What's Law Got to Do With It?

that were wrapping the Dishan is just so exquisite. It's sitting on your dinner plate. Never ever been afraid, never sitting with them, whadcast because they've been a flake, has been a fake, sitting right there when we break them. We're about to just grab that fucking rocking. We shake up, grabbing that rocking and we shake up. We're about to do it like we were coming out of Jamaica. We're gonna get the corn like us. And you see real if you want to get in this ship, you know,

but we Sitiou is doing it imperious. Then we got to stop. Pio Let me were us station. Everybody know. We up in the studio waiting no preparations, linka franca dope knife, and we're about to break up in the a M and lace my boots. Add enough sleep, figure, it's too late to snooze. I came to move self made. I paid my dudes. Love to win, not as much as I hate to lose. Dudes laps. I could be the unadmission to defeat them. When you on top, they want the position that you be in. Don't worry about

the past, because that's in the different season. They say we are the best. If you listen to him speaking, that be the quest. I mean to be the best. The day I see the bench, that's the day I see a rap hey hey, waiting a reparation, talking about how the rap music is political. When you got these cities fold, when you got these prisons full, when it's looking pitiful all over the city's fool. Everybody knows you gotta get in. It's been a rimes, but not alright.

This is dope night. We are waiting on parations, all right. So we have a lot to cover today. So we're just going to get into it. And this week we're gonna be talking about the question what is political hip hop? Doubles Does hip hop have to have overtly political statements in the sense that we would think about it right left Republican Democrat arguing up for a particular political party or political leaning in order for it to be considered

political hip hop. And that is a question, because if that's not the case, then there's lots of hip hop that's out there that has existed that you could put under the banner of having a sort of political leaning or giving you some sort of political insight. And I mean, what I would argue is that, like when you look at the history of where hip hop came from and like what forces or lack of force that kind of

gave its space to exist. You know, we talk about the decline or like the withdrawal of the civil rights movements and the black power movements during the nineteen um seventies.

It kind of created the civic vacuum in inner cities that like had to be filled by something, and there's all this this unrest because you know, unemployment rates going up, affordable housing vanishing programs cut, all sorts of welfare programs cut under Reagan and Nixon, there was this need for people to reclaim their space in a way much like people were taking the streets previously with like protests, um

civil disobedience of other kinds. People were kind of organizing themselves around this new form of civil disobedience is like claiming their blocked back by having these block parties, by having these dance battles, by taking to the streets, and like stealing power from the power grids to you know, power their they're like sound machines that they were building at home, like poor economic and social conditions that you're into being a positive exactly, Yeah, which I would say

is inherently political, whether or not you know, I'm down street the basketball court. It's like specifically like a political statement. What the act of organizing in that way is always political to me. Gee, It's almost as if hip hop's birth was a reaction to funk up right wing policy. Weird Yeah, yeah, from the gym. So, I mean I want to go ahead and say that, like we could

very easily start in Africa. We can start in the Caribbean, and we can talk about the way that the ds Bora and like black folks come around the globe influence hip hop and like in a way that predates what are common understanding is. In terms of the genesis of hip hop. A lot of people think of New York in the nineteen seventies, and I definitely think it's worth getting into and we will absolutely get into that in

the future episode. But to start out where people might, you know, base their common understanding of the birth of hip hop, I wanted to talk a little bit about the nineteen seventies, particularly the way that like hip hop was born into this power vacuum that was left by

the civil rights and black power movements. UM. Previously, people had been gathering in the streets to agitate full civil rights, to agitate for voting rights, agitate for equal education, for adgocate for jobs, all of these things, and um, as those moments began to recede, something needed to feel its play, Something needed to take over that same sort of space, both physically in the streets of these cities and also in the imagination of the young folks that were maybe

too young to take part of those movements but saw mass organization perhaps is like a way for them to take control of their the conditions of their lives, and so rather than marching, you know and picketing in the streets for equal rights and things like that, people started to organize themselves around hip hop, and so hip hop

in the sense became like the new Civics. It was inherently political for folks to take to the street for these block parties in the ways that previous generations has taken to the streets and the struggle for civil rights, um literally like stealing power off of the grid to power their you know, home built sund systems. So they were deejaying on in the middle of the street. Like it was a new kind of community organizing in a

certain sense. And I think acknowledging that, uh, those roots the way that like the tides of the civil rights and black hard move was receded and the new tides of the hip hop hip hop culture kind of hit the shores of New York and eventually, you know, America is like where political hip hop in its political faces like has its genesis. Do you think from a cultural standpoint that some of those skills and organizing we're just

