7B3- Hip-Hop’s Real Power With Manny Faces

We explore hip-hop as a culture with the reach to improve classrooms, counseling, and civic life, not just a playlist on the radio. Manny Faces shares how authenticity, the cipher, and a remix mindset can bridge divides and build skills that matter.

• hip-hop defined as culture, rap as expression within it
• New York roots, global spread, universality across groups
• media narratives versus the diverse golden age of the 90s
• sociological storytelling in lyrics and lived context
• classroom engagement through hip-hop pedagogy and ciphers
• counseling and trauma work via studio-based group sessions
• transferable skills: literacy, public speaking, SEL, improvisation
• Gangsta grass as a case of authentic cultural fusion
• core tenets: peace, love, unity, and having fun
• a “macro remix” approach to politics and economy

Follow Manny Faces at ...

His website

https://www.mannyfaces.com/

Substack

https://mannyfaces.substack.com/

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/mannyfaces

Twitter

https://x.com/mannyfaces

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/@mannyfacesofficial

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/mannyfacesofficial

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mannyfaces/

Threads

https://www.threads.com/@mannyfacesofficial

TEDx Talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rRxG1i5iRo

Chapters

• 0:12 Free-Flowing Setup & Intent
• 3:19 Hip-Hop As Culture, Not Just Rap
• 10:41 New York Roots And Universality
• 14:46 Punk Parallels And Anti-Establishment DNA
• 20:01 Media Narratives Vs Golden Age Reality
• 24:41 Can Hip-Hop Help Schools, Health, And Politics?
• 31:40 Classroom Breakthroughs And Counseling With Beats
• 38:06 The Cipher, Global Belonging, And Skills Transfer
• 45:21 Gangstagrass: Bluegrass Meets Bars
• 55:06 Authenticity, Risk, And Reaching New Audiences
• 1:04:10 Peace, Love, Unity, And Having Fun
• 1:10:15 Remixing Systems: Capitalism, Power, And Equity
• 1:16:42 Calls To Action, Book, Sites, And Wrap

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:12

Welcome everyone to Politically High Tech with your host, Elias. I'm gonna address this guest by the nickname. You could Google his full name. We're gonna keep it interesting, okay? Because I'm lazy. Ain't nobody got time for that. You you could Google it if you want, especially if you're really, really curious. I'm gonna link the website and all that anyway. So and then, you know, if if he wants to, you know, answer that his introduction, perfectly fine with me. This is like a free, this is mostly a free-flowing podcast. I just got a little questions and that's it, and we see where it goes from there. That's how I do things. Because I believe in natural flowing conversation. I don't believe in just, oh yeah, man, so you far left Democrat, you want this Republican dead kind of thing? That's you know, you get that's mainstream media. You you go to those whackles, probably like Piers Morgan. Sadly, I do enjoy some Piers Morgan for the wrong reasons. I said, Oh, I wanna I wanna see some verbal pop-offs, and it delivers nine out of ten times, but not gonna talk about Piers Morgan. We're gonna talk about, and then I'm gonna just gonna be a little additional because some things are not planned, and I like that because it's natural. We are gonna talk about the benefits of hip hop. I'm not gonna say if it's good, it's damn good if you got taste, people. Okay, I'm gonna be that biased right now. If you hate hip hop, God help you, you got no soul. But, anyways, yeah, I'm going straight. This is very New York-esque. He's wearing a New York merch, okay? Well, more than me, sadly. And I'm a native New Yorker, but you know, I'm gonna start showing off some New York merch. Not the Knicks, though, because they they lose way too much, but hey. So this has been great. Thanks, man, for your time. No, no, it's fine, it's fine. So, all right, let me cut to the chase. We're gonna talk about the benefits of hip-hop, how hip hop could it's a cultural good. I'm gonna frame it like that, because it it is, especially if you think creatively, artistically, even politically, yeah, and there's a lot of hip-hop politics. If you listen to the lyrics carefully, you know, you know, if you listen to some of the musics, you know, like Eminem, he listened some current events and some references, you know. Remember at the Bill Clinton with the no-no with that certain lady, you know. Hey, hey, look, it's their 1A, it's their first amendment. Rather you like it or not, that's your problem. Look, I don't like hearing everything either, but you gotta respect that's a right. And we need to be reminded of that because the right, that's supposed to be championing free speech, they're using anti-Semitism to silence opposition. That's why I thought you're supposed to be anti-woke. But whatever. This is why I'm an independent at the end of the day. Both parties are whack all wackles when it comes to 1A. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't see them as heroes, and you be smart not to. All right, let me get to Chase though. Let's introduce Manny Faces. So, what do you want the listeners and the viewers to know about?

SPEAKER_00: 3:08

What's up, man? Alas, thank you for having me, man. I appreciate you. And uh I'm I feel I feel what you're saying about your your your native New York love for hip-hop and and why it could be, you know, a thing that's worth talking about just because of I think what a lot of people generally have as these perceptions and preconceived notions and you know, unfamiliarity. And, you know, even some of us who have been hip hop fans and New Yorkers for all our lives kind of feel jaded sometimes because it's there was a time when we were younger, you know, younger pups and we were running around in these New York streets and we were, you know, engaged in the music and the culture and the fun and the and it and it doesn't feel like it's that anymore. So I guess what I want people to understand, and and obviously I think why I do what I do, and probably why you were curious to talk to me, is you know, I have this this brand, this this mantra that hip-hop can save America, and that I think that that probably is audacious sounding to a lot of people. But I try to make a good case for it in some probably innovative and inspiring and and probably surprising ways. So I think that that's that's kind of what I like to entice people's minds. And then when we get into the nitty-gritty to find out, I think some of the ways that, you know, this music and this culture that exists, again, whether you like it or not. In fact, hip hop haters, please stay, don't leave. Hold on, because that's sometimes my favorite people to talk to, you know, just because we don't know what we don't know sometimes. And and I think that I make a decent case for for everyone to want to pay attention to at least the tenets, like the the DNA, the core that's inside hip-hop. It actually is, as I argue often, a benefit to humanity and a disservice if we don't actually look at it this way.

SPEAKER_02: 4:52

How's that? Hey, listen, that was a great intro right there, people. No, really, that was a really that was a good one. And while getting while giving away so much, you know, I don't look. This is a thing that you have to understand, listeners and viewers. I don't believe in coaching, I don't believe in micromanaging because the conversation's gonna be awkward, it's gonna be weird, it's gonna be forced as heck. If you don't like it for being authentic authentic, fine. I I fine, at least I'm being real. But if I fake this conversation, micromanaging, just to get your approval, you may feel good, but I'm gonna feel drained as hell to be to be quite honest.

SPEAKER_00: 5:27

Listen, I'm ready to spar, I'm ready to, it doesn't matter what you come with. I'm with you. Let's go.

SPEAKER_02: 5:32

So you know, and so it's just kind of you know, authentic could be chaotic, pleasant, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00: 5:40

I think authenticity is super important, you know, to be honest. And again, when we talk about you know hip-hop and being authentic, like there's this weird dichotomy with with the music and the culture where people are making art, right? And art, you know, can be authentic or it can be fabricated, right? So and and and a and a blurry line in between. So I think the discussions of authenticity and and and being you know just straightforward is where some of the magic happens. And when you talk about, you know, politically or socially or culturally, when when people can do that, I think you know that's where the that's where the common ground can be found. So I'm with you. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 6:16

So let's get to some of the degree, because me sometimes I have this bad habit of just before we get deeper into it. What is the difference between hip hop and rap? I think some of us need a reminder, including myself. I'm gonna put myself in there because I th I tend to mix the two, especially when I am intellectually lazy.

SPEAKER_00: 6:35

Well, it's not even that. It's it's I think the the biggest problem is that when the genre came to be, and I'll take it back a step. For those who know, I might be preaching the choir. If you know, you know, hip hop to many people across the world is a genre of music, right? It's a maybe an attached art form, you know, the stuff we see like the breaking or DJing, and they say, Oh, that's hip-hop. It's the music, it's maybe the dance. It's obviously built off of like the core elements, the artistic elements that, you know, are associated with hip-hop. But most people think of it as rap music. And because the genre of rap music is named hip-hop, it's just a it's just a naming convention. It's confusing because it's named the same thing. It's like if I, you know, you know, I I can't even think of a good analogy. If, if I, if I, you know, if I if I named, I'm gonna fail at this analogy. The point is, is that the genre is synonymous, the naming of the genre is synonymous with the naming of the culture. Now, people don't realize that there's an entire culture of hip-hop. That's where the confusion lies. So where this genre developed over time, it's a music genre, we know it as rap music, but most people, generally speaking, don't realize that those other sort of elements, the other cultural influences have created over time, starting way back in the early 70s and then gone through almost 50 or more than 50 years now, an actual culture that includes the music. So I like to say it for people who are unfamiliar, don't really understand all of this, or you know, again, we don't know what we don't know sometimes, that hip-hop the culture is the overarching entity beneath which sits hip-hop the music. And there are other aspects of that culture. If you look up Webster's dictionary, culture will say, you know, a collection of norms and and lifestyles and and ways of living and, you know, all these little like traits that a group can have, right? That's what a cult, that's what's defined as a culture. So if you just listen to rap music, you might not be of hip-hop culture. That's fine. You could be a consumer of rap music, and that's what's up. That's cool, that's enjoyable. It's a, it's a, it's a product for sale. Just because I wear, you know, a certain outfit doesn't mean that I'm not like culturally attached to the, you know, I'm not a, I might wear Louis Vuitton, but I'm not of French, you know what I mean, culture. Like whatever. I'm just wearing the thing. So that's fine. But there are folks that over this 50-year period, and the one of the reasons why rap and hip-hop is expanded across the world is that there are a set of generally followed traits and characteristics that folks that are attached to this music and culture follow, therefore, culture. Therefore, there's a real culture surrounding these art forms. So if you look at it that way, hip-hop, the culture sits up top hip-hop or rap music, the genre. But the culture is the overarching factor. The confusion lies, and why it's so difficult to explain this to people is that the culture and the genre have the same name. It's pretty simple. That's it. If everyone thinks of hip-hop, they think, oh, you mean rap music. I'm like, no, I mean a wide, vast cultural phenomenon that includes fashion and linguistics and and cultural norms and spirituality that that a bunch of different people in a bunch of different ways and a bunch of different places all express in different ways, but have this kind of commonality between them. That's a culture. So the difference between hip-hop and rap is that hip-hop is a culture. And succinctly, as he often does, Karis One, rap artist, you know, pioneering veteran dude, says, rap is something you do. Hip-hop is something you live. So hopefully that explains it to the folks who, you know, have a fair, you know, that's a fair question. That's a fair misunderstanding. I hear these words being flung around all the time. How is it a culture? Is it rap? Is rap hip hop? Is it hopefully that kind of breaks it down.

