Family Ties

the entire multiverse. There's only one Winning A Reparations podcasts Happy First Day of Black History. But yeah, we're recording this on the first day of Black History Month. Um, how are you? How do you celebrate the month of Black History? You know? I try to, um, stay a little just get a little extra black for the month.

You know what I'm saying. It's like you gotta be black, you know, for the other eleven months, and it's like just this one month you added like an extra coat and walk around You're just super proud, you know what I'm saying. Might what I always find such to be such relief about Black History Month is that there's so little Black history that it'll just squeeze into twenty eight days. Just cover the whole thing, the whole entire Oh yeah, it's like so little to cover. Yeah, I mean, we

don't need the long extended series. We can get it all done in this one, the full cinematic universe. Speaking you want to speak, speaking of wax stuff happening on Black History Months, so the day before Black History Months and even I think some of this ship was today, but over a dozen or it just about a dozen

historically black colleges got bomb threats. Yeah, my my former album about her, Howard University, Alcron State University, Coppin State, Edward Waters University, Fort Valley State, the University of the District of Columbia, Morgan State, Kentucky State, Xavier University, and more. Yeah, like they got bomb threats, they had to cancel classes or clothes altogether. Um, what do you think something like

that means? I mean, apparently, uh, throughout the past few months, these colleges have been getting threats leading up, but um, with it kind of happening seemingly, it's I mean, I obviously it's not a coincidence. What what do you think about that? Does that make you feel okay? I'm zooming way out. I'm zooming way way out into thinking about how do we transition white people into the coming multiracial democracy that is that is inevitable. I mean maybe the

democracy part. I don't know. Do we live in a democracy now unclear? But our multiracial society, it's coming. They're going to be the minority. Um And this is going to be an unpopular take, but let's get for getting into the black history months. Let's think about at the end of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. The only black person to UM ever have a mass movement that achieves things. By the way, is the nuts only one.

Don't let them, you know, Huey Newton fictional. Uh. I don't want to like, I don't want to parse like you know, hairs or anything like that. But do we mean like me in terms of getting getting a movement. I'm just playing. I'm just playing on the on the whole like there's not a whole lot of black history and things. All these other cats like yeah, didn't exist in the textbooks, didn't exist in real life for all I know, Uh, you know, that's just the fodder of

like HBO Max features. But anyway, um. So during the end of his life, m Ok started to recognize that they needed a multiracial working class movement of people all fighting for economic freedom together in order to take on the government. That's effectively why you got assassinated, right, And so also to answer the question, so taking like a couple of leaps forward of like I bomb threats against universities because white people are feeling insecure about their increasingly

marginal status in our society. How do we get people less freaked out? And we're talking about this on the show before about like you know, working class or a

blue collar white people, like are they racist? I don't know, I can't remember what we were talking about, but like I think one way to diffuse these tensions is to come up with like universalists, like you know, policies that if you are, you know, a white like Wendy's worker or a black um Wendy's worker, all y'all can agree with, Like, yeah, we're down with free college. That's something I'm going in because like there's this fear that like black people are

taking things away from everyone else. Well, affirmative action, Oh, they're putting the interracials in the in the Okay, cubid ads and like ship people, like, let's give everybody at the bottom some ship so we can stop fighting amongst ourselves, and maybe white people will stop giving bomb threats to black schools. I don't know. I mean now I agree, I agree, I agree, although I don't know. I mean, I feel also this is overly optimistic. I think some

were like fascist procalcitrants. There's really there's nothing you can do. The radicalization is just not my field. So get about that's what you do. But yeah, I don't know, I feel I mean it definitely, you know, it's it rings of all that stuff that we were talking about with Christopher Goldsmith the other day, Like it just it rings of some fucking social media hoax e type of you know, like threats at the beginning complay history with me and you know what I mean, it seems like super in

silly and ship like that. And I don't know, I hope that, you know, worst case or best case scenario. I guess at this point is like I hope that it's just threats and it's I do too, I people stuff. Yeah, I hope it's hope it's just threats. I am also in this conversation reckoning with how dead and I have

become to like threats of all kinds. Like people talk mad ship, they're gonna do ship, They're don't do ship when it's like nah, man, sometimes like ship goes a really bad and like you should take it really seriously. But like my reaction is I'm just like so dead inside from like being threatened a great deal. Yeah, I don't know, Like I don't know. I just can't see

