Lemme Ask You This
From the minds of Talib Kweli and Tef Poe comes Lemme Ask You This, a podcast that lives at the intersection of art and activism.
Lemme Ask You This
Episode 29 - KRS-One Ft. KRS-One
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Episode 29 - KRS-One Ft. KRS-One
Episode 29 of Lemme Ask You This with Talib Kweli and Tef Poe features legendary, foundational MC KRS-One and begins with KRS, Tef and Talib having a conversation about the cruelty that drives the MAGA movement. KRS talks about how white society does not control it's criminals and how white supremacist ideology ensures that the right people do not lead. KRS talks about how MLK speeches remain relevant and then he is introduced. KRS talks about seeing Talib's show at the Los Angeles Blue Note and praises Tef Poe's performance. KRS talks about how being homeless early in life led to him always wanting to give a great show. Talib talks about meeting Tef, and KRS praises the performances of Georgia Anne Muldrow, MED and Blu. KRS shows love to Talib's band and Camau Bernstine joins the conversation to talk about hiphop drumming. KRS talks about helping to create boom bap hiphop with his album, Criminal Minded, and then talks about his new documentary. KRS talks about hiphop's spirituality and philosophy, then breaks down the theory of the aquatic ape. Tef asks KRS about his philosophy and KRS breaks down the principles of hiphop. Talib thanks KRS for letting him perform at 1520 Sedgwick Ave for hiphop's 50th anniversary show and KRS talks about how he got that show done. Talib talks about how BDP influenced his song Definition and reminisces about calling up KRS on the radio. Talib asks KRS to break down his lyrics from HipHop Lives and KRS talks about how MC Shan and Marley Marl are a part of his legacy. KRS shows love to Queens MCs and tells a story about MC Serch at Latin Quarters. Tef compares KRS to Young Jeezy which turns into a conversation about staying grounded. Talib talks about how Self Destruction inspired HipHop For Respect and KRS talks about how some Black people were bred to be agents of white supremacy. Talib talks about using KRS lyrics in high school and KRS talks about building a hiphop city in Newark.
Shot and Edited By Chino Chase. Additional Filming By Aaron Ross Media Co.
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So yeah, what we were talking about was uh over there, said over there was that there's there is um there is definitely this unapologetic, unadulterated celebration of debauchery existing within the MAGA movement that you were saying is is natural. It's it's innate, it's in them. It's not that's exactly who they are.
SPEAKER_00And continue, please. This is exactly what it is. It's a nor it's it's the norm. And it it never was supposed to be the norm. Criminality is not supposed to be the norm. Corruption is not supposed to be the norm. Colonialism, imperialism is not supposed to be the norm, but these things are now the norm. And the word is the norm. You know, it's like before, we used to scream out, that's beyond the pale. Yeah. You know, you went beyond the norm. No, now it's really if you don't understand, you know, w like how to be a racist today, you might be find yourself alone. If you don't have a nasty thing to say about somebody else, you might not have a chance to speak. Yeah, the cruelty is the point. Right.
SPEAKER_05That's what they've been saying about it.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_05The cruelty is the point.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Wow. That's the whole point. It's like, um It's like they are are revealing themselves. Like with Donald Trump with the election of this man, um, the first thing that people said, they they pretend that they want to be anti-establishment. They pretend that he's some sort of rebel to the system. He's going to drain the swamp when he is the swamp. You know, they they what they said was, he's saying all the things that I that I I want to say. He said, he's saying, you know, he's like, he's fearless. He's like, you know, he's and he's speaking eugenics. He's speaking, you know, predatory capitalism. He's he's I'm I grabbed him by the pussy and they like it. Like he's he's saying all the things. You know, they're supposed to be the party of family values, the the the Christians, and and but they're willing to table all that. And I think uh uh from what I can see, it's not even that a lot of the MAGA people, um, not the MAGA people, right? Because that's more cultish. But the people who would vote for Trump, even if they're not gonna wear a MAGA t-shirt or go to a kid rock concert, right? They these people are like, look, I'm willing to tolerate him because they see him as a vessel for them to, you know, stop abortions. They see him as a vessel uh for uh colonial enterprise in Iran. They see him as a vessel for we wanna build a wall and stop all these immigrants. They like, yes, he he we can, he's malleable. They we can mold him in our image because he's willing to say whatever to attain power.
SPEAKER_00And see, this is this is the problem, and I say this respectfully, this is the problem with white society is that they have no control of their criminals. And it's that it's it's the bully of their community that's bullying everybody else.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I say that too. I say, you know, white community, people in the white community who want to like talk about any type of marginalized community. Like, y'all got a Nazi problem in the white community that is threatening and endangering all of us. Right. So before you talk about any other community, that's an existential threat.
SPEAKER_00Well, see, this is the see, now you're touching on the culture of white supremacy where it's clear you're wrong. Let's say if if we reduce ourselves to races, I'm black, we're black, he's white, okay. If we reduce ourselves to that, and you see that one of these groups, a white, the white group, let's say, is at the head of the world's corruption, imperialism, and out-of-control capitalism. If you see that, now you as a white person should say, my group is is not ready for this. Let us step down. Let us step down from power. Let us allow others who might have a more ethical or moral approach to the situation, let's let them lead, because that's going to be better for all of us, including us. It's going to be better if we let the right people lead. But what's happening is white supremacy refuses to have the right people lead. It wants the white people to lead. So if you can't get the right people in office because of this white supremacist culture, then then deal with it. And this is this is now the second piece. For those of us that seek truth, we only see truth. For those that seek the lie and the gossip and the scandal, well, that's what you're getting. Yeah. Lie, gossip, and scandal. For me, this is a time right now of such great learning. Yes. Every history teacher should be here for it. Should be just euphoric right now. You don't even have to take your kids to a book. Right. You can just click the TV on, yeah, and let's discuss our world leaders in real time. And you're gonna get everything we have gotten for the last 250 years. Is it a coincidence that we're coming up on 250 years declaration of independence? And the declaration of independence talks about the overthrow of a tyrannical government. Yes. Well, see, whites patriotic duty. It is can you underline that? It is your patriotic duty to rid your community, your nation of a tyrannical government, out of control, corrupt government. You're supposed to get up. Now, here's the thing. We all say we real Americans. The real American document is right there, and it's telling you what to do. You ain't doing it. You're not even thinking about it. In fact, you want to be down with the tyrant.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. You want to be down with it, and you and you have been gaslight, gaslit, and you gaslight other people to say that the tyrant is somehow a rebel to the system that's going to drain the swamp.
SPEAKER_00Well, those that that seek lies get lies. Those that know the truth know the truth. These people never win. And they know they don't win. Yeah. So they they push, they put, they pump, they put a pump and and make you go, oh, whoa, it's this and it's that. But it's all on a clock. First of all, this president is not what you got, three more years now? Okay, and whoever comes in, okay. So all of this is temporary.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00All of this is temporary. Yeah. All this hype we're getting into, all of this, the gas prices going up and down. The gas price has been going up and down. That's been a thing since our parents. Since they had cars. Since they had cars, since they had since we had cars, the gas prices. I read Dr. King's speech the other day. It was January. His birthday came around. I pulled the speech out. I was disappointed. Why? The same thing he said in 1963 is the same thing going on right now in 2026. It made me think. And we all say this too. We all know, we all say it. In the speech, Dr. King talks about police brutality, talks about the voting, uh, how they're trying to take away voting rights, talks about how we're supposed to get together with each other, don't drink from the cup of bitterness. All this is in the speech. Okay, all this. We ain't doing none of it. In fact, we're doing the opposite. He said, Don't drink from the cup of bitterness. All we hear is bitterness. Yeah. Yeah. And for the other person, look, this is what we were talking about just a few minutes ago. And a lot of people might might find this funny or or offensive. Let the white man have his day. Let dude have his day.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And I say disrespectfully because the the idea is that no, since 60 civil rights, black folk have been, we've had our way. Um now, of course, everything we wanted, and we ain't get everything. Nobody does. But compared to what our great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents have gone through, no, there has been a remo remarkable improvement in quality of life and quantity of life. And and for black folk, I I everyone is feeling this, but just for black folk where we're coming from, no, there's a lot more opportunities now today uh than there was before. That's not to say that things are better. No, they're not. Right. But the That's why the Dr. King speech is the same. That's and this is a this is the point. It's the same, but look at Dr. King, okay? Look at the person giving the speech. Revolution only works for those that participate. That's right. So in this instance, it's like those that really read the speech and was really down with the movement, those are the people that became the Jesse Jacksons. Those are the people that became Abernathy, those are the people that became heads uh, you know, of whatever it is they they were striving for. We're not even striving for anything anymore. As a people, we're striving for, we're not reading our own history. We're reading gossip and scandal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And it's being made to seem like this is the cool thing to be or do. And here's another thing: there's not much else going on online, TV, cable news, whatever it is. It's all gossip and scandal. No truth, no facts, no evidence, no nothing. Just how you feel. Let me let me keep poking you how you feel. Right. The vibes. The vibe. Let me give you the vibe. It is what it is. Let me give you that vibe. Oh, you like this vibe? Feel sad now. Feel angry with me, feel happy with me, feel satisfied, feel unsatisfied. So your mind is going all over the place. You can't even make the right decisions in life because you're not making decisions in life. So you're allowing yourself to be dragged around from this gossip to this scandal to this thing to that. So now it's really time for you to now use your intellectual skills, your own mental ability to make the right decision in your life. You can't do it. You have no training in wisdom at all. All you know is what stimulates me. Yo, dude got punched in his face. Yeah, that's what it is. Yo, let me get it online. Yo, you heard dude got punched in his face? Yeah, man. Dude got punched. He got hit on the left side. This is this is us.
SPEAKER_05You're right. This is us. This is us. Yes, indeed. Ladies and gentlemen, we got the blastmaster. K R S one. This is Let Me Ask You This, I got Tef Pope. Yes, I'm here. I'm here, man. I'm alone with it.
SPEAKER_03I'm sitting with two of my teachers, even though I know your name means the student. Yes, and this is my teacher.
SPEAKER_05It's a direct lineage. Big shot.
SPEAKER_03Wow, that's why we sit like this.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_03It's wild, yo. The flow is great. It's like, yo, life is crazy. God is good, man. Yes, indeed.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, man. We had a show last night. Thank you for coming out to the show.
SPEAKER_00Oh man, no, we didn't have a show last night. You rewrote hip-hop's actual history. Yo, first of all, so many things to talk about last night. Yeah. It was amazing. First of all, just thank you, first of all. Because I could, we're now out of savager. We're trying to be a little civilized. I can look at you and say, thank you for the opportunity. Thank you, no, thank you, brother. Thank you for the opportunity. We all, as MCs, we live for moments like these. Yes. But then when I got there, it's the Blue Note. Yes. Okay? Yes. It's the new Blue Note in LA. Chick walk up to me, the manager. She likes, we only been here six months.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. I'm like, wait a minute, hold on. That's why, that's why I didn't. That's part of what my intention behind. I was like, okay, this is the new Blue Note. I need to show them how I do. Word.
SPEAKER_00And the dude, as another dude, another manager came over. He said, yo, this is giving us such ideas. Yeah. Yo, this is you're changing the way Blue Note.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, he did say that. I feel like part of what he was saying was K-Prime. I feel like that was part of it. I feel like they never thought about having that type of DJ before. Right.
SPEAKER_00For everything we did, but I feel like that was part of it. K-Prime did his thing. I'm proud of him. He actually got up there, and right, they got a chance to see, because normally it would have been a playlist. Most of the time you come to a rap show as a playlist, man, until the act comes on. But again, you brought hip hop to the blue note. So we, the doors open, we start with the DJ. Blitz time.