kind of naturally picked up. I mean I think yeah, like the black radical tradition I think was in was alive in this to a certain extent, even if he wasn't telling people could consciously aware of the stuff that they learned from their aunties and their fucking cousins and their uncles and their pastors in terms of like these orc these oratory styles and these ways of dealing of like you know, using verbal um illusion and rhyme and the circumlocutions as a way to like argue for your

place in the world. Those things have been long standing, and like the black rattical tradition, the black like oral tradition, and so yeah, I think they were alive in hip hop in this time too, well, like in in nineteen seventy three in the Bronx, like DJ cool Hirk through what many believe to be the first ever official hip hop party, where they're like utilizing all the things that

you were saying, um. And you know, ever since then, you know, you do, some fast forwarding hip hops will come like a global phenomenon and now dominates the charts. It is the music, yeah, it's pretty much default music, you know. Yeah, And so you know, nineteen seventies, people are trying to find a new way to organize their communities, and like argue for their self worth and then find a place for themselves in the world that is increasingly

against them. Um So the nineteen eighties in area at like the beginning of the Reagan era, so like to the nineteen fifties, into the nineteen seventies, the federal government have been giving out hundreds of millions of dollars to cities to urban Renewal acts to provide alliance downtowns. By the end of the nineteen seventies, federal funding for these programs begin to dry up, leaving many social services and

programs in these cities fucking belly up. They were vital at one point to the redevelopment of inner city neighborhoods, but then they were scrambling to find new funding or substantially cutting back services. So many government programs saw almost their entire budget taken away under the Reagan administration, forcing

many agencies to shut down. So where they were once providing services like job skills training for unemployed city youth, our college loans for struggling working class, film is care assistants for single parent homes, they're funding all just got fucking yanked, all fucking yank and leave and just left folks. Fuck fuck folks, Broyly fucked man didn't that didn't like So that like cut back on like after school program music programs where they get their art and culture from.

Now exactly what I mean, Well, that's the whole spirit of the ship is like, if you ain't gonna give it to us, then we're gonna take it. You're to take it on our own. So it's like if if kids can't if kids can't take piano lessons or take guitar lessons or violin lessons, then they're gonna learn how to make their own music on turntable scratching and sampling and cutting and things like that. So, I mean eighties

fucking poverty. Raid for minorities grew every single year in the nineteen eighties, and many cities faced record levels of crimes. Gangs began to flourish. I mean this, and this also was a way of re organizing our community as the new civics in the sense of like what who are your affiliations and how are you getting by? Who can you rely upon? So gangs taking providence and taking over neighborhoods,

um New York. They were like, there's so many Burrows played with youth gangs, including the South Bronx where Africa Otta was actually the gang leader of the Black Space Gang and the Bronx River Projects, and he decided to use his leadership for something positive after taking a trip to Africa. So by some port, we gotta talked about Africa at some point it's podcast, Yeah for sure, sure, Um, you know I want to talk about Africa with my African ask um just for some context for the people

who don't speak rap Africa. Bambada's DJ and producer and like I guess you could say, community organizer, the head of the Zoo Nation. He's very much considered one of the key early influencers of hip hop, and in recent years there's been allegations level that's a whole another episode

right now, we're just talking history, my bad gone. But Um, instead of having rival gangs battled each other through violence, like actually sucking each other up, uh, he organized parties where rival gangs battled each other through b boying, deejaying and him sing yeah that it was like on some real West Side story type when reject all the way, beat it, Oh my god, beat it. Yeah. The aesthetics that they're trying to capture and that yeah, um yeah, And so that's kind of how hip hop was born,

a truncated version of its history. Trust me, we're going to get into a lot more specific of like years of specific people, of specific subgenres, specific policy issues that were really prevalent at these times in upcoming up set of the podcast. You know, hip hop had always had like a since its inception as far as the rap element of hip hop. You know, we've got to be clear because it feels so weird having to retell this.

But you know, I do imagine that there's probably like a whole like swath of people who may or may not know stuff like this. But okay, so hip hop is comprised generally four different I guess we have to I mean, hey, you never know, some people don't know this.