anything about it. I don't know what the statistics are or anything like that, but I'm imagining that for the most part, when people call in a threat or when people like send a threatening letter or something like that, that those ones on average don't result in anything. It's it's kind of the ones that you have to worry about just going out and doing the ship. It's more

of the worry. That's That's why I'm saying. This one made me think that it was more like of a you know, social media something to do to see the headlines of Twitter and everybody retweeting the story, that sort of ship. But you know, I'm some more positive notes. I started um because I've been you know, I've been working on the same graphic novel for the last few years I've been talking about out on the show. It's

still being colored by the way us almost. But I started writing again and I was brainstorming some ideas for a new comic and ship, and I came up with an idea to do something that's kind of like Lord of the Ring zy Conan, the barbarian ish sort of thing, but set in like ancient Africa, you know, kind of like a Middle Earth, but with the basis of it being like pre colonial or even like BC Africa, you know. Um, and what it went. So, so what is your okay?

What is your process of something like that? Worked in the last one like three years, so like, yeah, when does this ship drop? I'm trying to like I want to read it. I want to read it now, where is okay? So for the for the last one that I was working on, So the process for that, I mean, I'll write this, wrote the story like a little treatment of what the story is. Then uh, storyboarded out all the pages, then drew all the ship, and then after

drawing it, you know what I mean. It's like visualizing, knowing what the story is, visualizing it and drawing it and then afterwards going out and writing the dialogue and filling in the bubbles based off of the ship that I read your So it's like, I don't really draw it with the dialogue per se mind ship, but for something like this, the new one that I'm working on, it's gonna move pretty fast because I'm not going into it thinking about making after day. It's coming. It's coming

right now. I'm in the I'm in the light research phase because I kind of thought at first I was gonna do like a crime story about Liberia, and then in the middle of doing the research for that, I was like, oh man, I'm gonna put that on the back burner and I want to do something a bit more out of my element because I usually write crime

stories and stuff like that. So it's like, I want to do something that's you know, been done, you know, dragons and and I want the dragons African African witch doctors, dragons, you know what I mean, A shot kaZulu West figure instead of I don't know what the nigga from Lord of the Rings name is, but one of those yeah, no, no, who's who was the not not not the Dwarf, Orlando Blue, the other Vigo I don't know I can picture of that.

I don't know who this name was, y'all. Motherfucker's anyway, anyway, what do I do? What do we doing today? So today we're speaking with Walter English, a former love poet. Are gonna get a more thorough introduction for him here in a second, but it's really really love to talk about his brister English project, um studying the genealogies of of African descendants of slaves and connecting people with their history. So you want to go ahead and get on into it. Um, yeah,

let's get into it. U. My man's is popping on TikTok right now that this is this is our first time talking with somebody just doing stuff on TikTok. I think I think I kind of want to make it a personal mission to like breaking all the skeptical the few if there already left out there, the skeptical adults who haven't really gotten on TikTok and utilize the different

spaces and communities that are on there. So I mean, I think partially it comes into like, um, just digital literacy, like because it's not something we're really taught in school other than this is how you type, like this time you make a power resident. Look, I got locked out on my Facebook account for like four months. I got back out on that ship, and I literally don't know how to do a goddamn thing. I'm like, well, I

don't check my messages, like I don't understand. I get on TikTok and like I had that new single come out this week. They were like, go on TikTok and make a viral TikTok dance from the music video. Until I got on there, I go excided, like oh my god, the old day. It's like, yeah, let's go, and like, I don't know, I got like four likes. I'm like, how does this work? Well? I supposed to do. You gotta keep at it. You can't. You gotta keep at it. Yeah yeah, I know. I just don't have it. I

just don't have that persistence all that time. So, well, you're busiest, Yeah yeah, Oh I got in speaking of a good news. I out of another crazy announcement for listeners. Slash you mac, I can tell you this yet. So okay. So I had a show last Saturday, and one of my professors in my department came, So I want to talk about on the show whole lot. But you know, I'm getting my PhD ship and so this been, I mean, this person, this lady, she's very nice. Lady. Um came

up to me after the show. I was like, Yo, that was your dissertation and I was like, what are you talking about? She was like, you should just submit that and graduate. I was like, excuse me what? And then I emailed her this week and she was like, yeah,

people do like arts based dissertations all the time. There's ever there's like been one other rap one, but like just write it at thirty page intro paper about like why this count says like hip hop education research and then like graduate son be graduated with a doctorate in Like April was good. I can't wait to be good my life anyway. So let's get into all right, So we'll be back with former love poet right after the joke.

