Home Is Where The Bars Is

bothered it at all. It's some most civilizations were just wobbling fall a matter of fact. I'm doing it for a pad in the back to do it because it's where your heart and soul is. Actually, Yet if you do it for the camera, that's a matter of cap It's almost like capitalism is actually whack. Who would have thunk it? They brought the cool age and Nick's drunk it. You're lucky I ain't get on this tape. I would have dunked it. It's how I was supposed to go decide.

They wanted to function, but they ain't gonna work because we ain't putting enough in. Yeah, yeah, Dope Knife, Dope Knife living with Franka, waiting waiting rep reppertion. He what's up people, how y'all doing? My name is Dope Knife. We are waiting on reparations? Yo, yea yeah, yeah, what's up? What's up? What's up? Another wonderful week. I'm feeling a

bit more energized with it. You know. I just took a little trip back home to Savannah, so seeing old friends and fans and ship like that, it got a got a little pep in my step. Brothers feeling good about the ship right now, although I gotta say that downtown Savannah y'all should probably put some masks on. I mean, that ship is like there wasn't no pandemic and ship like niggas is just going around like that ship is all good. So miss Franco, what have you been up

to since I took my Savannah sabbatical? So for me this week, it's an exciting week. Um, My partner and I, Paul Clays, who we've previously had on the show, found a place together on We're moving in uh in a couple of weeks. So that's super exciting and scary. But you know, UH, particularly as we approach the topic this week of UM housing, insecurity and homelessness. Um I just the journey we've been on as folks, you know, with who haven't lost much employment under COVID, just you know,

decent credit scores, etcetera. The struggle for us to even find a place in a small town or you know, a small city of the size of Athens has been interesting and just had a lot of light for me personally on like how hard, yeah, how hard it is to find a place to live. How lucky we all are to have places to live if we do so. One of the things that I ended up doing when I was in Savannah for this past week was, you know,

I lived there for fifteen years. You get to know people, you grow your social net, and you know, as sad as it is, there's certain homeless people whose faces become familiarity and you know, you're used to seeing them at the same spot, and I mean, depending on your personality, you know, sometimes those people make it a bigger impact on you than others do. But they stay with you

and they stay on your mind. And I moved out of Savannah right before COVID hit, so there was a lot of people that I would see around that I was just you know that I had continued to think about and just wonder how they were managing. Uh. Now, since COVID hit, Savannah has always had a you know, I don't know if it can be described as issue, but I think if one person is homeless as an issue.

So I'll say Savannah has always had an issue with homelessness since I've lived there, and I just didn't imagine that, UM, COVID or the economic downturn helped that situation at all. So the Department of Housing and Urban Development is responsible for the annual almost assessed the reports and to OUs and fourteen UM they counted about a hundred They counted

about one point five million homeless people. Two eighteen, they reported approximately point one seven percent of the population, or about five thousand people in the United States, are homeless on a given night. Several major cities, including New York and Los Angeles, have seen that skyrock out over the

last three years to an almost increase. I think if you bounced the fact that we have millions of unoccupied homes all across UM the United States as those wrapping about a little bit last week, UM, I definitely get behind the arguments of the The issue is not um like needing more housing or meeting you know, so these solutions and problems that perhaps capitals when we have all these houses that no one's living in, all these people that have nowhere to live because they can't afford it,

and um something think about every day is I like walk past the home of shelter right aund the corner from our house and think that, like a block up there's a luxury student high rise apartment complex that's probably a like capacity and people they used to be living in until they find enough tenants to like to rent

those units at the market rates. But no um even to like get even to get like landlords, you know, like we have a program in Athens where like we'll pay people's rent for them if they're trying to get like permanent supportive housing, like the Housing Community Development Department will literally pay for people, will give people vouchers for rent, and landlords won't accept them because they are scared of the risks of housing formally unhoused people on their in

their properties. And it's just such a such a closer to think about. Really, homelessness in this country is pretty much been a national issue since like the seventeen hundreds and ships and across that time, it's always been blunders and capitalism and the strains that they put on the economy that always add to the growing rate. And this is I mean, how far you want to take it back?

