci, Yo, man, I don't understand Yeah, ladies and gentlemen,

I just I've just read the news. I don't claim to understand it. I don't know what the funk any of that ship means. But it's like, no, I don't wear Gucci and I'm not gonna be listening to Kanye. It's just a personal decision. And I think that's all the any point that anybody was making. The few people who were willing to go that far, that's all they

were saying. I didn't hear any sort of calls for a this company shouldn't sell the new Yea Zys or like Yo, Kanye's record labels should drop them, even after all the slavery was a choice ship. I didn't hear anybody calling for that ship. There was just, you know, a decent chunk of people who were like, oh, Kanye is sucking with the Nazis. I don't funk with Kanye anymore. And that's it. Now at the point that t is trying to make it, NA, you can't do that. That's canceling.

You gotta buy his new album or else you're part of the PC mob. Get the funk out of here with that dumb ship. Okay, that is gonna do it for us today, Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget to go out and check out Chucky Campbell stuff. And don't forget to check me out my new song Sundance coming out in February twelve. Hey, shameless promotion in February twelve. Dope Knife new song Sundance. Check it out Spotify YouTube, all that ship. Um, I feel like rapping your joel. Let

her brother get a beat? Check check check did dope waiting on reparations? Dope Knife is an effect while you hating the brother. The only thing that I'm gonna cancel is a date with your mother like a motherfucking all star knocking out the ballpark. Keep a short and simple dog. I've never been a tall dog. Cancel take the rap game. Holding for ransom. The only rat nigget it. Used to listen to hands and pouring beers and yelling cheers like Teddy dancing. I gotta be boys in my squad his

steady dancing. I'm about to bug out and cause a fucking wreck. If biding the democrats, don't send me another check. I don't know what the hell is taken long? Why I had to make the song, need the reparations with the hell you people waiting all imagine for a second that your name is Joe Wynn Woklin and feeling the heat so transported. Now get crying. I cancel culture all your fans. So just why can't I just be a

big weep on the French shoulder. Well, if it is in the consequences of oma shitty actually coming up to catch it, it's and it's so sad. You gotta answer to the people who made it so you could buy a fancy man. Just be in hell on the internet where the total possessed get a grip taken out of it. This is how bad against And trust me, girl, you're much luckier than the average. All the rest of us are broken ship between the bills and rent. You could

to sit our neuro stickpy and hated, filthy rich. Hey yo, my name's Dove. We are waiting on reparations for up see you next week. Waiting on Reparations is a production of I Heart Radio. Listen to Waiting on Reparations on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.