All right, Yeah, So today I am very honored that we are joined by Walter English, the former love poet, rapper, poet, activists, and founder of the Bristo English Project, which seeks to help descendence of enslaved people find their history at no

charge to them. Very popular on TikTok Um spreading you know, messages anti racism, and so we are very very excited to have you here today just for everybody out there who doesn't know, because I've been you know, checking out your TikTok page and seeing the different things that you cover in the different things that you talk that you talk about. Maria has been doing the same and through that is how we've come across the Brister English Project.

So if you could, could you explain to our listeners in your own words, exactly what is the Brister English Project? Um, the Bristo English Project. Like to begin with, it's named after my second grade grant of it. Uh, I saw him, saw his name when he went by just Bristow on

a slave ship manifest that fourteen years old. Um, to see that and and to see what he went through and what he became, and just the history, the amount of history that that comes that comes with this, that comes with it's hard to explain always some people, is really hard to explain it. So it's an amazing feeling. Um, it's a different feeling. I want to give people that feeling. I don't believe Black Americans should have to pay to get their genealogy done and so with the Bristi English project,

people sign up on the list. UM. I'm in phase two right now with the project. So I have volunteers helping me. UM. I'm talking about people who have years of experience and doing this UM for helping me for free. Everything is runs off donation, so I make sure I have stuff paid for people to UH to make sure they're able to work UM as well as I got runners will go to grave sites for me. He'll go

to historical sites to take pictures or whatever. It's just one big project to to help UM American descending some chatel slavery connect with the past. That it's just like us tell people's more than just dreams a chance. So where did this project come from? We spoke something about you know, I think you said your your great great grandfather, UM, and so clearly you know a little bit about your history.

But how what was your process for actually launching this project and as well, like how how it works some of the internal processes to help bring this history to folks. So UM it started after I was doing I made a three database. That's what I started with. I started with a free database or resources to help people. UM. People still wanted, you know, how do I do this? They I have more questions, So I said, why not I do it? I was supposed to start off small.

It was supposed to be you know, I launched all Christmas. I was planning that him off prior. UM. I got the historian who helped me find out all this information. She jumped on the project with me. Um. And then I got the funding on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, I launched everything and um, and that's really that's that's really it. And as far as the internal working go, what I do is, uh, people fill out a form, uh, your name, your grandparents name. Yeah, you know, if you know any

any kind of info to help us out. We go right on ancestry. We start putting information. UM. We use sources like genealogy bank, um, a newspaper, archives, newspaper, dot com, anywhere information may be found lost friends, UM. When we start your tree. UM. A lot of people like like the focus going straight back, which is always good. You want to know where your great great great great grandparents are. But for us Black Americans, we run into a wall.

At one point we become property. Yeah. UM. And so what I like to do is not only focused back for focus on what I call the branches, so you get to see your cousins, know everybody, um, and like working on this project, I'm starting to see people that's related. They know that's related, just like it's it's it's it's a good it's a it's a good feeling. And then I do like a few videoscause I always asked permission Havie, like for me to talk about this on my TikTok Um.

I'm running across the mirror like amazing history, Um, not in niche being able to share that with people, not only the people who are who are directly affects, but all of us to see finally find one of the twelve hundred black lawyers in nineteen thirty just related to somebody on TikTok Like it's stuff like, so, what are some of the crazy stories you've uncovered and you know from history or you know, impressive insights that have you have drawn from doing some of that genealogical work. Uh,

personally just in my family alone. Uh, craziest thing that I've seen, I think it's about um in nineteen forty or nineteen thirty. Uh, my aunt, one of my grand aunts, she had a husband, and when you're looking at everything that like the records and where they live dad and who they were with, it looked like he was cheating on her. So she divorced them. So a woman divorcing a man in nineteen thirty, you were you, you could be deemed as crazy. Literally they would put you on

the sane asylum. And so he sent my eye to an insane asylum, and she divorced them. Not only an insane asylum. Yes, it's not only insane asylum, but um Long View or lake View excuse like if you don't believe this. In Cincinnati, Ohio was one of the most infamous places. You It's like a shutter island type of it is. It is awful and she had to spend she she ended up spending um at least I think at least seven years and then before she passed away.