SPEAKER_02: 10:44

Listeners or viewers, do you get that if you're at least a little over by look? Normally I didn't care to haters stay, but since he wants you to stay, look, just stay for me. Okay, stay. Me personally, I can't.

SPEAKER_00: 10:55

I haven't said anything you don't, you may disagree. You may not like any of it. You know what I mean? But the like if you look up what culture is and then you look at what these folks have done over the years, that's just that's a fact. You can say it's a great culture, you could say it's a terrible culture, but you have to call it a culture if you want to deal with definitions and and you know anthropology anthropological facts.

SPEAKER_01: 11:18

There you go.

SPEAKER_00: 11:19

I'm not certified. Stamp that. So it is what it is. But what that is, is like the larger conversation. But that but that that's the that's the basis that we have to start with.

SPEAKER_02: 11:30

Absolutely. No, it is a culture. And I mean, you say you lived it, right? And it has this kind of set of identity. Yeah, the there's the storytelling, the music, the beliefs. There's something that holds a group of people together, right? So yeah, it is definitely a culture. Look, whether you like it or not, that's that's secondary. But look, I look, I like it. I was exposed to it as a kid before I could even, I would say, talk properly. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 11:59

And you're a New York guy, so you in New York, I mean, it was there. So and about I'm probably a little bit older than you, but it's no, it's part of your your DNA.

SPEAKER_02: 12:08

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 12:09

Anybody.

SPEAKER_02: 12:11

Yeah, well, unless you live on deep upstate, maybe the Buffalo where you freeze your thing and where you get no culture, all that, because the snow plowed through everything. Look, yes, I I love you, Buffalo. Fair. But you know, I got you know, upstate New York is a whole different beast. Um fair, fair. But the five boroughs, even Staten Island. I'm from Long Island, so you know, you definitely, you know, I'm a Long Island. Yeah, Long Island too. Yeah, but yeah, no, no, good, yeah, good chunk of Long Island. A lot of heritage there.

SPEAKER_00: 12:36

And and then throughout, and then again, no matter where you were, it it it it it found its way to you.

SPEAKER_02: 12:41

So in Westchester County, I'm including you in there as well. Yeah, so South Sea Yonkers. There's some good hip hop heritage. Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. So look, I'm gonna include that beyond Westchester County. Good luck.

unknown: 12:57

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 12:58

You gotta you gotta show the receipts, you know, the documents. Is there any hip-hop now? Then you're included, okay? That's all I'm gonna say about that. Look, I mean, in all seriousness, if you're open, join join this episode. All seriousness. But you know, some just got more deeper historic stamps stuff. You know, hip hop is not, you know, not just us, you know, clothes and music and all that. Yeah, that's one part of it. You know, you you alluded to it a little bit, the consumer participation. Oh, I want the clothes, or just listen to it, but I don't really care about the deeper meaning and all that. I just want to listen to it, I want to feel good. That's what's up.

SPEAKER_00: 13:36

That's what I'm saying. I mean, look, it's it's it's it's a it's a it's a worldwide, like, it's the top genre, you know, across the world for you know, for a reason. Like, and but that also speaks to its universality, is actually one of the reasons why, you know, we I say what I say is because, okay, here's something that does have universal appeal. You could I mean, uh, this has been said more often than than I've said it, but you know, you might love the culture, you might not love the people that make the thing. You know, like a lot of fans of hip-hop may not necessarily be from the communities where it comes and may not have a cultural connection to the people who make it, but they're fans of it. That's a blessing and a curse, but what it does show is the universality of this form of expression does appeal across boards. So just holding, like, we're gonna hold that thought as we progress in our conversations. There's something to that, and it's not an accident.

SPEAKER_02: 14:39

No, it is not. And I'm happy that it is here because let's just let's just flip this whole thing, the alternative reality. What if hip hop culture didn't exist? Well, it'll be what? We'd be rock and roll culture, I don't know, something. It would be pop culture. Don't get me wrong. Pop music's okay, but sometimes I I I want to listen to something more dynamic, right? You know, lively.

SPEAKER_00: 15:02

A lot of people will point to punk rock because you know, that for a while. See, that's the difference, I think, between like hip-hop and punk had it for a minute, and and rock and roll had it a little bit. It's the idea of the cultural association, right? Because like punk rock had a lifestyle that went with it. It wasn't just music, it was like the way you saw the world, right? Punk rockers were like anti-establishment, fuck the system, fuck the man. Like, and then hip-hop came along and was like, oh, yeah, we're like that too. We're just over here. You guys are over there, downtown New York, we're uptown New York. But we're also like, fuck the system. Look what they've done to us. We're gonna rebel in our expressive manner. So punk rock and hip-hop have a lot of parallels. And in fact, punk rock was one of the early, you know, communities that welcomed and opened the doors to hip hoppers in New York, said, Hey, come on downtown. We we fuck with you. Come down to CBGB's, like come rock with us, we see what you're doing. Shots to Fab Fab Freddy who made those connections. So again, there, the universality of the message of the of the core, like F the world, like there, you know, we're all in this together in the mud. Like, that's a that's a cultural thing. Rock and roll had it for a little bit, same kind of thing, but they very quickly just turned into like, well, we're just, you know, we're, yeah, we're anti-esthetic, you know, we're long hair and we're gonna play electric guitars. But after a while, that really quickly came into consumerism. Punk rock had a ethos, a lifestyle that was associated with it. Hip-hop has had that forever. Punk rock kind of died out with that, you know, but hip-hop still has it. And that's what I think is the difference between when you say, like, if there was no hip-hop culture, would we have rock and roll culture? We might still have punk rock culture. We might have something totally new. But I think that hip-hop, because of it's it's such like a remix mentality, like it pulls from different genres and communities that it's the ultimate, you know, F the system mentality culture that like has continued again, 50 plus years. So there's something to it, man. There's something to it.

SPEAKER_02: 17:09

Oh, it's still extremely relevant. Yeah, I mean, yeah, punk rock did have this rise. I mean, thank goodness I watched, I rec I really recommend this series on The Dark Side of the 90s, because I'd be re-educated in some of this. The hip-hop stuff I already knew because I was I was growing into that, and then I got exposed even to the punk rock stuff a bit. But you're you're right. I mean, look, if you have just a you're sober-minded, you're not being biased, you're not looking at these people as weirdos with the baggy jeans or ripped jeans, whatever you want to call, you know which one's which people. Or, you know, people just speaking a different, you know, you know, slang, jargon, whatever the heck you want to call it. Okay, you have none of that. You know, people did yeah, they they both were anti-establishment. I think, well, hip-hop is just definitely here to stay. It's not going anywhere, and it's it's good. It adds character. And you know what? I think there's one word, and this is such a buzzword.

SPEAKER_00: 18:08

It's the the epitome of innovation. I man. I I agree. I think a lot of people have a lot of trouble with that thought, but I agree 1,000 percent.

SPEAKER_02: 18:22

And this is coming from someone who was trying to turn to a stock of even anti-hip hop at one point. That was a little face I went through. But come to think of it, once I step back, I say, wait a minute. They shake the culture, they they break, they shattered many, many boundaries, okay? And yeah, they were anti-establishment, and I said, you know what? That's how I really am. Instead of just being conformed to the quote-unquote mainstream normal society, and quote, nobody's really normal. And mainstream is actually pretty lame, if you ask me.

SPEAKER_00: 18:53

People are my honest opinion. No, I get it. Because it becomes, you know, it becomes commercialized, right? It becomes co-opted. It, you know, and again, I'm sure rock and rollers will tell you the same story. Blues musician. My dad was a blues and jazz kind of source. So I'm listening to like Count Basie, and you know what I mean. When I'm growing up, I'm listening to like like jazz, right? Again, my dad was an Italian dude from North, New Jersey back in the 50s, and like, you know, they were that was what they, he was, he was on the right side of music history, let's just say. Jazz and blues guy. But then when soft jazz or what is it, smooth jazz came out, he's like, that's not jazz. Like he's telling me, and he's showing like the commercialization of the music. When rock and roll changed over from, you know, from you know, and the elvisification of, you know, of rock and roll, and you get all these things where it's like you're not necessarily always, you know, giving the originators their their proper due, right? It's being commercialized, it's being taken away, it's being co opted, which is that's the way of capital, it's the way of the world, and it's fine. Whatever it is, we can talk about that. You know, but that happens to everything, that happens to movies. That happens to, you know, you know, music, movies. Shoot, you can go into the art world. I bet you they're complaining about that too. I bet you ballet. I bet you Broadway, some people, some traditionalists and purists are like, I don't like what's happened to Broadway. Once Hamilton came, like, I get it. You want your traditional purist thing, but it's not gonna happen. There's gonna be ways to commercialize and co-opt it. And that's what happens with a lot of, you know, hip-hop. So even, I think even people who looked at hip-hop and and rap as being anti-establishment saw that in the 90s and especially the 2000s, it was so commodified, so turned into a product to sell that they just thought that, oh man, that cool thing that it did, man, when it was fight the power, or it was Meli Mel talking about, you know, the message and like all these things that they they thought it could do, it felt like it wasn't gonna do it anymore. And I think that let some people down, you know, hip-hop heads included. And I think that that's absolutely true. I think part of it is by design. I think part of it is just, you know, like every other thing that capitalism touches, it turns into a commodity instead of, you know, culture.

SPEAKER_02: 21:06

You know what? You just be to my next question right answer, because I'll say, yeah, that's I don't think hip hop is immune to that. Because look, this already know. Let me just give you some stupid music that actually turned me off for it. You know, like lip gloss and all this stupid stuff. I mean, it's not about you know struggles and messages, it's it's about, you know, and you know, the sadly the bad side, just like rock and all with death and violence and all that. They got the elements with the murder and the hoeing and the drugs and you know the materialism and all that else. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm aware, look, I agree with the criticism, but I am not going to what I did back then was just trying to reject and try to become a purist, but I just realized that's so that's not pragmatic because I was gonna be isolating myself. So yeah, I can just take the good, I can just cherry-pick, take, you know, the the good, or maybe his hip hop grade, or even punk rock grade, or even other stuff great. Jazz, I'm a big jazz fan, by the way. You know, by the time I saw my connections, oh, I said, yeah, I was no wonder. I can see some connections right there. I yeah, I love jazz. Jazz is my number one genre, people. I I'm exposing myself right there. This is the pre- this is the pre- you know, this to me, I would say it's a setup, one of the many setups, I would say, because it's multifaceted of hip hop for sure. You know, that was that, you know, they I agree. Even we go like almost a century back, a century back now, with the anti-establishment and all of that. Yeah, jazz was that.

SPEAKER_00: 22:28

I mean, jazz was that, and then they and they and it was targeted. It was targeted for being that. You know, it was it was you know, targeted for being like these are again, I'm not I'm not trying to sway anybody's opinion. You know, we can look at, you know, I listen, I you we talk politics and we talk history. We could talk about Harry Anslinger and the original war on drugs and Billy Holiday. Like, I know these things. All I'm saying is that sometimes the things that are meant to unite the common man and woman, you know, I mean, unite the common people is targeted because of its ability to unite the common people. Jazz, I mean, jazz was probably the first, you know, because before that you had blues, you had folk, and you had, you know, jug band music in the ear, you know, in the early, you know, early country and and and stuff. Jazz was the first one where, oh, this actually brings everyone together. White people love jazz. Black people love jazz. Like we were all in the same room. Shut now, there was still racism and Jim Crow and all this stuff. You know, Billy Hotter had to come in through the back entrance and all that nonsense until Frank Sinatra, you know, I mean, was like, no, she walks in with me. You know what I mean? Like, but but but the that universality, which is again what I see in hip-hop. This that's what I see in hip-hop. Forget what you think or you hear or you think of hip-hop. All I know is that, hey, black folk in America, your children love hip-hop. Hey, white folk in America, your children love hip-hop. Hey, Hispanic folk in America, your children love hip-hop. There's a universality there. And and despite what the industry and what might be pushed forward and what you know we look at as, especially as older folk now, we're like, oh God, this is so horrible. You know, I'm not looking at that so much, although there are lessons that can be taken from that, which I argue about a lot of times. Because if we look at it like critically, we can actually learn a lot about society, we can learn a lot about our kids, we can learn about a lot about us, but it's the universality of that. And so when I say hip hop can save America, sorry, America is doomed if we stay separated, if we stay on either side of these, you know, things. Nothing, I'm gonna say nothing, I don't like to speak hyperbolic, but like a lot of people have tried to bring people together, meet us in the middle. I mean, we talked beforehand, like, you know, meet them where they are. And that's there are so many systems in place to keep us at each other's throats and keep us in our own ecosystems, echo chambers, that that's becoming more and more difficult to even think about doing. Like, we have no common spaces, we have no common discussions, we have no universal, you know, spaces and places. So I look at what do I know from my 50-something years on the planet, the thing that brings people together, where I've been to a hip-hop show and I see white people and I see black people and I see Hispanic people and I see Asian people, and I see, and we're all here like enjoying the same thing. But we're not in our own silos because you can say sports does that, but nah, we still my team versus your team, fam. Like we still at each other. Okay, you can say religion, but no, religion is very, you know, separatist, right? We don't, we we love everyone, but if you're not in our church, you're not going to heaven. So right? So there's still, but hip-hop really does this thing where if we're in the space and we honor this sort of this, we have this appreciation for why we're in this space, we actually really do look at each other as equals. And it doesn't happen for long. And it may only happen that night, or in that concert, or in that freestyle cipher, or wherever we're at. And this is also global. Because as Tony Blackman, you know, a woman that I I refer to a lot, she does a lot of work in hip-hop, meditation, hip-hop as a way to become a better speaker and a better, you know, someone who expresses themselves better. She does work in this, she wrote a book called The Wisdom of the Cipher. If you know hip hop, the cipher is this sort of circular, you know, artistic transfer of energy. Like we we rock in a circle, we dance in a circle, we rap in a circle. That cipher mentality, she has a book called The Wisdom of the Cipher. She says this, she says, You could pick me up and put me anywhere on this planet where there are people, like it doesn't work in the ocean, but you know, you drive me anywhere there's people, and give me a you know a little bit of time, a couple of hours, and I'm gonna find hip-hop. Because it exists every country in the world. And when I find it, I'm gonna have a place to eat. I'm gonna have some people. I don't have to speak the language. I don't, she's a black woman from from America. She doesn't have to look the same, she doesn't have to speak the same language. She could find you say you drop me anywhere on the planet, and I'll find a place where I can commune with like-minded individuals. I'll have a place to eat, I'll probably have a place to sleep. That's how this universality express like uh shows itself throughout the globe. And I I I challenge anybody, hip-hop haters or not, tell me something that does it better. Tell me something where you can say the same thing that you could pick me up and drop me anywhere in the world, and I will find friends in like an hour. I'll find it. I can see it. I recognize the cultural references, I can see the, you know what I mean? I'm gonna find some people I could chill with, and I don't have to be of your same religion, of your same race, of your same language, of your same ideology. We have a thing here that's universal, and I'm trying to find ways to to I don't want to say capitalize, that's definitely the wrong word, but you know, be inspired by that so that we can apply it to some of the problems that we have here at home and then universally throughout the planet. Like to to fix these issues because at the core of it, we definitely are all you know the same, but we don't see it that way.

SPEAKER_02: 28:25

Oh, you know what? You you know what you just inspire some now. I want to keep it as continuous. But I could go freaking hours with now, I got so much light bulb most but boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. All right, calm down, light bulbs. You know, not all of this gonna be addressed, but I'm gonna address one interesting one. Yeah. You know what? If Sousa, you know, music and band can happen in China, a lot of things can happen. And Sousa is very ethnic, very Latino. If that can happen in China, I'm sure hip-hop has already made marks in the world. I mean, you know, there's J is, you know, Japan, for example. Japan has hip-hop. I mean, yeah, you know, and look, yeah, this there is countries that that has um hip-hop. You know, it doesn't have to be you know just America, even though that's the birthplace. I mean, all the countries can take that. But it is very universal, it brings people together, even temporarily. Yeah. Look, I listen, this is this is for someone who has loved hip hop, and even for years, even like five a good five years kind of slid away from it because what it's become. I treated like it was a disease at one point. I stand there, you know. But again, I had to deep down meditate, just say, look, if I keep just cutting these things off, I'm gonna isolate another. So I just be careful with that people. Don't don't don't become isolationists, because you might not, yeah, you cut down junk in your life. I I'm all for that. But if you're gonna just cut down just you know hip-hop just because of a couple of bad things, look, I think it's done more good. I think it's done more great than than not. But you know, sadly with the mainstream media, they they put the violence, uh, you know, the degeneracy and then they go, that's hip-hop right there. I can't. That's that's the kind of slander that it goes through and it will continue to go through. Oh, look at that. It it it all increases crime, it has black people killing each other, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 30:21

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, Geraldo Rivera, famous for you know saying that it's done that hip-hop has done more to, you know, has more been more detrimental to the black community than racism. Like that's that's the the the the Haraldo Rivera on Fox News a bunch of years ago. Now listen, again, I don't know who's listening to this show, I never know. I don't know who's listening to us kicking it. Like you may have a very negative impression about hip hop, music, and culture. And and I get that. Now, I I'll say this real quick. In in like 20, I think it was 2013, so this would have been 20 years after 2000, hold on, I'm getting 1993. 1993, 2003, okay. So in 2013, or maybe it was 2023, it might have been 2023. In 2023, I think it was New York Magazine, did an article, and they said 1993, right? The year that changed everything. And they spoke very, you know, eloquently and poetically about all the cultural things that happened in 1993. I don't remember them all because I'm focused on this. It might have been the year that friends first, I don't know, you know, first hit the air with whatever. But they were like 1993 had a lot of stuff going on. There was stuff politically, there was stuff happening, it was, you know, a lot of a lot of things happening. And one of the aspects of this, this um article was hip-hop in 1993. Another mainstream outlet, NPR, in the same year was like, hey, 30-year anniversary of the Chronic, right? The Dr. Dre album, which was, you know, universally loved amongst all kinds of demographics, right? Even though some people were like, it's like detrimental to women, there's drug use, sure. But what NPR was pointing out was that at the same time it was those things, it was also a very interesting cultural commentary about what was happening in Los Angeles, you know, in the neighborhoods from which, you know, Compton, Ingleware where these artists came from. So you get sort of a sociological, you know, not like a, it's not documentation, it's not journalism, but you get a sociological understanding of what's happening because these are artists who were 18, 19 at the time telling about their lives that now you may not approve of their lives, you may think that this is all horrible behavior, but it's also pretty accurate at the time as to what they were going through at that time. So NPR said that was actually an important thing because if you're not in Compton and Inglewood in 1993, you don't really know. And we're in New York, bro. When I didn't know about gang culture, I didn't know about colors, I didn't know about Crips and Bloods. Like, that wasn't a thing in New York. We had our own problems in New York. But when I start listening to like Snoop and Dre and, you know, Ice Cube and NWA, we start learning about what's happening in different communities across the country. That's sociologically important. Now, again, you could approve or disapprove of how it's expressed, but the point is that it's actual representation of their lifestyle. You could talk about later on how then people capitalized off of that and made up, you know, and embellished and, you know, I want to be a gangster too. And so they made gangster music just because it was selling. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about 1993, when New York magazine and NPR said that was a great year for hip-hop. Because who else came out that year? Tribe Call Quest. Wu Tang was about to start to drop stuff. Queen Latifa was dropping stuff. Positive hip-hop, right? Positive hip-hop, like, you know, you know, black excellence, uh, you know, Queen Latifah, black womanhood. Like, we're not talking about Queen Latifah famous, like, who you calling a bitch? Like, she talked, and then she's like, no, I'm a queen on this planet. So there was a time in 1993, 1994 when we all looked at his hip-hop as this golden age of excellence, right? There was really good art. Everyone loves Tribe Call Quest. Nobody calls Tribe Call Quest gangster rap. All the white people love Tribe Call Quest. All the white people love Public Enemy and Wu-Tang. But I went back and I looked at the New York Times. Again, talking about mainstream, the New York Times, newspaper of record in this country, right? Where reasonable people got their news. My dad bought a New York Times. My dad was a sociologist, by the way, so you see where some of this comes from. He was a college professor. He's, you know, I get, I didn't go to college for but 2.5 minutes, but I get a lot of this, you know, ideas from him. So I looked late, you know, a few years ago and I looked at every news article in 1993 in the New York Times. Same year that 30 years later, all these mainstream publications were saying was so great and so diverse and so brilliant. Tribe Call Quest, Queen Latin. In 1993, every single article in the New York Times about rap music was negative. Every single one. There was a fight at a concert. Boom. Someone was arrested for sexual abuse or whatever, or some kind of violent activity. You know, this per Reverend Calvin Butts, who was a big anti-rap crusader in New York City, is running over rap CDs with his bulldozer because of bad lyrics. Radio station bans negative lyrics, you know, in you know, in rap lyrics. Now, all these things were happening. True, that's fine. Because when you give an outlet for expression, you give an outlet for expression. You shouldn't control it or censor it. If people want to curse and talk about their lifestyle, if their lifestyle is, you know, pretty violent or, you know, pretty, you know, rambunctious, then they're g you you're giving them the green light, like you said, First Amendment, right? But if every single article in 1993 is giving a negative impression about rap and hip-hop, what do you think the general public is going to think? They're going to have a negative impression, and that's going to last, and that's going to be amplified because they're not giving the same credence to the brilliant artists. Again, Tribe Call Quest is a great one. We talk about jazz, how how they in how they brought jazz influences and they were so lyrical and beautiful, and just about love, community, and unity. You never heard those stories. And so most of America got this negative impression, which amplified throughout the years, because, you know, news is if it bleeds, it leads. And all you get is negative, negative, negative. And I can give you a thousand examples of positive, positive, positive that middle America just never heard. They just never learned about. And that goes to today.

SPEAKER_02: 36:37

Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know what? That's perfect timing for my next question. How can hip hop be possible? How can it help innovate areas like education, health, politics? I mean, you already touched on this a little bit. Let's flip this damn thing around. Because we all know the negative examples. Let's flip it around. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 36:59

And I say it continues to this day. And again, I want people to understand, and I tell, you know, this is this is my work, is that look, we can talk till we're blue in the face about you turn on a radio or you turn on or you flip on YouTube or you go on TikTok and you see what's like popular, you know, hip-hop music these days. And it may not be to your liking. It may not, you might not even understand the damn word of it, you know, even though we hit we might be hip-hop fans. You might be from, you know, middle and middle, you might be a conservative, you might be a you know, a right winger and say that this doesn't reflect the values, da-da-da-da. Fine. I'm giving everyone all that. And I'm saying, I do not care one way or the other about what's happening in mainstream hip-hop. Now, there's two sides to that. There's one person that'll say, well, it's actually really negatively impacting people, young people, because they're getting these, these, you know, imagery and you're getting like this this stuff. Okay, I do care. I do care about that. But I also don't think it's gonna change by attacking the music industry, the music business. It's like people saying, I don't want any more superhero movies. I want art house films. It's not gonna happen, bro. Like, you're gonna get blockbuster movies. Like, I'm a I love Godzilla vs. King Khan. I love God, I'm a Godzilla fan, bro. These big old Godzilla movies, I love them. I'll go to the movies. I'll it doesn't mean that I don't watch documentaries. It doesn't mean that they don't exist, right? I'm just saying you're not gonna get what you really want from hip-hop in the mainstream. What I'm saying is, is that 50 years into it, there's more to it than just the music. So what I talk about away is that people are using the music, but also the cultural connection, the understanding that young people are into this thing and they go to school. And you're a teacher, and you're trying to get young people to learn the things that they gotta learn. And I don't know about you, but I didn't give a goddamn about the things they were trying to teach me in school when I was growing up. And kids don't give a goddamn about the things they're trying to teach you in school today. So that hasn't changed. What has changed is that you probably had, and anyone listening probably had one teacher. One teacher. There's there's always one that somehow got through to you, that somehow you you fucked with. Somehow you were like, they get me. They uh Mrs. McGlory was my third and fourth grade. She moved up with it. We were third grade and then she moved in fourth grade. That's my that's my one. Miss McGlory treated us, she was sweet, she was kind, she treated everyone the same. She was very like soft and she took time with us, she pull us as like she was that one teacher. And I don't know what it was, what magical power she had. But I do know that somehow she found a way to find common ground between me and her. I'm a little white boy growing up in Long Island. She's a black lady. Like, we we don't have the same, at that point, I'm not like that culturally ingrained with you know, black communities. As I got older, you know, I, as you can tell, like culturally, I've gotten, you know, immersed, right? But I wasn't there yet. But she still found a way to find a common ground, to meet this little kid and find a way. What I'm telling people is that hip hop does that, like that, and that there are teachers that have. Tapped into this. And this isn't theoretical, by the way. There's hundreds of teachers who do this. There are books that have been written about this. There's research that sits in universities that like show the effectiveness of this. That they have realized that, hey, if we want to entice these kids, if we want to increase their engagement, attract them, like get them involved. We're 30 and 40 and 50 years old. We fucked with hip-hop. We're 14, 15, 16 years old. They fuck with hip-hop. It's not the same hip-hop, but it's a it's a thing that we could kind of connect to. If you show them that, hey, I respect what you're listening to. Tell me why you like that song. Who's who's popping right now? They're like, what do you care? Like, what you mean? What do I care? I care about this thing that you care about. We don't care about it in exactly the same way. And again, you get that in snippets. You could talk sports teams, but everybody in your class isn't going to like the same team. They're not even going to like the same sport. You could talk religion, but that's not going to work. Like, you know, that doesn't work anymore. You're not all the same anymore. The common denominator is hip-hop. And so when I talk to educators, I learned, I look, I didn't know this. I'm over here covering, I was covering New York hip-hop. I was a journalist, I was a music journalist, kind of on my own, on the side. And I liked hip-hop and I lived in New York. And they were telling me that New York hip hop is dead. It's all like Houston and Atlanta, you know, New York doesn't have it anymore, right? From New York, we we felt that way. We're like, everyone in New York sounds like they're from Houston. What's going on? What's up with the boom bat? What's up with the real hip-hop? We all felt that way. And I said, I don't know, man. Like, there's still some people doing some stuff out here. And I found that by covering as a journalist, like the independence scene, the underground scene, it was so beautiful. It was so many eclectic and you know, musically talented, lyrically superior, like so many great things happening in New York, but they weren't covering it. You wouldn't hear about it. You didn't know about it. And so you were like, oh, hip-hop's a gone commercial, it's done. But I remember, bro, I'm trying, and again, the hip-hop haters, let me tell you something. I promise you, I promise you, it doesn't happen anymore. It happened for about 20 years, 15 years, and then it kind of had to fade out, and then the pandemic hit. There was a thing called Freestyle Mondays. Now, follow me, I'm taking you on a journey here, but just stick with me for a second. Freestyle Mondays used to be a weekly open mic, right, in in New York City where people would come in freestyle rhyme. Freestyle rhyme is just making raps off the top of the head. Like, you know, there's a beat plan, and you're just no, you're not coming in with pre-written stuff. You're you're just saying things off the top of the head. And it was fun and it was an open mic, and anyone could get up and spit. And it was multi-culture, multi-generational, multilingual. Anyone could come up. You like rapping, they gave you a spot. Live band, by the way, playing music. Some dope musicians. And then once a month, they would turn that into a MC battle. And it'd be set a special, special occasion. I love this thing so much. And they had a wheel and they spun the wheel and every like a game show. And every, like there was categories like science and current events and food group, you know, like just weird categories. And so eight rappers, eight MCs would battle each other. And again, white, black, male, female, doesn't matter. They were just, if they were, if they felt that they could do it, they signed up and they were like, let's go. They'd spin the wheel, it'd be a the great host named Ill Spoken, spin the wheel, you get a category, and it'd be like food group. And so two contestants would come up on stage in front of everybody, it's a whole crowd. Like, all right, food group's a category. You're a shark, you're plankton. And like you see, like rap battles in history, like those YouTube channels, but they'd do it on the spot, bro, from the top of their head. And you'd be like, listen, you know, I'm plankton. I run through the ocean. You're a shark. You can't stop. No motion. But whatever. I don't do it. They did it. They're better. But these these folks would battle, and then the crowd would determine who, and with a live band play. Look, let me tell you something. I don't care who you are. You could have been a PhD professor at MIT, or you could have been a hood rock on the corner of Nostrin and Flat. Like, you could have been there, you would have had the time of your life. You could have been a redneck from the Appalachian Mountain. Like you would have been like, this is amazing because it's fun and it was smart. You had to be smart to be able to do this. And when I realized when I started talking to people, I said, hey man, you're really smart. Like, how do you, like, how do you have all this knowledge that no matter what comes up, it could be politics, it'd be like George Bush versus Bill Clinton, go. It could be like, you know, like whatever it was, random, like they sometimes try to stump you with some stuff. And they say, well, yeah, you know, I'm also a teacher. Because, you know, these are like 30-year-olds. Like, they're they're they're not like hood rats. They're not like little 16-year-olds, like just rapping in the street about getting bitches and da-da. They're older and they've been doing this for a long time. And I'm like, because we all even we all rapped about, you know, when we were 16 about getting bitches. We all do that. Like it's fine. But I'm saying is that these folks were doing it in an elevated manner. And it showed the progression of the music and the culture. And I said, Well, you're a teacher. Well, do you get to get to rap in class? Like, do you bring this talent of yours into the classroom? And someone would be like, Yeah, yeah, actually, I do. I do. I talk to the kids about, we actually have rap sessions where we another guy was like, I go into, I don't use it in school, but I go to Rikers Island. It's juvenile detention centers or and and we have workshops so that young men could learn to like express themselves with some kind of self-confidence. We do it through rap writing or poetry workshops. I'm like, that's crazy, that's incredible. I talked to a guy who's like, yeah, I'm actually a school counselor. I'm like, yeah. He goes, of course. I built a studio in my school counseling office. I'm like, wait, what? Dr. Ian Levy. He's like, I built a studio in my school counselor's office, and I bring kids in to talk about their trauma. And they like, I want to talk to you, you know. He's like, yo, let's, let's, let's make some music. Oh, all right, let's make some beats. All right, let's write some raps. All right, I can write some raps. Next thing you know, the entire group is making mixtapes, songs, and mixtapes about their trauma together, like as a group. Kids that would never have opened up about their trauma, never would have opened up about their, you know, fears and whatever the hell they're going, their anxieties. They're in, they're in the Bronx. They're in some like rough and tumble. All the places everyone looks at and say, yeah, they're killing each other, they're killing each other. I mean, yeah, but maybe give them an outlet so that they could talk about it and it'll like help. So I start seeing that there are people doing this through hip hop and they're breaking through to young people that weren't finding that like nothing else was working. And so I really started digging into this because I, you know, I got kids, you know, my kids, my kids are mixed. Like I, these are these are my kids. These are not just like, oh, I want to help these, these nice black kids. Like my kids are black kids. You know what I mean? So it's like, wait a second, hold on. Y'all are doing some really important work that I think can help equalize sort of the playing field a little bit, get to these, you know, help these kids out in ways that have failed them so far. Not saying for good or bad, not saying whatever. I'm just saying that these kids weren't getting this kind of help. They weren't disengaged in school, and now they are. So what's going on here? Something's happening here. And I wanted to look into it more. And so that's these are some examples to answer your question of how it can actually help and how it is actually helping young kids, particularly in these communities where, you know, you don't always get the full weight of the education system, doesn't always, you know, help them out, right? Black and brown communities, particularly poor white communities. Because let me tell you something. It works for white people too. It's universal. I talk to people that are like, no, most of my class is white. We do the same thing, but we approach it authentically. We find a way to meet them where they are. We we we tap into the stuff they're listening to, we learn about the songs they're listening. We don't like them all, we don't like the artists. We hate it sometimes. But when you open up that channel, you open up that lane, you open up trust, you open up communication. And whenever you do that with a young person, you're gonna get better results. And I just saw it happening. And so I started talking about it.

SPEAKER_02: 48:19

You hear that, people, you hear that. Look, I already look, I ain't gonna regurgitate the mainstream media. We all know what they say. It promotes prostitution, it promotes violence and all that, but you see, this is what the mainstream media doesn't tell you. Hip-hop. Look, it bridges gaps, it breaks your communication barriers that traditional methods would not work. Critical thinking, thinking right off the spot, articulation, linguistics, forget it on steroids, okay? If it's if I if I break it down further, that could be a whole nother freaking episode. How I could just increase linguistics. All right, you know, because uh oh, and absorbing knowledge that's otherwise boring. Right? You said food groups, politics, civics. You know, and this is just a bridge, you know, oh, intergenerational connection right here, you know, with all the young. So there's a lot of good with hip-hop. Well, you know what's funny? I had to see that firsthand. That's what drew me back. I said, Yeah, you know what, nothing is perfect. But you know what, there's so much good, and you know, a lot of hip-hop people do respect their elders, their you know, rich, I would call it OG sages, there you go, nah, a little bit of hip-hop right there. So, all right, so you know, it it is good. Look, I know what I'm sure BET is the best example here, probably a little controversial, but hey, look, all I'm gonna say is this treat it just like you study a civilization or something you're really interested in, okay? Because look, it's its own language, its own belief, even its own ideology, and it's true. Religion, it's not gonna work. It's gonna be Protestant, even within the Christian umbrella. Oh, I'm just gonna break it down, intra conflict, the Protestants versus the Catholics versus the Methodists versus all of that. And then, oh, and then if you want to make it worse, throw in the Jew, throw on the Arab, throw in the Hindi, throw the Taoist, forget it. It's all our war. You just created war. Congratulations. So that's not gonna help. Um politics. You gotta be savvy about that one. Maybe hip up could definitely bridge that. I could I could definitely see that. But you gotta be careful with that one. I want another slippery soap, but definitely more doable than religion and team sports. Team sports are, oh what? You Yankee, you man? I'm gonna bat your freaking up. There you go, you just started a war. Congratulations. Epic fail. And I'm gonna throw in some internet, you know, words are there. Epic fail. You're you know, fail. You got a major L. Major L. So you don't definitely talk about team sports and religion unless you want people to kill each other, okay? No, I get it.

SPEAKER_00: 50:59

Because people, because people, because you're right, you're right about that. It's tribalism, but it's I mean, it's it's meant to be. It's it's can it's conceived that way. So of course we're gonna be. Look, I'm a Knicks fan. I'm not, I don't even like Brooklyn. Brooklyn Nets, no, that's the New Jersey Nets. Like, I don't even mess with, I don't even call them the Brooklyn Nets anymore. Like they literally are in Brooklyn, and I still don't recognize them as like existing. So yeah, no, I'm not gonna now, you know, obviously it's it doesn't get that crazy, you know, with sports fans, because, you know, yeah, you might go into Boston as a New York fan and get into a fight or whatever. But generally speaking, yeah, sure, we can all kind of like commune over sports and and and maybe, maybe, maybe give a debt, maybe shake hands afterwards, whatever. But it doesn't give us this. It doesn't give us this opportunity to positively influence lives. I'll say this to anyone who still hasn't like, isn't convinced or whatever, and it's fine. You know, that's this that's the work. If if if I if I if if if no one needed to be convinced, we'd actually have a better world because that's the whole point. But that universality is is for real. There's a there's a group, they're in my book, by the way. And first of all, let me say two things about my I wrote a book about this, but it's really just interviews that I've had with people that are doing this work. And you just mentioned one thing about all the things that children have. Dr. Bettina Love, who's a great educator, she's the first interview that was on my podcast, Hip Hop Can Save America, and she, and therefore she was the first interview in the book, basically had a great TEDx talk saying exactly what you just said. That all the things we want our kids to have ingenuity, improvisational skills, social and emotional intelligence, you know, expressiveness, creativity, you literally get all this from hip-hop. Like if you just want to be a like if you want to pretend to be a rapper and when you're a kid and you want to be, and you may never become a rapper, you might write some raps, you might record some songs now because it's real easy to do. Like, you may never actually become successful at this. You may not make a living doing that. But I guarantee you've made yourself a better public speaker. You've made yourself less afraid to stand up in front of people. That helps you at your job when you have to lead a meeting or when you have to do a school presentation, or like there are transferable life skills that if we give kids the the opening to say, you wanna you wanna wrap your book report? That's crazy. You know what? Go ahead. Do it. Give them the opportunity to know that the way they see the world and and what they do with the world and and how they present themselves isn't bad by nature. That's what we're getting at here, right? It's not inherently bad. It's a way to express yourself in a way that is universal. You don't have to have instruments to do rap, you don't have to have electricity to do rap. All you need is your mouth. All you need is what other I mean, poetry, sure, you can do poetry. You remember that when we were young, they were like, write a poem about how you feel. I'll be like, I don't do poetry. I'm not a poet. But now if you ask a kid, write a rap about what you feel, they'll be like, ah, yeah, I could do that. So give them the opportunity to do that, and you've now opened them up to being able to express themselves. Now you can help them. But if they're not speaking to you because you're not acknowledging their way of communicating as being like valid, well, you've lost them and you'll you'll never get them back. You'll never get them. So what are we doing? So let's try it out. Like it works. Like I said, people are doing this. And again, you know, this is a political show. You know, you talk about politics, and I'm saying that this is something that's universal. All we ask for in politics is can one side listen to the other? Can one side, you know, understand where the other side is coming from? Can we meet in the middle? And I'm saying that hip-hop in these zones, in these fields or whatever, education, mental health therapy, technology, I'm I'm giving you examples where it happens. And so I just want to keep amplifying that because in that beautiful, you know, world that nothing else I can think of does, I think has the key, the core, the DNA. And I'll give you one last example because I want to talk all night. I mean, I'll talk all night, but I'm saying you got things to say too. I'm being respectful. There's a group that's in my book also that I interviewed, and it's a rap, you heard me, you heard me say this in the TED Talk. It's a rap and bluegrass band. They're known as gangster grass. Now, all right, folks that don't like rap, right? You're like, what? Rap and bluegrass? I love bluegrass music. I'm like, okay, great. Rap doesn't belong in bluegrass music. That sounds horrible. And rappers are like, rap and bluegrass on paper. This sounds crazy. I get it. This sounds like what? Rap and bluegrass? No. It's gonna sound gimmicky, it's gonna sound stupid, like when LL Cool J and Brad Paisley did that accidental racist song a bunch of years ago, which nobody liked. And I'm telling you that Gangstergrass is is a beautiful microcosm of what we're trying to get to here tonight. It's a bluegrass musicians, which are some of the best bluegrass musicians. I don't know bluegrass that much, but from what I've heard and understand, they're actually legitimate. They're really, really good. They're respectful of the culture that they come from, of that musical lineage, right? You got two rappers in the group, Dolio, the sleuth, and our son, the voice. They're from Philadelphia. They rap. They spit. They're not like, you know, corporate pop rapper. Like they spit. They're spitters, they're rappers. And they said to me when I interviewed them, they said, that's the key here is that we're not trying to just like smack something together because it could be gimmicky and cool, and we could be on, you know, TV shows and do some festivals and stuff. They said, no, no, no. Our bluegrass musicians are thorough. Our rappers are thorough. And we're not gonna sugarcoat our lyrics either. I'm a black rapper from Philadelphia, they say, and I'm gonna rap about black people's concerns. And these bluegrass musicians that have, you know, some of them are from the sticks, right? There's some, but they're like, we're gonna play authentically, and we're not gonna police them as to what they say. And what they do is they go into the foothills of Kentucky, they go to the bluegrass festivals, they're there. And the people are like, all right, this is cool. And then they spit and they're giving you like their view of the world. And their view of the world isn't pretty sometimes. It's it's it's it's dark. It's what bluegrass fans may not always want to hear. They they may be off, it may be off-putting to them. They don't get these perspectives watching Fox News in the middle of Kentucky. And you would think that they would be like, this is blasphemy, this is horrible. Don't bring these black people, don't bring this rap music shit into our beloved bluegrass music. And some of them do feel that way. Very few. The majority, the vast majority from what they tell me, is like, nah, man, we vibe. They hear us. They actually, now I'm not saying we're not, no one's naive enough to say that like a racist is gonna come into the the gangster grass concert and leave like enlightened, you know. But but it's one of the times that you can get a message across to an audience that doesn't necessarily get to hear your viewpoints. Fair enough. Like they don't get a lot of black perspectives on, you know, they don't get a lot of black liberal perspectives on Fox News. It just doesn't happen. Like we know this, right? So this may be the one of the few times that they're exposed to like this other viewpoint of worldview. But because they recognize that, oh, you're doing this authentically with the music and the culture that I'm a part of, I might give you a listen. I might try to hear what you're saying. Where else does that happen but with a fusion that includes hip-hop? And so I'm just saying that there are examples of of this universality, I keep going back to that term, that have been shown to like make some things happen, like really break the barriers, like you said. I'm just giving examples. I didn't invent it, I'm not doing it, I'm not the guy, I'm not the guy doing it all. I'm just telling you about because I look for the places where it happens, and I could I could do this all night.

SPEAKER_02: 59:32

So listeners and viewers, if you would have told me this was happening, that this has already happened, I would have said, oh no, I can't believe that. No. Sounds like fantasy. This is a culture shock. If I'm gonna be slightly nice about it, yeah. But no, you know what I think it is. I just think, you know, I just think people know when it's real. People just could could detect it. You know, and you said it authenticity, you know, even if it was risky, don't give It was a very risky thing to do. Virgin Bluegrass and that me. If you want to talk to me personally about that, I was like, oh, don't do that. Oh, hell no. I said that's what I'm saying. You want the KKK to come, you dumb fuckers? Right. I was I would have been concerned. I would have been one, I would have been the naysayer. I mean, brutally honest. I think I said you look. If you want to die, you you get yourself killed. I'm not gonna join you there. Don't drag me down, don't drag me down.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:26

I get it. I wanna die by my own terms, like own volition, not over this. No, not by this.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:33

And I'll be honest, like, as a hip-hop guy, I'm like, what are you doing? Stop with that bullshit. Like, nobody wants that. Nobody wants that. What do you, yo, like, nobody wants to, like, we're not kumbaya in, like, that's no, why would you do that? Why would you walk into the the the belly of the beast and and expose yourself? And they said, nah, man, it's not kumbaya. It's not. We're not trying to sugarcoat it. We're not trying to make it's exact, we go in with that. Like, like you said, they they go in. But and I've seen it, I've seen them perform. Now I saw them perform at Brooklyn. So, you know, whatever. And I told them, I did the interview, but now I've seen them around the country. Like, they definitely go into these places. And I'm telling you, again, it's these aren't epiphanies. I'm not saying people are gonna walk in as you know, biased or whatever, but but there's something about rapping, because it's look, it's the best, I think it's the best genre of music for getting information across. It's it's more words per square inch than any than any other genre. You can just say more things. You can say more things in a certain amount of time than any other genre, right? So you have an opportunity to say some things that are gonna resonate with people or to just open up their minds or to give them a little spark. And I'm not saying that like people who are full out, you know, racist fucks are gonna like turn around and be like, I love black people in that. No, that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is is it's it shows a respectful way to use authentically, like you said, authentic your cultural like vehicle. And and cross though, and cross into those boundaries, cross go to those places where, like you said, the KKK might be sitting unafraid and just saying, look, man, I'm just I'm speaking my truth. I'm doing it respectfully over these fabulous musicians that are like, they're they're they're legit, they're real. And like, I don't see it the other way. Now I'm gonna say, we've seen right wing, we've seen right wing politicians do rap. We've seen them do like try to tap into the hip-hop aesthetic. And and you can tell it's it's not authentic. It's just it's them just kind of almost a mockery sometimes. I I get what they're trying to do. And anyone can do rap, but not anyone can like do rap. You know what I mean? And I'm saying that that's where they get it wrong. If they were serious, which they're not, but if they were serious about getting their message out through this medium, they would take lessons from Gangsta Grass. And people on the left would respect that and say, hey, listen, I don't like your ideology, but I appreciate the way you're delivering it. And maybe I'm gonna listen. That's how you start to meet people halfway. Where, you know, where we're all tribalistic and all the way on the on the other side. I'm saying that hip hop's figure this out. Hip hop knows how to do this. Like we do it. This is what we do. This is why it's universal. This is why we'll all kind of be in that same place, and that's why it's it's it's prevalent throughout the world. Because we figured out how to do this.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:33

Yep. Well, you're been answering this, and I was saying giving breadcrumbs throughout this whole episode. I get through those people who understand. I mean, bluegrass is a what the hell kind of exhibit, but it but it works. You know, I gotta give them I gotta give them respect for bravery. I I I they took a huge risk. I get it. And I told them, I told them straight up.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:54

I was like, I don't, I I can't be out I'm mad side eye. I'm looking with a side eye like this. No. And and then and we become, we become like I like we're like friends. I like them. Like I like the whole vibe. I like what they're doing, and I I speak about them a lot because this, and what else like it's Americana? It's it's it's it's the perfect example. You know, like you saw it on Broadway with Hamilton. It's like, oh, here's a way to kind of bridge, you know, interest and so that Broadway people can understand hip hop. That's that's kinda there. It's kinda there. But it's you know, there's still some problematic things that didn't exact translate well. Gangstergrass has figured out a way that, again, same thing with Freestyle Mondays. You could be the most thuggiest thug and the most like nerdiest nerd, and you have a place where y'all can actually be standing shoulder to shoulder and be completely aligned. And that's what I get with Gangstergrass. When I go and I listen to them as a rap fan, they're rapping. They're actually like, they're they're good rappers, they're quality, they're authentic, they're they're dope, they're wordsmiths, they're clever, they're all the things that they're lyrical, they're whatever, they're substantive, all the things that we want from rappers. The group bluegrass man, I don't, I'm like, I don't know bluegrass like that, but these guys sound like they are killing it. Like, you know what I mean? And and that's where the magic happens, and I just don't see it happening anywhere else, especially not like you said earlier, first you know, anything that's mainstream or led by capitalism or you know, TV, like cable news where you try to get opposing sides to like all of that is performative and and and fueling like all the bad things about media and and connection. What I saw Gangsta Grass do, that's why I put them in a book. Like, that's pretty impressive that you that they get to show up in these places and people listen. It's pretty impressive. It just is what it is.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:56

That's shoot. It's very impressive. Like I said, I would have cowed, I would have easily taken the cowards' way out.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:04

You owe me both, man.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:07

I'm not doing that. I know, but you see, this is why we need the brave people. That's why I respect them because they were troops. Yeah, hip-hop troops. Yeah, man. They went to the, we had the I love that, the lions then in Navy. And they're still doing that. I think right I think right now they're I think they're on tour in Europe. Yeah, they're taming the separatist lions that were ready to devour them.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:30

Come on, there's a bar right there.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:34

Yeah, I can be creative sometimes. Yeah, yeah, I like it. But you know what? This is no, this has been amazing. I'm so you see, this is this is why I listen to my intuition in my brain. My brain would have said, I don't like doing this. I don't want to rap, get this shit over with. Oh, I got that feeling. But you know what? My intuition said no. Welcome. This is gonna be a great episode. This is and you know what? You did not disappoint. So I'm pro, well, now let me let me be well, I I am pro-capitalist on this part. You know, you know, sharing your your stuff, you know. You're you he doesn't follow him in his podcast, Hip Hop Can't Save America. It is definitely saving America. Maybe we gotta change that title a little bit. Saving. It's saving America.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:23

What is saving America? I think it can't, yeah. I mean, that's that's fair. And people all the time are like, yo, hip hop saved the world too. I'm like, I know, I I got that. That's next. Let me do this one first. I own the domain name, I'm coming with it. But yeah, I think because that again, universality, man, is universality. If if if what you want, if what you really want is like equality. Now, if what you if you don't want equality, if you just want to be the controlling, you know, entity or force or community, then no. Like this, this is this isn't bad. This is terrible. You hate this. You don't want people to figure this out. It is a com it is a culture of unity and community. And and so I say, you know, hip hop can save America, it can. And you say definitely, I mean, it definitely can, but there are forces at work that honestly just don't want unity. They don't want equality, they don't want equity, they don't want, they want to remain in power. And that it's a bad part of capitalism. I I'm I'm pro-capitalist in that like we all gotta like live and make money. And I think there's different lanes of capitalism that, you know, could I think the new best form of economic structure is sort of a hybrid capitalism, right? Like we I don't think we've gotten it yet. I think it's because right now it's even past, we have oligarchy happening right under our noses, right? So I'm not anti-capitalist, I'm anti-inequality. And if capitalism breeds inequality, which it does across the board, like I said, maybe more for you know traditionally marginalized folk, but there's a lot of poor white folk that aren't reaping the benefits of capitalism. So I'm not anti-that. I'm pro-new thing. I'm pro thing that hasn't happened yet. That takes a little bit of this, takes a little bit of that, takes a little bit of all these economic systems, democratic socialism, maybe a little bit, dash of that, whatever. Whatever it needs to be, I don't think it exists quite yet. I think there's pieces and everyone's in their silos, and they're not letting the remix happen. But gangstergrass is the remix, hip-hop is the remix. That's why I say it can actually save America. I don't think we have the answer quite yet, but I think that hip-hop shows that it's in the remix. It's in the coming together of these disparate ideas in a new way to form a new thing. That's where the magic happens, where it actually can benefit. I want to say everybody, probably not the oligarchs. I'm just saying, like, it's probably gonna drop them down a few notches because that's what has to happen. I I think we could probably all agree, right? But I think that in that DNA, in that core is some way of figuring out what the next 250 years of America can look like, if it can live up to its true ideals, and if we could really find a way to come together and, you know, and and and and all thrive and survive, you know, together in a way that like everyone can, you know, can like live in peace and not all this fucking drama all the damn time. Wouldn't that be nice? When I go to hip hop shows, no drama. There's no fights, there's no violence. When we go to real hip-hop shows, you've been to them, you know, it's all love, man. And you turn to your neighbor, and they might be 50 years old, they might be 20 years old, they might be black, they might be white, they might be male, they might be female, they might be a tourist, they might be American, they might be an immigrant, they might. It's all love, baby. We here in the show. And and and that's peace, love, unity, and having fun. People don't understand, the last thing I'll say, that's the core tenets of hip-hop. It's not violence, drugs, misogyny, and all that shit. It's not none of that. And and shouts the the problematic Africa Bambada, but the one of the things he did was sort of establish this idea that when it comes down to it, hip-hop, music, and culture is about love, peace, unity, and having fun. And if we could find a way to mirror those tenets in everything that we do, if everything we do, we lead with love, peace, unity, and having fun, safely having fun, let's, you know, we don't want to like while out. If we lead with those tenets, like that's hip-hop. And I know that religion gives us great tenets and religion, but religion is also like you have to do it my way. Hip-hop says you don't have to do it my way. The great Grandmaster Kaz from the Colcrush brothers said in a great documentary, by the way, The Art of Rap. It's a good documentary. We'll learn a little bit more about the music side, like where the genre came from, the art of rap was produced by Ice T, came out a bunch of years ago. Grandmaster Caz said that and said, hip-hop didn't invent anything. But hip-hop reinvented everything. And that's where I see the potential is that what we need in our political system is a reinvention, a total reinvention. But it's got to take pieces, like some stuff works, and some stuff works from over here and over here. And when you come down to it, everyone wants just a good life and they want our kids to have an education and we want to be able to pay our bills and work and be happy. Like anyone on any side of the political spectrum wants that. And there are people on this side that have an idea how to do that, but also people, but they so hate each other that they never bring their ideas together. That's what hip-hop is at its core, a remix mentality. We have a remix framework that if we just intent with intent and purpose look at our problems that way, it gives us a little blueprint of how we can maybe, maybe like legitimately help save America.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:00

You know that is well said. We need a macro remix of economics, politics. Listen, this is this is no, I absolutely agree. Look, the big, the worst part of capitalism is the corporate, you know, corporatist entities that take over and dominate so much. And yeah, it's supposed to be free market. It's not free market when corporations run the system. It's it's not, and it hasn't been for a really, really, really long time.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:28

Yeah, I mean that's the clear.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:30

You know, I I'm for vicious capitalism. Maybe, maybe dump some dash of socialism in there. We could debate the details. That's fine.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:37

Right, that's fine. But but but but a citizens united doesn't help nobody. You know what I mean? Like it's like that's where it ends up. That's gotta go. Abolish that shit. Yeah. Right. Like money in politics is the reason why like this isn't working anymore. You know, even though the core ideals like had problems too, who would have pushed it over the edge? Like, we can't, how is the how is the regular person supposed to have a voice when corporations are people? Like, I you know what I mean? Like, I don't think anyone I people, I can't speak for everybody. I just think that what you're saying is true. It's it, you know, when when corporatists and when when when when when we start turning our capitalism into oligarchy, like what's going on, bro? Like, we're all in the same boat if we're not in the yacht. You know what I mean? Like we're not in the yacht, we're all in the same boat. So what do we gotta do? I love that. Macro remix. Thank you. I'm might have to borrow that. That's the take. We'll do it, we'll do it, we'll do it together. We'll do a, we'll, we'll, we'll we'll we'll collaborate.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:38