You know, we can go back to the Great Depression, or you can go all the way to the financial collapse back and oh eight, you know what I'm saying, and everything in between and everything that happened after and everything's going to happen in the future. So that's what

we're getting into. And today's episode, we're gonna dive into the problem homelessness and water causes, talk about santantial solutions, but we're currently being done now and how this issue has been dealt with in the space of hip hop but John and stereotypically gets highlighted for its excess and analyzing two songs uh Mr woodnow by the rest of development as well as what did all the cost by kind of Clamar also be talking with musician and speakers

Zulu Jones of bands Zul the Profit about his experience with being homeless and what that experience is like for people living in We'll be back with all of that after the jump. With all the political discourse over varying ideologies and policies, and you know, political promises made to strengthen America's middle class. We all know that poor people, more often than not are left out of the equation.

Least among those who are thought about is America's homeless populations is perhaps the most voiceless constituency in the country. Journalists and social documentary photographer Jacob ries Um did some documentation of the New York flung to with his book How the Other Half Lives Just, which raised public awareness of subpar living conditions, causing some changes in the building

codes around that time. There's layers to homelessness. There's the homelessness that you see in the street on the daily, but then there's a hidden homelessness of housing procarity, families staying with relatives, and the way that strains the social fabric of our communities or digs at our mental health and diminishes productivity, sleeping on couches, renting extended stay hotel rooms, as well as family months behind and rent whom these

possibilities loom right around the corner. For I mean, the problem with our housing market is that it's driven it's driven by the needs of the wealthy, or not the needs of the wealthy. The desires are the wealthy and not the needs of our communities. And so um, even in athletes, we're seeing we're seeing a lot of like what I would call like compression in the housing markets, such that there's not even housing for middle class people

being built. Like, if you make between um, let's say fifty and a hundred thousand dollars a year, maybe you've got some kids, um, Like, there's not even housing being built for you. The housing the housing that's being built is for is marketed towards students who are you know, from like the wealthy Atlanta suburbs whose parents are paying rents for them. They've got affinity pools on the roof and gyms and like all this fancy study spaces and

pool rooms, etcetera. UM, or you know, for university professors and the like the managerial class of folks that can afford you know, four hundred five hundred thousand dollar UM mortgage for a house. UM. And so what we're seeing is um, middle class people are moving into formerly working class neighborhoods because that's the only place they can find

housing within their income levels. It's causing um, single family homes in neighborhoods like where Me and macliff Um that typically were very blue collar neighborhoods, um, those are now being marketed towards people, you know, professional managerial class of you know these like wealthier, wider uh yeppier kind of people.

As a result, so like people are getting forced out, not necessarily because it's like hip and cool to live in these neighborhoods, because middle class people don't even have a choice either, And so it has a cascading effect where then working class people who have lived in these communities, like generationally oftentimes families grew up here and their grandparents and for many many generations have lived in places like

East athens Um are being are being displaced. They call the like the the Oglethorpe Clark County line, like the trail of Tiers, as black people are getting pushed out into these more more rural areas where they don't have access to public transportation, the school systems are worse. Um they have to feel they have to fear from white

supremacst violence and violence from the police. When plice get fired from place like Athens for I don't know, running someone over with a cop car um, they get fired and they get hired in the next county over the next day, and that's where low income and black folks are being forced to go live. We're also seeing um UH recently in in Athens Um a lot of issues with the mobile home communities. A lot of these trailers are old people living in thirty four year old trailers.

And when these landlords you know, up the rent or or tell them this. In one case when the for Tom really the Latino community UM Tranquility neighborhood, they're just closing down the park. And these trailers are so old that people like that moving companies won't even move them. So people don't even have the choice to take their home with them. Their only option is to watch it be destroyed because someone doesn't want to run a mobile park anymore. And so the issues are overlapping, issues are

um compounding their cascading. By the late nineteenth century, as urbanization expanded, many American towns and cities had significant numbers of homeless people. Now the issue is complicated, of course, like everything in life. But when you really break it down, there's five major reasons why people go homeless in America. One lack of affordable housing, two unemployment, Three poverty for

mental illness and the lack of needed services. And then five substance abuse and lack of needed services as well. All right, now, let's dive into that just a little bit. So One lack of affordable housing, high rent burdens, overcrowding, and substandard housing of not only forced many people to become homeless, but it's put a large and growing number of people at risk of becoming homeless. Number two unemployment. If you lose your job, you can't pay your bills.