What no, that towards the end of it. Yeah, and towards the end of her like like growing that asylum, UM, it progrestily got worse because it couldn't hold as many people, but they took in that many people, so people didn't get fed, they lived over sewage. UM. It was just it was just a bad environ. But then you also when you when I'm looking, because I looked through the documents, I'm not just saying, oh that name match with that.

I want to see through what happened and you and everybody in her family or in that side of the family died young. Who was involved with him, um so her brother who worked with who worked for he died in his twenties. It's sich the sister that he was cheating with died in her twenties with her sister sister, and then he married her co worker according to the city, and then she died into the same time. Man, niggas

don't ever change. Still they still see like that to a less of degree, whether you know, similar mindset to oh yeah, still that's the yeah, that mindset is still going. I mean that sounds like a plot for a movie. Man, Like that's wild. The level of detail that you can get into, not just like oh you're you know, like your great great grandfather was a famous carpenter in like the city of what's it, but like down to the level of this person with cheating with this person, Like

that's that's amazing. That's amazing what you can discover through the through these databases. So how many of them have you done so far? Um? Close to personally? Do you find it? Find it gets easier with each one, or like you get more of a like an efficiency and you're being able to research and stuff with each one that you do efficiency. Yes. Um, once the list jumped

from it literally jumped from seventy four. Will jumped from fourteen people to seventy four overnight and in seventy twelve hundred. So once it hit twelve hundred, I like, I need some help, and so I brought it. I've been doing a slow process. I brought it from volunteer, see how they can work, how we can work together. So with like the volunteers, but personally I did about twenty With the volunteers. I've been trying off for the past month,

we probably got close to thirty. While I've been doing the background stuff, in order stuff, they've still been working. And uh yeah, I finally gets easier because I know what I'm looking for. And with black history, you gotta look out for certain things when you're looking in through our ancestry. Um, you gotta look out for different name spellings. Right, keep in mind who lived with who? At what time, Um, going from mixed to black to mixed to black on

different senses. But do you know that's still your that's young people. So it's that part got easier, you know, I've been doing it for so long now, like seeing stuff like that, it's it's easy to know what I'm looking for, what to look out for, and yeah, yeah,

have you encountered any limitations thus far? I'm sure, like given the thoroughness of record keeping, particularly when you go back to like slavery times, um, and then certain whiles around like antigenation where people weren't you know, showing up on birth certificates, etcetera, mislistening race. I've you know, been setting my own like indigenous ancestry and they listened all the natives as black. There was only white or black on like the census form. So, um, do you run

into issues like that and trying to trace people's uneage? Yeah, I mean, um, you come across that where like you get things that's a maybe like I'm not I'm not too sure about that, you know. So I like to ask people. I like to ask people questions when we get to something. Some of those points and and a lot of people I find out don't talk to like their grandparents about their past and their history and stuff like that, because I told I asked one personal question.

I showed up on first like, hey, this is your I believe this is your your your grandfather, I'm not too sure, but this is a this is a mere certificate. I believe this is your grandmother on there, but they spelled the name with the king instead up and see

can you shoulder to it? And they she starts to learn about all different kind of family members that he had all over like so like it's yeah, with the you're saying that the number of requests for it, so it jumped up to twelve dred you said you're a

twelve hundred and currently sitting that two thousand. Okay, so if you have if you've got like two thousands of them sitting in the chamber right now, just knowing like the sort of space of TikTok is, do you do you ever find do you find yourself like running into the issue, perhaps like white people not understanding exactly what it's about and perhaps wanting you to do the yeah, yeah, oh yeah, I got tagging a video the day like somebody like people are taggingbody tagging this moody like a

white woman's comments to look for an answer. It's like, oh, he has a project that help I say, it's not for her. It's not for her. But I ran into the issue of people get they let the forgility take over. Yeah. Do you find there's like broader pushback then you know there's some people who get mistaken with like this project ain't for y'all. Are there any is there people out there that were like nad about it because people on the internet didn't mad about anything. Oh yeah, no, it's