So like, of those of those four elements of hip hop, and even that number four is debatable, But of those four elements, you've got break dancing, you've got graffiti, you've got deejaying, then you've got the m C. Now, when I was coming up, I learned that, you know, there was there was like a debatable element of is BeBox and the element or his knowledge of self and element exactly. You know, so I would just go ahead and tack both of those on. And they say that there's the

six of them that would just be me personally. But generally, you know, the the m seeing and the rapping is just one aspect of hip hop yea. And in that aspect, since that aspect, you know, came to dominate the art, the culture, and you know, it was the the most visible part of the culture that people saw that could be commodified. Um MC has always been dropping lines of the socially conscious rhymes or socially conscious bars and stuff like that, but it really wasn't two is the message

by um Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. It was the first like really successful socially conscious or you know, socially messaged hip hop song. Don't care, I can't take you can't take the noise, got no money to move on? I guess I got no choice threats in that kind of open everybody's eyes really as to what potential hip hop could have with like having direct messaging up until that, you know, prominently, you know, when you think of hip hop at that time, when people think of hip hop,

when it first started. You know, you might think of like the Sugar Hill Gang, you know, like hip hop hip hip to the hip hip hop and you dump shot the rhythm and in Curtis Blow you know all that, you know, all that party stuff, you know, like one thing and there's and that definitely was the case, and that never stopped obviously, but once the message came out had started like oh you can do that, Yeah, you can do that, you know like broken glass everywhere, like

I think there's even there's like a legendary artist. Carreras One once said he was talking about Melli Mell like lyrics in the song. He was like he lives somewhere, and where he lived he described, and what was where I lived? And that was the connection. So it was like something that was so visceral where he was describing, you know that urban decay, young black city, you know, urban paranoia. He was describing that, and it like influenced

MCS for just the rest of the the time. And I think it speaks to like how pivotal is for a marginalized populist to like season narrative for themselves and start telling their own story because like so many people want to tell people tell us like what our lives are, like how we got here, what we deserve, and so for us to like factually report all the conditions we're experiencing, like it has such residence and are had such residents at this time and still does a lot of hip

hop listeners. But like yo, I feel that, like, yeah, I live where you live, Like I I know what you know, like I've been there and and but not just on a person to personal levels, Like that's the political power of hip hop of like telling our own story in a world where people want to tell our story for us. And it's like if we're looking at politics in terms of like wielding power, that is like

a pretty powerful act. I think that's like something that is even kind of like inherent in hip hop music is like being able to put forth like a message that people can potentially identify, you know with like on a personal level. And you know, some people can like wield that to a political end, I think, and some people cannot choose not to, but it's like just as

a tool to get those messages out. I think that, you know, when people do decide to use hip hop to like get out political messages, I feel like because of the power of hip hop and makes it just that much more potent to get like a message out totally. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. I mean, like the the rhythmicity of it. I made the word up, but I needed to should call and response, you know, the cadences, like the upfrontness of the language. All these things like are

like they make for a powerful oratory. They make for powerful oratory, so like you know, and powerful orators orators. Indeed, so it's older heads. We tend to have a lot

of nostalgia about the hip hop that was. We go back and we talk about the message in nine two, we talk about the birthplace of hip hop and like its reaction as like a movement against depression in this like Reagan era where everything fucking sucks, right, And I mean, I think that's really typical among um, the older generation of hip hop came up with it, you know, more so than the folks say, you can't imagine a world

without it. Um. And a lot of my research as a like a hip hop scholar and educationist and educationist, you see times where like these people who want to use hip hop in the classroom will bring in older hip hop or like progressive hip hop to the kids. They're like, yeah, I'm gonna use this to teach, and the kids don't give a fuck because it's not really

reflecting the trends of music right now. And so, I mean, I think that kind of thinking, this nostalgizing of the music is just like really typical of of of a

certain age of listener. We think of the place where hip hop started off as defining essentially what hip hop is in in in blindness, with blindness towards what it has the potential to become, which is not you know, not aligned with a movement of resistance and the progressive, in a progressive what you can resist without being if you can burn it all down without having a vision for what you wanted to be exact. Yeah, Well, why

do you associate hip hop and politics? Well, I mean because for me, like if if you know, hip hop gets a lot of credit a lot of times for being blunt and honest and open and like a true um manifestation of people's like actual thoughts. If politics affect us in our everyday life all the time, then it just makes sense to me that it doesn't matter what type of rap song that you're listening to. I take

hip hop. I take politics, politics and hip hop as pretty much being anything that gives you insight into what somebody really thinks and what the artists or the rapper really thinks, because at the end of the day, that's that's politics. I hate to do this, but to quote Marco Rubio, Yeah, so Margot Rubio um in a crowded bar on Capitol Hill at the inaugural BuzzFeed Bruise event, told a crowd that in some ways, rappers are like reporters.