Unemployment underemployment are huge factors in this. It's said that in a place like Athens, the issue is not the cost of housing. The issue is is the low wage floor um that people are working. You know, I think we have thirty eight percent poverty, right, but like a three percent unappointment right between thirty five percent people in Athens fully employed, working forty hours a week, it's still

not able to make ends meet. So then you see uh, folks staying in relationships that are toxic and abusive because they can't afford to live on their own. UM. You see, like you know, folks like you know, the quality we're in our late twenties, early thirties, mid thirties, like living in roommates situations rather than the you know, the UM classic ideal of like home ownership. UM. Because folks just can't up for to live on their own because of

the wage thing. And so a question that often comes to our mind, my mind, as you know, working in local government, it's like what do you tackle first? You tackle the housing or do you tackle the wage piece? And for me, I think tackling the housing piece makes more sense. I mean, I think there's a lot we can do to uh ally ourselves with organized labor, both in supporting the demands of workers organizing in their workplaces um uplifting those demands in the forms of resolutions we pass.

Also thinking creatively about how we can pass local policy to improve working conditions such that at least people have that alleviated even if we can't raise them in the wage because of state law of reactions. It really to me, I mean, we we have a budget of about hundred fifty million dollars a year, only two percent of which

we spend on housing and development for a year. I think it brings down that my math kind of shot like main formulas a year, Like that's bullshit, UM, thinking about how we could instead invest more aggressively in social housing the variety of housing types UM that are owned by the Athens Housing Authority or you know, other nonprofities like a land trust or Habitat for Humanity, such that we can you know, alleviate this burden on the housing market in the way that it's tearing at the social

fabric in our neighborhoods. UM. It feels like something that we have the most control over and like a very um like a like a good place to start. UM. We might not, you know, I think that UM, like the wage situation is something that is more people powered, like it takes people to organize in order for us

to get behind their organized demands. But like we have perfect control over the housing stock and building more housing, like there's nothing stopping us from doing that, you know, but wait around for someone to tell us to do that. UM that we've got studies on studies that show us it's necessary, and so I think that's somewhere like it. As much as I like with the issue of poverty. I think organized labor is a really important thing to support in order to um help us ease the burden

of housing. Can commodity and so many basic public goods, you know, just basic human needs being commodified. Um we could also decommodify them those needs as a government, but taking aggressive action to this invest more heavily in it. Number three poverty. This one's kind of self explanatory. If you don't make a living wage, how the fund you're

supposed to live. Number four mental illness. Now, with the limited supply of publicly supported psychiatric beds, getting access to treatment for severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

is becoming ever and ever more restricted. So as a result, this leaves an increasing number of people who require intensive services like this to remain unstable and experience all the negative consequences because they have to remain with that illness for such a long time, and one of those consequences can end up being homelessness. And Number five substance abuse. Thirty eight percent of homeless people were dependent on alcohol,

percent abuse drugs. Alcohol abuse is more common in older generations, while drug abuse is more common in the homeless youth until this issue of UM substance abuse among folks, I think you, I mean, I think at various points in housing precarity, if you're living with four roommates, or if you're living in an extended state hotel, or for living on the street umty eight percent of people surveyed UM who were living out UM in various stays just homelessness

dependent on alcohol in twenty six abuse other drugs and thinking about it, want to outside fuck it. I would be drunk every day Like that makes that makes total sense. And it's you know, studies have shown that it is a lot easier to get off drugs, for you to get employment that is gainful and stable, UM, for you to access to supports you need, and you know, pull

yourself up by the bootstraps, etcetera. You know, quote unquote, UM, if you have a roof over your head, if you have that basic stability off somewhere to come home to every night, place where you can take a shower, get a good night's sleep, have some privacy, have some peace

and quiet. And so this idea of like a housing first model of dealing with homelessness, I just giving people permanent supportive housing UM and you know, coupling that with wrap around services to help people get jobs, get education, get transportation, get counseling services, get addiction treatment UM is a lot more effective than constantly funding these overcrowded shelters shuttling people between jails and mental facilities when they get

into scuffles on the street. I'll think it's one that reminds me one of the things we don't really talk about with homelessness. I think in the recent conversations around UM, I hesitated safe police reform, but like police uh uh, I guess like the decentralization of police who our public safety of response can talk a lot about how often people who are homeless and counter the police when they're panhandling, when the publicly intoxicative and it might be having a

mental health crisis. But also the amount of crime perpetrated against homeless people UM I think is severely underreported. I hear reports of it all the time from folks that work out in the community, you know, go out to these encampments and feed folks and you know, help folks get they need handwarmers, logs to burn on the fire, tense sleeping bags and the amount of sexual assaults and uh just physical assaults, um, the amount of theft that

these people um experience. And then because they are marginalized because they might be camping on private property, because they might be addicted to drugs or you know, have a criminal history, they don't reach out to law enforcement for support when they get raped or something like that because they're living in such a like a liminal space in society.