SPEAKER_01Let's start getting it in.
SPEAKER_00K-Prime rocked it, did his thing. And then, of course, set the mood. You came. I came with Roz Cos Mad Lion. But you, you, wow. I mean, first of all, wait a minute. Slow down. Man. Riding through the hood, like Malcolm X. Yeah, Temple ripped it down as well. Oh no, it wasn't. We're not even, listen, people probably just thinking we just here blowing smoke on each other. No, right, right. No. Matter of fact, you recorded it. Yeah. Go back, look at the film itself. Go back, look at the footage. Now you did your thing up there. It was raw. It was right on time. People, and I was in the back looking too. I'm in the back sneaky. The MC looking at the crowd.
SPEAKER_03Y'all got to know how nervous I was. It hit me. I'm a cool cat, you know what I'm saying? But it hit me like two seconds before I went on. I'm like, nigga, you about to go on in front of KRS motherfucking one, man. Like that there is no higher ranking of approval in the in the MC canon than what you can grant a person. You know what I'm saying? So like I appreciate it. For somebody like me, that means the world, you know.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, in the world of MC and everybody knows Chris's show is not to be fucked with. At all. You know what I'm saying? Like, there's there's certain people, there's, you know, there's a DMX who everybody knows puts on a great show and a red MF that everybody knows. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. But like, you know, I've had the opportunity to tour with you. We performed at the lyricist lounge. Oh, man. Uh at the Apollo Theater, the anniversary. When I toured with you, we used to do, uh, we did a couple clubs in the South. It was the summer, and you was like, no AC. I remember it was one particular wet show, the Howlin' Wolf in New Orleans. You know what I'm saying? Howling. Yes. Whoa. And you said, no AC. And then you said, I came off stage and I felt like I did a good job. You was like, I came off stage, you was like, that was alright. Then you said, watch this. You said, watch this. Damn. Fast forward years later to the Apollo Theater, you sat the crowd down. You said, there's a lot of MCs in the building, but there's a reason I'm going on last. You sat the crowd down. You said, take a load off. And then you rhymed over a Vivaldi record. You know, so man, like what inspired you to just be the illest when it comes to the show format?
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm I start as a homeless guy. Okay, this is where it starts for me. I left home at a very young age, lived on the streets of New York. Prospect Park. That was my living room right there. Okay, Prospect Park. And then, of course, I graduated up to Tompkins, Manhattan, Tompkins Square Park, and then West Fourth Street Park. I moved up in the world. When someone gives you money, when you're homeless and somebody gives you money, it's a higher level of respect than even if you work for it. Somebody give you a 20, you show that respect for that 20. You don't just snatch somebody 20 in the hood and just be like, that was it. Anywhere in the hood, somebody give you something, you slow down and you say, yo, good looking on that. Thank you for that. Yo, it could be $5. It could be two, it don't matter. In the hood, any exchange is great. There's a gratefulness and a respect that comes on it. So for me, when people pay for my concerts, I still feel that way. I'm like, you still interested in KRS what? Yeah. Let me show my ass in here real quick. Like, no, you gave me $20. I mean, you gave me $45, whatever the ticket price is today. Uh you gave me $50 going ticket price today. You gave me $50. I'm working for that $50. You are never supposed to think that I put my money down and I just he act like he didn't care. You know, like that. Nah, you put your money down, I'm gonna act like I care that you put your money. So now what does that do? It brings me to the skill. I gotta be right. You gotta be right. You gotta get up there and do what you gotta do. You get there is no other option. You have to do it. Um, that's why Popes. What when you okay, you say you was performing in front of KRS. The test, you passed it, you get an A. Yes. Let me show you why, too. Let me show you why. You were in the hardest situation to be in as an MC. That's right. Okay. First of all, it's Talib. He called everybody there to see Talib. They not even there to see me. Okay, promise over there. Say, y'all ready to see Taleb? Right. The whole crowd, like, yeah. Okay. They don't even know we there. Right. Okay. Yeah. That's this is real MCing. Yeah. You come out. The God brings you out. Now, what you gonna do? You have to maintain these people's attention. The God stopped talking. What are you gonna do? You gotta maintain a headline position right there. You rocked that shit. You took it, your energy level, you came right up on them. Beat drop, boom. You went right into the rhyme. The rhyme was dope. Whatever, whatever song you chose to pick, like to do that, that cadence, they needed it. Right. They needed it right there. They needed that cadence. Whatever you were coming with, they felt you. I'm in the back looking. I'm seeing heads going like this. Because they didn't want to give you nothing at the beginning. You're just another dude coming out like this. They like, okay, so it's Tyler Quiley bringing his man out. Let's just look. By the time you got through like eight bars of that shit, it was like, okay. They was in it. It was in it. It was like, okay, let's go. And that's what I saw in the back. I'm like, okay, see? Because let me show you something else, coming back to your question about the show. I come from a very competitive time where if you a major MC, if you're a major rapper, there's young rappers always looking to take you down, always looking to make a name on themselves.
SPEAKER_03Honestly, that's how St. Louis is, right? So that's why I can't be playing. I can't be playing. It's in young cats right now. Right. It's like, yo, I we we respect them, but we'll bump them off either.
SPEAKER_00And this is how it is. And you know what? That is the MC attitude. I respect, dude, no doubt, but I think I could do something. Well, I'm an expert on making you unbelieve that shit. Because with this time to get on that stage, yes, you have to assume. But look at it. I saw him. He was the one coming from my chat. I'm looking at him way, way. He says, I'm fucking driving through the hood like Malcolm Max. And the crowds going with it, the beats bouncing. I'm like, wait a minute. Man. What am I saying now? What am I gonna do? What am I saying? How am I coming out? That right there. No, you don't, you everybody don't get that. Everybody can't do that. That's why I'm pointing it out to you. Man, love, man. Because you did it. You did it.
SPEAKER_03I am a student of the best of the best. You know what I'm saying? From my big homie Scarface to killer Mike. Slow ah! You know what I mean? So I've been on the roll with Mike, Immortal Technique, you know. So, you know, peace and peace to the guys. No, he's just saying it. The Bible verse. The guys that I've been trained by are the real deal, man. And I was the Nazir Jones uh Harvard fellow. I've been on the road with Dead Praise. Academic parts at the temple. That's right. You know, one of my aliases in the streets. We got a rapper from St. Louis named Young True. He spells it J-U-N-G True. People call me J-U-N-G-K-R-S. That's like one of my alternative aliases. You gotta get you a hat now. I feel like uh I didn't mimic so much of what guys like you, you specifically have done on some Kobe and Mike shit. I was waiting to see the day that we were on the same bill to see if what I was doing was gonna hold to the standard. Words you know what I'm saying? Word.
SPEAKER_05That's powerful, man. Like and the fact that you took it, so me and him met in Ferguson. Um, I saw J. Cole go down there. J. Cole called me and was like, yo, I need you to plug me in with the activists on the ground. And I had to do my research because I didn't know people in St. Louis. But as I was doing my research, I was like, well, shit, if Cole going, why am I not down there? And I went down there and I met him and a brother named Tory Russell. I went down there with Rosa Clemente, my man Seth Bird, Jessica Caremore. And I was my plan was to be down there for a night. I was down there for a week, running around with this guy, arguing with Don Lemmon on the TV. You know what I'm saying? I was just, I was just I remember that. Yeah, that's that's that era. Right. You know what I'm saying? So that's how we met. And um, you know, we just decided to do this show together to add to the podcast space and to the black YouTube space and to the black conscious YouTube space, some of this type of content instead of all that gossip that you was talking about. Because that's all it is. Like my whole algorithm, if I'm not careful, was just like Bobby Brown doing old dances and like whatever Tony AOA in Morocco. Pick up the Bobby. You know what I'm saying? TI versus 50 or whatever, just whoever, this one versus this one, this one versus this one, and it's like, it's like, and this is this is needed, brother. And it's like when you got on stage, after what he did, you said, I gotta do see what I'm gonna do. What you did was you you freestyle, you people know that you freestyle, but you freestyle talking to your past self, right? To your present self and to your to your future self. And that was like metaphysical.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_05That was beautiful.
SPEAKER_00Yes, that's you gave us the opportunity. The crowd needed it. They they was right there. See, and this, and again, you pulled it out. There's some shows that, you know, people could say, yeah, it was dope, but you know to yourself you was mediocre because you had nobody to elbow. Yeah. You had nobody to, you wasn't in the room, you know. Last night we was in the room. That's right. MCs were hungry. Yeah. And we got up there. Everybody, too. I just don't know everybody's name. Yeah, there was a metaphor, blue. Word, what was dude? That was uh, that was metaphor. Um Med, M-E-D, yeah. Yep.
SPEAKER_05Oh man, it was two dudes, Latino brothers, jumped up. Oh, they wasn't Latino, but they but just crazy because the Ars they from our uh uh Matt is from Arks North, which is heavily Latino. That's Mexico. That's Mexico, it might as well just be Mexico.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah. No, but right. Oh, they they but but they from here though. No, that that um no, they they got wild too. Yeah. Um in a Georgia Ann Mouldrum. I was about to say, she's shh, this who was the one who was doing the the at the first show, she had the hat. That's Georgia Ann. Yeah, it's Georgia Ann. She was she she had some grio, the J-Lay thing. She was so nasty.
SPEAKER_05So with Georgia Ann, she um she's phenomenal, and um I asked her to perform in Blue Note because I was trying to represent for the community, and she's like, listen, they've been trying to get me to come, and I can't come because I'm a student of Billy Higgins, and Billy Higgins is not getting the respect he should get from the establishment. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna plug you in. I gave her, I started name dropping. I'm gonna set you a meeting with this dude for Blue Note, we gonna figure it out. She said, No, I already, he's the one calling me, trying to get me to perform. You know what I'm saying? And I'm like, she's like, so I'm gonna come through for you, but if I come through, it's gotta be improvisational jazz that I do. And it's gotta be in the spirit of Billy Higgins, which is what she said when she first got out there.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Yeah. That's right. Her music is so dope. That's true. And see, look what else you brought to the table as well. That I don't rock with bands. Yeah. Yeah. I'm strictly turntables and mixes. We had to, we had to have to. Them dudes, okay. That's a hip-hop band. Well, first of all, there was a family experience. Keyboarders knew my wife from some other level. Okay. Yes. Other dude, me and him, me and the drum, the drum and the bass, me and him clicked off right away.
SPEAKER_05That's right. Shout out to Chris Robb, uh, Matt Pettles on the guitar, Chris Robb on Keys, uh, Camayu on the drums, and Nate uh Nate Jones on the uh drums on all y'all boys.
SPEAKER_00That dude was hitting. You know the the issue, and look, when I say this, all MCs are gonna say word, this is what it is. That the reason we don't like bands is because they all sound the same. Yeah. That the band never sounds like the record. Yeah, sonics. The sonics is never right. Yesterday, dude had this snare that was it was like crack. Was it on the machine?
SPEAKER_05No, it's on the drum.
SPEAKER_00It was a bent. Okay.
SPEAKER_05Oh, I've seen it. The snare that was bent. There was a snare that was bent. You know what? Can somebody call Camayu in here? I want him to.
SPEAKER_03He in the control room, right?
SPEAKER_05He's right there.
SPEAKER_00What are we doing here? Somebody call Camayu in the call homie in it. That bent thing. He was hitting this. He was crazy with it, man. With the kick. So I was messing with him while you knew you had everybody up there, dudes was doing their thing. But there was a part where we was doing a beat, and the beat was like going boom, bum, boom, ta, ta, boom, b, boom, boom. Yeah. And I was like, bring that out. And the bass was like, boom, go. And we was just getting it in. And it made me look. I was like, wow, you know, if I had dudes like this, maybe I would do a band. Maybe I would. Yo, we we talking behind your back.
