Rhetorical Questions

Your favorite artist might have a jammin discography and a terrible track record. We’re sitting with that contradiction head-on, because “the music may be fire” stops being a harmless take when the behavior behind the brand is anti-Black, exploitative, or proudly aligned with the same power structures the culture claims to fight.

I walk through the deeper issue beneath the headlines: why we keep asking certain celebrities to be leaders when they have never consistently shown up for the community. That savior complex turns fandom into a free pass, and it leaves regular people feeling stuck, angry, or numb. I’m not interested in gatekeeping or purity tests. I’m interested in standards, patterns, and what accountability looks like when the clout is loud.

Then we connect the dots people love to separate: hip hop, R&B, and politics. From voting to cost of living to the very real impact of anti-DEI policy, education funding cuts, arts funding, and pressure on cultural institutions, the conversation lands on one clear point: these decisions shape who gets hired, who gets funded, and whose stories survive. If you care about Black culture, you can’t treat policy like background noise.

If you take one thing from my gripe this week, let it be this: put your dollars and your effort where your values are. Subscribe, share this with one person who needs the wake-up call, and leave a review with your answer: where do you draw the line between art and accountability?

Transcript

Cold Open And Tension

SPEAKER_00 0:01

I got people in my family that smoke dope every day. People are scared to get on the plane and come to my wedding. Let's start the show.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Pick a fight in heart. Talk that talk this flag. Let me all clear. Push that propaganda for master. Truth always wins in that slow burn. It's starting to burn faster.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

He's good people. Welcome back. Welcome back. This is week four, man. I can't believe I am this consistent. If if you know me in my podcast history, man, I've started and stopped this thing so many times. But nonetheless, welcome back to another edition of Heavy

Welcome And Podcast Mission

SPEAKER_00 4:38

on the RB. I am your host, Kway. I'm the creator, the proprietor, the inappropriate commentator. You can find me in some of them YouTube comments, but uh much more than that. And this is a podcast where I talk about the rhythms and the blues of my life. No gatekeeping, no negativity. Just try to keep the good vibes only while enlightening uh some of y'all, you know, everything from love, marriage, divorce, dating abs, hygiene products. Cause some of you niggas think out here I could do that as well. Um, I got a pretty good regimen, if I do say so myself. I don't think a woman has ever said I had bad body BO. But, anyways, man, so yeah, if y'all can, you know, kind of guesstimate and tell and use the context clues from that intro of a song that is uh something I created. Maybe it's some maybe a few shots fired here and there. I don't know. I can neither confirm nor deny that, but it's really just talking about the state of the world, you know. Um I try, I'm

Making Music As Expression

SPEAKER_00 5:36

I like making music, man. I can't sing, so I don't cost me nothing to throw no AI voice on there. I I'll never put it on DSPs and try to make money from it, but it is a form of expression for me. Um, I have a really thick pause um poetry book. Um, for those of you do that that know, I used to do poetry high school, college. I've won a lot of slam competitions back in my day. So uh it's good to put some of those things to a beat and create them in songs and and use these samples and curate and choose my BT BPMs and arrange the song and all of that stuff, man. So really I'm creating it, I'm just kind of just you know, cheating a little bit by using somebody that can actually sing. Because if y'all heard my reference tracks, woo, it'll be all bad. But um, nonetheless, we are here again, and today I may not be before you long, but I definitely want to talk about just kind of the state of what's going on right now. And I know I I mentioned last week that everything, you know, RB specifically is in a weird place, and I kind of use this as a tool just to enlighten people and give them some game of what I've been through, how I got through it. And I I just I I just want to ask a few questions um today. Just just a few, you know, like I said, I may not be before you long, Pastor Hall may uh be up out of here. Um so um the first thing I want to ask is um state of black culture. So let me ask this question. If your favorite artist wore a clan robe, told you slavery was a choice, went to the White House, put a red hat, and danced on the table for a white supremacist, would you still support him? Just asking.