And so when we think about dealing with issue of homelessness, like, oh, let's diversify our you know, public safety response so you have more compassionate first responders out like helping homeless folks, like connecting with services. Also, let's alleviate the issue of homelessness through a house and first model where we just get people housing so that they aren't the victims of crime either, so they're not getting their ship stolen or

the ship kicked out of them. You know, in my district, you've had shootings, homeless encampments, sexual assaults, like all this crazy stuff that people aren't reporting in the cops. That could be alleviate if these if the spolkesport forced to live in these ramshackle communities together, you know, you know, based on a finiteer based on shap drug addiction, are based on purely the fact that they're like there's only

one encampment left in town that hasn't been cleared. Ay, so okay, we're here with band leader, songwriter, entrepreneur, and social media influencer and you know what, just all around, good guy, my homie, Zulu Jones of the band Zulu Profit. How you doing, Zoo, I'm good man, I'm glad to get in here and get to sit down and talk to you. Man. I'm appreciating seeing all the stuff you've

been getting into, especially with this podcast. Man. What we've been talking about today is we're talking about homelessness in America pretty much the five major reasons that people fall into homelessness UM, substance abuse, mental illness, UH, lack of

affordable housing, poverty, and unemployment. UM. Before that, we were, you know, doing the digital rambling off of statistics and facts of this of that, and it just when when you go about doing things these ways, you have a habit of thinking of it as numbers, and you start to forget that each one of those numbers quote unquote is a human life that somebody who dreamt of being something who feared this, who wanted that, you know, and you lose the use track of the human experience with it.

And that's why I wanted to talk to you, because, um, just as long as I've known you, I've known you through several you know what I mean, through through pretty much through a glow up, you know what I'm saying.

Like I didn't know you earlier in life, but at this phase that I've met you, I've known you when you were homeless for multiple years, you know what I'm saying, and I've watched you work your way out of it, so I've I'm just curious, just to start off, is could you give us some insight as to like what it felt like when you found yourself getting into that position. I had an active addiction for thirty years, and that caused the failure of the relationship with the woman I

moved to Georgia with. At the end of that, I found myself walking down Wheaton Street with my guitar and a couple of bags of belongings down the River Street. Now, I remember being scared because I had never been homeless before in my life, and the prospect of living in a city not knowing anybody not knowing where to go or what to do, and then seeing the condition of a lot of the other homeless people or people assumed to be homeless in the area was pretty intimidating because, um,

you know, you mentioned mental illness and substance abuse. I see those of the two two two largest common greatest common denominators amongst homeless people. So you would say that like if you were making like if you were even ranking in those top five reasons, like if you said

those two would probably be number one in two. Yeah, from my own anecdotal experience that I would say that a coupling of undiagnosed mental illness, UM self medication and if you abuse the substance over a long enough period of time, you'll become addicted to it. So when you've got those two things happening, and maybe somebody's operating an alternate reality or not seeing things accurately the substance abuse on top of that, Um, it's a bad formula. It's unsustainable.

Somebody it's going to have a hard time maintaining just the regular routines of life, like paying bills and generating income. So if you don't mind, and please let me know if, like I'm getting, if it gets into details that you don't perhaps want to share it, but like what what were the was there was there almost was there a warning?