SPEAKER_03This nigga. My nigga, man. My dog. My dog, the God, the one and the only, the phenomenal, the sensational. Yesterday, yesterday. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00Okay, okay, wait. What up, y'all? Let me bring, let me bring you into the whole conversation. All right. That I was Kuali was just talking. We were talking about the show. We were talking about the changes that went down. The woman you you just mentioned, the poet Georgia. Yes, yeah. Georgia Emoji. She said, look, I'll come and do it, but I wasn't really messing with the inst the Blue Note institution because of Higgins and this, that, and the other. But she said, I'm coming for Kuali, though. I'll come out for you. Boom, she came. When he said that, it made me think I'm in the same category, different thing. I don't rock with bands. Right. I'm turntables and mix. That's my idea. That's my deal. Okay. But then yesterday, I may have been converted. There was a snare that you was playing. You had a bent, some bent thing.
SPEAKER_06A bent symbol. It was a symbol that was a clap stack. It was developed by a black dude, too. Of course. A clap stack. Uh-huh. A clap stack.
SPEAKER_00So you kept you was hitting this thing, and then we go. It wasn't the regular, the snare. It was not the it wasn't a drum snare. It was this crap. It was the boom back. It was the bat. The bat. It was right there. And that's what turned me around. I was like, oh, he got the back. Yeah, of course. Of course. That was right there. But you just explained it. That that's what say it again. It's a double.
SPEAKER_06It's a it's a triple layer symbol that mimics the sound of eight-away claps. So that's why you felt this. That's the 80s. We're back there now. Jews getting dropped.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_05And I want to I want to just add to that, just keep it in the conversation. Criminal minded, I feel like it's safe to say that that created Boom Bap.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, boom. Yeah. So that's so you. That's where we start at. Yeah, but we saw the bridges over, actually, is the the first our first coming into Boom Bap. We did the beat that goes boom boom bap bap boom bap. That beat, we did that in the shelter. When we was in the homeless shelter, me and Justice, ICU, a couple of people. I used to beat on the wall. Justice would do the rhymes. So I'm beating on the wall. My only beat was boom, boom, bat. Bat, boom, bat, boom, boom, bat on the bathroom wall. So when I got in the studio, we start doing it like that. I didn't know. I had no idea what we I'm beating on the wall. But that smack of your hand on the wall. You know who else you did? I was just took it. That's the lunchroom. The lunchroom table, certain of them had a smack uh uh on it. There was, that was, it, it it was the smack. It just it cracked right there. And I'm trying, I'm trying to think of the other like the subway trains, the old New York City subway trains in the 80s had the bakes when you sat down and you you hit and you hit you was banging on this side like this. The green seats. The green seats. You beaten on on this thing. And so this was that's what I felt last night. And it was like, you know, you guys were not stiff. You you had that crack right there, the bass was hitting, and everybody was intact. And it was almost like it's almost like we should go in the studio and record an album with just you, like with your band, like that, because you could create loops. You you could create you can create samples and loops that we might not have, not even might not, that don't exist. Right. Yeah, we could create samples and loops that don't exist. And I saw that last night. Everybody can't do this. And big respect, you know. I say this, I'm not, you know, you know, if you're a band member, you know, with a regular snare, uh, you know, don't feel no way. You know, if you're a drummer and that's your deal right there. Don't feel no way. Uh, but what I experienced last night was an improvisation, uh, even uh even uh a hip-hop-ness to it. You you you bent the the symbol. You know, you you was moving things around. You didn't allow the technology to dictate to you what the sound was gonna be. I saw you manipulating the technology. And I looked and I kept looking at that bent, what I used to call it, the triple clap stack. The clap stack, triple clap stack. I will not forget that. That's right, I appreciate you.
SPEAKER_06And thank you for last night. Of course, of course.
SPEAKER_03Bro, the bro last night. Real good dude, too, man.
SPEAKER_05Now, shout out to Mikiba Mooncycle, who's also in the building. One of my best friends, we got a record with Jay Rawls called Lunchroom Classics. Oh, yeah. It's on my demo back in the days. Are you familiar with Jay Rawls? Yes. Okay, yo, Jay Rawls is a uh uh professor at the Ohio State University of hip-hop. And if you go to his classroom, he's got the turntables, not a desk, right? And so you have this documentary that I was had the privilege of looking at where it had all the foundation of hip-hop and and talking about the temple of hip-hop, raising global awareness, but really focus on the academic part of it. So I was wondering if you could expand on that.
SPEAKER_00You know, um, big up to all the professors that teach hip-hop in any kind of an institution. It's hard.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh it's difficult because you're dealing with an institution that don't respect hip-hop. So you're constantly there with a shield and a sword, convincing others that this is a worthwhile study and something you should know. Yes, facts. Having said that, um, we started our institution, Temple of Hip Hop, 1996. We really started in 1989 with the Stop the Violence movement. This is when we realized, like, no, hip-hop is culture. This is not just music and dance. We love our music. I'm an MC myself, producer. We love dance, big up to Rocksteady, LA races, and the whole crew. Yes. Uh, but that's not all we are. When we first started, and Zulu Nation codified hip-hop as breaking MC and graffiti are DJing knowledge and overstanding. This was the first part of it right here. That, and this is also something that we always forget. In the 70s, when we was just figuring ourselves out, early 80s, late 70s, religion and spirituality was all over New York. All over. You could walk outside, see Muslims selling bean pies and the final core. Yeah, you could see Christians on another corner preaching end times. It's over. Yeah. Jehovah's Witness was always banging on your door. Yeah. Rastafarians movement came in the 80s and 70s and 80s, heavy. Um, all of that. Freemasonry, always within hip hop. Some people were Freemasons, this one, that one, so on. Buddhism as well. Um, and and of course, like I said, Islam. Uh, is Islam probably was the heaviest uh probably influence on hip hop? Absolutely uh uh was Islam. So in that, we grew up with philosophical minds. Oh, do I have to mention the five percent is yeah I matter of fact, put all of that the gods are put all of this aside.
SPEAKER_05We're talking in the language of the people, come on, and we talk about spirituality, and um, I think it was Nikki Giovanni who said, Liv if young black men, if young black people gotta call themselves gods and earths to feel better about themselves, then I'm with it.
SPEAKER_00That's not like something she would say to right. No, but but but and that's what we did start calling ourselves gods and earths, and and and also coming with a certain degree of mathematics or knowledge that did make us feel better about ourselves. If that's all it did, it did it. And but that's not all that it did. It gave us a sense of identity as well. But now, of course, as hip-hop becomes more commercial, its own success starts to take over. This spiritual piece got pushed to the side. And and this is where we go back on that and we say, well, when we started having our meetings from 1989, we started having regular meetings about what is hip-hop, what is the definition of it, what is its culture, and so on, the idea of spirituality always came into play. It was always part of the culture itself. All of our founders are believers in God. All of most of hip-hop's icons, its MCs and so on, always give praise to the most high. We are a spiritual culture, but a lot of us feel that we can't get nowhere with the conventional spirituality that we know. And that's why I established the temple of hip-hop. Because the knowledge that we really need is so simple and so easy to understand that it's that complicated for people to get. It's always right in front of your face. And that's what you don't see. You see everything else but what's right in front of your face. So in this instance, the uh uh the film that you saw was called Temple, it's called The Temple of Hip Hop Part One. It's actually for those, uh it's actually for teachers uh that are teaching hip hop. What I did was we have, of course, tons of film. We have 40 years worth of film on hip-hop. All the meetings, all the conferences, all of it.
SPEAKER_05Shout out to April Silver, who's big up a friend of my mom's, and I saw you at the library uh of footage or you talk with her at the library. Where they buried alive. But she was there talking to April Silver. Shout out to April Silver, right?
SPEAKER_00You just singled her out real quick. Um because she was the the uh organizer for our UN event. Yeah. But but you know, the the the idea of um people not understanding the simplicity of spirituality is what I hope to convey uh with or through this institution. And what is simple stuff? It's simple stuff that you don't think about. And and it's I of course I gotta give an example, okay? On the academic side, academic side. So you have um, okay, so we say we like to get more spiritual. We we I I you know you say to yourself, I'd like to um feel a spiritual experience. I would say to you, who are your ancestors first? Not your Bible, not what God you believe in, first who are your ancestors? Who are they? This is out of the blue. You might say, it's X, Y, Z. It's this one or that one. So most people will say, I don't know. Yeah, most people say, I don't, I no one ever asked me. This question, I don't know my ancestors. Okay. So now you go a little further. And so you give the test. I always give this test to see where people's character is at. So I say, Well, you don't know. That means you're primitive. You're primitive in your thinking right away. 90% of the people, yo, what do you mean primitive? Yo, talk about primitive in my thinking. What this is the test. Primitive only means first. That's right. That's all it means. It don't mean nothing. It means the original. The original and the first. Okay, the prime. But colonialism, cultural colonialism, it don't matter what your education is, your culture is dictating your spiritual awareness. Your culture is, not your education. That's right. Culture says to be primitive in a colonial society is something to be looked down upon. That's right. Why? Because the colonist is robbing the first people. That's right. The cut the whole point of imperialism. I'm coming in for indigenous lands and resources. So, right away, you trained by an imperialist. You don't want to be called the first. You don't want to be called the city. You don't want to be primitive. Yeah. You don't want to be that. And if somebody ever calls you primitive, you're ready to fight. I ain't no primitive. That's a that's a derogatory state. No, it's not. This is where your spirituality begins. Can you be called a primitive and laugh and smile and feel good about it? Let's go forward. Yes. So I go forward. Okay, so you're not a primitive. You realize I'm not a primitive. But you know, your language, kind of barbarian. You're gonna have to change that. The barbarian. Yeah. You're gonna have to, you know what I mean, barbarian. Don't call me no barbarian. Just lost your culture again. Barbarian only means a non-Greek speaking person. Right. That's it. Wow. Barbarian don't mean nothing else, but the fact that you don't speak Greek. Which made you a savage in there? Which made you all this other okay? Now, if you are trained by Greco-Roman colonists. Back to that philosophy piece. Back to that. Right. You don't want to be called a barbarian. You are a barbarian. Right. Do you speak Greek? Right. No, you are a barbarian. Right. They was like, them barbarians is at the gates.
SPEAKER_05Don't let them niggas in. And it was don't let them niggas in. Don't let them niggas in.