When Do We Stop Supporting

SPEAKER_00 7:27

I think it's maybe even rhetorical. What if that same artist sexually assaulted and incested his cousin? Is a jamming ass song enough to make you forget all that anti-black behavior? Don't worry about it, that's rhetorical. I'm just asking. Humor me, people, humor me. What if your favorite artist had questionable and offensive LBGTQIA plus and pedophilia artwork on one of his albums and is now repeating white talking points by calling the culture a buzzword, all while pretending to be a good friend to the culture, but picked beef with a woman back in the day, and a rapper who was 10 years his junior and was a child at the time, but apologized when a formidable opponent stepped up to the plate. Is a gem and album enough to make you forget about all of that? Don't worry, I'll wait. That's rhetorical. Hmm. Woo boy, it's getting hot in here. So, my last question to everybody. I'm just I just gotta know, man. I just gotta know this shit. Like for real, for real. Now, what if your favorite artist stole songs from up and coming up other up and coming artists, had them beat up, disowned his father, then reconsidered when he figured out it would benefit his rap image, settled a sexual assault a case for $500,000, threw a hissy fit when his dream girls denied him and spent years disrespecting these same black women. He also had questionable nights in the hidden hills and at the Mark Hotel. He was texting a 14-year-old girl about boys. Very weird. Once performed a song called I Wish I Could Fuck Every Girl in the World at the 2009 BET Awards, all while being accompanied by a girl group made of 10-year-olds. Don't worry, I'll be here all day. I just gotta get something out of my throat. So after that, he was sliding into the DMs of 17-year-olds, sliding sliding to the DM of a prominent rapper who has a song. Um God, I don't want to give this away because it's maybe all alleged. Uh Umi Says is the title of that song by your favorite artist. And he also, this artist also played in uh brown sugar, sliding to the DMs of his 18-year-old daughter on her 18-year-old birthday. Also, this artist once said Sierra Canyon parking lot looking like Magic City parking lot. Sierra Canyon Parking Lot is a prominent high school here in Southern California, and it is very weird to say that. Also, he came out with an album that had 12 well depicted 12 pregnant women on that cover. Then he decided to pick a rap battle with arguably the greatest rapper of all time after 10 plus years of pump faking, all while having the answers to the test. He rigged the referees, he paid off the announcers, and after picking that fixed fight, he got his ass beat and told the fuck out the frame in front of seven continents, 195 countries and 8.2 billion people. So bad. So he decided to sue hip hop, align with Hell's Angels and MAGA, and wear Confederate flag paraphernalia on stage and tell UK rappers that they're the greatest and they're better than America. So after losing that law suit he filed, he doubled down and then blamed the greatest rapper of all time, in my opinion, Tupac Omaru Shakur, for getting his ass beat and tow out the frame. I ask you, is a jamming ass song good enough to make you forget all of that? That's where I'm at with it right now, people. Um I'm a I'm I'm irritated, but I'm not irritated so much so where it's going to affect my day. Like um, you know, there's a lot of a lot of people out here. I'm not gonna say no names or and you know, throw

The Savior Complex In Culture

SPEAKER_00 11:06

anybody under the bus because I got love for these people that I follow, I subscribe, I break bread, I send money to their channels. But I think we're asking, how can I refer? How can I face it? We're we're asking too much for people that have never showed up for the culture. Just because you make a jamming ass album or jamming ass song and you say fight the power one time, um, and then it stops there just at the song Fight the Power. Are you really fighting a good fight? Because I remember a time when No Name called out Kendrick Lamar. He didn't reply. He went to the march, he showed up, he put his money where his mouth is, he paid off the school lunch debt of over I don't know how many people in LA Unified School District. I know it was over $300,000. You know, I've heard stories of Beyonce bailing people out of jail, but at the same time, I understand we want these artists to be loud and you and disruptive. But I'm I'm old enough to remember when Queen Latifah did that. Will Smith did that with the Grammy Awards. So I'm not making excuses for them. I just wonder what's going through their head. And I wonder, are do we have a savior complex? Kendrick Lamar told us he wasn't our our savior. You know, um, I'm just wondering about these things because as weird as it is that during his Trump administration, you got silence from people like Ice Cube, Killer Mike, uh, some of our prominent hip-hop artists. I asked myself, I don't know, Killer Mike is pro-black, I know that for sure, but I don't forget what he did to Stacey Abrams. I don't, I will never forget what he did to that campaign. I'll never forget what Ice Q said during Trump's last presidency. You called out Obama before you called out Trump. You know about Trump way longer than you know about Obama. I mean, like my granddaddy said, let's put it where the ghosts can get it. Let's be all the way real about this and we're gonna take it there. So that's just kind of like what my mind is right now. I don't understand how we can want so much from these demographics of people that have never ever showed up for anybody but themselves. You know, um, I look at Nelly, I look at Snoop, you know, some of my some of the artists I grew up on and who they're who they going to perform for. What good is is is the world if you lose your soul? That's scripture. All money ain't good money. So, I don't know. I think, you know, one thing I do agree with killer mica on is if everybody does a little, nobody has to do a lot. And that's where I'm at in the point of my life. You know, I I try to live a life of righteous obedience. Um, you know, I I I believe in God, I believe in the Son of Jesus, or I believe Jesus is the son of God, but I don't believe in um American white world Christianity. You know, I've taken classes, I've gotten Christian uh leadership certificates, I've been the youth pastor, I understand Hebrew, I know how to translate scripture, I know how not to just read the popular line, but not also read the lines before that and after and make sense of the totality of the story, which I think is what a lot of people are out here doing. You're not getting the totality of the story, you're being misinformed, you're being misguided, and you're also asking things from people that have not really ever given us given us that. I just I question all of that, you know. I really do, and I understand, you know, this is a short pod uh this week, but I really just had to get that off my chest before I continue on with like dating woes and marital advice and things like that. Um you know, because I see what's going on, you know, it it's it's funny, it's funny to me, man. It's it's really uh I think I think politics and hip hop are all in one. And I don't think people want to fully admit that. I I don't understand. Um I don't know if it's because they're misinformed or they just do not want to do the work, but I mean y'all do realize the things that are happening right now in hip hop, RB, just in black culture in general, it's all in one. The the the politics of the world and what's going on in our culture, it's all working hand by hand, it's all working side by side. Um, I don't know, man. Let's listen to Moisha. So, Kway's gripes this week. I know this is a very quick episode. I'm I'm sorry. I know y'all want to hear my voice longer. Maybe, maybe not. Oh man. Um, so for those of you that don't want to talk politics, you don't want to vote, you think the Democrats are