Do you like gang wars, racial tension? And they were reporting on that, you know, Margot fucking Ruby, don't give me that face. Yeah, yeah, So the reporting on the material conditions, the live realities of folks that are like living on the ground, which are inevitably shaped by political forces. And so I think that to create, to like speak, a narrative that is born from that place is inherently a political act because like, there's so many other people

who want to tell us how we're living. There's so many other people who want to tell us what our lives are like and um conjecture about how we got this way. But when we actually speak up for ourselves and be like, yo, this is what act is actually happening, Like that is a political act to sort of like steal, like rest the narrative back from people that want to to paint a picture that does not serve art needs or interests. I somewhat agree, but I somewhat think that

that's a generous assessment. A lot of things we have to be honest in like saying that, like a lot of this stuff, I don't think cats are thinking about it that deep, and I don't think it's meant to be taken like that deep, Like it's an inherently political thing just because I exist there, just because I exist in this space. I mean, at least at least not if that's not your intention at all, you know what I mean. So I have an aversion to that. But

you bring it in, people bring into it. But but you you bringing up the Marco Rubio quote though, just kind of opens up like do you think that Marco Rubio cares about yeah, or hip hop or hip hop culture? No? No, no, Well, I mean this is like pretty much what I was saying last week with the Donald Trump ship, Like it makes me feel some kind of way that thirty years ago there was a teenager who was listening to all

the even the dope stuff that I would consider. There was a teenager somewhere who was listening to Wu tang in In n w a in in in Tupac and Public Enemy and all that ship, and he grew up

to be Marco fucking Rubio. I mean, I will say that, like, as someone that studies a pop there is a tendency for folks who want to like progressive e its like a lot of it's um talking about like the egalitarian nature of a cipher where anybody could step in and have their turn, and like it's very democratic, and it's very like flattened hierarchy, and like it's very participatory and all this stuff, and like the way that you know, like I've been talking about, like it's this way for

us to see the narrative and speak our own truths rather than have Fox News to tell report I'm happening in our communities. Yeah for sure. But I mean it's just like, even especially now, I like to be very very careful with just lumping everything in together, you know, with everything going on now, I think people have a tendency to think that being black in of itself is

a progressive political stance. I mean, you gotta understand black people historically vote for Democrats because the Republican party platform has more or less been Yeah, we know slavery is bad, but so it's just I think it's important that people know that racism being a factor is a huge unifying

force amongst black people. Without it, without like naked open racism in the American right, I think you would have a lot more Black people that would be comfortably conservative or comfortably Republican or comfortably right leaning, and it would be reflected in the music. I mean, Ship, the current rap caricature is value money above everything else, hate gays, treat women like Ship, love guns, and advocate the killing

of black men. If those aren't right wing Republican values, it is things like, Yeah, I think it's really important when you're bringing up that it is very complex, that it's not necessarily it's not necessarily stories of revolution and like coming together. I mean, there's plenty of that, and we'll talk about some examples of that perhaps later on, but it is also it's complex because they are pretty much like right wing talking points. There's there's like emerging

to a degree. Yeah, obviously nobody wants every pop star to be trying to like save the world or anything like that. But it's just one of those things where it's like, you know, you get a bit older and you start thinking about it and how it affects people. Like I remember when Drake was first coming out, he had a track I forget what the name of the track is, but it had like a line in it that was like, all I care about his money in the city that I'm from. It's so even now, it's

like I just got it stuck him. I don't even know the name of the songs. I do care about his money, even the city then I'm from. And it's like, damn, that's dope. But then you just like think about it deeper. You're like, damn, man, maybe should care about more about that. There was there was like a twelve year old in two thousand nine just repeating that over and over again. I know, you could talk to a bunch of people who could argue that that's a completely justified worldview and

way of looking at the world. I wouldn't consider that to be a progressive, all right. If it's a justified worldview, then what justifies him? Because there are always factors at play systemically that have shaped like why why should you just give a shit about just the city where you're from and getting money? Like what is what it's given rise to like that need and that those motivations because it's never just like you get born singing, you never

get born singing. I all can't about as money as it's anywhere I'm from, Like you don't like no baby comes out the womb crying that. It's it's based on the factors that have shaped their life and they're you know, often politically motivated policy Germany. I mean, yeah, has nothing to do with the intention behind a song. I will give you that, like we gotta like really like we got we can't like pay rose color. I just we can't like rosify gloss over everything and be like every