SPEAKER_00Nigga is a Latin word, okay? They was like, no, don't let them niggas in. Yeah. Because why? You don't speak the Greek language. You're not part of Greek culture. We exclude you. You just mentioned the word savage. Savage only means someone who dwells in the woods. Right. That's it. It's from the word silver. That's it. I dwell in the woods. Now, why is that a problem? Because the colonists running through the woods, chopping down trees, stealing resources, enslaving people. The savage. The savages. These savages, yeah. Because we're fighting back, protecting our family and our land and our trees. My grandfather planted that tree. I know it just looks like a tree to you, but my great-grandfather planted that tree. Now you're just gonna cut it down like any other tree to sell it for paper or something. I'm fighting. I'm fighting for this now. But now I'm called a savage because I'm fighting for my own forest. I'm a savage. Every single derogatory name in colonial culture will lead you to your spirituality. But you cannot get to your spirituality because of the names. They're calling you primitive, savage, barbarian. Even devil, Satan, Lucifer, uh demon, all of these terms go right back to your and our ancestors and these colonists trying to downplay who they were. So we start right there. Like, wait a minute. Every race, if you if you reduce yourself to race, every race has an indigenous ancestor. Every single group of people has an indigenous and somebody who came from the ground, okay, and said, Hi, I'm here and I'm gonna show y'all how to do this, okay? Everybody has this. There's an out of Africa theory that says all of us come out of Africa. That's the leading theory right now. Genetics seems to be proving this as well. Biological information seems to be proving this as well. But I argue that white folk have an indigenous ancestor. That I don't know that white folk have to come from black people. I don't know that as I study paleoanthropology, even genetic studies. I don't know that. And neither does anyone else uh in that fact. But the latest theory, what everyone's going with, is called the out of Africa theory. All human beings out of Africa are from a group of African women we call genetic Eve or African Eve. When you're looking for your spirituality, you have to be very, very careful on who's educating you, especially when they're colonists and imperialists and in their institutions. Here's why. So I'll give you just a quick theory. It's called the aquatic ape theory. You can look this up. Aquatic ape theory is part of what I'm gonna say is this. That we also say that humanity came out of the ocean. That humans were amphibious at some point. So if if humans lived in the ocean first and then walked onto land, everything in the ocean is not getting sunlight. The deeper you go in the ocean, the blacker and darker it gets. You're not getting the sunlight. That means the people, the first people in the ocean were white people. Or not black. This comes from the sun. Pigmentation is supposed to come from the sun. You ain't getting no sun, you in the water. Your hair is straight, and you white. Or light. Right. Okay. Now, my daughter says when I first told her this, she said, um, but dad, um uh plants are green too in the ocean. And when they're green, green turns to brown in the sun. So could these first beings have not even been black or white or anything, could have been green. The color of the ocean, the the the what they call uh the chlorophyll, they have a name for it, of the ocean itself. Green, the moss of the ocean. Algae and on it. The algae. So these first people coming up light green, sorry, light green out the ocean. Now this puts a slightly different look on what the first humans could have been like. If we come out the ocean, we white. Okay. Let me go further with you. If we walk in, you come out the ocean, you walk in on all fours. Let's just say we we are assuming that we're walking on all fours. This would explain why the palms of my hands are identical to white people. This this is white people's complexion. That's right. The palm of my hands. Flip it over. Now I become black. So could it have been that as we're walking on all fours, everything, every part of us is getting the sun. We turning black, hair getting kinky, afro's are coming, we're getting dark skin on us, but the only parts that don't get the sun are the soles of our feet and the palms of our hands. So this is how Africans could have white folk skin on the palm of their hand and have their own skin on the on the other side of their hand. We was originally white people. Now, all of this is bullshit. But I'm trying to show you a theory that could that could bring up a conversation and debate about who the first humans actually were or the complexion. And and and why and how much of a construct race is. And how much of a constru, and the deeper part, how much of a construct, mental construct race is, and how it's making you think about yourself, about history. You know, sometimes we black folk are fighting too much for blackness. You already great. What are you fighting for it for? Okay, we fighting too much. That's why I said we were laughing about it, but it's a seriousness to it. Let the white man have his day. Okay, black folk been ruling America for a while now. Okay. We've been i go front, okay? We are running this country, okay? That's why the white man mad. Yeah, the Obama effect. Obama was the tip of the iceberg.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, he was really bad for them. They was like, listen, we want this Nazi nigga twice. Like, we want him again. You know what? Let's just make him king. But you were early with, you know, you were early with, you know, some people might feel like there were shots at run DMC. Oh, yes, yeah. But you were just like, kings just rule, and most of them never understood. Right. And now white people in the streets, like, no kings. Right. We would have been at brunch.
SPEAKER_01Right. We would have.
SPEAKER_03Man, let me ask you this, beloved teacher. Uh in this era, there's a lot of talk about what the actual philosophy of hip hop is, right? And I think that one of the reasons I wanted to do this show with Kwa was because this would give me, as a public intellectual, the opportunity to actually confront this question, right? Um, and you and one of my best friends as an MC is a guy named July from St. Louis, is an elder, OG MC, mass people respect this man as one of the gods. And he was talking to me about your music recently. And we talked about two hours. He was breaking down uh what he what he was interfacing with as a dude from the streets listening to your music and metamorphing into an intellectual. And a lot of your songs, even though you were talking about criminality, still drove people to an intellectual conclusion. Yeah, criminal-minded to spiritual-minded. And so the question that I would love to ask you to try to put out there in the era of the so much manga stuff, is as the guy that started this gangster shit. You know what I'm saying? Right.
SPEAKER_05Because let that be known that, you know, along with School E D and Boogie Down Productions, it's like that's the origins of reality rap. Right. That's what we used to call it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It's as the guy that started this gangster shit. Literally. I don't want to say that part of this point. In this era, you know, a lot of guys get themselves in trouble with trying to have an accurate street rep to go with their raps. Right. Your street rep precedes you before you walk into the room, but yet you are one of the world's most renowned intellectuals and you've been there for a while. First of all, what do you think the actual philosophy of the streets adjacent to hip-hop is? Because we're losing a lot of brothers to thinking that this MAGA stuff, this role capitalism, uh, they're thinking that that's the philosophy of the streets in 2023.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, they're trying to imitate the oppressor. They think that's the key to liberation. And here we are.
SPEAKER_03Um you finished the question? So, yeah, I am done with it. That's so from from your mouth to the rest of the world, what is, because like we said, you started it. So, what is the philosophy of hip-hop right now?
SPEAKER_00First of all, go back to peace, love, unity, and safely having fun. If we just stay there, okay, peace. Money does not buy peace. Money, we know this. It can help in a society based on money and credit. Yes, get your money, get your credit up. You live in a society that demands that this is what you have, you have to have to live in this society. But what you really want in your life is peace. Whether you have no money, money, whatever. You want to be good with yourself. No matter what you got, where you are. And I think hip-hop is already that. Excuse me. I think hip-hop is already that. We already think highly of ourselves with nothing. We had to be told that we were poor. None of us in the hood ever thought we were broke. Somebody, we it's only only when we started making money and going to the bank did somebody tell you, oh, you broke. Your credit score is this. Oh, you this is that and the other. When we was in the hood doing our shit, it wasn't, nobody, the concept of broke was not even part of it. We hustling, we surviving. I'm living every day, I'm chilling. I got my all my faculties. What? What more is there? We had peace. What do you see today within hip hop even? No peace. Everyone's warring with each other. That breaks the first principle. The first principle of hip-hop is peace. We used to say it in our records at the end of the record, peace. That was the rec, that was it. Love. If you don't love what you do, not only are you gonna fail at it, but you won't last long in it. The philosophy of the streets is always love. We used to say on the streets, I'm doing it for the love. You guys don't want to say that no more. As a matter of fact, they're ridiculing it. Oh, you're doing it for the love? Don't talk to me unless you're talking about money. Yeah, well, there it is. You're still doing it for the love too, but just for the love of money, which is the root of all ego. And love, I didn't even don't even go there. Okay. Love's gonna get you. Really laid it out. I mean, right there. That was. Yeah. So, love, you do what you do out of love. You, you, you approach your brothers and sisters out of love. If we had more love in the hood, come on. Love is the message. Love is the message. The judicial system would fall with just love by itself. Okay. Unity. Do I have to go into how deep unity is for us? Unity. It's unity is a discipline. Imagine to be unified is not to be connected with somebody you like, it's to be connected with somebody you don't like. Real unity is I can't stand your ass. But the bigger good. That's right. Yeah. This thing, we both agree that this is what we want. Now, you may not like me, I may not like you. We may not even know each other. Forget like or dislike. I just don't know you. You just don't know me. But we both want this. So if we could just unify around this right here, this is what it is. What are we unifying around? Because the last thing is peace, love, unity, safely having fun. This is this is what true civilization is. Is when a whole group of people are so fed, so protected, so educated that all they can do is throw a jam.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah, it's the resources.
SPEAKER_00You have everything. You got the resources, yeah. You have every all you can do is let's have this barbecue, yo, because I I know everything. I have everything. I don't need anything. Why do we just cook this meat? Like play this music, bro. So this is the having fun. And guess what? Hip hop is already speaking to depression, which is 60% of the people in this country depressed. Right. Okay. We're saying have some fun. Hip hop is about fun. It's all about fun. And it's about being funny. On top of that, shout out to comedians, punch lines and all of that. Punch lines. Yeah. Hip-hop is about all that. So you say, what is the philosophy of hip-hop? We begin right here. Peace, love, unity, safely having fun. Each one of those are broken down into principles. Now, the final part of this is that uh breaking and seeing graffiti art and DJing are also principles. They are philosophical principles. These are not just artistic talents, these are ways to think. MCs are not like everybody else. We think a certain way. And the hood has a way of thinking. It's not what everybody else is thinking. We as MCs articulate what the hood is thinking. We don't articulate what a corporate boardroom is thinking, like what most of these rappers are doing. You critique, you spit in what the corporate boardroom spit. That's why they like you. That's why they want, that's why they play your music. Because you you say what they want to hear, but you never say what the people want to hear. You never represent your own community. That's why you can't go back. And see, this has always been the test of a real MC to walk your own neighborhood. Like you can't walk your own neighborhood, Mike G. Stop it. Come on, man. You can't if you can't walk your own neighborhood, you not an MC. Stop, man. You can have millions of dollars. I don't care what it is. If if with all you got, if you can't go to your mama's house, and dudes on the corner be like, yo, that's my dude right there. Yeah. You can't do that in your own neighborhood, in your own neighborhood. Nah, something's wrong. So these are the principles right here. Stay with your community, stay with your ancestors. We always win in the end with this. Always win. Always win. Always win in the end. And the game is always the same. Young people get duped. They come out. Most don't have the parents that understand. Most of the, you know. So now they come out. And now here comes Yoko. Some yoke yoke. Comes and says, yo, um, the glasses you wearing, they're right. But I got gazelles. Not the gazelles. Not the gazelle. I got the Cartier friends. You was doing well with your glasses on your face for 25 years. Right, right. Okay, you were seeing through them. You was good. Somebody come along and can convince you that who you are and what you have is not enough and is unacceptable. This is what hip hop, this is what made us. They told us this in the 70s. We said, uh-uh. Yeah. My man, this dude, not Donna Summer, not the Supremes and Donna, Donna, Diana Ross, respect to them too, by the way. The Queen. Right. No doubt. Let me not speak her name too fast. Right.
SPEAKER_05But you're talking about a pushback to what was being sold in the way it was being sold.
SPEAKER_00We said, no, that's we're not this. We have a mind. We have a perspective. We have a way to think. And it was, this is where people like Hurt, Bam, Flash, Crazy Legs, Dougie Fresh, Biz Markey. These people were doing this when you got laughed at for doing it, when you went to jail for doing it. Now everybody rapping. Back in the days, somebody had to ask you to rap. Like you should ask 90% of these rappers today. Who asked you to rap? Like you just rapping and shit. But did anybody ask you? You spit a rock. Like in the hood, you didn't open your mouth until somebody said, yo, you spit. Yeah, I spit. Spits. And then it was the preparation. You had to be prepared. Oh, no, of course. That's the work, it's the preparation. The preparation. You always, because it was always somebody. Always somebody. Like, yeah. Talking about Malcolm X. What's somebody looking at you? You ain't prepared. Right. I got you. Okay. And and and this is, and so these are the these were the original principles. To be able to walk in your hood, spit with your people. I'm so proud, me personally, of how the Bronx treats me. I'm just proud of that.