Voting Is Not Optional

SPEAKER_00 16:09

just as bad as the Republicans, and ooh, fuck politics. Obama ain't do nothing for black people. Okay, you can have your opinion. I'm not here to argue you down. One thing I do know, under Biden, we weren't under no wars. Gas wasn't high as potel GPAs. Eggs wasn't $10 for a carton. Orange juice wasn't the same cost as an abortion. Ladies, don't do that. Well, if you want to, do that. You know, I'm pro-choice, do whatever you want to do. It's your body, your choice. I'm saying all that to say this wasn't a fight of the lesser of two evils. This is right and this is wrong. And what's going on right now, in the words of Noriega and his big ass white teeth, this can't get no wronggerer. This is absolute nonsense. You cannot tell me, had you all joined most black women and not voted against your own interests like y'all niggas normally do, or just sat at home and didn't do nothing, would we be here? And some of y'all are coming from a place of privilege because, quite frankly, you in a tax bracket where to where you ain't been black since the 90s. Let's let's keep it real. You haven't had to deal with black issues because your wealth transcends your race. And don't nobody want to talk about that. But for those of you that think voting is not important, and you know, the DMs and the Republicans are just as bad, you know, the DMs are soft. I'm an independent, but I'm never voting against my own interests, and I ain't never voted Republican because they have always aligned with white supremacy. And if you can't see that, you just don't want to see that, and you just want to be willfully ignorant. But the facts are the facts, and you want to talk about you know how does this affect you and things like that. These are facts. Since Trump has taken office, the administration has introduced hella policies that have changed budget, proposals, everything that