We'll do a collaboration. This has been great. Listeners and viewers, and I'll be very serious. Have you enjoyed this? This is unlike anything I've done. We got to the culture, the society, and look, about how hip hop is actually a force of good. Yeah, yeah, it's a bit biased. Look, I can give you I look, I I have look the negative part. Look, you can look to mainstream media for that. There's a bunch of resources of that. However, there's just not enough good being acknowledged. That's why I decided to take this angle. There's just not. And you know what? Come to think of it, once you're sober minded, stop drinking the hater, you know, the haters Kool-Aid, you know, you will realize, just take a step back, just have an open mind. You he already said it, public speaking, critical thinking, you know, poetry, linguistic skills from steroids. Again, I'm gonna keep saying that again. And unity, regardless of religion, political ideology, gender, you know, immigrant status, you know, it it is a true, you know, barrier breaker. There you go. A true barrier breaker for sure. You know, you could twist it. It's not the physical sense, dummy. You know, metaphoric. Yeah, yeah. So that's what I'm gonna say about that. Well said. Alrighty then. I would I will normally ask if you want to like add anything more, but you already added so much. Let's do the shameless plug-in. This is the whole thing. I definitely want you back, though. That's for sure. I would appreciate it. I would definitely, I would definitely want you back. This is so much we can get into. Uh, but this is like a good starting ground right here, my honest opinion. So plug in your stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:24

Yeah, yeah. Listen, if any of this like even sparked your interest, or again, you want to hear more, or you know, you know, still don't believe me, uh I have two main places to look for the I have a media ecosystem of my own. I do a podcast, we do a live stream starting at the top of the year, coming back every Monday night live on YouTube where I interview folk and I talk about this stuff. So if any of this resonated with you, please hip hopcansaveamerica.com. I did you see it here, I did publish a book this year, earlier this year, which kind of uh goes into a lot of this this stuff in greater detail. Uh the YouTube archive, the audio podcast archive, and a newsletter. I give a free newsletter that I I send out stories, I curate stories, I curate things like this to give you more and more and more and more proof of concept. So if any of this sparks your mind or you just want to hear more, hip hopcasaveamerica.com. You can also come look for me and say, hey, you're amazing. I want to pay you lots of dollars to learn more or to come speak or to do all the things, or just want to, you know, send you a nice. I do like praise. I'm very, I'm very, I'm a very attention whore kind of person. So you can go to mannyfaces.com, you find out more about me. So hiphopcasaveamerica.com, mannyfaces.com, or just Google either of the other and you'll find whatever it is you need to find to get more information. I appreciate you, Elias, for having me. It's I know I'm the face of this thing, but you know, I tried to drop a lot of names tonight. I tried a lot drop a lot of people who are doing this work. I'm really just like you, man. I just like to amplify the people who are doing the work. And so as someone that you know sits on the other side of this camera, you know, sometimes I thank you for letting me do that and letting me like signal boost and talk about these really exceptional people that are doing really exceptional things that are saving our our kids' lives, man. And and I I just I hope that that somebody out here, and I'm sure that this will happen because I know your audience is vast and they have these interests, like they want to follow these rabbit holes, please do so at either of those websites or reach out to me personally and be like, tell me more about this field. I work in healthcare, I work in, you know, manufacturing, I work in, you know, education, I work in technology. There's so many more examples I can give across the board. So I'm I'm welcome. I'm open for it. And if you'd like to have me back, I'll come anytime, man. I appreciate I appreciate you.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:46

I'll definitely want to do that. I was gonna call him right here. If you don't return, you know why he chicken down. I'm kidding. No, now I'm just trying to start stuff. All right, no, but on a serious note, though, no, really, give him support. Give him support. You know, the hip hop, you know, commentators, journalists, researchers, whatever type you want to give yourselves, they don't get enough credit. They just simply don't. And I know it's for someone who has consumed area, even, you know, am I gonna say, yeah, I did participate, not as a not as a rapper and all that, but definitely as an analyzer, observer, and even, you know, enjoy the history and their culture and talking to people, you know, more I'll say a casual participant, that's how I'm gonna leave myself. But you know what? It's you know, I'm just happy that it's here because I probably will not imagine life without hip hop. And to be honest with you, you know, maybe punk rock, maybe I would have turned to a cranky 30-something year old with all that noise freaking driving me crazy already. Probably. Yeah. We all would have. It'd be as white as on Manny Faces here. All this hair would have been white. Well, all these freaking sounds, all right? Sorry. Come on, man.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:00

I'm owning it now.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:00

I'm owning it now. Hey, no, all of services though. Yo, just you know, just skip support. Cause I'm gonna link the website, the book, the oh, even that TED Talk. It's a must. Listen slash watch people. You know, I don't want to hear, oh, I don't want to shut up. I don't want to hear that. Just pay attention. Sometimes you just gotta shop and pay attention. Then you have your opinion. Have an opinion first, okay? That's stupid. Give a listen first.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:32

That's all I ask. Yeah. Hear me out. And then then do you.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:36

Yeah, that's all I'm gonna say about that. And look, he's been great. I gotta say, I've been enjoying this, and I'm happy that I actually listened to my intuition of um my logic, my logical, lazy brain. I don't want to do anything, just take the easy way out sometimes, and while the intuition, no, no, no, something could come out of it. If my intuition would have disagreed with the logic, oh yeah, that person is screwed. So I have that little internal conflict, but I've been relying on my intuition and it's been serving me very well. That's what I'm gonna say about that. So listen, now for my shameless plugin and love. Share this podcast, especially for someone who you believe could benefit tremendously, okay, for it. If you want to give a review, give it on Apple Podcasts. If you give it four star or less, give me one specific reason this episode can improve. If you give it five star, give a reason why this is great. I don't accept empty insults or compliments. Oh, this episode's great. I don't mean anything. I hate your episode. Wonderful. Who cares? I don't. I don't and another thing. Now, in one more in it, actually, no, I got three things I just share. I want to share with you. There's a new paper. Okay, straight. This is fact, this is like facts-based news as straight to the point, no political spin. Just give you facts right there. If you're someone who's very busy, the law's gonna take us about five, six minutes. It's just you that's reading every single section. But if you picky, there's like your politics, your stocks, that's one or two minutes. You know, straight to the point. It's not all this fluffy right here on CNN, Fox News, the other. I bash all them, even sometimes News Nation, which I like News Nation a bit, but sometimes I'm critical of them because sometimes they go in a weird direction with their sometimes conspiracy theories, and sometimes they're too obsessed with celebrities, which is a bit weird for me. But I like New Stations out all of them that to me, I think, you know, they're they're the least of the I'll say the least evil of the mainstream media because they they try to break, they at least try to bring people together as flawed as it is. Yeah, that that's all I want to say about that. And two more. Oh, and join pod match. That's how many Manny Faces met. Look, stop PDFing the damn one pager. Send it to me through the email. That is so 2010. We're in 2025. Stop. Stop. You are, I will call you a spiritual boomer. You could be 20-some years old or 200 years old. But if you're doing things like this, you're inefficient. You are an e-boomer, okay? Trust me, there are 20-some-year-olds, the zoomers, you call them. I want to act old. Listen, don't, it's overrated. Just stop. That's so cringe worthy. Yeah, I'm gonna start throwing slangs today. I'm gonna horrify you with them. But you can keep skippity. You keep skippity because it's trash. You keep that one. I'm not gonna learn that crap, all right? Another thing. And yeah, so join PodMatch. They got free, we got, you know, small playing pain plants, and you get and you're with a community of people who want to do good with podcasts, you know. And you you meet some wonderful people, and and yeah, just give it a shot. Give it a shot, people. I mean, was it for Alexandra to reach out to me? This would not happen. So I gotta give big thanks to oh, I gotta give thanks to one more guest who actually she would have been such a great ally, and but she no longer does this. An educator, a Jewish woman who was super creative. She says, How do you learn? What kind of teacher acts that? Most people don't. Right. She bought the students' interests intersected with her discipline. And it'd be ballet, Broadway, even, hip-hop, spoiler alert, Zephyr Learman. Shout out to her for being so creative, thinking outside of the box, set of just, I don't know, following the stupid traditional education system, which it needs a major change. It's operating like it's in like it's like two centuries ago. It needs a major change. That's why it's failing. So you're teaching, you teach you, you just you just create obedient workers. We gotta create creativity, in it, you know, creative, think, you know, creative, creatives. We need creatives, we need entrepreneurs, we need people who could think. You wonder why we have a thinking problem, okay? Uh the obsolete education system is a big one. All right. Now for the final thing. If you want a website or or you need one, join a free website, guys. Once you join them, you'll be helping this podcast tremendously. So if you want a nice, beautiful website with people who could guide you through the process, they're understanding, they're helpful, they will do a lot of things for you for a low, and if you want higher-tier plans, it's up to you. Go by your budget, you make that decision. Okay, I can I tell you, I know I've talked to some people who are struggling financially, and those who are doing well financially. So you do what's best for you there. So, all right. Whew, this is longer than I thought. All these plugins and all that. But finally, I get to wrap this up. Once you reach the end of this video or audio journey, you have a blessed day, afternoon, or night, yeah.