SPEAKER_05I need to thank you for having me at the KRS One version of the 50th anniversary of hip hop. In front of 1520. So I was, I was, I went to Yankee Stadium. I could have, if I worked on it, I could have got on a list in Big Back stage. No. I bought 10 tickets. I brought my whole crew. We was in there with the people. People like, Wally, what you doing? I'm watching the show. You know what I'm saying? Fat Joe out there without the shirt on. You know what I'm saying? And by the way, thank you for helping Fat Joe on his journey. Because if you know, you know, like you represent the Bronx, and Fat Joe has almost been like a member of Boogie Now. Yeah, G. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, he's he's around, and you know, Fat Joe brought you out. Yes. And you did the South Bronx. Yes. In the South Bronx. Yes. At Yankee Stadium. Yes. Oh my God. Like, and that's what I went for because I knew I went to see the Kings too. I know there's no Kings, but I went to see Run DMC because I needed to see Run DMC. They went on too late. You know what I'm saying? It was tough. It was tough to cram all that in. Right.
SPEAKER_03It was tough. Shut up, my man Charlie Chan. He uh DJs with them.
SPEAKER_05But you you had you had some pushback on some of the ways that some of that was being organized.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean it's funny. You you mentioned that you just you're you're recon you're rekindling that that whole 50th anniversary uh situation. And and you're also calling to the responsibility of true hip hoppers. It was a wonderful time. Let me show you this. So we get a call from Peter, who with Nas, who says we gotta have KRS won for the 11th, um, for the 50th anniversary. You know, we're doing Yankee Stadium, we gotta have KRS there. We said, Peter, look, you know we not do it. This is not what we do, Peter. Okay. We don't do, I do SOBs at little clubs. Okay, I don't do this. Okay. He's yo, we gotta have it. He calls us three, four times. He calls, you know, I gotta have it. So we push him more, push him more, push more. Finally, we said, listen, um our issue as as we got closer, you know, to the date, our issue was why are you doing this on August 11th? Okay. Could you pick any other day? So he actually, I don't know if he did it or not, but he actually went back, came back, and said, We tried to get the 12th, but the Jonas brothers booked the 12th, which was some ridiculous shit that the Jonas brothers booked the whole Yankee Stadium for themselves. Okay. I mean, you know, let's just put that to the side. No, this is colonizer gonna colonize. Let's just put that to the side. Um Jonas Brothers. But this is this was that was that. So I said, you know, respect to that. At least you tried to look at another day. At least you tried to look at that. So I started to soften up a little bit. And I said, and then of course it's Nas. And of course, I'll do anything for Nas. And of course, Nas is Nas. Come on, of course, it's Nas. So, but my principles was here you are in the poorest neighborhood in America to this day, the South Bronx. Yankee Stadium is in the South Bronx, okay? Our people can't afford these tickets. That's right. That's why I bought 10 of them, and I brought my people. And brought your people. Everybody teaches, other people, I have I got calls, people pay trying to get them, they paying for that. Those who had the means were paying for others to get in. Yeah. You know what? That's exactly what it was. Those who had the means paid for others. The Bronx was crying. I was getting the calls. Yo, I can't get in. I want to get to Yankee Stadium. And tickets was crazy. So I let um Peter know this. We let them know this that, you know, morally it didn't sit well with us. We are the Bronx. We can't be part of that. Lo and I'm sitting on some strong Bronx shit. Here comes Fat Joe. Yo, Chris, I need you. This is what it is, yo. Just so happens, I'm in Harlem driving around. Me and Simone, we in Harlem. Joe said, Where you at? I said, I'm here. I'm in Harlem. I'm up 134 somewhere. He said, I'm in Harlem. Let's meet somewhere. So we picked this restaurant, we go meet. So we get there, Joe rolls up in a sky blue Bentley. Okay. On Frederick Douglass Boulevard. Did the make match the Bentley? No, no, this is the week. I think we had a summer song information, right? He comes out. So Joe is there. He comes out. We there, we start talking. So he says, look, I know you're not winning. I know, but I need you to come out. So it's Joe. He gets Nas on. Me and Nas talk on the phone with Joe there. I'm ambushed. Yeah, okay, okay. It's Nas, it's Fat Joe. It's everybody there. Say we need this. So I'm like, okay, I won't be advertised. I said, I'm not gonna, I don't want, because they would, they wanted to pay me. They wanted to say, you know, they want to contract K Ris Money to do a show there. I said, no, we're not doing that. I'll come out with Joe as a as a surprise guest because I heard Remy was gonna be there. Ashante too was coming out, so on. Surprise guest. He put on a great show. So I came to be part of that uh as as as well. Salute to Joe, big up to Nas. I saw what Nas was trying to do, I saw what their company uh was even. Mass appeal drugs. Mass appeal trying to what they were trying to do. We were in support of that. That's not the the um the discrepancy at all uh in that sense. The discrepancy, if I can call it that, was that our neighborhood is broke. Yes. We live in a poor neighborhood. You can't come there charging thousand dollar tickets, five hundred dollar tickets to be on the $2,500, to be you only bringing tourists in. We this is not for us. Right. Okay, this is not for us.
SPEAKER_05And you know what? I ain't been to a baseball game in a long time, but I used to go to Yankee games back then, and I remember that was for the people. That was for the people. It's like $2.
SPEAKER_00Something like that, yeah. Yeah. Five dollars, you got the game of Frank, something that's real. Yeah, yeah. The Yankees used to always keep it real with with the Bronx like that. But but this, but this was the point. Okay, so what do we do? Now you want to hear something crazy, okay? I'm not gonna go too deep into this one, but I'll give you the surface of it. So while all this is going on with Nas, you know, um, and and Mass Appeal and this thing they're doing their event. The Bronx is on fire. It's the biggest show. The Yankee Stadium show was clearly the biggest show of the year. But what was the the average dude supposed to get? You know, the average, okay? So I said, look, we curate 1520 Cedric Avenue, the birthplace of hip-hop. Why can't we throw a jam like Herp did when we first started? If we celebrating the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, that means we're starting in 1973, and we're starting here at 1520 Cedgwick Avenue. No problem. So I went to the mayor, then Mayor Eric Adams went there, said, yo, we need permits. I need your help. We need the city behind this. He claimed to be the hip-hop mayor as well. Uh so he said, Well, come on and help us out with that. So lo and behold, Mayor Eric Adams was supportive. Uh, came through on the 48th anniversary of hip-hop, came through, uh actually the four, no, the 49th anniversary of hip-hop. Um, Chuck Schumer was the 48th anniversary of hip-hop. Uh uh, he came through, major support, it was great. He came through, said some words, so on. Got everybody on the phone. Big up to the mayor on that. You know, we we needed Highway, the head of highway, we needed EMS, we needed the chief of police, um, the parks department, uh, uh this this other thing called SAPO, which is uh you have to go to them to get permits to do things on the street. All of them were on the phone with their staff. The mayor put it all together, got them on, gave me the floor. I told them what it was, this is what we're trying to do. So we went ahead and said, look, this is what we're gonna do. The mayor said, yo, we got uh about $500,000 budget, we're gonna get this off. So he was like, Word. So the mayor's initiative was a five by five program. We're gonna do five boroughs for free, paid for by New York City. I was like, word. Word, that's what we do, okay? One of which was the Bronx. We're gonna do that right there in front of 1520. That's it. So now two things happen. So the city helping us out with this, they did their thing, we got permits, all of that. Now, the uh Governor Santez, uh uh the governor of Florida, I'm I hope I'm saying his name right. DeSantis. I'm DeSantis. Right, DeSantis. I don't keep up with Ron DeSantis, yeah. Um this was the first time he sent uh uh supposedly 40,000 immigrants from Florida to New York. That's right. When they got to New York, they set New York in an uproar. We get a call back saying the money that was allocated for this now had to go to dealing with these 40,000 new immigrants coming into the city. So right away, I'm like, wait a minute. Our little measly half a million over here, you gotta go touch that. This is New York City. Yeah, this ain't Florida, okay? This is as a state, this ain't my as a city, this ain't Miami, this ain't Fort Lauderdale, this ain't this is New York City. This is the financial capital of the world. You you have to take from us to do that, no other program, nothing started to sound fishy there. So now we had to go and get private funding. One of the other producers ran out and got Adidas to come through. Shout out to Adidas. I brought in uh Monster, Red Bull, TV One, um, uh all of these different, we had to at least 20 different sponsors to come up with about three to four hundred thousand dollars for us to try to meet that five to put on these events. While that's happening, I'm calling. I have no artists, I'm still just talking. I'm calling. Yo, can you come down? Listen, I got this going. Talking to managers, hey, you know, we're doing a free concert. Free?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I'll get back with you, homie. Yeah. Yo, listen, you know, we're doing this for the people, the people? The love? The love? I can't hear you unless you got a stack of money at your ear. I can't. I'm not gonna call no names. But a lot of dudes claiming culture. When that when we when it was time to rep the culture, I called up a bunch of people. Yo, what? Now, of course, a lot of dudes that let me shout out like Erica Badu, for instance. She she's in another state. She couldn't, she was on tour, telling us, yo, I wish I was dead. Right. What's up? Right. Yo, what is going on? We got all, you know, Erica, big up to you. We got all your correspondence was well taken. Yeah, in that sense. That's the queen.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But I mentioned her because that was a few, only a few people did that. Everybody else was like, nah, you know, what Nas is doing, yeah. That's where we on our way to that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, he paying. He this is a Yankee Stadium. I don't know about your little free shit on the block, okay? We over here. So I was like, respect due. The people I call, I called you. There was no hesitation. You was like, before I even said, it's uh I'm there. Yeah. And we was you were among the first that we was able to say, wow, okay, Talib Kwali is gonna be there. And mind you, it's the Bronx. So everybody I'm calling, I'm trying to, I'm trying to show the Bronx a concert experience that you can't afford. Yes, right, right, right, right. This is the the people I'm bringing up, you you're not gonna, you can't, this is the one time for hip hop. We're gonna do this right here. Top-notch acts that play, and you can't get in. You're gonna see him on your block right now. You ripped. She was ridiculous. I had a good time. Uh she was ridiculous. But you I got to rock with ultra magnetic as well. Listen, shout to Set G and the whole crew. I I the the I called Chuck before I said, it's a friend He said, Yo, I'm calling public enemy, he said, yo, I'm calling Flav right now and see if he wanna do it. He said, I really would like to be out there with Flav. So he said, let me call Flav up real quick. He got back to me like an hour. Flav is in. I said, wait a minute. We're gonna have public enemy in the Bronx in front of 1520. Yeah. I'm charging my camera two hours. Yeah. Two years before this, okay. I said, oh shit. Then, next call, um, Sugar Hill gang. No hesitation. No hesitation. Master G, respect forever.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Sugar Hill came out there. When they did Rappa's Delight out there. In front of 1520?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's special. This was my camera, it was like that. The old school kicked out. That's what I'm saying. It's the old school show. I'm like, yo, we we cranking this. But my point is that the real heads actually showed up. You know, real heads showed up, and a lot of other MCs showed up and couldn't get on. Fat Joe came through. Everybody. Joe, that's his block. Yeah, that's his block. You know, dudes came through and we had a great time. We had 17,000 people in front of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. Wow. I couldn't have asked for anything more.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, man. And that was a full circle moment for me because I used to work at Inkiru Books. Your style is definitely the precursor to my style. I'm more similar to you as an MC than I am to any other MC. Definition, my first record that really put me on the map is an amalgamation of Stop the Violence and PS PS. I rocked that. Yeah, that was a good time. Y'all rocked that. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I almost had to use your instrumental for my own PS. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. To throw that on it. Let me get the one, two, three. Well, actually, right. That's y'all did right. That's how you did the stop the violence over the PS.
SPEAKER_05So it's two. Right, yes. You know, so that's so, and that's that's put that puts us in the game, right? So it's like, it's, it's, it's not just abstract. I'm directly building on your legacies. You know what I'm saying? Lyrically, musically, spiritually, culturally.
SPEAKER_00The world saw that. Yes.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. So it's it's it's it's very, very, very deep for me. But it's like when I was working at Nkiru Books, you went on the Global Black Experience, Gary Bird on WBAI. Right? And you did an interview because you had the book Science of Rap. And I knew the book Science of Rap was coming, but I worked at a bookstore. So my whole thing was I was the hip-hop guy at the bookstore. Nelson George got a book, we got it. Kevin Powell got a book, Trisha Rose, whoever. Like, I'm, you know, I'm I'm like, yo, hip-hop got something to say.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_05You know, DMX. Those are the early books. Those are the early hip-hop academic books. But not just those books, the DMX book, the Earl book, the Make My Own Rules, L O Cool J. These books were very important to me. Because I was able to be in a bookstore to be like, see? You know what I'm saying? So you got on the radio. And I never did this. I never called the radio for nothing. I called up and I got through. And that's how we met. We met on the phone. Yeah. I called up and I said, uh I work at Inkiru Books in Brooklyn. He was like, I know that bookstore. And he was like, I used to be in Prussic Park at the band shell. Right? Sleeping at the band shell, right? And um, I was like, yo, I'm trying to figure out how to buy the book. Right. And you said, I don't sell this book.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_05I'm gonna send you a box.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_05And you put me in touch with Simone.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And she set in Kiro Books a box of books. Wow. And I sold the books. That's what you were supposed to do. I gave them out. I gave them out. I gave them out. But um, but the science of rap, you said something that became really a mantra for me. You said if you're doing hip hop music or doing art for the money, stop. Because you're tainting. You're tainting the art and you're not gonna really make no money if that's your intentionality behind it. You know, so I want to thank you for that. And um, and you keep going, like everything is very intentional. The the when you talk about the creative visualization and reading as a man thinketh, and you were able to see yourself as an MC in the future. When when you talk, when we saw you freestyling about that, like this has been a whole, like a whole thing that you've been doing the whole time. And um, and you know, I just want to take the time to thank you because I was able to see myself as an MC because of that. Wow. And because of you. And I want to just cap that point by seeing if you could, for this show, uh give us the lyrics to hip hop lives. Because I got them written down if you don't got them. No, wait, wait. The Marley Maw, because you and Marley Maw, you and you went against the Bridge Wars, what they call it, right? But you and Marley and Shan had this thing. And then a lot of people, I think, in hip-hop, even people who claim to really know hip hop, don't know that you and Marley did an album together. Oh, yes, hip-hop lives. Hip hop lives. And when you talk about hip hip hop being an intelligent movement, it's very important.
SPEAKER_00Yes. You know what I'm saying? So here it is. It starts off like this. Well, the cut Marley comes in and cuts and goes, I come back every year, I get newer. And he keeps cutting that up, just for those out there. So now I start. Hip means to know, it's a form of intelligence. To be hip is to be update and relevant. Hop is a form of movement. You can't just observe a hop. You gotta hop up and do it. Hip and hop is more than music. Hip is the knowledge, hop is the movement. Hip and hop is intelligent movement or relevant movement. We're selling the music. Write this down on your Black Books and Journal. Hip, hop, culture is eternal. Run and tell all your friends. An ancient civilization has been born again. It's a fact. I come back every year I get newer. I'm the dust on the moon.
SPEAKER_05It's beautiful, man. That's beautiful. It's it's man, that's like my blueprint right there, not pun intended. That's like my blueprint right there. No big pun intended. Yeah, no big pun intended. And on that record, you say that you are indebted to Shan and Marley, that they gave you a career.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Whenever I discuss my career, Shan's name gets brought up. Uh, and I'm gonna carry that too. I'm gonna carry that. Most see it as a battle. The bridge was, you take your side, whoever you're down with. But I I um this is also hip-hop. This goes back to your the philosophy of hip-hop. There's a love-hate with hip-hop that is the highest form of respect. Um I see what you I see where you're going. I was at a concert. Matter of fact, two concerts in Europe. Two different concerts. One was with 50 Cent, other ones with Mob D. Start with Mob D. So Mob D goes on. I'm getting ready to go on after Mob D. They killing them. Okay, all type of shit ones. They just destroy it. Okay. So all types of shit ones. So um um Havoc gets off the stage. And I'm standing there, like getting ready to go on. So he comes off the stage. First, he sees me, and at first he says, I hate you. Shout out to Havoc.
SPEAKER_07He said, I hate you.
SPEAKER_00Then he gives me a big hug. And it's like, yo, nigga, you my nigga for life. You get that from Queensbridge dudes. Oh Queensbridge. Wow. It's not it's now at a point that if you don't hate KRS from Queensbridge, it's something wrong with you. Right, right. Okay. So it's like, no, Mob D, I've always, I mean, we've toured, I mean, these are my dudes. But no, having is like, no, nigga. From Queensbridge. Fuck you.
SPEAKER_05Like, this is what it is. I feel like you kind of birthed a whole Queensbridge movement almost. It's it's symbiotic. They gave you a career. You gave a lot of people a career. Because a lot of Queensbridge dudes, I've heard them be like, no, that put a battery in my back. Like, fuck that. Queensbridge ain't whack. We ain't doing it.
SPEAKER_00The bridge ain't over. Yeah, the bridge ain't over. It was the march. The bridge ain't over. We come and mad dudes stepped up. I mean, like I said, and I'll say it again. I think Ilmatic was better than criminal mind. Oh, I didn't know you were gonna say that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, the music is subjective, but I see your point.
SPEAKER_00I see your point. I see your point. I see the debate as well. People they say, what he's talking about. But in the scheme of what we're talking about right here, yeah, when Ilmatic dropped, right? Nah, Queen's Bridge, we even the Bronx has way, way, way, right. That represent it all. Wait, wait, we're gonna look at this project a little differently.
SPEAKER_05Right. And Nas grew up looking at Shantae. Word, you know what I'm saying? Slow that down. Okay, my bad. I'm speeding up.
SPEAKER_00Shout out Shantae, real quick. The queen. Let's, let's, you just mentioned a big name. Yes. Right there. And you're taking me back to the fact that Shan is going to be always mentioned in my. And this is why, right. Come back to this. The reason I mentioned having. And 50. 50 did the same thing. Okay, yeah. I hate you. You know, like straight out. You know, because he says, look, I have to sing this record. And 50 was so weird with it, because he was like, he was like, I have to sing along with the bridges on the head. This fucking record. Like, right. You know, so it's like there's a part of hip-hop that is that too. Even in our battles, you see it in battle rap as well. A lot of them dudes that battle curse each other, I'll go there. They boys, they friends. They they afterwards, it's like, and that's what the dozens, which is original battle rap. Yeah. What the dozens were supposed to be. Signify monkey. Signa, all of that. Yeah. You wasn't supposed to get wow, somebody dissing you. You were supposed to have a better diss. Yeah, bad. Yeah. You were supposed to be able to control your emotions. That's why battle rap's like, he's getting emotional. Right. Because this did this is this is that this is that that these are this is training in the street. Uh you get it in the army. You know, the the army sergeant calling you, you little pencil dick. What the heck? Get on there and do it. Well, the streets has has a way to do that too, where they diss you, but it's not a diss. It's a it's a code that you understand. It's coded. It's a code that you understand. And we playing the code out. I'll tell you somebody who gets big respect on this, MC Search. Yeah. From uh third base. His white boy, okay, straight up and down. And Pete Dice, let me shout you out too. These white boys come in the club. One black dude with a, I guess they DJ or whatever. Richie Rich. Richie Rich. Yeah, Richie Rich. So third base come out. Now they in Latin quarters. Okay, Latin quarters got one way in and one way out. Okay. You don't walk in Latin quarters with no ISO, no jewels, no trunk. Unless you had the respect. MC Search would get up in this place. This is before he had his goal on. He would get up there when they record first came out. So he would go up there. He's a white boy. This is 89, 88 or some shit. The whole audience, black and Latino. That's it. Everybody's in there. We want to hear hard hip-hop. So that gas face shit came on, cracked everybody. Okay. Shout out to MF Doom, rest in peace. Oh, word. Yeah, because Doom's on that. Here comes, here comes MC Search. So the crowd, he starts rhyming, the crowd's going, go white boy, go white boy, go white boy. Fox, 600 people, go white boy. But here's the thing. Now, first of all, that go white boy, first of all, this is a white man. Right, right. He's like, go white boy. That right there is disrespectful. Okay. Then you're calling out this whiteness in the midst of all us black folk. You being racist right now. Why you call why you gotta say that out of anything? Why you gotta be go white boy? Like, what is that? Okay. But it was a respect that was being given to him. Yes. And he understood it.
SPEAKER_05I always say that with coded, like when when a When a white person gets mad at white boy, that's how I know you don't got no black friends. Shh. Because it's a term of endearment where we come back.
SPEAKER_00Right, right.
SPEAKER_05And yeah, it could be used. It could be used. No, it could be used in all kinds of ways. That's why people get feelings. But it could be used when you hear it in the in the context of the hood. There's a movie, White Boy Rick. Yeah, right. There's the Wild Cherry record, you know, play that funky music, White Boy. White boy.
SPEAKER_00These are hood terms. Yeah. And they're derogatory. And if you have a thin skin, see, and this is what see. See, this was see, we're talking with this. You came up with real hood nut talk today, okay? Yes. Because that's the hood. Yeah. Okay. I'm not easily moved. Yeah, yeah. I'm not my emotions is not all over the place. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mentioned MC Search because here you have white boy in the place, white man. Here you have a major recording artist that happens to be white. Right. Okay. In a place. But the respect, and that's why I bring it up. That go white boy shit. And then while he's saying it, the reason we're saying go white boy is because he's doing the running man. He's doing the running man.
SPEAKER_05He's doing the running man. He had the all the dancing. He had he was dancing.
SPEAKER_00He had the rebox. He had the Roger Rob, Roger Rabbit. He's this white boy up there doing his shit, rocking. So the crowd's like this shit's dope. In his head, he had the third base cut like Negro. Yes, yes. Okay. Yeah. Give it two, three weeks of that. Third base walked in with the ice on, chains on, white boy. And LQ. In the LQ. Okay, they walking in. Nobody looked nothing. That's MC search, niggas. That's yeah, that's power to read. This is what that is. When Scott was killed, the night Scott was killed, it went through the hood crazy. No news, no nothing. Just word of mouth. Word of mouth hit search in Brooklyn. He was at the hospital before I got there. That's real talk. When I got there, the first person I saw at the hospital was MC Search. Just like that. And he said, You ain't going upstairs? And I was like, nah. I don't want to remember Scott with tubes and his and all of this type. So it's a whole nother thing. But it was, but that's what it was. And I say that to say that, no, there's a respect that you get when you really hood, when you really in the street for real, and you get that respect. You know, anybody who's been around gang members, you know that these are the sweetest people you ever. You know, like, when I say, I'm using the word sweetest. Oh, yeah. Okay, these are the sweetest. These dudes be out with it, feed out, pedicures, pedicures, manicures, listening to old soul classic song.
SPEAKER_05Love music, love music.
SPEAKER_00But then, but no, you cross the line, and suddenly that same dude that was chilling, you find out, oh no, he was da-da-da from 6th Street somewhere, and now you fucked up. And it's like, oh shit. This is what it really is. Dudes in prison. Nobody go for that yokey dope. I'm hard and all this shit. If you're really around real dudes that serve time, they like you, you look. That's why dudes want to rob you. Because you look stupid. I just did 10 years. No, I didn't do 10, but I'm saying the person said, I just did 10, 15 years for the shit you just talking right here. Nah, you're not, you, this is not what it is. And this is the point, is like you said, you know, criminal minded, I I would give it the credit of starting gangster rap. I would give NWA the credit, really. But but because they're the ones who got labeled gangster rap. Okay. Uh criminal minded was never labeled gangster rap. It was like reality rap, even conscious in a sense, criminal minded. But no, the themes that we were discussing was not themes that um uh they were street themes. Listen to my name.