Or did were there? Like were there signs that you had that were leading towards that that if you had paid attention to her, if you had been in a better frame of mind, you would have been able to address to avoid you know, finally being in that situation

where you're walking down to River Street almless. Well, that's the problem with addiction because I wasn't able to accurately assess my life and sometimes it takes the takes drastic amounts of pain, so it wouldn't have It would have probably been impossible for me to quit my addiction had I not become homeless. Becoming homeless and the amount of pain that that entailed was enough motivation for me to seek treatment in a twelve step program and then just

start putting it back together. So I've seen you. I don't even want to say slowly work your way out of it, because like if I guess during the during the time when you were kind of working your way out of it, it seemed like it was like a

slow process. But then you know the next thing, You know, you haven't been in that position for at least five years now, longer than so So described to me, Like, after you got that motivation to get out of that situation, what are some of the things that you did to get out? And even perhaps if you want to go in further like some like can is that something that could be replicated in other people? It most definitely can be replicated in other people, because the turning point was

a change of mind. So I got sober, moved into recovery housing, and got a roommate, and that roommate situation turned out to be bad. It was a bad judge judgment on my part. So I found myself homeless for a second time. But this time I didn't have an addiction, So there was something I experienced that was a type of freedom that I've never experienced before. Because one of the things about homelessness is is that you don't have to get up off the bench if you don't feel

like it, so one of the dangers of it. A friend of mine passed away back in November, right after my mom did, but I talked to him early on in that homeless days and he said, man, make sure you change your socks frequently, because your feet of your transportation. And he said, don't get comfortable, he said, because there's enough food in every trash can to eat, and there's always going to be somebody willing to give you clothing.

So those two basic needs are met. Um. It was at that time, that second, that second round of homelessness, that I decided that I was going to live indoors on my own terms. And I define that as um. I wasn't gonna live indoors unless music paid for it. So my my, my, my caloric intake was dependent on

how much money I earned. So there was a impetus to get up every day and take my guitar down the River Street and go and play until I had enough money to satisfy my calorie needs until the following day. So that it started to implement and discipline, because you can't always predict the rain. So if you make fifty dollars one day and you spend it all anticipate and working the next day, then your money is going to

be gone. But I'm gonna say this, like I had, I had some advantages that may not be available to the too everybody. I had parents that really really stressed reading and comprehensive education, so um, a human being that can read can always teach themselves. I had a lot of people um reach out. So it wasn't it wasn't something that I just came up out of by my

own hand. There was a lot. There were a lot of people that saw effort and then lent some aid, and you know, they might have been back porch to sleep on on a rainy night. But it's through those small steps, that and determination that I was able to say, I'm going to get out of homelessness. Now, I did it the hard way. I could have easily gotten a job and traded my time for money, but that didn't

seem appealing to me. After having experienced the freedom of homelessness, like going to work for somebody that I respect less than myself, who I don't feel is my equal intellectually, spiritually, or psychically, to go have to take orders from somebody in that position, it became abhorrent to me. So I decided that I would either make it by my own

hand or starved to death in the process. And giving those two options, my natural instincts and my natural programming from the d n A sought to stay alive, and so I was able to improvise. I mean, I used to live next door to you, man, when that was the first place I lived after that round the homelessness, and when it was because the kids that lived next door to you said the yeo, man, you can get the couch for fifty bucks a month. And so getting sober was the thing that allowed me to clear my

mind up enough to execute my will power. Because willpower, I think in my innion, is um directing your existence and reality in the direction that you wanted to. So one of two things will happen. I'll either reach my goals. I'll die in the process of trying to reach my goals, in which case I didn't fail. I simply ran out of time. Now that that darker period is gone, what are you doing these days? Like you know what I'm saying.

You're like, you're I know people that don't even in town, who don't even know Like, your name is Zulu Jones. Motherfucker's to see you guy, zulule Profit. You know, Zulu Profit. So I mean you're like, yeah, that dude, Now you know what I'm saying. So can you tell our listeners a little bit about what it is that you do not only in Savannah, but just like your your musical endeavors that nationwide at this point, thank you for giving

me a chance to talk about this. The first thing is I've got to shout out rhet Coleman or Sane daily. Those are my bandmates. I don't do any of this by myself. So I found O'shan kicking around um at the wormhole, and oh she found ht kicking around at the Bayou, and together we've sorry, we're getting a little local. These are Savannah spots. We need the Savannah spots we're talking about like all y'all know it, but the Wormhole in the biou venues in Savannah that we we play

it often when we're in town. All right, Yeah, I'm sitting here talking to you, and I'll forget that. This is for everybody. So, um we started on River Street, me and Oshean with two acoustic guitars in front of us, and from that wound up transferred to electric instruments and started building a reputation and eventually, um, we wound up

touring halfway across the US into Texas. We've got the Southeast and maybe not on Lockdown, but they know our names when you say our names in Florida and South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Um, and they're they're learning our names. In the Ukraine, they're learning our names and Tokyo and then learn our names and everything else according to our analytics.