all hip hop is political. Yeah, I probably think that intent matters more than most people of like ILK, But it's just like I don't know, you you things that are like coincidental and stuff like that, Okay, cool, like give them credit where credits? Do you know what I'm saying? But to like ascribe a bunch of high concept you

know what I mean? Ideas to something when that's like just completely not the intention I think does a disservice to people who do do it and to the general argument if you're of the if you're of the mindset of like yeo, that sort of thing is lacking, then it doesn't help that at all either, you know what I'm saying. It doesn't help that if somebody does a video where there are people marching but the song is not about that at all, Like it'll get covered in

every publication. It is like, oh, such and such, just drop the new political video. Didn't you see the people were marching and yeah exactly. It's like like like I don't the whole concept of like faking the funk and like being on some fake like like being on some fake ship isn't just relegated to like street life and like oh, you said you did this, but you didn't really be that. But I don't understand why that doesn't

apply to even aspects of politics that we're talking. I'm interested in the aspect of people faking activism, yeah you know, or or like uh, using activism as part of the overall like rap gimmick or rap hustle. Well, I fear that like artists don't know what real activism looks like.

It's like co signing, like let's think to back to like Beyonce and jay Z, like pledging solidarity of the Black Lives Matter movement, which has a pretty it's hard leftist platform if you really get down into like the planks in that platform, and um, I think they espouse values that would be contrary to the way that the Carters have built their economic empire, you know, like I don't think Black Lives Matter is for the proliferation of

black billionaires, and so like there's co signing movements in a way that I guess it's helpful and drawing attention to them so that more people look into what those folks are doing on the ground to make the world better, but without any sort of true material contribution or or ideological contribution to the work that they are doing, and in fact working counter to those values in every other aspect of her life except coming out and saying like

Trayvon Martin hadn't have been killed or like you know, and then that's and that's it. We're going going by the thing with like values if today in this day and age, where the thing that's countercultural, I don't want to say just straight up being a socialist. You know, people are starting to be at that point where they're starting to re examine whether or not this like capitalist experiment or like this die hard extreme capitalist like capitalism. Yes,

put it in my veins. I need it. Like people are starting to reassess whether or not that's the way to go, especially now, I've fun since COVID, White, Black, purple, whatever. I have seen more socialist niggas pop out of the woodwork since COVID than at any point in my life. And I'm not saying that that's where hip hop needs

to be. It doesn't really seem like that's where hip hop is, you know what I'm saying anywhere close Even the best examples of it is that something that well, I think there's there's movement building, like getting people to take in the streets, take action, organize their communities. And then there's consciousness raising, which is a very important precursor

to movement build. You can't build a movement if you're not aware of the circumstances you're currently in, right, And so songs like jay z Survival or or Vic Mensa's sixteen Shots like they might not talk about the world that we won. But at least they're raising people's awareness of the world that we have and generating the needed in righteous indignation about that world in order to like

do something. Now, the problem comes into me when people think that that indignation, the fact that they're mad and their woke about it is enough, and it's not enough. And so it's like, okay, like I will accept if hip hop isn't like, you know, taking in the streets with like artillery shells strapped to their and like seizing you know, courtrooms and like straight up like all that ship.

I'm cool if we're not there in the music, But um, I also want to be wary of music that makes a buck on sort of co opting revolutionary, like it's a costume whatever. And it's just like, you don't really mean that, I mean, I don't even to me, it doesn't even seem like cats are even getting in on that racket. You know, that's true. Something else you want that would be that would be a better problem than

than what we have, you know what I'm saying. If people were trying to take advantage of or make a gimmick out of activism and that we're like the trend. I think that would be better than what it is. But I mean, I'm not even necessarily judging anybody's music, just more so of an attitude. I think that there are a lot of rappers who look at a j z in aspire to be that. And if culturally what

is anti establishment is like, yo, fuck the billionaires. If hip hop is populated by a bunch of motherfucker's they want to be billionaires, then is it anti establishments? Little? I think that ultimately it's important to apply critical lens to all hip hop, regardless of the intention of the artists, because of the way it reports on black life. It can tell us interesting things about the way the policy is failing or point towards a future that could be different.