SPEAKER_03Oddly enough, for from for in a weird sense, what it reminds me of, and I could draw some some interesting parallels. Uh I was coming of age when young Jeezy, Trapper Die, hit the hood, right? That's right. When it hit the hood.
SPEAKER_00That shit hit hard.
SPEAKER_03And it it it dominated. Right. Right? And I remember being a very young man, and I went to a Jeezy concert, and this is like the only Jeezy concert I ever been to. Never been to like one of the big, bigger ones. I went to the one when he first came out. And I'm talking about Snowman era. Snowman raw authentic, you can die on the parking lot. You know what I'm saying? So, same spot I used to go on Tuesdays for $2. Now we gotta pay $40 to get in. Right. Because he's in there. Right. So when I go in there, he's dropping these records and rocking this spot. Just bow, bow, bow, bow. And in a weird sense, it reminds me of when I see you perform criminal minded. Where it's just like, yo, it don't matter. I got these people. Like, like, they're gonna celebrate me before I even start spitting. Right. It's it was very similar, right? And in this, in another weird way. It was a word-of-mouth movement, right? Just genuine. Yeah. Genuine hip hop. And uh, to this day, in my city, Jeezy can live off of that credibility, similar to how I with witness you live off of that same credibility with the people, all the way to the point where he came to Ferguson, rest in peace to my man Orlando, yeah, uh, with Orlando. Uh and he went to the quick trip that I got burnt down and took a picture outside of that quick trip to just show the streets, like, yo, I'm I'm with y'all. You know what I'm saying? And when I look at cats like him, I look at cats like you, it's really inspiring, man, because these are street artists that are still with the people.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And see, you just said it right there. And and look at your contrast, Jeezy and KRS. These are two different styles, I guess, of artists. But we're both in the street. And see, there's others that I guess you you can you could call Jeezy a gangster rapper in that sense. Uh but in this instance, how many others in his style are and are in Ferguson? Talking about they in the hood, they in the street, they this. No, you weren't in Ferguson, okay? You weren't over there. Look at on the conscious side, okay? How many people claim conscious, claim this, that, and the other? Never, you're never in the street. We never see you. You're conscious in a book. You're conscious on the radio or in a uh, you know, something on a video, but you're not conscious in the street. Like you understand what people really feel. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't, I don't do strip clubs, okay? I I find it boring, really. But it it but the stripper is my sister. That's right. It's like, so you don't you don't understand like what that is? Like, you don't, and you don't understand the dude sitting there jerking his cast and other things off. You know, you don't understand that shit. Like, you know, yeah, no, I understand it. I may not be the one there with it, but to talk to my people, I understand my people. And I don't agree with everything my people are doing. That's right. But I understand. That's right. And with that understanding, now I could talk. That's right. I could tell you what it is, how it is, and I could talk to you in the way that you will get it. And this is also why these types of these podcasts, like what you're doing right now, what you guys are doing right now, this right here, this might even get the word out to somebody. I mean, however many people, you could be talking to a million people, you're really only talking to two. Right here, right now, we probably just two people got saved just now.
SPEAKER_05Man, I wanted to talk about this, and this is a great segue because um you said earlier that uh, you know, revolution is only for those who participate. Yes. And I've heard you say that before, particularly in reference to self-destruction and heal and other things where you like, you know, we we tried to tell you. I'm trying to tell my people, right? And so I follow like my lineage from you is is to the point where I'm a do dialogue, get shot 41 times. We go to Raucus, but like, look, we the underground artists, we speak on this and that. We can't not address this situation. So me and Yassine, we got together. Shout out to Devin Roberson as well. She she helped out with that recipes, Devin. Um, we got together 41 MCs, and we broke that up into four different records. We did hip hop for respect. And um and I remember walking down the street, and a kid said to me, and I've told you this before, he said, Man, I didn't think I could rap like that until I heard that record. And it's like you're right, it's cliche, like if you could only reach one person, but that's real. Right. When you feel that and when you hear that. And I've heard, and it was heartbreaking to me. Because I was fresh and green in the industry. I was fresh in Black Star was barely a year old. Right, right. And I'm thinking like, and Black Star came on, or came out on the same day as Brand New Bean Foundation, Beast Rhymes of Life, Miss Education by Lauren Hill, Stania, no, AT Alien, maybe Stank Onia. All came out the same day. Wow. So that was like my introduction to hip-hop was that. Like I was like, oh man, you know what I'm saying? And what a lineup that was. Yeah, September 29th, 1998. Wow. Right? So I was very disappointed when the radio didn't play this record. The record, the single we put out, it had um, wait, hold on. That's abs oh. Hold on. Peace, solo. Oh no, we're talking to the teacher right now. Somebody gonna let him in. Somebody's gonna come out there and get you. Yeah, parking again. Alright, Pete. I can't rescue. Um I was Okay, I got you. I was um I was disappointed that the black radio did not support this record. And I've heard you say the same thing about self-destruction.
SPEAKER_00Yes, you know. This is a recurring thing that um I was talking to someone just uh yesterday at uh at your concert about um the breeding of slaves. Um actually, I think it might have been here today, too. I'm just thinking now, but you know, there's something about the breeding of slaves. You read about it sometimes. Um yeah, and they bread, the you know, there's breeding bread for slavery. But when you really get into what it means to be bred for slavery or bread for anything, to the genetics of picking a person and saying, because of this character, excuse me, be because of this character, I want this person to make with this person, and I'm gonna try to get their genetic character to be this kid. Yeah, and I'm gonna slave the kid and take the kid and do whatever I want to do with this kid and make an army of slaves. This actually happened here in the United States. That's right. People do not realize that this place was created on genocide. That's right. There could never really be justice on stolen land. Never. Yes. Okay. So America has created a black person that serves white interests only. They were bred this way. There is no, and I say this respectfully, I'm not calling nobody out, I'm not putting nobody down. This is straight history and straight science. Some people in this country were bred to serve the interests of white culture, and they were bred for it. Your genie, your mama, your papa, they put them together for you to be like who you are. Now to speed up the take. We put out conscious music. This music is here to help our vivo. Yes. Okay, this is so I put out, and this is my irony, so I put out criminal minded. South Bronx played on the radio all day, every day. Um by alert, though. Oh, red one was red alright. Um, but it was in rotation.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it was, it was. Yeah, during the during the day. During the day, you could hear South Bronx. I remember that too.
SPEAKER_00I remember I was in junior high school. You can hear South Bronx in the day. Same thing with poetry. Poetry had a had a rotation for for a minute. Now you could play those records, right? You could play my philosophy. My philosophy was a record in rotation. At the end of the record, I say, I'd rather uh point a pistol at your head and try to burst. No, I say um uh it's unrational. A lot of MCs like to use the word dramatical, fresh. I'm trying to get to the lyric, but it was some violent shit at the end of that record, okay? You play that all day. First, I put out stop the violence, the single. One, two, three, the crew is called BDB. They don't want to play that. I say, okay, we let it go. I now do self-destruction. We all do we we do self-destruction. Radio station KISS FM says it's too long. Now, this is where I start getting jittery. Right. Because I was like, wait a minute. A record about saving our people's lives is too long? How is that too long? Like, shouldn't we be talking about saving our lives for 15 minutes straight? Yes. Can we talk? What time limit do you put on a record that's actually inspiring people against violence toward themselves and others? You say, hurry up and say that shit. Yeah. Hurry up, say it in three minutes. Uh we you fucking up the party.
SPEAKER_05You're fucking up the party. You're scaring the hoes. Right.
SPEAKER_00Stop scaring the hoes. You scaring the hoes. And this is and that that is such a real analogy. That's exactly what happened. And so, in that, it's obvious then why they're not playing the record. You bred for this. You down with them. We we know who you are in that sense. And that's why I never really, once I know the community, heard whatever it is I have to do, I could care less what the radio think. Okay, and that's was always from the beginning with me. Care less what y'all think. I I would, of course, I would, it would be great if you played my record. My publishing goes up, I get a little money, I I could, you know, radio play gets you popular. You know, sure, play my record. But if you don't, don't think for one minute KRS is gonna be begging, right? Crying. Right. I need this for my whatever. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Wrong Negro here. Right. The minute I know my community heard my record, I'm good. That's right. That's right. That's it. That's right. My community takes good care of me. Like I said, I'm so proud of how the Bronx um treats me. Brooklyn, too. I can't front. I'm from Brooklyn. We claim you by the way. I know Brooklyn. Just to let you know, because I know you from Brooklyn.
SPEAKER_05I know, I know we claim you, but I know you a Bronx dude. I'm a Bronx. Because you were born in Brooklyn, we claim you came up with that. Um Keris One, I appreciate your time. I got uh and I got one more thing I want to say to you before we um wrap this up. What a conversation! Man, it's beautiful. And we should do this more often. Yeah, we will. Yeah, yeah, we will. Yes, we will. Um, I just want to thank you because you helped me get an A in class with Black Man in Effect. Oh. Shout out to Mr. Clisby. Oh. Um, that record, that to me is where you went from. And you you start that edutainment, you start with the speech. You start with the lecture. So you go from I'm I'm the teacher on record to no, no, I you letting the the audience know, oh, I I'm really doing this. You know what I'm saying? Get the Kwame Tore quotes on there on that album. That album really meant a lot to me. And um, we were studying that era, the the Sumerians and the Egyptians and all that in high school, and and I I transcribed the lyrics to black man in effect to that verse, and I turned that in for my homework, and I got an A. Yeah, the Tigris and you say the God in the meeting. Mr. Clisby, wherever you are in the world, he couldn't believe, he couldn't believe it. He was like, This is amazing. I'm like, yeah, yeah. Hip hop. And um, we got the books. He's like, yeah, yeah. Um I'm gonna show you the books, why show the books? Tell him about hip hopia as well. This is the this is a new book that just came out. Oh, yes. My philosophy. Oh, yes. You know, and at equalyclub.com and Kiro Books, we have the gospel of hip hop.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_05As well.
SPEAKER_00And you're gonna have that one too, as well. Yeah. Um uh wow, you just hit me over the head. The last question you just said. Um, wait, that's just you just went whoa. Yeah. Uh right over there with the book in hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, okay, let's go through it real quick. Um, hip hopia. Just like you have um Chinatown or Little Italy, it's time now to have a little hip hop. Families are different. We're not going to Disney World. Well, not no disrespect to Disney World. But Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck has been replaced by Method Man and Red Men. And not to say that. I know what you mean.
SPEAKER_05So your point about Ship once, I was in a hotel lobby, a fancy hotel in Miami. It was fancy. And I'm in the lobby, and they're playing the entire Mob Deep album to infamous. And I'm like, these lyrics is violent and gangster. First of all, Europe is playing all that. But that's adult contemporary hip-hop. Like that's the nostalgic hip-hop. I think I heard Sound of the Police in the Ninja Turtles movie. Yeah, like that's it makes people feel safe. Yes. When they hear our music. That's crazy. It makes people feel safe to nostalgia.
SPEAKER_00That's a whole separate thing. That's a whole nother piece, anyway. Um, wow. Yeah. Okay, so this idea of hip-hop having its own space in a city, it's a franchised idea. The concept comes from the preservation of hip-hop, the idea of preserving hip hop. How do you preserve a culture? Well, most times you need a landmass and some institutions, really institutions, but a landmass wouldn't hurt as well. So, in this particular situation, we say, listen, every city has a debilitated area in the city that embarrasses the whole city. Give that the hip-hop. We'll call that hip hop here. Name the streets after our icons and so on. But what that does is it not only centralizes hip hop's wealth right there. Our kids' jobs are right there. We're living off the tourism. Most cities live off tourism. We're bringing that tourism right to your city. Not only are they coming to spend money with us, they're gonna spend money through the whole city. So we have something, or you would, whatever city can see this vision would put a gold mine in their city where people are coming to this one place to hear hip hop from this city's perspective of it. Now, New York couldn't understand what I was saying. I tried to get it through New York, they couldn't fail. Maybe now with a new mayor, maybe maybe they can get it. But New Jersey couldn't.
SPEAKER_05He used to be an MC, our new mayor. He got some bars.
SPEAKER_00He got bars. He needs to battle Ross Baraka.
SPEAKER_05Uh and tri-state domination. And speaking, and that's and look at this. Shout out to Ross Baraka. Me and him went to QA. That's my guy.
SPEAKER_00Big up, Middy, as well, Mary Baraka Jr., shout out to you. But Ross understood what I was saying. I came to Newark, New Jersey. I said, look, here's the idea. Here's what I was thinking about. He said, yo, we need this in our city. He's cut from that cloth. And he was cut. Yeah. I mean, I'm really talking about. He's the MC2. I said he needs a battle. Yo, that's you know what? You might, I'm not gonna give it away here. I'm gonna keep my mouth shut. Okay, okay. But that mayor mayor battle. That might be some what you need in your life. Yeah. That mayor and mayor Newark versus New York. Newark versus New York. Yo, dude. There's a lock that can happen there. Okay, we'll leave that alone. Yeah. But anyway, Ros Baraka understood. What the concept was. And right now, the concept of hip hopia is in South Ward. It's in what is called South Ward of Newark, New Jersey. So the Temple of Hip Hop is there in Southward, 55 Ludlow Street. Feel like coming by, do your thing. We're there. But the surrounding area is what we want to redo. We're redoing the whole area. It's a burnt-out area, debilitated, poor people obviously there. But it's it's um the airport is what, you know, they build airports in areas where the poor people are at. So we don't want to do the gentrification thing. We're not doing that. But not but we're not doing that. But if you don't understand what citizenship is at this particular hour, you will be out. Yes. If if you don't understand it, and that's why the temple is there, to make the community understand what citizenship is regularly. And you can keep coming in, you can learn more, you can come in. We have courses, classes, we're constantly working, and this we're in partnership with the city. So the city has its own events that it throws at the Temple of Hip Hop as well. There's no excuse. So in this instance, we're educating the public right now and and and our specific neighborhood. Lionsgate just came into our neighborhood. They dropped $100 million in our neighborhood to build their new um film studio. Everybody coming to Jersey. Lionsgate came, Netflix is coming, Paramount's coming as well. They all come into Jersey. Jersey's offering deals you can't refuse. But Lionsgate is three blocks away from the Temple of Hip Hop. Okay, so, and we're already, they actually announced Lionsgate's venture at the Temple of Hip Hop, uh, actually. And so we're on the rise of community building and civilization building. Our ancestors built pyramids. Why are we not building them now? That's right. Our ancestors built temples. Why are we not erecting temples now? Our ancestors started civilization. Why are we not establishing civilization now? That's right. And so many of the world's problems today we we we face, I think, because we black people are not being divine. We're not being who we supposed to be. We're chasing after the dreams of colonists, invaders, and all these people. And we're supposed to be godlike. We're supposed whether you like it or not, you're supposed to like imagine this. I'll say this. I teach my children, well, they're not children anymore. When they were children, uh, I I showed them, I said, look, I don't want to read. I don't, I don't, well, I gotta write with my hand. And I said, and instead of saying, because you could, because if you don't know how to read, you can't function in society, I said to them, you have to learn to read because the concept of reading is yours. That's right. The the you don't learn to read so you can function as a side of it. No, the idea of words and letters and being able to codify sound and symbols that belongs to you. This is not whether you like it or not. This is what your ancestry did. That's right. Mathematics belongs to you. It's not I'm studying math so I could um problem solve. Right. I'm studying math and don't problem solve it. I'm studying math because my mother made it. That's right. I'm studying astronomy because my father made that. Yes. That's why I'm studying this. But if you don't know that your ancestors and your parents made this stuff, you know, when I was coming up, we used to say all the time, like actually Chuck D has a uh public enemy, Farrakhan quote, we lost our religion, our culture, our God. And then we lost our minds. Here it is. That right there, we all grew up on that Farrakhan. Matter of fact, let me say his name, Slough. Yes, the honorable Minister Lewis Farrakhan. When he was teaching us, and he still is, but when he was teaching us, you know, he said, we said we lost something and we have to regain. That's right. Okay. Hip hop now looks at this and says, wait a minute. Sure, Elder, we have lost a lot. And we understand what that is, but we now know that Africa is still right there. We didn't lose it. The pyramids still stand. We didn't lose anything. Most of these museums you go to, all they got is our stuff in it. They preserve in our culture. They stealing, but the thief is a preserver. They preserving our culture. You didn't lose nothing. And Farrakhan was right. The only thing we lost was our mind. You made writing. You could never lose your language. This language I'm speaking right now is mine. English is not English. First of all, English is French. French and Latin. Right. Okay, that's first. Okay. And French and Latin.
SPEAKER_05Ain't French and Latin. That's why Yassin said I used to speak the King's English, but caught a ras on my lips, so now my chat just like this.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shout out to Yassin. Shout out to Yasin.
SPEAKER_03That was odd. One more question. Um, after Ferguson, I ended up in the Bronx. A lot of people don't know this. Wow. Rebel Diaz. Rebel Diaz, you got a whole record with them. Rod Stars, I got two of them, right? Recorded in the Bronx. St. Louis dude's in the Bronx after the uprising. Another A. Chilean cats. Another A.
SPEAKER_00But St. Louis dude in the Bronx.
SPEAKER_03Chilean cats brought me in, man. My first day out there, a bunch of Latin brothers all start coming out their cribs. We taking pictures in the middle of the street. They like, yo, we got you. I don't even know how to respond to this because back at the crib, we don't got a lot of Latin brothers. You know what I'm saying? So this whole community's taking me in. I'm living amongst these cats. I'm walking the streets every day. And I ended up starting, I ended up recording out there, and we put two records out called Multiply. Part of the reason why I was drawn to stay in the Bronx is because I saw you say a very, very long time ago that the Bronx was the Mecca.
SPEAKER_05Rhyme and Reason documentary. If you want to experience hip hop, come to the Bronx. Walk the streets, meet the people. This is what you said, right? Eat the food. Eat the food.
SPEAKER_03And on a religious level, if you claim it's something as your spiritual home, your religious mechanism, you gotta go to the place that's the mecca of the people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, come to the Mecca. You know, this is what it means by when we say, uh not when we say when the right, no, maybe we, the Ten Commandments says, remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. Yes. That's a formula. Remember it to keep it holy. Not remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. We just destroy the words. The actual command is remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. So what keeps things holy? Your remembrance of them, your continuous remembrance of something sacred. That's what makes it holy. So every time we say the Bronx, home of hip hop, we make it holy. We make our culture holy, we make something sacred that belongs to us. Now, of course, the scholarship hip-hop may come from St. Louis. Uh, if you really think about the origins of our culture, no, the Bronx. The St. Louis blues. Come on now, we say the Bronx is the home of hip hop. This is our cultural legacy. We shout cool herc. We know what that is. But if you want to get into the scholarship, dudes from the Bronx came from the South. Dudes from the Bronx came from Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba.
SPEAKER_05That's the Bronx. That's what makes the South Bronx what it is. That diversity.
SPEAKER_00I used to, I was able to come outside my house. I was able to come outside Webster projects. And you would hear at least six different languages in an hour. Like you would hear Arab speaking, you'd hear Chinese people speaking, you hear the Italians speaking. And everyone used to speak in their own language. It's rude. That's why people don't do it anymore. But or some people don't do it anymore. But when you around people. I remember being around Italians and they start talking Italian. Yeah. They don't want they're not talking. They don't start being around Puerto Ricans and Spanish people. They start talking Spanish. Talking Puerto Rican Spanish. So I'm Spanish people. You know what I'm saying? And you stand in there, same thing with the Chinese. So people don't do it much no more. In fact, we're all speaking English. Like we're all globally, really. Globally, really, we're all and you know what? Hip hop has a lot to do with I agree with that. Hip hop has a lot to do with why people are speaking English globally. Facts. Like, think about the power of our culture. Facts. Yes. The My Philosophy book is available at myphilosophybook.com. Yes, go get that. The ebook is right there. This book, My Philosophy, is a brand new book. I studied in Greece for for about a year on tour. I got some information out of it. It is fascinating. My premise is that all of philosophy as we are practicing it today is wrong. Why? Because you don't have the indigenous voice. That's right. The minute you think of philosophy, what you think of? Greece, Pythagoras. Yes. Excuse me. Aristotle, so long. You know, these people, this is not where philosophy begins. Philosophy begins with the first humans. This is where philosophy begins. People like Neanderthals. Like, imagine, this goes back to Savage and all this other stuff. Okay, we were talking about homohedelbergensis takes us away from our ancestor. Homo Neanderthalensis makes you forget who here. This is some, and they call them hominids or hominins. Not human. Not human. Something other than human. But yet subhuman even. Even sub. No, that's the word. Subhuman. Okay. We get into the eugenics and all that. How can a subhuman, how can the first human be a subhuman? Every time we talk about the progression of humanity, the West calls themselves descendants. Africa calls itself ascendant. Ascendants, yeah. Of your parent. I'm an ascendant of my parent. That's right. No, Western culture says you're a descendant of your parent. So how can the first people be subhumans? The first humans are subhumans in their eyes, and we're all descendants. No, it don't make no sense. No. If they are subhumans, and we are the humans now that are above human or real human, then we are the ascendants. But but no, in Western culture, this is how they they're twisting things around. So you got Lucy. Lucy. Who's the first African, yeah. Ethiopian skeleton, 3.2 million years. Lucy. First of all, look what I'm saying. Lucy. What the f Lucy? Yeah. The reason that's the case is because the song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was playing when Leaky, uh when um uh Johan uh Donald Johann, Dr. Donald Johansson, 1974, discovers this Ethiopian. Right. Names are after some LSD. And then names it after some LSD. Lucy and this is but look at what they're doing to our history. They then named this Ethiopian skeleton Ophorensis, no, Australopithecus Aforenses. You like, wait a minute, that's Keisha. Right. What the fuck are you talking about? That's that's Mary right there. What do you think? No, Aforensis are so and imagine 3.2 million years old, Ethiopia. Now imagine if we started our history there, not some slave ship we came over here. That's right, African history is the world's history. These are the straight up facts, no mystery. No mystery. Come on. And and again, so this ends off, and there's a good way to end, because I'm gonna say this. The premise of the book, my philosophy, is about philosophy in its in its true sense, is about the development of your character. Without character, you can't learn.
SPEAKER_05Ladies and gentlemen, the blastmaster, the teacher, KRS1 is in the house.
SPEAKER_00Yo, tell him one, two, three. The crew is called PDP.
SPEAKER_04Let's see if the sweet sending pick up with it. I'm gonna say, I'm not gonna be kicking the way. Let me tell you, sweet, picking up a witch on it. You can see you're gonna come up with a bitch. You talk about you want to get it. You come in a woman.
SPEAKER_00And if you want to come up with the beast, what up?