a ton of people that would matter what. One woman made three videos about me and like, god, yes, she made three videos about me. And she was like, look, I tricked my family that's thirty and this says uh says they were mixed. His name was Charlie. And I'm like, so you did the work. It's like you you want me to find Like I don't know what she thought out. I was like, a magical negro can just connect to

all black people, but I couldn't. So I'm like this, I can't do that to bring the great great granddad back out. Plus your thing you're thinking's like specifically for descendence of slaves too. It's like, I don't understand how you had to jump into that, UM people, Hey, I'm Irish. That's why you're getting I'm irish. We were, we were slaves you and that your service. Plus you know that

you're Irish, I'm black, Like exactly, that's the difference. I'm trying to let people know, Like I'm like, you've never been the butt of a slave joke. You've never been You've never been in that situation to understand, like, Okay, I really can't. I don't know what my family did. I don't know what people were like, I don't know what part of Africa they were from. That kind of that kind of level of detail, it's probably lost to

would you say that's like lost to history? Yeah, almost altogether. Yeah, yeah, yeah definitely. But one thing I'll say that UM with the um Americans and it's a slave of enslaved people, is that we created this culture that's from the south to to the east coast, west coast, we have a culture that being black that we still made here like and and and with that culture, you can see it throughout history, like from occupations to places they lived to the things they did to what they sold to the

land that was big. Like when when I when I come across agricultural records and I see land that they all might see exactly what they grew and how they they ran stuff. It was it's it's it's it's our own history. Like I can't go back as far as like you know, I know you're from Nigeria and I could find this, but I could show you the not so bad parts of history that is still black culture.

Yeah yeah, Um what do you find people take away from for the folks that you for whom you've already completed, like their genealogy, Like what do they take from it? Like what what? What? Um does that lend to their to their lives, like knowing what their roots are. I've had people everybody cries. I don't know about, but everybody cries. That's that's one big thing. And like I'm like, that's the feeling that that's hard to explain. Um. But everybody

I got told I changed people lives. Um I had one. Yeah, I got told like I've changed people lives by doing this. Um Um who told me? Somebody wants to help out the project out there, Like I helped them out. They wanted to actually join on now to help people because again they see how that feels and how how the experiences. Um. Some people said I plugged and missing pieces of their life. Um. Sakitha, who's on on TikTok, the bigger creator. We've stumped across

her dad by accident. I had my history. She never knew her father. As soon as we saw the picture of his high school photo, I'm like, Wow, that's her face. That's her exact faces. It's like the email. And I said, I gotta picture your dad. I don't know if you want to see it, but she said sure and sure enough and so like that. She said that she felt like like an alien and her family she didn't look like anybody, but now she felt like she belongs. So

it's like that's kind of fellers. So this might be kind of a technical question, but what is it about TikTok that makes it the right platform to do this? Oh man? A lot of eyes, A lot of eyes. Things can go like that and heart people in a in a heartbeat. Like I was talking about the brist Of English project since the seven Team, I think right, I kind of announced it to people launched it a

week later. Um, and I wasn't really getting I had seven people I respond to a racist white person on there with with me talking about it, and then boomed twelve hundred people like that, just TikTok is a great is a great flat one right now? Still believe number

one at the moment if you want to grab somebody's attention. Yeah, Um, I mean I was asking just because I mean, you'd be shocked at how many people in my age even now are still under the impression when I talked to them about TikTok having interesting things are like, oh man, it's all dances of you know what I mean, Like we're still we're still at this page is getting people over that stigma of TikTok, right that is just people

just kids up there dancing. I'm like, nah, but I'm telling you that's like it's different size and TikTok that like it's literally of a corner of TikTok for like any interest that you have, really any interest you you mentioned, like people often have really strong emotional reactions to hearing about their genealogy and sometimes they cry, and um, this actually made me think of I'm not sure I'm well, actually, I feel like you of all people will probably know

about this. But when they did George Floyd's genealogy, um, and finding like all the way is that the system in various, in various you know ways screwed over his family over and over again to sort of create a picture. You know, people people on the right, you know, white supremacists want said, oh he was a drug addict. Ooh

he you know, beat his wife or whatever. But if you go back in his genealogy, I believe it was his great great grandfather, Um, when he got his freedom, he accumulated five hundred acres of land that then we're just stolen, straight up stolen by white settlers. And then later on I think if his grandmother she was like very you know, she was very accomplished academic in high school, wanted to become a lawyer. They wouldn't let her go

to law school. Um, she she taught herself how to read and write and stuff and ended up being like a really you know, really good at school. Couldn't go to law school because they just said, we don't accept y'all.