And so like uh to to sort of lay this framework of politics on hip hop, regardless of where the artist is coming from themselves, is an important exercise and sort of like for me, a motivation behind like why are we doing this? Why are we talking about this at all? I can disdrop the microphone and walk out right now, except the fact I believe that we have to like do this exercise as a means of like figuring out Okay, what like what next? What has gone

wrong and what's next for us? I agree. And then there's a lot of hip hop out there. I mean, like you know we said earlier, like dead Press you're gonna talk about like Saul Williams, or you know, even like run DMC and Curtis Blow had some hits that were likely. There's definitely songs out there that have a politically motivated message. And now to what degree it counts us politically hip hop? I think we'd somewhat different on because you think it has to have like I am

arguing for reparations, its me. I'm like, if you're commenting on you know, just like statistics that of like the ways folks are affected by policy and not necessarily tilling people what to do about it, that's still valuable. I agree. I agree. Now, if if I had described what I thought in that way, that's not what I meant. Oh no, I agree with you. I would say that it's like I feel that I can tell when somebody is faking, when somebody's being real about politics but they're not trying

to be political. It comes across more than just expressing how they feel about a particular topic. You know, what I'm saying when somebody is trying to pander, that's when it sounds like YadA YadA YadA, and kids don't do drugs, YadA YadA YadA, police beat black people. You know what I mean. It's like, Okay, yeah, that's that's a that's a that's an observation. Yes, like I hear you, might I hear you, my dude. You know what I'm saying.

You gotta be coming with it a bit more correct and deeper than that at the no matter what style of rapping you do. Like you know what I was talking with my friend this morning, it's talking about the exact thing, right, if I were listening to like some booty Shaken like club song that the intent, in the purpose of the song is nothing other than like get

off the ground, shake your ass, blah blah. In somewhere within that song, the rapper drops a line gives a little insight into like a stripper being a single mother and overcoming that. And that's a somewhat political expert you know what I'm saying. That's like, that's an express of how you feel, completely in context with the song that

you're making. That gives me some insight to how you might feel about a political issue like single mothers, who you know what I mean, or whatever whatever you want to whatever whatever you wanta describe to it. But it's like, that doesn't mean that the song is a political song. That doesn't mean you were trying to do anything other than make people shake. But it's like insight into how

you really feel about some real ship. This degrees to which songs that aren't necessary political and intent that do transmit political messages if it's really yeah, I don't like getting into that conversation of what's real hip hop and what's not real hip hop, But if the ship's real, yeah, you will naturally get that. So I looked up on Wikipedia politically hip hop. I wanted to get the third opinion, and I'm really interested in some of the well, some

of what they've said. There's a couple of artists they say are iCal, and I want to get your take. So they said, examples of conscients and politically hip hop throughout the decades include much of Logic's discography. Wait wait wait wait, wait, wait say that again. Much of Logic's discography, Um much they want to say, like much of child at Quality is discography, much of Luke Fiasco's discography, UM, much of Commons discography, UM, much of Kendrick from Mars discography,

much of J Cole's discography. UM. So I'm just thinking it's a really interesting list, Okay, logic and J Cole being on there. Yeah, I mean it's not I just don't really consider them to be political rappers like that. I mean, there's definitely rappers on that list that are straight up politically you know, oriented rappers, But it seems like that list is just rappers that don't only rap about dumb ship, which in itself is you know, a

reflection of where the bars. So I guess it just comes down to who made this Wikipedia, like, like, really, what are you listening to? And really what are the what are the qualifying factors? I don't know, maybe we'll take a deep dime on that later. By the nineties and Democrats were dragged so far to the right by the proceeding conservative administrations that it was pretty much open

season on fucking black people. We had the killing of Natasha Harlans and Los Angeles and beating of Rodney King. The subsequent LA riots much interestingly iced Tea so little album Home Invasion was originally slated from November, but was delayed because of the LA riots. In the presidential election. There was the infamous Crime Bill of ninety four. He had three strikes laws getting passed in twenty four states

in that same year. So all this architect to ramp up and all over black communities, and with it came anthems that continue to document community conditions and pushed back against the state. I want to say one last thing on the progressive zing hip hop. So I was talking. I was reading this BT blog post issued after the two and sixty election, and um, it was quick to cite artists from the eighties and early odds, you know, who were shining a light on racial inequality and calling

the government out. But it referenced not a single song produced during the Obama presidency that did the same thing. I mean, sure, it talks of loosely progressive song songwriters, you know, talk about like Butterfly Chit's coloring book and saying like, look, you know, we we are more progressive than the nation. You know, the nation has failed us

in electing Donald Trump. Hip hop is ahead of the curve, and I think to point to works like this that are like, um, from a leftist perspective, they might be like consciousness raising or engaging and necessary, so steam building within these communities to these works. But like what exactly are they saying we do about it? Like who what? Like what better future does do are they spelling out