Well before we get into the analytics, and just what type of music y'all mak it, because like we're a hip hop show, so you know already already we're breaking that code. But I'm telling y'all it's dope. But I want I want him to tell you in his own words what it is a zoo prophet does. Alright. First, So for my hip hop credentials, Nelly Mail used to live on the floor of my building where I grew up at in the Bronx straight up real deal. Yeah yeah,

So hip hop happened in my neighborhood. I was on my back breakdancing on cardboard and eight two eighty three. So mad Love to mad love to hip hop and what it stood for in its origins and the roots of it, and to all them bands like Arrested Development and Public Enemy that was trying to put something positive into the people's head, but got destroyed by the damn blood sucking babylah and bullshit record industry. The motherfucker's they're

doing nothing but selling souls. They're sending a little black boys and black girls and the hell in prison with their fuel. Yeah, I'm sorry earlier conversation, and so my band right now, UM we play psychedelic, funk, reggae, rock music, and um we've all got different backgrounds Our Drummer, he's a hard hitter that's got uh punk rock and nineties

grunge vibe. The other dude from Ireland, Ocean He had a flamenco guitar background but fell in love with the blues and also does electronic music production under the name Ocean Man and Obama Boe and Colonial Effects. And I played in the reggae band out of North Carolina for about ten years called Hemanti reggae band out of the Piedmont Triad area, and through that UM got open off for just about all the major reggae xts coming through

the Southeast. Bernard Spire, Eco Mouse, Yellow Man, Jimmy Cliff Um and thankfully you know from the reincarnation of the Zulu prophet in Savannah. We got to open up for the whalers and play on their equipment. Uh In Yeah, my drummers sat on the whalers drums man and in Ocean ran through that base rig. So we got to open up, you know, to share the stage and share equipment with people that we've been listening to all our lives.

So what you guys got coming up next? Next big thing is going to be on March thirteenth at the Wingman Clubhouse with on the party. We've got Chief Steak Jack food truck gonna be there, and I've got James Brown's grandson coming to DJ. Part of the party. That's gonna be at the Wingman Clubhouse here in Savannah, Georgia. That's the Wingman Motorcycle Club sixty nine Ross Road starts at about eight pm. Hey, Zulu man, it was good

talking to yo. Um. Make sure that you guys go to zoo profit dot com so you can check out some of that music. What do good deeds? I'll never record a fake pieces because why would I kids a person at their lowest point in life. And plus I don't need a visual of what I did, right, I got the experience in that ship is the feeling. Then that's something you can't take from me, you know what I say, take from them. That's the real human traits.

So to see anybody marketing they so female, feeding them homeless, or feeding somebody that need help to me corny as fun man, I just gotta tell you that that was the voice and thoughts of rapper Waka Flocka, addressing current social media trend of rappers, you know, helping out homeless people, but for the purposes of posting it on Instagram or Twitter and ship like that. So there's a lot of rappers who have referenced experiences of homelessness in their rhymes.

Weekend Logic, Cordak, Black Rock, Ross, That's Rocky, Jail Actnica all at one point before they hit it big um. You know, they discussed those experience as a being without the home, without a home, Y g and Y and Juicy Ja talked about economic procurity almost leaving them without shelter, un really be and all I needed, respectively from my searches.

In my experience, it's a rare occasion that rappers use the full length of a song to dedicate towards the specific topic of homelessness, but um generally in an art form where poverty in the progression from poverty is such a centralized theme, you do commonly hear people recollect or reflect on their experiences with homelessness. The first track that we have, perhaps I mean in all honesty, it's probably the most famous rap song dealing with the topic of homelessness.

I'm talking about the Arrested Development track Mr Wendell. This song was on their really successful album three Years five and some two days in the Life of It was certified gold. And let's check it out a little bit. Don't play Mr One. That's his name. I don't one ever knew his name because he's a no one. Never thought twice about spend it on an old ball until I had a chance to really get to know one that that I know on to give a body is a charity. I was a real little kid when this

came out. This is almost like the perfect example of when you know there's a there's like a song that you remember from your youth that you always liked, but we were probably too young to really pay attention to what it was about. I didn't really put together the pieces of the song until well into my teens. I think the second that think, like the third and fourth lines of the song, a really powerful two dollars means it means a snack from me, but it means a