And so thing after thing after a thing, which kind of like helps us understand and give context to how somebody like George Floyd ended up in the situation he ended up in, Like, yeah, he might have been on drugs, might have had you know, priors, etcetera, but like it contextualized in a way, like you understand how someone could become that way. So do you ever find people who get emotional about their results in having to face the kinds of struggles that are people have always gone through.

I don't think I have. I don't think I've ran into that just ship where people like are really upset or get kind of emotional to be like that, that's what I kind of faced. Well when I take that back, Um, it's normally folks who I can find slave sensors for if I can find a slave census and and I can show you that. Um, I showed somebody I was like, I didn't looking for their fifty I was looking for a fifty five year old black woman because they didn't

have names on there. So looking for a fifty five year old black woman. And I find the census with the same location area, and it's kind of like the same reaction I had that they had, where it's like you got just kind of quiet, you just got things to yourself, Like it makes sense, very tangible. Yeah, and

it's just like that's what they did. But I think a lot of people, a lot of people who are taking part of this are are are proud, are come with pride to that, Hey, they the ancestors went through this,

to go through that and now they're here. True, like histories of struggle also histories of triumph in a sense, like even if all that our people have had to live through can kind of just be really heavy on the heart to like just think about that sorrow and that pain, but also we survived, you know, they survived enough to have their own kids and then have their

own kids and here we are today. So in another way, yeah, I totally make sense if that could be inspiring, even if like if you know the story you told about what was that your great great grandmother or you know,

getting in the natat that that's happy. That's happy man, you know, but also like being able to actually know you're yeah, like just have I guess I can imagine like really understanding your history after sort of being told all when we're growing up that it's lost to history, even though it's not, it's not really you can find it if you look for it. Um can I can be really empowering. So speaking of history, UM, a bunch of talk us a little bit about yourself, Like who

who are you? Yeah, so you're activist, You're a poet, you're a rapper, so like yeah, so you not now it's a theologist and so how did you get Yeah, so talk to talk to us a little bit about your arts background. Um, I've been writing forever. Um I love used the story right. Um. I think when I was in the third grade, I started writing poetry. Um. I used to I'm a nineties baby is to watch Deff Paultry jam with the most Deff and stuff. So

I got in the spoken word. My family is big in the music, and so I was like, I can. I can write some songs and every whatever. By the time I turned eighteen, I was going to college. Uh. Nineteen, I booked my first like big show here in my city at a club. I was under aged four, but they still let me perform. Um. Uh that led to just just a lot more opportunities. I end up performing at Castel Breech is one of the biggest wineries here

in New York. Um I ghost I was ghost right in for for a little while, wrote for Dorito's MTV, Nickelodeon, over fifty other company and then two thousand nineteen, like I've always been a poet, but I always kept my poetry to myself because my music, I'm like, this is my I can go out here. I got the music going poetry. Everybody's eyes on you. It's quiet. That's so funny. Yeah, because I had the opposite experience. I was like a

poet in high school. I did slam poetry and like college but and I wrote rhymes, but I didn't tell nobody because like that was a whole It was like a kind of taboo in a way. I'm like, oh, tip out like your gang bang, like what um? And then later like stepping out, like man, I'm not gonna just sit here and not like I got sick bars. I don't know what I'm doing sitting on all this. But from person to person, I was telling everybody in

the world that I want was like yo, yeah. I was like I was walking around with my notebook and You're like, yo, look at how many words my vocabulary? Yeah. Yeah, I was priedful about my rap, like I knew I can I can piece together a story. So who are

some of you? Who are some of your influences? Um writing scheme to people here, how how I write sometimes um Rock him just his gotta be the way I think I break I break things down to a science almost, and I was just like, wow, I like how he rhyme in the middle of beginning the end and how he flipped that. And then just for writing prefaces of Royster five nine was big with my writing. UM Wayne when I when it came to similes, He's crazy with it.