for us? And so I like, I like I hesitated to embrace work that is I think I think it's necessary to create a distinction between work that is consciousness raising and that is actually progressive and like saying this is the better world that we're trying to build because I think in articles like that, um, we're saying, oh, hip hop is more progressive than the nation. Um, it's a feel good story that like we want to embrace. We want to believe we're better than the state of

the country as a whole. But I don't know if the facts actually back that up. For me, this conversation is mainly directed towards mainstream hip hop because and again, the real like I could I could have like the attitude of music is music and everyone listen to what you want to want to listen to and you know

it whatever. So yeah, like obviously I listened to the ship that I like you know what I'm saying, So ship that doesn't appeal to me, That's not what I'm like spending you know, my time, like just like listening and getting mad because it exists. That's not what I'm saying. But as somebody who cares about hip hop, the mainstream

is the biggest representation of hip hop. And that's the other point of like the artists we lift up as like yeah, hip hop is so progressive, these are not the artists that are gaining the most track chacking streams that make the most about money by no metric. Is this like what hip hop hip hop is or is what hip hop is seeing across the world, And like you can either have a problem with it or you

can be neutral, you know what I'm saying. And this isn't a call of a judgment on whatever your you know, opinion is of that, but it is the truth when when somebody in fucking New Zealand thinks about hip hop, they're thinking about the most popular hip hop that America has to offer. Now you ask they're not doing the reason.

I'm sorry, but like you ask yourself, if you feel comfortable with what you can just off the top of your head, imagine is the most popular form of hip hop or most popular hip hop ship going on right now coming out of America, and just imagine that that's like somebody's only our first impression of what hip hop is.

The chances are if that doesn't like bother you and you don't care, then, like I don't want to say you don't care about hip hop, but like what we're talking about right now, you don't care about it, you know what I'm saying. That's just that's cool. I fear not political hip hop Lovers and the listening sphere seventeen, according to SEE, an essay of the number of top songs that contain political content jumped to one and four,

up from one and ten in previous years. About of songs that made the off of the tribes, I mean, I'd say it comes as no surprise. So we've I think we've returned to the kind of nineties level awareness and anger about racial injustice and unmasked fascism that folks are um starting to return to the roots of hip

hop in a certain sense. I hope, So, I hope so I think, well, I think we'll see I mean, in in an era when like Okay, the Kanye stuff scares Okay, I'm just I'm gonna I'm gonna keep it honest with you, like like I'm not telling anybody what to do. But it's just like, what do you mean the Kanye stuff, Well, I mean, like the Kanye Trump presidency political. Oh, it's political, But I mean that's that's

that's the that's the ship that I'm talking about. Is like, I don't think it's obviously I don't think it's like the right side of the I don't think it's the right side that hip hop should be on. But the mere fact that you know, Donald m his fucking tweeted out white powers good people on both sides, that Kanye's association with that isn't a just absolute deal breaker, just completely I'm banking on in the next like five years

or so. They're being like a Candice Owen's rapper four, I'm looking for the Candice Owens presidency, not looking for it, but like my third eye sees it and the burning says, yeah, I don't know, it's fucking weird. The perennial political hip hop song of the eighties would have to be Fight the Power by Public Enemy, Like it's easier to mold onto a variety of issues or like calls to action, like might the power can mean so many things, but

the police is oddly specific. Oh yeah, it's super specific. Like fight the power I think is more effective a political song or protests song or protest statement because it's odd and you can attribute different things to it. You know, fight the power the power can be whatever you needed to be at any given time. I actually think that, you know, fight the power is kind of like our version of the civil rights song we Shall Overcome. You know that we shall over come. I think fight the

Power is that for us because it's just this. You can apply it to any protests or political event. You know, are we protesting big oil? Like are we out in the streets against police brutality? We're trying to get people to vote to take out an incumbent. Fuck the police, Like you said, it seems really specific, but I don't think it can just it's about police and police over yeah,

versus fight the power. You talk about your local school board, talk about your little kind of commission, talk about you can't be like, yeah, let's go march for the environment. Well maybe, I mean maybe if you're a fucking standing rock and they're pelting you with water cannons and maybe fun the police in that scenario. So N nine Motown Records release Fight the Power. It was the single for

the Spike Lee film Do the Right Thing. It's actually made specifically for that movie after a little conversation between the man Spike Lee and Chuck d but wanting to get them on board for that um. The song went on to become one of Public enemies most known songs. It was certified gold as a single. It's nominated for Best Rap Performance the following year. The film inspired it was generally about racial tensions during the hot summertime in