DEI Education And Arts Fallout

SPEAKER_00 18:24

has impact impacted black professionals, specifically in education and the music business. And it's crazy. You want to talk about the removal of diversity, equity, and inclusion? Now that shit that your favorite rapper is talking about about culture being a buzzword, they're trying to weaponize that like they did the word woke. Now DEI is next. You know, in the state of Texas, they're taking out certain words like slavery or black or African American. This is through McGraw Hill in the school system. Y'all remember that school shooting, Yivaldi, where I think it was like 21 students got killed? Y'all remember that? Let me see. I'm gonna find it out right now. I don't like being inaccurate. How many students died in Yivaldi? 22 deaths. An 18-year-old gunman. And you know the administration and the police force failure to respond to that? And the woman that went in there and saved her kids hopped that fence, got her babies out of there, she ran for office. And you know them simple-minded motherfuckers voted the same person that had a part in allowing that to happen? Don't talk to me about voting, man. Y'all don't want to have this conversation with me. I promise you don't. It all works together. The federal contractor DEI ban is an executive order that seeks to penalize federal contractors, which can include major media and entertainment conglomerates with government contracts if they engage in racially discriminating DEI practices, meaning you hire black people, we not funding you. Now, this stuff, of course, takes time and they gotta sign executive orders and legislations and things, but the movement is already here. It's already here. Like, I don't know if y'all understand statistics or do y'all like do y'all just I don't know, tune into hip hop podcasts and don't think about the bigger picture? I just I don't know. It's just do y'all know how many black women have lost their job just like in the past year? I don't, I don't do you know 300,000 black women are without employment just 25 to 2020 to now 25 to 2026 right now. This is like I I don't know, man. It's it's it's almost speechless. Then you got the HBCU initiative shift. They defunded the HBCUs, man. And to my people out there that are a part of endowment funds, there's more HBCUs than Spelman Howard, okay? Now, no shade to them because my fiance went to both. I'm sorry, she graduated from both. Graduated from Spelman, got her law degree from Howard. Shout out to y'all. But we gotta start divvying up some of these endowment funds. What's happening to Kentucky State right now is atrocious. It's disgusting, it's a tragedy. North Carolina AT is one of the top engineering schools in the country, not just HBCU, in the country. I'll line them up against anybody Harvard, Yale, Princeton, whatever. So then you got that initiative, you know. It's revoking previous language and efforts, specifically emphasized to help with diversity and inclusion. You got that. Now they have proposed the elimination of cultural funding. That is self-explanatory. You got the National Endowment of the Arts taking away that. And I want your cool your kids to be artsy no more. They want you gaming. You know, not designing the games. They want you gaming, talking shit, losing your brain cells, getting cussed out in racial chat rooms with your favorite RB singer that's in those racial chat rooms showing feet. Talk about that another time. Getting rid of the arts and education funding. That budget proposes consolidating or cutting grants like Title IX. I was a teacher. I understand those grants. I understand what it's like to be in a school that has 80% on free or reduced lunch. Hell, I was on free and reduced lunch growing up. But don't nobody want to talk about that. Y'all don't want to talk about the regulation of industry. The middleman. Ain't gonna be no more of that. They're just now starting to target ticket scalpers. But even that is problematic because a lot of ticket scalpers were people that I knew growing up that could get you the thing for the low. Then you got the impact on the black history and narrative, what they're trying to do with the Smithsonian Museum. We all got to rally behind Obama because this museum is opening in June, I believe. And I just know it's gonna be some fuckery with that. So when you couple all of that and how all the arts, the budget cutting, the DEI, it affects your hip-hop, it affects your RB, it affects the way you consume it, you digest it, you buy it, it affects it all. So don't come to me talking about it's two different things. No, no, no, no, no, no, my brother, you got this wrong. It all works hand in hand. You think the merger of these high dollar value networks is by mistake? Do you think this lawsuit would be going this far if we had parameters in place under, I don't know, a democratic leadership? I sure in the fuck don't. Look up who owned TikTok. Then talk to me about voting not matter and hip-hop and vote and politics are two separate things. I think a lot of y'all are scared to get in this fight. You gotta shit or get off the pot. As for me and my household, we just gonna continue to educate ourselves and we're gonna continue to live a righteous life and put our dollars where we're supported. And we ain't supporting anybody that

Put Your Dollars On Purpose

SPEAKER_00 24:53

ain't with that. Cause some of these niggas ain't made a song I can't live without. Hell, all of them. I don't care who you are. You can be Kirk Franklin. Nobody has made a song I cannot live without. You ain't made a piece of art, a movie, none of that. Nothing that I cannot live without. Cause I stand on something. So that's been a little bit of uh Kway's gripes, you know. I'm sorry I had to get serious for a second, but you know, to me, man, there's more to life than YouTube comments and going back and forth. Like it's cool, we could laugh and joke, you know, we could play games and all of that, but nah, man, it's serious out here, it really is. And I and I would be irresponsible with my platform to not inform y'all, at least give you some of the game. You know, you can Google everything I said now. You know, maybe some dates and some numbers are inaccurate, but for the most part, you could just verify it. So that's it, man. That's K Way's Gripe. Um, this has been another edition of Heavy on the RB with K Way. I just think that, you know, like I said, if everybody does a little, nobody has to do a lot. Please look around you. You gotta treat this like the airplane. You know, they say if it's going down, you put your mask on first, then help your neighbor. Look at your life first, examine

Self Check And Closing Motto

SPEAKER_00 26:20

yourself. For me, and I'll talk about this on next week's episode a lot, but I've been through a lot. Um, and I I'm very comfortable with myself because I've had to have some uncomfortable conversations with myself, overcoming so much. And every now and again, I'll look myself in the mirror. Literally, I will go to the bathroom and look myself in the mirror and ask myself, Do you deserve what you're asking for? Because to me, our lives ain't nothing but movies. And you got to ask yourself, does God like the movie that you're making? Now, if you don't believe in God and you're an atheist, that's your prerogative. But as for me and my household and people that are like-minded like me, ask yourself, do you deserve what you're asking for? Does God like the movie that you're making? Because if you out here bullshitting, I'm sorry, Lord, lying, spreading misinformation, eventually it's gonna catch up with you. Anyways, man, y'all know my slogan. We gotta put value in each other, put value in ourselves, and we'll fuck around and have a value society. Peace.