big deal to you. And I think it's something that's echoed. We're kind of like in the inverse on the Kennect lam Our song Um, where on that song he is talking about how, oh man, this man is asking for too much money. That about what's gonna use it for? Whereas like for someone who might not eat her days or has been awake for days because of the sounds of traffic on the overpass under which they sleep, that two dollars is going to enable them to go by the little like like uh um, like pack of chips

or whatever from the gas stasution. This this like transformative in that moment um instead of like putting I appreciate the way, um, the plight of living living on the streets and sort of humanized is it in a way You don't really seeing a lot of hip hop songs, he said, you see a lot of people like code back, etcetera. Like I was homeless, but now it came up and everything's good. Rather than sort of the sitting with the discomfort of like, you know, this man with no clothes,

no money, no plate. In essence, it's kind of a don't judge a book by its cover sort of things like you see these people in the street, and because of our social status is or because of the way that our society is organized, you look down on people like that, or you don't give them second thought. And even when we're doing things like reading statistics and we're throwing numbers and this percentage of this and this makes

up that percentage of that. You know, you you some you sometimes have to check yourself and remind yourself as like yo, like these are people, like each one of these numbers is an actual life, an actual person with a personality and hopes and speed, fears and dreams and aspirations and all that ship, So you have to take all of that into account. I feel like that's what

the song does really well. Um it's one of those things where someone who's listening to it and they start picking up on what it's about, perhaps they're going through their life kind of having that same sort of attitude. I mean, nobody's nobody's perfect, so everybody is guilty of you know, I guess falling into that mind frame at some point in time and then they get into this part.

I think it's really interesting as well about you know, Mr Windell has freedom, a free that you think that you and I think it's dumb, like, um, there are people who want to live outside. I haven't really read a lot about this, I call of the of it. I mean, perhaps it is a side effective capitalism. People kind of give up and you know, no longer seek out employment or housing because they are so beaten down

by the way our system works. But also, I mean there's some people who just a shoe societal norms of like why I gotta you know, work a job and live in a house and pay rent, pay a mortgage and blah blah blah blah blah and kind of given and thinking about how our PAPA policy can create space for those folks. I think it's an interesting discussion to have.

Recently on the Commission, we've been talking about hostile architecture that's like the arm rest the middle of the bench that keep people from laying down, or like the spikes outside of a fucking like boutique shop that keep a

homeless person from reclining. Um and then under their awning to keep out of the rain, Boulder is placed under underpasses that we've seen happened recently in Atlanta to prevent all those people from campaign there, Like how do we like make our public spaces actually public in a way that values human life over property. You know, a lot of times the apostile architecture is installed to protect business owners,

to create a better aesthetic in spaces um Or. You know, there's also the logic of just like oh, well they can do crime, just not here. And so it's constant shuttling along with people that that that that don't play the game that you know, I just want to be chilling on a park bench, you know, drinking and forty in the middle of a day, and that's like what

they want to do. Um And so in addition to like solving homelessness, also thinking about like how do we create more space for people who want to live alternatively um This particular line in particular kind of reminds me of another thing about this song um or his approach. Their approach to this topic that differs from modern hip hop is the explicit messaging of like anti materialism that's behind this song that's something that ill is almost kind

of completely absent from mainstream hip hop. I mean, this is a very popular album in a very popular song, So at the time that this song came out, it was kind of like a you know, it was like a mainstream song more or less, and to have that sort of message of you know, there's more to life than the things that we acquire, the material things that we acquire. Stylistically, I would say the song is very laid back and melodic. It's just a pretty song. You know,

It's just a very pleasant song to listen to. And you could for for tracks like this, you could take the approach of a this is a very solemn and serious topic that we're dealing with, and perhaps you can make your point in a or get the point across in a certain way. Doing that, but making for all tents and purposes a pop song about that subject matter definitely makes it have a wider reach. And I think

that speech everybody in arrest of development. You know, they I would imagine they already do, but they can like sleep really well at night. Knowing that this song probably changed or influenced millions of people's attitude towards homeless people in America and just homeless people in general, and uh, you know, second second guessing how they interact with them or what they do or don't do to help. Okay, now our last song for the day kind how much of all the costs there we walked out to guess?

They should know homeless man with the second team complexion X and what team page stressing about trying He describes He's like sitting in this luxury car. Uh, man, you know these pumping gas man comes up and ask um if he can you know, len some money. I think this is set in like an African country. Um, there's just like a couple of references. Um. He talks about ten rand, which is the South African currency in this case, is ten of those are equivalent to one dollar um.

And the way that he stresses the phrase in the lyrics sounds similar to ten grand, which kind of creates this like double entender or something like that, where like he's implying the homeless man is asking for too much. So again then contrast to the Mr Wendell song like you know a dollars too much versus two dollars could change your life? Um, even in reality Kendrick admits that he's got enough money to pay the guy whatever he wants, even though you know he goes want to talk about um.

Oh man, this guy just wants crack. I told him to beat it, and I want to contribute money, yes for his pipe um, which is like, I mean, like a common common refrain. I think we hear in discussions of homelessness like oh, I don't want to give us people money because they're just gonna spend it on drugs, etcetera. I honestly don't care if somebody spends money on if they're homeless, Like you know, if you guys smoke crack because you live in outside and it's the only way

to make your day better. You know you do you. I'm not gonna like like playing people shop on Amazon. God knows what drugs shop on Amazon. God knows what drugs Jeff Bezos can afford to buy, and like we don't question, oh, he earned he's allowed to do drugs legally, and we're allowed to give us give him our money for that. You know, a homeless person wants two dollars go buy some crack like they ain't really they fault

like I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I would rather them not be in a position and I gotta ask money for drugs. I would love for them to get help with that situation. But you know, in that moment, we just gotta see people from people and see what they're what, you know, and just like not judge what they need to do

in order to like be okay in a moment. And I think it's in the second verse he gets into an interesting the anecdote goes on and he says, like the guy's getting mad at him, um, like like I was supposed to save him, Like I'm the reason he's homeless and ask me for a favor. Um, you know, like this guy is getting upset that like Kendrick won't give him a dollar. And I think this, I mean, this is a common experience I've had when like I've

had homeless people, you know mcnos. A lot of homeless als come to our house asked for money because they know I live here. And I've got people who are got upset at me, Like what do you mean you can go to the A T M right now. And I think understanding the emotional precarity that comes with just like living so ruggedly like, sure, I don't appreciate when somebody like demands and assumed I should do something for them. But if you're like living on the edge like that,

you're about to snap any second. Think about it, thinking about the you know, the the thin ice you skate on emotionally every day, walking for miles and the sun or the cold, with clothes that are dirty and you haven't eaten. Um. And I don't know if people always like think of that background when in interactions with folks living outdoors, um, when those interactions become heated. And then then the third verse, Kidrick gets into like myself, it is just is what got me here? Who the funking

my kid in? Like, there is this like the fact that someone like can can have so much wealth. It's predicated on the fact that some folks like this man who's talking about interacting with have nothing, like you know, the massive mass accumulation of wealth requires exploitation of people. You know, it required in order for you to have

the nice house in the formerly working class era. That means that somebody has gotten move to oth or blame in the trailer or a blim in the family and Senna stay hotel and that kid, because he's grown up with housing insecurity, ends up homeless himself, like um, these things.

I think. I think it's interesting how in this um song he's like touching on the sense of like like responsible, the responsibility we all carry for like a pulling the system that exploits spokes holds folks down such that, you know, such that we can accumulate wealth. But it doesn't like it doesn't like all the way to go. There just kind of like thinks about it a little bit and then I guess it strives off in this car. Yeah,

it's it's such a good song. I'm pretty sure that we talked about this track on another episode but in a different context. But you know, my my two cents about the song is I love the cinematic nature of this song and how everything about it musically serves the narrative that Kendrick is painting. It's brilliant stuff. Well, all right, I think you should spit some bars. I don't want

to hear Joel started beat. For sure, one might do the virus or parish in the florest fire from the stter climate or expired and they handle bullets with nipple. Me over with driving forward, wait and try and force the work on vironment and even count the ways to kick the bucket the system stuck in eight when whenever we try to bucket the best case in there we you know, we end up bloody knuckles. In the worst

case we end in a heart tap. Remember what the structure come were birthfact, it never lived in the world that we worked into a nurse. But keep basing, just worked it and they gotta put me in the dirt that I said that it's a fair trade to building the first step of the staircase for that sit for this week, I'm Lingua franca and I'm dope knife. You're waiting on the reparations see next time. Waiting on Reparations

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