To this day, I'm just like man. Yeah. And then um nas nas And then when I got older, jay Z, I like jay Z when I was younger. I got older, I could appreciate it. I could appreciate the bars. Anything it's about that makes sense, that makes sense. Yeah. So those did probably my biggest, biggest and people put it, don't chew me up for this. It's gonna be Kanye. We've talked about him on the show. Physically good yeah, like back like, because I like bro, I have fifteen

surgeries coming up. And so when I heard through the Wire for the first time as a kid, that resonated and I was like, is he correct? Correct. Yeah, and then so I'm like, Kanye gave me that big thing and I saw my death poetry Jim, I'm like, oh, you're writing poetry too. I can write poetry as well. You know. So that was kind of like, yeah, I'm here because of Yeah, yeah, is there Do you think at all there's a relationship between like the hip hop aspect of your identity and some of the work that

you're doing with the Breast Ranglich project. Yeah, I believe. So, I believe. So I think, um, the creativity, it's getting his message across so people. So it's so it's digestible for people. I can get up here and talk about all the boring facts and everything like that, but if I make it exciting, Um, I talk in poems sometimes in my my my videos, that gives people attention. If I get it, Oh, I want they want to hear what I'm gonna say next. And so I just just

how my my hip hop's owner. I can. I can come up here with all the confidence in the world because I feel like I'm the best at what I do right now. You can't tell me otherwise, and I'm gonna say what I gotta say. So you think it's like it helps out like with the because I'm I'm I'm an advocate of like using hip hop as like a form of communication to like it makes people learn

things to retain information better. Just you know, as far as I so, do you think like that aspect of hip hop you know helps all of us mcs be communicators? You think that's like the biggest way it helps out. Oh yeah, definitely, definitely, because we gotta get our message across. That's the big that's the big thing. We have to get our message across in a short amount of time. That the same thing I learned like slam poultry, Like you've got three minutes, go talk to your talk and

you've got to make this connection with somebody. And so I think we when people here like rappers talking certain situations and stuff for people who are like they got this preconceived no ship of like like with dump or something like that. But I'm like, can you can you write a three minutes song that makes sense and this like that so I can talk and talk to people like it's nothing. That's why a lot of us be able to do that. It's like, oh they so cares, Mattic.

We we gotta be. So maybe it's answered because of like how important the Prester English Project is to you. But is there a particular like political issue or social issue that you would say, just on a personal level, is like at the top of your priority in terms of things that you're usually thinking about or talking about, um, the top of my list. Reason I joined the Double A CP to get closer to UH to help black women. UM. They died at four times high rate norm maternity UM

and even higher in my city. So we got Rochester General out here UH to change to get more Black midwives and to get more black nurses and for all black doctors black ob g y n's to help black women, you should be dying at four times high ranking in the other race down here in Georgia, black women have a higher maternal mortality right than Iraq. And there are a lot of other like developing que quote developing countries. So yeah, maternal Black maternal mortality is a huge issue.

Some harm to hear you're working working on that. What are some of the reasons that they give for it? They don't or do they not even bother? It's nor even bother. But when you look at history, you look at Um the father gonna college. Look at Jay Marry and Sims, right, Jay Marry and Sims got the enslave woman's name. But he's to operate on enslaved people, um normally women. Um he was. He was the one used to take the trigger warnerful folcus to take this tool

to open up shoes and they cracked baby skulls. That guy black baby skulls because the Negro brain. Yea yeah, so like, um, what he used to do wasn't when he operate on the black women awake. That's why we have to bias now in the medical field that black people don't feel pain like a racist and used to operate them on on them awake, dirty table tensils whatever.

And if they survived it, they want be developed a kidney infection or urinary track something because filthy, he told him, just because as they fall, they didn't take care of themselves. So it's black women not taking care of themselves that's the issue, and not not these doctors mishandling people. No, so so they try to they do the culture and genetics thing for like that too. Yes, they did a

study with nurses. UM nurses going to school, Um a few years back, and they did a poll on do black people feel less pain or more and they thought that black a lot of them thought that black black people felt less pain among current current um medical students, right yep, current Yeah, with that, like it's close to me because that they hit home, like I woke up in the middle of surgery, my love and surgery. Uh, I woke up in the middle of my love and surgery.

And the nurse looked at the doctor clears day, I'm up clear to day. I'm trying to catch breath. Nurse look at the doctor, said you can finish while he awake. Bro what she looked at the doctor say, you could finish while he's awake. Oh my god, that's insane, and then went on the on the subject of maternal mortality. I think I mean, and this is just understanding a lot of issues through like sort of an intersectional lens.

