Marx Bars

on my sitting ducks. And they're sick of it enough. So if you ever wanted to honor them, here's my all, mohammedis we've alway cotton up Amazon and Margeting, FedEx and walmartin insto cart and Whole Foods till the fucking boss's bargaining workers were in the company. There isn't any arguments. Are you with them? Are you with she said, There isn't any arguments. The Carroll type of car you win it. I don't funk with maggot has because I'm a real partisan.

Need to break the system down. Maybe we should start again. You need to bring your punk as on the left where you ought to been. They sobbing and crying. Stop with the lion, who told you niggas drake bleached? Now you're coughing and dying. Don't mind me, homie. I'm just often defied on the mound, like I'm Nolan Ryan or I'm Kobe Bryant with the jump shot. I don't give a ship about what these punks got. Hold me on

the microphone, wrap it to my lungs. Pop so stop so hot you see in some spots, and none of that made the Hey, what's going on y'all? My name's Dope night. Hurry up? How you doing this week? Chat? I'm good. I'm good. I cannot complain too much, you know, all things considered on a you know, good personal note. I have found myself in a little bit of a creative streak where I've just been hammering out a lot of music. More details to come on that in the future.

And it's always fun to like get back in that headspace and that mode where it's like you're just writing all the time and recording all the time. Um for me, it comes in waves. So when I find myself in that, I really go for it. But you know, I'm gonna be talking about that ship a lot in the future. Have you been keeping track of this ship going down to Texas? You were just talking about the ship, Like what the fun is going? There is like a straight

up epidemic of rappers getting shot in Texas. It almost feels kind of exploitative to like run down a list of people who got shot. You know, it's not the which rappers got shot? Report show some notable names, a Little Boozy, Benny the Butcher, both of them survived, a newer cat that I haven't personally heard of, Mo three, he passed away in a shooting, and a spat of local rappers. Um, you know, a couple of died, a couple of are just wounded. It's not like a conspiracy

or anything. I don't think nothing is seems to be related to directly directly related to each other. It's just super weird. What that's about, all in the state of Texas,

all within like the last three weeks, two weeks. Yeah, so you know, just something, you know, I hate seeing anybody die or get shot and ship let alone, you know, black men let alone rappers just struck me as something I do I'm missing something is they're part of this story that I don't know, but it's just someone when you keep an eye out, um what's on your radar. So here in Georgia, the runoffs are in full swing.

There's tons of like national organizations descending upon us, trying to bring in their expertise and bring in their money. And so you know, I'm not super stoked about John Alsoff in particular, whom I shall speak Friday night at the forty wat. He even said some dumb sh it like you can't expect your elected officials to vote the

way you want all the time. It's like way to cover your own ass for that fucking horrendous Axios interview in which you came across as only standing against things that are highly popular with the American public and not for any thing regardless of whether or not you support those policies personally as a viewer. It just looks fucking

stupid anyway. So just trying to give himself further cover from that and like kind of getting heckled by some of the like young, young, young progressive crowd that were there. But the fact of the matter is that, um, we do need to flip the Senate in order for anything like Medicare for all or a federal jobs guaranteed to be remotely possible um in order for people who to get a second round of stimulus checks like which is ridiculous that we've all only gotten twelve this entire fucking time.

And the fact of the matter is that, uh, if people are going to be organizing the state, they need to be connecting with folks on the ground who know these communities, who have ability to get people trained and paid to get out there and do the work of

contacting folks also off in War Knox campaigns. If you donate to that ship, then money is going straight to consultants and tell them to make ads about puppies and oh, I'm not a socialists or whatever where Like the most effective way to spend money is through actually paying people to do the work up going out and talking to

people one on one. I hope they realized that, like, especially in Georgia, like a lot of the a lot of the of what was able to make Georgia flip was coming out of the progressive you know, aspect progressive part of things like this, this isn't this isn't Ohio, you know what I'm saying, Like, we're not in that's that position. It was the progressive movement and activism that really you know, was out there on the ground and like signing people up and knocking on door and registration

when no one was watching and no one gave a fux. Yes, that's what we were doing. And so I've launched this project called the Athens Progressive Campus and Corps where we are raising about k to pay people to go out and knock on doors and due direct vote or outreach over the next six weeks for both our runoff for district attorney and for the Senate and Public Service commissioner.

UM can't pay speaking a public service commissioner. We're gonna have Democratic candidate Daniel Blackman on the show next week to who himself has a background in hip hop um, if elected, will be the only statewide elected Democrat in the state of Georgia, and as well, I believe the first black man to hold this position in a hundred and fifty years, So we got history on the line. Yeah, he's a dope dude. Bernie's two thousands sixteen field director

for the State of Georgia. So he said, you know his comrade, but yeah, so we're having him on next week. But so yeah, I've been getting to work with these runoffs men not you know, like, if people are gonna be get all this fucking hullabaloo about it, then we might as well be like directing it to efforts that are like localized, that are intorrible and offering material, tangible benefit to people who live in these communities that we're trying to turn out because so many people are out

to work with the pandemic. People need fucking money, so pay them to go talk to people, rather than paying for ads on the air where I don't know, you talk about you love puppies, I love puppies. I get it. I think the the people who make money off of political ads, they've done well enough. They're they're good. They just had like a billion dollars spent on them. They're they're good, They're good. I mean, I will be canvassing along with you, and you know it's there's there's moments

where just sending some money is cool. But boots on the ground can make a difference if you can do it, and I should clear find the boots in the ground. Evan shoes on the ground. I didn't mean to make a war like analogy, I just wear boots all the fucking time. Anyway, With the Georgia election coming up, and now that Donald Trump has been at least temporarily defeated, like I said, we're keeping monitor of their authoritarian streak

that's going on with the GOP right now. But now that Donald Trump is a little bit to the side, and there's more of a spotlight on the differences between the varying spectrums of the left and ship, there's been a lot of news made of late, like we talked about last episode with UM the sort of fissure within the Democratic Party re emerging itself between the progressive wing

and the establishment moderate centrist wing. I think we're seeing this playout in microcosm in Georgia where we do have some elections on the line, And so this debate nationally about like what wins is now trickling down into the discourse around what should as often more not do in order to win these runoffs. Should they lean left to excite you know, the base getting these you know, policies like Medicare for all are so broadly popular in the

American public, or do they play it safe? And like just seeing a lot of debate online about what they should do. Now, there's definitely tons of complexity to the issue, but if you're a regular person and you're not following this ship like from day to day, every detail, then it kind of kind of gives you kind of get the impression that what the fight is is that part of the Democrats want to be socialists and the other

part or not, and that's what the issue is. So we wanted to talk about the word socialism and the concept of socialism. Yes, socialism. Um, Like I said, we'll keep track of the seventy million Americans who don't believe in reality and the results of the election. They think that the biker mice from Mars harvested ballads for black people, and that was before Q could stop the Star Trek Enterprise from high respects. I don't know if then these people believe it, but we'll keep an eye on it,

all right. Today, today we're talking about socialism, its role in American politics, black people's participation in different socialist movements, and then we'll discuss how hip hop fits in the capitalists socialist, communist paradigm of ideologies. And to do that, we're gonna be talking with Communist Rapper and producers Space Babies later on in the podcast, and that that was a really cool discussion that we had. So wherever you are right now, hang on to you butts. We're about

to get in some dope ship. The underperformance of the Democrats in the House races across the country. Um, there's been a lot of finger pointing at more progressive being in the party, and by progressive wing, you know that obviously means a bunch of people, but like the public face of that in this moment of time, I mean, it's undeniably AOC elean Omar, Eanna Pressley, Rashida to leave the squad is kind of the face of progressive America. Cats like Jeff Tamal Bowman Corey Bush that were just

recently new editions. Yet so per the Atlantic progressives and moderates have already ditched there united against Trump banner to publicly litigate the spat Democratic losses during the election, with Representative Alexandria Casio Cortez of New York and Counter Lamb

of Pennsylvania offering competing diagnoses of the party's problems. And so the argument is that people like AOC can't really speak to what works in swing districts because she lives in a very deeply blue congressional she holds a very

deeply blue congressional seat, but that ignored data. To the contrary, when we take a look at folks like Katie porter Um and others that represent swing districts, for ran on issues like Medicare for all and one reelection, whereas moderates like Debbie Marcrstal Powell Um and Donna Lala like, uh that you know, took a more moderate attack and lost and lost their elections. Folks like I mean sure, I mean Corey Bushes with Corey Bush's district was represented for

a long time by Democratic congressman but still Missouri. She ran on defunding the police among other things, and Black Lives Matter Act, yeah, straight up, back tear gas and perresentership and um, you know, one election and so like, I feel like there's a lot of finger pointing because no one wants to admit the weaknesses on their respective sides. But there is at least some anecdotal evidence to suggest that running on populist messaging actually works, actually works, even

in in leaning Republican districts. This whole thing kind of kicked off with a contentious call amongst the House Democratic Caucus, and the moderate members were complaining that the progressive members who championed ideas like you're funding the police and Medicare for all, it cost the party congressional seats and a quote the God a fair amount of ink came from

Representative Abigail Spanburger, Democrat from Virginia. She said, we need to not ever use the words socialists or socialism ever again. We lost good members because of that. Now it should be of note the irony involved with this particular congresswoman who was a former agent in the CIA, an organization

known for toppling socialist governments ring dictators. So yeah, that that as what is it about the words socialism and our understanding of it that scares half the country and then a large chunk of it just has trouble understanding.

I would say that having studied somewhat US interventions and socialist governments around the world, um and governments around the world in general, and what their modus operandi seems to be is an interest in expanding global markets to extend the reach of corporate power in a way that enriches the folks that donate to the campaigns of the people

that are in Congress and in the Senate. UM. You think about the way that UH after the fall of Fuck, after the invasion of Iraq, the way that the borders were opened and and goods started flowing in from Iran

and other countries. UM and they promised they were going to build Walmarts and Donald's is um sure, it was about toppling a dictatorship, but it was also about making making Haliburton tons of money and making money for tons of multinational corporations that wanted to get access to that market.

If you look at the way that um uh we backed the see we be backed the military coup against Salvadoriende in Chile in the nineteen seventies, UM like, it's out of fear that our our global reach, our global ability to control the flows of of of capital, of goods in and out of other countries, and that ultimately that capital will align the pockets of folks here in

the United States. We're we're so are so scared, we're so scared of socialism because of how it affects our bottom lines as Americans and not us says it me and you obviously, but like thinking about just like the folks that represent us, these are the fears that they have. We we also have to give credit to the propaganda

machine of it too. I mean, I'm I'm that unique age where it's like I was a child both during the Cold War and postcode or you know what I'm saying, So I remember what it was like growing up on both sides of that, and it's like, you know, there was a time when the communist was the bad guy in everything, you know what I'm saying, And it's just for for for years, socialists and communists have always been used as like a pejorative by the American right against

leftists or radical anti establishment you know, people from the left.

And you know, I would say in my lifetime, when I really when I started like noticing the how the use of that was like becoming what it is today, the use of that word socialism and how it's used politically, probably like in two thousand and eight, when Barack Obama was running, you know what I'm saying, Like in particular, after uh John McCain had selected Sarah Palin and she had had her first speech and the party started like morphing into what we know the Republican Party now, that

is when it was just this nonsensical use of like anybody who is left of Mussolini is a socialist, you know what I'm saying, And it's like Barack Obama is a socialist, and it kind of it gained more notoriety as a thing. They were doing it all throughout Barack

Obama's presidency. Then Bernie Sanders ascension during the primary in two thousand and sixteen made socialism become more of a hot topic again, and it was like him and Hillary Clinton duked it out and next thing, you know, during the by the time the general election came around, the Republicans were saying Hillary Clinton was the biggest socialist queen and then she invented socialism, you know what I'm saying.

And the same thing now we see the same exact thing where they were just sitting down and waiting for whoever came out of the democ At again that they could and they would paint it with that brush of socialists and socialism. So we know that that accounts for that half of the country. They're all living in this right wing echo chamber where they're getting fed that propaganda still like it's nineteen sixty or some ship like that.

Socially scial litt communist communists are coming for you. They're gonna take your kids, they're gonna you know, all that if your black lives matters communists, the antifas communists. So now that we're in this state where people are scared of it, and you know, like the Democrats are trying to push this message of like be scared of that word.

We need to stay away from that word. We need to stay away from board and by extension, it's we need to stay away from those ideas, and and it's just it's like, that's what makes me scared about it is to me, it's it's kind of like a dog signal of the Democrats drifting further right as opposed to there being any risk that they're going to become like a socialist party. It's just like, you know, an abandonment of leftist principles in general. I think that's what the signals.

It's hard enough to get people to look up some ship that they don't know to begin with, but with that, if somebody does hear something like that, let's say someone like my mom, you know, whenever these sort of things come up. I always think of my mom. My mom is like at the mercy of like watching the news and what MSNBC, you know, when she hears stuff like that.

If she were to take it upon herself to go like look up socialism, he should get on Google and do Google search for it and then read with the first result was which will probably be Wikipedia. So what does Wikipedia tell the average Internet searcher what socialism is? Let's check this out. So socialism, in essence, it's political, social, and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economics and social systems, all characterized by social ownership of the means production and

worker self management of enterprises. So pretty much, workers run the world. We create all value through our labor, and so we should not only control the means of production through which capital is produced, but also uh operate democratically within those workplaces to make decisions for ourselves as um workers enclaves, as you know, as places of work. Um. Uh. Social ownership can be public through you know, like the government, collective,

through communities, cooperative, or based on equity. And there's and there's no single definition that capitalates that encapsulates all the many types of socialism. Socialism is UM though. Social ownership is like the one common element that all these things share. UM. So there's like anarcho syndicalism, anarcho communism, state communism, whatever you want to call it. All these things are socialists and that the common element they all share a social

ownership of the means of production. So there's, like I said, this is all from Wikipedia, and I just felt that it's important because the average person who's going to look it up, if they're interested, they're gonna stumble across that. So you are, like you would consider yourself to be

a socialist. I would consider myself a baby socialist, and that I'm still studying theory, and so I can't really speak like authoritatively on like the political economy of like both the when we're currently living under and how like capitalism is failing us and why UM as well as what communism or full socialism look like. But the general idea, I mean, it comes back to the social ownership of

the means production. I do believe that UM workers you know, ship the boxes, they whiffering them up, and they you know, should run the ship because then you produce that we produce ship so then even even though you know you feel that you can't necessarily speak authority authoritative lee about it, do you atomous? But do you feel, as someone who considers themselves to be a socialist, do you feel comfortable

with that opening blurb that you just read. Yeah, I think, I think, And this is on especially like we on the left, what we all have in common for the most part being that we believe in social ownership of the means of production. Like that's sort of my guiding principle, and like how with others on the left, like are you good with that? We can sess out the differences between whether we believe there should be a government or not, whether or not we believe private property should exist at all.

But like you know, I'm gonna fight with you over that if you're down with this general idea that workers run, that workers run the world, and the world should treat them as if they do. I was watching God I wish I tried looking it up, but I couldn't find it. It was one of those things where you're scrolling on Facebook and you see the video but you don't know

who was by. So it was this funny skit um and this was back, you know, closer to when the George Floyd stuff was popping off, right, But it was like a skit. It's like this black dude and he's at a protest and he's like, listen to the talker, and the talker is like, we have to fight for black lives, and everyone's like yeah. He's like yeah, it's like and we have to fight for reparations. Yeah, and

he's like yeah yeah. It's like then they just started going off this like list and we have to make sure that there are no white people that are doing voices for black characters. And he's like, oh really, and everyone's like sharing it is like, and we have to fight for the brxist, letting us revolution. He's like wait what,

he doesn't know. It just brings it just brings to mind that it's um, there is a lot, you know, and I kind of feel it's right wing game as well, but there there does seem to be almost a effort to portray this radical or socialists streak in in American politics is being something that's white, and that is like and I think I think there is some there is some sort of like historical precedent for that in that because it has been uh movement of the oppressed working

class that hasn't been oppressed by on on other planes of identity with regards to like race or gender. Like if you're just like a white blue collar male, like being drawn into labor movements and things like that is kind of your thing. I mean there are a lot of bros. Though, Yeah, but I think, but I think it is someone a historical in that there our black socialists, A lot of our most famed leaders in in movements for civil rights and for UM like things like prison

abolition that are becoming increasingly popular. We're socialists for the picture. I mean, like there's some there's some folks that are like underappreciated in our like collective imagination and collective sense of history. Like eight Philip Randolph who organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping car Porters, so he was involved in labor

organizing UM. He was agitating for UM relief from unfair labor practices UM for people of color under FDR, who eventually issued I think it's Executive Order eight eight eight

eight eight O two UM. But band discrimination and defense industries during World War two, and so you know, working against discrimination within the workplace UM and I think they in later on under Harrius Truman Um and then eight uh his Apele Brande's group also in a segregation in the armed forces, and so he was one of these cats that he was the head of the March on Washington, you know, organizing with Bayard Ruston and mlk um Brandolph inspired uh this idea called the Freedom Budget UM just

initially aimed at tackling problems in the black community, but later kind of got rebranded as a Freedom Budget for All Americans, which listed as its goals as the abolition of poverty, guaranteed full employment, fair prices for farmers, probabilities for workers, housing and healthcare for all, the establishing a progressive tax um, and fiscal policies that respected the needs of working families. And so this nigga was out here

nineteen sixties just like full on. Yeah, like this is the ship that you know, guaranteed full employment and guarantee

full employment. To come to a figure that actually is more well known, but it's frequently um, I don't want to say whitewashed, but like pacified in terms of how they're talking about Martos are continue with a democratic socialist like policies like full employment, like a universal basic income and a federal job guarantee, kind of the kind of ship, and like his organizing around uniting the black and white working classes for a movement of poor people of just

like if you're white, if you're black, if you gay, are you straight, if you Mexican, if you're a woman, and you ain't getting paid with your fair share of your party, then let's do this ship. And that's when

they murdered his ass. L Sharpson's as don't want to talk about, don't forget, like you know, when when they wanted to vilify Martin Luther King, they threw the word communist, communist comedy comedy like as a matter of fact, like everybody in the Civil rights movement when they were calling

them communists back then. Yeah, and then of course, you know Angela Davis, his mother was a national officer and lead organizer in the Southern Negro Youth Congress, which was which was influenced by the Communist Party, and so Davis grew up surrounded by Communist organizers and thinkings, which you know, significantly impacted her own intellectual development. And then you know, you know, Angelo, Dr Davis went on first Dame Base with her just uh girl, girl, I have that bitch

half that time. Um, so you know she was a famed member of the Communist Party, was twice the Communist

Party's candidate for vice president in the nineteen eighties. So when people are calling black lives matter of Marxist organization given some of its redistributed policies, um, even things like reparations like given that like I mean, I don't want to go so far as to call like black people the original work class in America, but the idea of reparations of a redistributive policy to make amends for the labor that was stolen from the folks that helped build

this country. Like this kind of social in the sense of like giving back to the people that build but wealth and build value what is owed to them. And so ideas like from redistributive policies, both in the sense of, um, the lack of generational wealth the black community, or if you want to look at like ideas like defunding the police and police abolition coming from folks like Antila Davis who were themselves are themselves communists. Like it's honestly not

really a stretch. It's honestly not really stretch. But um, I think there's a lot of work to do with teaching everyone, black people included, what socialism means and that and that we can address. We can address the ills of racial capitalism that are exploiting black workers, that are making it so that more of us are getting COVID right now because more of us work in service, in

hospitality and retail industry is eating into the capitalist machine. Yeah, we're not getting fucking hazard pay and we're not getting healthcare because well this being waiting on reparations. You know, we have to find a hip hop angle and a hip hop in and I feel that, um it is kind of a question, you know, it is a good question to wonder what is hip hop's relationship or role within the paradigm of these differing economic ideologies of capitalism, socialism,

and communism. And to do that, I had a little conversation earlier with the homie Space Baby. Now. Space Baby is a communist rapper and beat maker, and he runs a YouTube channel called space Babies where they discuss art, history, politics, and all of it from a Marxist perspective. Right now, he's releasing a video series called Marks in the house, which is explaining gentrification all from an anti capitalist perspective.

And when I discovered him was from a previous video series he had called Marks on the Mic, which is all about what we're talking about right now, which is hip hop's role in relationship with capitalism and socialism and communism and whatnot. So stay tuned, we're going to get into that after joke. Maybe this is the part of Rapps the deepest entrench in capitalist ideology and the ultimate Raps the richest rap song, and this is debatable, is bigg East Juicy. I mostly want to take a look

at the hook because honestly, it's sung by capitalists. Check it out. You're a black man and you know what your place society is much even though you recognize that the system is not built for you, forget that ship, ignoring it, trying to get rich good, stay complicit in this capitalist system and now reward you richly. Yo. That was a clip from the series Marks on the Mic

by our next guest. God. Moments like this really make me wish that I was doing this in front of us live audience, because then I could be like, Yo, everybody makes some noise for communists rapper, beat maker, space Baby, How you doing? Man? Was good? Was good? I'm really excited to be on and talk about literally my two favorite things in the world, communism and pop. So that you're you're in the right place for that. So um, first off, you know, I gotta ask you so name how?

How What's up with the name space baby? Right? So? At first, so it started out as kind of a thing of you know, like, oh, I'm different than the rest. I must not be from Earth, you know, from space. I'm a space baby. We're all space babies and things like that, you know. Like when I kind of grew out of that mindset of like, no, I don't want to be apart from the people. I want to be one with the people. At that point, the name stuck and I like the sound of it. Yeah, at this point,

that's just what space Baby is. So how long have you been making hip hop? I've been making hip hop for fourteen years now at this point, I've been I've been I've been wrapping for about fourteen fifteen years, and I've been making beats for about twelve years. Because you want to start out, I was shitty. Nobody wanted to give me beats and I was just like, man, I'll make myself so funck y'all. So at that point myself, Oh,

I know what that's like. That's why I produced because I didn't have anybody to make beats for me too. So what type of stuff were you into? What are your influences? So when I I have a very like, I've always been a fan of history, so every time that I would like discover something new, I would always go back. So I was that annoying kid in middle school listening to nothing but eighties rap and like quoting

mcs nobody knew. So it was really I would say that Public Enemy Takes a Nation of Millions, Like that record convinced me that I wanted to spit um. And then after that, you know, I just started to get into all the classics, like a tribe called quest dayla Um, freestyle fellowship, like really anything I didn't really know much about because I grew up in the Netherlands, I didn't really know too much about the States, so it was

all one big thing for me. I didn't really you know, West West Coast has this, East Coast has this like oh, it's just taking rap music, you know what I mean? So um so yes, So I got into everything and I think at this point, um, I feel like my latest biggest influence was probably Kendrick and Uh and the California and other California based MC called Bamboo would say

those two are my biggest aspirations right now. The way that I was introduced to you was through your YouTube channel, UM, and that in particular just caught my attention, just marks on the mic. It just seemed like, you know, it seemed like right up my alley in terms of the vein of hip hop that I'm into and stuff like that. So checking it out it was really insightful. Now I obviously introduced you as communist rapper. You write a YouTube

channel that's all about the Marxist perspective. It seems like that's a big part of your identity or your WRAP identity. So what brought that on? Was that always something from the beginning when you first started making music or is that something that you kind of developed into your rap

persona as it were. I was, Yeah, I would always like Wrap when I was going through and you know, because I start to to to to spit at a young age, I would rhyme a lot about you know, teen angst stuff like that, Like I would just pretty much spit about two things like one being depressed than to being the best MC alive, you know, a lot

of the same time. And so, you know, every time I would get into new things, like when I was really starting to get into film, I would you know, incorporate a lot of like movie quotes and movie references. And for literature, when I was really getting to like magical realism, science fiction, I would find a way to incorporate that because a lot of the aspect of what I like the most about rap is kind of the

stream of consciousness. So it would really be whatever I would be into and absorbing that would that would show up in my music. So after college, when I got into Marxism, that very naturally found a way into it, although much more intensely than any other topic that incorporated

my music before. Now, with the nature of like just just political ideology is just in general, it's it's it just naturally lends itself to something that you try to persuade embody towards, you know what I'm saying, like, depending

on whatever your ideology is. So as an artist, does it ever, do you ever find yourself like walking a fine line between that's naturally what's coming out, but you also don't want to be too preachy about about your ship on the audience or is it like funk that that's what I'm going for, is you know you're you're coming here to have to be converted. It's okay, I mean that. I mean all, like all art is branded with a class character. So like you know, I'm I'm

pushing something when I'm not talking. If I'm not talking about communism, I'm pushing capitalism. Like it's not always that easy, but sometimes it is, you know. And for me, that fine line which you're you know, what you're referring to is very real and most m c s don't know

how to walk it. And I don't know, like I'll leaf that up to other people, but when I do, know, if I'm very conscious about it, because much more than anything else, it's so hard to do political wrap right, It's so hard, like nine times out of tend you sound preachy says or if you try to like throw in concepts, you know, and and and even then like even with with the with the well known group like the coup Um, I have some comrades who think they're

super corny. You know when when in that one song digg it like when I spin in dialectical analysis, everybody like mad, that's corny throwing the work in there. So it's always it's always a fine line. But uh, at the same time, it's both something that comes out of me naturally and also something that I you know, I see the ship that I put out is part of the class struggle by default, and I have to be

conscious of that. Specifically. Talking about socialism today in your communist so, could you explain what is the difference between communism and socialism? Sure? So so realism. So when it comes to capitalism, Um, that's based on wage labor. Right, you have a bunch of people who sell their their power to work. Right when you go to a capitalism saying like, hey, I can't work for you, please hire me,

give me an hour league wage. Right, So we're selling our labor power essentially, and we do not own the products that we make. Right. So that's the capitalists, um part of it. Now, under communism, there's no such thing as selling your labor power. Right. You don't go to another person and say like, hey, please rent me out. I'm you know, I need fucking food, so please like hire me. Um. It's about you own what you produce, right, So you're in soul control of your of your of

your ability to to work essentially. And it's also there's a communal aspect to it, right, like we're all working together to um produce what is necessary for the community. So okay, so you have capitalism and communism. But then where the socialism come in. So socialism is that transitional period. It's kind of this realization like, hey, these two things that I just described, they're very very far apart, right,

especially scale. Let's gonna take a long time to get from point A to point b. So socialism is that transitional period where the working class uses the tool of the state. Right, so has control over the state, So there's still a state to slowly transition out of right, so you're slowly, um, you're slowly phasing out wage labor essentially, um.

And so that's one side of it. Now you have people who call themselves socialists but who really mean democratic socialist, and I think that's where the tricky part comes in. They say, hey, I'm Burnie Standard says I'm a socialist, but he's not. He's a democratic socialist. He doesn't want to abolish capitalism. He wants a better capitalism, right, want to quote unquote their capitalism. Yeah, that's why I say that I'm a communist to really let people know I'm

not a democratic socialist like Labor. I wanted all to work for the common good for each other. I don't want anybody owning my ship. I want all of us to own ship collectively, except my toothbrush. I can keep

my tooth. So with this, uh, with this thing of ours, this hip hop thing that we got, like, how does this fit you know, hip hop as a culture, you know, not not the commodified understanding of hip hop, but hip hop as a culture, and with the history that it has, how does it fit into this this paradigm of different economic ideology? Right? Right, there's two parts of that. Again, you know, there's a there's a there's a duality to

to a lot of things. I would say that the first thing, there are communist aspects of hip hop, right, Like the cipher is one of those things, right circle, It's very I mean, it's not necessarily non hierarchical, because we've all been in a cipher we have like old heads and mcs and they will not right, you know, um, But but essentially it's right. It's based on skill, it's based on merit rights, based on common values essentially, um.

And within every economic system, so within capitalism, you're always going to have some counter force. It's never ideologically, it's never purely capitalist. There's always gonna be some counter force. And so I would say that there's nothing essentially about hip hop that is either or I would even say that from the get go it was used for both. Um. That is the short answer to it, that there is not. And I think that's kind of also my beef with

concepts like conscious wrap and ship like that. All right, conscious about what you know what I mean, very very idealistic. So I would say that it can be used for both. Um, it's it's from the get go it was growth both pro capitalists and anti capitalists. Essentially prop both pro capitalists and anti But which do you if do you have like an opinion as to which one it leans more towards? I would say, so I could give you my full opinion, but that's gonna be a rap. Hey, this is waiting

our reparations, dude. We support the rant rant away. So yeah, because essentially, so, like I said, like the way capitalism treats hip hop is really insidious, right. So, like from the get go there was a commodification of rap music and hip hop culture, right. So from the start hip hop and rap they were turned by capitalists into commodities, you know, which means that it was starting to be produced for exchange value rather than use value. Um about

youth value. I mean, you know when hip hop started, it was it was it was a working class expression. Uh. And it was focused on and you know, expressing oneself, bringing people together. That was the use value of it, right, And so the music industry quickly commodified it and start to produce it for exchange value, which means how much money you know they can squeeze out of this thing. Uh. But even that, just squeezing money out of hip hop,

it doesn't tell the whole story. Because what's important what kind of music actually sells, um, And what messaging makes the most money, and what sells is capitalist ideology, right why because big capitalists they own the means of entertainment production and what gets pumped out. They control the narrative. So you know, a lot of rap music from the bat contained pro capitalist themes. And the tricky part about it is that the anti capitalist part of hip hop

can still easily serve capitalism as well. And go ahead, now, I was gonna ask you how so oh because so essentially, um, we can kind of link it to like a protest. Right, so let's take like a song and a protest. So capitalist they have allowed songs with with themes of anti capitalism to come out right like from the Back who had you know, Grandmaster flashing like rats in the front room, roaches in the bat, junkies in the alley with the

baseball bat. You know, it's just like ship like that, like on like right away, like describing ship like that? So why why have capitalists allowed groups like Public Enemy to come out with the track like quite the power? And that's because it's like a song and a protest. They both can have a revolutionary aspect to it, right, Like there's protests who have brought governments? Now I wouldn't say capitalism, but government. Sure, they've brought governments now, same thing.

A very well timed song can be be an anthem for a riot, for a protest, and it can help bring a government down. There's absolutely a hunch percent that revolutionary aspect to it. I mean, that's why otherwise I wouldn't be I mean I would still be making music, but probably like into it. But what we also see is that a protest can have a counter revolutionary function in the sense of we're all hype, We're all hitting

the streets. You know, we're all shouting things. You know, we're throwing up our middle finger against the pigs, like this and that, all this stuff, and it's like a cathartic thing. We're all letting out all this anger, all this hype, and it's very disorganized. We're hitting the streets every fucking day, and then we're going home, right, and then the next thing we go on nine five, like, Okay, I feel much better. I felt like I really did something,

but essentially you didn't do anything. The same thing can happen with with you know, with the track like Fight the Power, where you you know you're wrapping it. You feel like, damn, you know, I'm putting out all this anti capitalist ship and you're wrapping it. You're angry, it's

all anti government thing. You're bumping it with your friends, like yeah, man, they're speaking the truth, and then it's a cathartic expression and and then the next day you could just like Okay, you know, I feel much better, and then this week show again. Right, So it has that dual character and um, but there is a determined factor. And that determinant factor is how is it connected to

the on the ground movement? And um. Same thing with protests, right, Like a series of coordinated protests by a revolutionary party that's like part of a larger revolutionary strategy can absolutely bring down capitalism. Same thing with songs, right, art and artists like used as a part of a revolutionary strategy can help bring down capitalism. But what we see in the US, and after this, I'll, you know, stop with

this long ass read. Hip hop came out of the ruins of the anti capitalist movement of the sixties, right like seventy three, you know, seventy nine first record release and all that stuff. Like it's really in this complete leftist power of vacuum that hip hop rolls out of. And I feel that that's why hip hop has gotten a lot of leeway, you know, compared that to the revolutionary movement in the Philippines right now, where artists are

literally being gunned down in the street. Why because their ship is part of this struggle that has real material games. So that's the determinant factor. So do you think that, um, American hip hop, I mean, I would say hip hop in general, But do you think that American hip hop has kind of been co opted in a way by left by right wing sort of like value systems. I would say that there's you know, what's interesting about rap

is that they have different class lives they represent. They can represent different class characters in the in the same song or the same verse even right like somebody in the verse saying we need to, you know, bring the working class together and then say some real patriarchal ship. You know that should happens all the time. Um, the dominating line, I do feel, yes, absolutely as pro I would say that the majority of American rappist pro capitalists.

But I think that I feel like that's pretty well documented. I just feel like that other part of the anti capitalist portion, how much power it actually holds on their relationship to on the ground movement for like, that's not often talked about. Oh, I definitely agree with you on all that. I guess where I would differ from you is I don't know how innocent I feel hip hop is in it, Like I don't think hip hop is

like a hapless victim. I Like, I'm sure a lot of people my age is heartbroken in the last few months at like, oh wait, my favorite rappers are supporting the nazis What the fun is going on? Like? Why? Why? Why are my favorite rappers saying hug the police? So I'm salty about it. I can admit that I'm definitely

salty about that. I mean, just to speak on that real quick, Like we all seen, like when Lie Wayne came out with Missofficer, we all, yo, this is this is this could be a whole other topic for a whole other episode. You know, I'm sure that there was a lot of rappers, you know, in the mainstream who stayed silent because they were trying to protect their brand.

But I wouldn't be shocked if the you know, a good majority of them brains have been made into mush that they worshiped money so much that they're kind of cool with fascism and ship I would not be surprised with that at all. Like does hip hop even represent that to the average person? Anymore. I know, fucking I know of I know bar back in my town and Savannah that's like a cop hangout, a Southern cop hangout that bumps the most hardcore gangster trap ship all night,

you know what I'm saying. So like do these messages even represent that sort of like countercultural aspect anymore? And that's why just like just that circulation of music on its own is not enough. Like there was this this video that was that was that was going viral with this Trump supported a Trump rally. You know, she had the Trump flag in her hand and she was wrapping

along with Rage against Them the Machine. Yeah, so literally this is probably the most iranic you know, because even Rage against Machine in the early nineties, like they were supporting the Peruvian Communist Party was waging people's who are in Peru in the eighties, like it was, they were much more hardcore and really into this ship than a

lot of other artists. And he literally has you know, like those who are the badge or whatever the funk like in the song and she was like, yeah, pro propable kind of this thing of just like do you like I agree with you? And to some level, also right wingers can literally do whatever the you know, like all this music makes me feel hype, you know what I mean, Like I want to uh for for cop, like oh, I want to rest some people while this ship give me gives me adremaline. I mean it's true,

it's true, don't get me wrong. I mean I'm not this This is not like a I don't even know what it is because it's not like I'm saying anybody should switch up the music that they want to make. You know, do you just's whatever? But I don't know. I kind of feel like I know I have I have a Yeah, I'm a rapper too. I got I got a sense of like what's cool and what's not. And I don't mean cool as in like oh that's hip, and I just mean there's like the ship I don't

funk with, you know what I mean. There's like there's like attitudes in perspective. There's like the ship that I'm like, Yo, if you were wearing a maga hat, I wouldn't funk with what you're saying and what you're doing right now. So I'm not gonna funk with it just because you're spitting overbeats. Well, that's real. And I mean, and there's a lot of with with with rappers. I mean, it's

mostly disappointments, you know, even with Killer Mike. Killer Mike was also making all these songs that other with a lot of like progressive rappers, like he has a track with with Bamboo, but he also owns a whole bunch of businesses um in Atlanta. So when when when the George Floyd like protests came out, it was just like, you know, y'all better not be coming through my neighborhood and things like that. I'm like, dude, you literally rapper, this so fucked up, like, come on, not you Mike.

And I like who was one of the It was him. And when I found out that Hannibal Burr's was a landlord, those two were just like I'm like, yaw, come on. And and so a part of it, I think is that thing of like you're absolutely right, like I agree with you. There is no innocence like when it should. A lot of rappers know what the funk they're doing.

They're making a very conscious decision, um. And I think some of it, you know, it stems from you know, like the class character of you know, class mobility, you know,

a lot of a lot of rappers. They started out coming from know what we call lumping backgrounds, which is just like outside of regular production, you know, like drug dealing and things like that, and that they move up to, you know, in the case of Killer Mike, like a petty bourgeois class standpoint was like I own multiple small businesses or to like fucking jay Z when you're you know, owned sports teams and you're like bourgeois to the core.

So they that if you if you take like I'm sure that like nineties six jay Z, but you know when he was ninety when he was on the record with Big Al Ship like that, Yeah, he had a different world outlook, you know what I mean, like buying an official Vangal painting, you know, because you're in a

different class position. We we did an episode not too long ago where we were talking about as a matter of fact, I think it was kind of the same subject like just like Wrapped the just sounded Republicans, We're talking about the story of O J and it was like, Yo, who the is he talking to? It's like wait, it's like like he is he straight up like talking about flipping buildings in Manhattan, Like like you're not, like, are you talking to me? Because I don't know what the

funk that's about? But okay, just the transition. So um, so like what what do what can people find on your YouTube channel because it seems like it it seems like you put a lot of effort into that, I mean for real, So right now at this point, I, like you said, I'm releasing a video series which is

called Marks in the House. So that's a series about gentrification because you know, a lot of times when people talk about gentrification is this ship of of Oh there's some hipsterious moving into my street and there's a new ice cream shop that only sells golden flake ice cream cold and that now my rant is going up, and it's like yeah, but there's there's more behind that, and it's intentional, right that they're keeping this information um from us.

So in that's what I do. If you know nothing about Marxist political economy, so if you're out there listening, that's probably you, because nobody teaches us this ship at all. And I have to struggle for a really long time to grab because nobody was there to teach me. Um, if you know nothing about Marxist political economy or anything about or not much about gentrification. If you start at episode one, I will walk you through literally every fucking thing.

And it's twenty one episodes, and by the end, not only will you understand how gentrification works, but also how capitalism works, and and and and this even the historical switches that capitalism goes through. And they're all most episodes there around ten minutes, so it's, you know, easily digestible

somewhere a little longer. But it's kind of this thing like, okay, it was the same thing with Marx on the mic where boat serious, Like if you don't know anything about Marxism, but your interest in either hip hop or gentrification starts from episode one. By the end you will sound like the smartest party of the person where it. So let our listeners know where they can find you where you at. So it's on the on the YouTube channels called space Babies.

So if you type in space babies, you'll find it. Even though there's this other vlogger who's called space baby who just like blocks and ship like, we won't match it up. But if you if you if you just type in space babies, you'll find it, and you can find my music space baby on Spotify, so you can find some stuff there. I'm coming out with with a new project on there as well. I would say that those are the main two avenues to find me. All right,

that's what's up. Yeah, thank you for coming through. Appreciate it. We uh we always end our ship with some bars. You're gonna you're gonna spit with us. I'm down all right, where let's get it in. Let me get a beat. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're waiting our reparations. Imagine a minute, millions of average women and men in the tragic position of trading and impassion for wages and cat because they shackle by capitalism.

Imagine a minute millions of average citizens planted the spinach and whacked into the kitchens and stacking the linen's contractors and windows and pennants, their labor extracted for pennies. What if they coordinated to address the sort of state of it in an organization? Guess fucking what. That's sort of what d s A does, and not even sort of.

It's more of the crux ticking the power from borders of box big bankers off showing that cuts converting the power of labor to those who created the billionaires, ooh it to us. So if you're jaded, and certainly by waking up early to earn a bag, if you sat about Bernie, if you've got a curious yearning and had it but passively working, we got you back and we're happy to have you. We are the d S. A actively working unity, struggle, unity to custle. Can't promote revolution

from a sidect bubble. How do you reclaim the block when the shady cops look you for a way to spray your pop? How to make a stop when they sit in there? You sit? If you have the long you get popped with no pity. But if you organized a committee pop at first, but put in work, then it grows to fifty. Watch the moved chip that that people prow together, hunt of isolation? How do your vendetta out of here? With the fake fucking politicians think they

clip the people said? Oh deaths with the vengeance. When you organized, you can reach your goals. Take back the land, take back and crow cleanse with the whole then and with the new. If it's sounds amful, then you know that it's true. With bigger than you revolution him and it cutbacks. The food stamps can afford insolent. No debts of care here even though your tooth aches when they charge you thout wow, how will you pay diabetes? Rampant shirt verses old the seat that you work the deathly

can't afford fresh cool series? What do you expect from a capitalist who only gets my profit? Not for how you live? Gotta lift the car and keep the brainworking. Gotta hit the buck, Fred Law, your Fred surgeons, the movement of surgeon sure called the class fraggers. When we roped from the bottom up. That takes a lot of love. That's why you try to silence us and the greedy want to take the capital and bottle up baby, start

a movement. And what we do when your follow us with the Democrats providing homie is not enough, We take you back to class and let you after math all these motherfucker's going crazy with a fascist ass. I take a pass when releasing the button you we gotta believe in this, but believing it's something. The whole system got changed, and we need a discussion to get it popping. First, talking about the means of production. And I don't know

if I'm a socialist. I'm a smoking vocalist, but I like with both my comrades are trying to go with this, and the people that I really hate they want to go against. You know me, I'm an asshole, so I'm gonna go with it. Do you say no doubt? Franka, My name's Dope Knife and we are Waiting on Reparation. See you guys next week. Waiting on Reparations as a production of I Heeart Radio. Listen to Waiting on Reparations on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your part. Guess