the New York Borough. Such a notable film that it could have its own its own episode in its relation to hip hop and politics on itself. But to bring attention back to the song and what makes it such a potent, polittle cool song, I mean, it's like you're confronting the issue of racism bam at the beginning of the song right there to open it. And I mean, I guess if you're like a kid now that you

probably don't know who John Wayne is. But when I was a kid, I knew who John Wayne was you know, I was aware of him, but I wasn't aware that John Wayne or Elvis had any sort of like you know, racial issues within their like personal lives and ship. I just knew them as, Oh, John Wayne's an actor and Elvis is a musician, you know. So even just hearing that you know, popular song, that made me ask questions. And I remember the first time that I heard that, and I was like, I don't know if we were

watching the movie. I think we're watching the music video, and I remember asking my dad like I didn't know Elvis was racist, but I was like, yeah, Elvis was hella racist? None know, but for real, I was aware that, I mean, Elvis is a was a musician that has a you know, moniker as being king, and I was aware of like the reverence that John Wayne had, so you know, to see a fucking a strong black dude would have fucking be boy cap twisted going. Elvis was

the hero the most motherfuck him and John Wayne. That's just that was crazy and culturally at the time, the amount of white pearl clutching that a line like that caused the amount of like weight culturally that that has. That's like setting the perfect tone for the title of the song. The line was actually inspired by a eighties song by the artist Blowfly. It was, Yeah, it was a song called Blowflies rap in the song like a Klansman.

A Clansmen provoked him by saying motherfuck you and Muhammad Ali. And this led Chuck to wonder, like, which sacred Kyle he could like pluck when he was like right in his lives, was like, I'm the grand Dragon, but a clue claim you said, there's no nigger man, motherfuck you and Muhammad Ali. Chuck, the lead m C for the group, In recent years, has spoken about the song being directly inspired by the community and the national effects of the

Reagan and Bush administrations. Yeah, he was quoted as the saying, I believe if he was if he was twenty years old and didn't realize that Reagan and Bush was just a bad thing for you and also for the rest of the country, and he wasn't paying it. He wasn't gonna get it anyway. The only thing that's gonna hit you was as a catastrophe. But we thought we could actually throw some light on a dark situation that has

already cloaked Black America. So I find the power coming from a cultural aspect as a film and the song would hit sit St. Louis because damn sure, world news ain't going to cover in I feel like rapping? Do you feel like rapping? Sure? Let's rap a little bit, all right, Mr Joel, can you give us something to wrap over? Uh? You know we're waiting a reparations. Hey, hey, hey, so you could call me a loser, or you could call your wine. That you could call me because you missed,

because you're heightened from the virus. That you can join the pestil right, called the girl that have for forsite or called the kid? Would that feel like? Because you can stay in there in guy's light. All of us left is the lightning and the guys of hyping writers intellectual tripe. Keep playing your shifty games and keep winning your shifty prizes. Keep losing every election for the rest of your life. Or you can win us by demand in a decent way to single payer, right to organize

a labor right the house and clean it. Write this spark of fucking Jake. If you're depressed and needed care, right to hire education, by taxing the billionaires, you can say I'm calling and scold me unto notes, oldingly go voting forward, guy that won't support policies colling really hotly everywhere. But that's not really that effective. The best is if you call me and advocate with the left who the

foxill of the knife? Riddle me that you motherfucker's know where I'm lyrically, Yet I'm lyrically on a level levitating you chum something a motherfucking mountain, meditating with monks. Never stay in the slump. Way back when eight was enough, I was taking your mom's putting measure tape to a rum. I keep a busheito blade while I'm breaking a blood. Plus I think of my best ship while I'm taking a dump. I think you snitched into the fats. And

why you niggas think you're getting bread? You get dead with a dis you wouldn't have said because you try to eat up. That's when we hit you to your blood. You try to get back up. I fucking kick you in the head. It's dope. Knife come in, it's so nice. Grab the microphone and niggas know that I don't write, but wrote before. Now I gotta go and hit the jaw. Motherfucker's though, I take over the world like Cobra put you in the cold, Slaw put you up in a sandwich.

Motherfucker's stepping up and they can't understand it. Our brain so big that that ship don't need some band with motherfucker's don't win. That were harder than some brandy do to dope. My name's Dope, Knife Lingle Francations Waiting on Reparations as a production via Heart Radio. Listen to Waiting on Reparations on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. H