If you look at the disproportionate numbers of black women living in poverty, that might then call somebody they're not really they're not making their prenatal you know, gynecology appointments to check up on how things are going, so they might not know they have gestational diabetes. They might not

know they have hypertension or something like that. And then and additionally, UM, you know, if you're in working poverty, if you're working forty fifty hours a week while you're pregnant, um, you know, up until you up until you deliver pretty much UM. And then you know you've got to be back at work a week later because otherwise you get fired or you get fired anyway, the kinds of pressured folks are under because we just you know, disproportionate race

of poverty UM. And you know, environmental racism, environment you know, toxic stress from racism, etcetera that I imagine play into that as much as you know, medical racism UM and things like that. It's wild. But I'm really glad to look at your you know, it's I think it's an

under understudied, under advocated for area. And so especially as someone that isn't directly impacted, though you have experienced political racism yourself, it's great that you know you're using your voice to help elevate an issue of that you know doesn't directly impact you, but it's incredibly important. So where can people find you when they if they want to check out? And what can they do if they want

to help you with everything that you're doing. So if you, um, if you want to reach me out, reach out to my social media. I'm a former love poet everywhere uh Instagram, Twitter, tink top Facebook. Um, if you want to help out with the Briston English Project, monetary donations help a ton. I make monthly payments on stuff, and I, like I said,

I provide everything for everybody who's helping. Monetary donations. Um, if you go to brister ep dot me, brister ep dot me, um, there is a there's to donate links as well as all the information about the project. Word all right, well, thank you so much for being here. Um, one of these days, once your listens out a little bit, once you make some dent in it, I might have to put my name down there to find a little bit for sure. Thank you for stopping talking to us. Hey,

thank you for having me. Yeah yeah, yeah, that was former love poet dropping. It's so cool to see people just like be passionate about something and just like offer that their passion to the world. Like, oh, I found out a lot about like my own history. So now he's gonna offer everyone the opportunity. I want about the

history to do it on their own. Yeah, and who know, I mean, you know, I mean the whole time that we were talking to him, I just have this feeling in the back of my head that's just gonna blow the hell up even more than it already is. I think I think yeah, but I think I'm talking more I'm talking. I think he's I think he's gonna be really busy in the I think he's gonna need to expand the team. But yeah, thank you sitting his work. I would not recommend getting all the waiting list right now,

because the man is busy as hell. But if you do have geneological you know our tribal research skills, hit them up, help out, help connect people with their history. It's like a beautiful and if you can't contribute to if you can't contribute in that form, hey, a couple of dollars helps, you know, So throwing something help them fund that thing and keep it going. But um, speaking of keeping it going, we gotta end this ship and get the wraps going. You feel like wrapping, Yes, you

gotta wrap. I am gonna wrap. God damn it. All right, let's hit it. Joel dropping. I know I know I'm gonna do rap music. Yo. Joel dropped that. Oh yeah, yeah yeah. Life is coming too fast. We can't catch up, and we keep it in too cool. You can't stress us. If you want to, Nanny, go get you a frank dress up. Beat you so bad feeling my ancests to think about it often. It makes me crazy. You lost track of a fan who's traced to slip avery. You want to just know it, You're gonna just show it.

That's my Homeboys project. Form a love poet with the Nazis marching all up in Orlando, Canda. So we're still acting like she's Sambo, your favorite rapper, still talking about a Lambo. I'm in a waiting line, trying to buy me some Ammo dope knife, give me my reparations. Now superhero ship when I rocket Cap and cow Killer Mike, then I gotta go and take a bow which the sacred cow make him way the towel through it with a smile. I see, I's not give the rules happily.

Back at the family lunch, our folly would have grabbed me, drag me off for lunch. Counter Back in Greensboro, prest and Tea quotas getting filled but maintaining the status quo. I know history isn't imparting when I checked it got it's a mystery. I'm looking back at my family tree for none. Listen, least I know who my mama's father Wasn't all the sisters, but to deep and down into it my check got that, Preston, hmm, yeah, yeah, you are listening Waiting on reparations on Dope Knife, Frank if

we will see y'all next week. Listen to Waiting on Reparations on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts