January 1, 2024 • 19 mins
In the first of a 2 part episode, Host Ramses Ja offers his reflections on recent comments made by Dr. Umar Johnson on rap icon Eminem's status within the Hip Hop industry.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is the Black Information Network Daily podcast, and I
am your host, Ramsey's job. And sometimes the amount of
stories that make their way to us means that we
simply can't cover everything that comes our way. But from
time to time, a story just stays with me and
I feel compelled to share it with you and give
you my thoughts. And now one more thing.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
One of the best rabbits bullbone, according to who you
Repand let me say something to you, and this is
going to my African fundamentalism. No non African can ever
be the best of anything African. It is an insult
to the ancestors. It is an insult to the race,
and it is an insult to every Black person. Do
(01:00):
you think I could go to Palestine and be the
best anything of Palestinian culture? You never see that. You
think I could go to go to Israel and be
the best of anything in Israel, whether it be a
cook and instrumentalist, a dancer. Hell no. And we have
to stop but naming non African people. Stay with me, though,
let me finish this. We gotta stop naming non African
(01:23):
people as being the best of any aspect of our
cultural because it is an insult. You put him at
the top. That's white supremacy. That's white supremacy, that's white culture.
I don't see Eminem building these schools in.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Hospitally, so naturally, I, like many other people on the Internet,
have a lot to say about doctor Umar's comments on
whether or not Eminem can be considered the greatest of
(02:03):
all time. For longtime listeners of the show, you know
that I come from a hip hop broadcast background. I
am the younger brother of what I am many others
considered to be hip hop royalty. I'm a DJ myself,
(02:26):
and I've been immersed in hip hop culture since i
was maybe three or four years old. So I remember
a time before Eminem, and I paid particular attention to
(02:48):
facets of the culture that may have gone unnoticed by
more casual listeners. I paid attention to, you know, the beats.
I myself would spend some time as a producer. Indeed,
I produced the ORR. I sampled and reproduced the song
(03:11):
that you hear at the beginning of this show and
then the normal episodes. I produced that track as well,
with an NPC or with reason, or with my guitars
and my keyboards and everything like that. Of course, I
paid attention to the lyrics and the graffiti and the breakdancing,
and done the knowledge taken, all the classes and all
(03:33):
that sort of stuff. So naturally this would piaue my interest.
And again I do have a lot to say, and
I will try to be as brief as I can,
but no promise is here because this one is kind
of deep. It's a kind of a special intersection for me.
So again, doctor Umar says that Eminem can't be the
(03:57):
goat greatest of all time because he's first and foremost.
I want to give some credit where it's due. I
don't love the idea of black men arguing with each other.
(04:22):
I don't love the idea of black men, especially like
in a public space, really having like airing out their friction.
And to be fair, I don't have any issues with
doctor Umar. I don't agree with everything that he says,
but I don't agree with everything that anyone says. But
(04:45):
I don't want to come across like one of those
people who's trying to tear down doctor rumar.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
But for those that have been listening to the show
long enough, you know that I did not want to
tear down Kanye West. Now my intention to do that,
nor will it ever be my intention to do that.
I just don't think that that is constructive and don't
think that it helps us accomplish what it is that
we need to accomplish as a people any faster. I
think that actually slows us down. Sometimes I kind of
(05:16):
like the idea of being a monolith, because certainly be
a lot more effective in accomplishing the things that we
want to accomplish. I realized that we don't all always
agree on the same things, and that's okay. So back
to the lecture at hand. Doctor Umar is one such individual,
(05:36):
where again I don't always agree with everything that he says.
But again, what I want to do is start by
giving some credit where it's due. Then I want to
explain who I believe the greatest of all time is
and why in an effort to offer an alternative a
(06:00):
broach to deciding something like that that I believe floats
a little further. And then finally I want to kind
of dig into where doctor Umar's logic breaks down. And
for those of us who feel the same as him
or feel different, I think it's important to have all
(06:22):
of these pieces to the puzzle because we are always
going to have to frame and reframe concepts like these
in our minds as we reconcile the pieces of popular
culture with our plight and understanding how we can relate
to other people and what is the common thread and
(06:45):
what is something that we all more or less can
agree on, and what are some objective truths and so
forth these things. It's important to have a framework to
deal with things like this so that we don't lose
our place in the story, so that we keep our strength,
we keep the wind at our back, we stay in alignment,
and we can penetrate deeper into the areas of popular
(07:12):
culture that we need to in order to move the
needle for our agenda. So let's start at the beginning,
back to doctor Rumar. So I'll say that maybe half
of the things that he talks about absolutely brilliant. I
don't think there's any two ways about it. That he
(07:33):
is a brilliant mind. He is insightful, he's educated, he
knows how to convey his thoughts, and he does so effectively.
And I think that when you have all of these
(07:56):
things combined, you have someone who's a powerful speaker, who
again insightful, someone that can really take you from where
you are to where you might want to be and
doesn't lose you at any point along the way. You
have somebody that is worth listening to. Okay, But again,
this is true for about half of what he says,
(08:17):
in my personal opinion. The other half of what he
says is wild. And you know, I'm an adult man.
I can make up my mind for myself, and I'm
sure that all of us are able to do the same.
(08:39):
And that's okay. I again don't like the idea of
attacking a black man for having a different belief or
belief system than I do. But I think that disagreements
and conversations are healthy for the most part, provided that
they're based in mutual rooms. And I think that I
(09:05):
kind of subscribe to that way of thinking, perhaps more
so than doctor Umar does. But he and I haven't met,
so I don't want to judge him unfairly. But he's
a high profile figure and then he often gets us
having conversations that are uncomfortable whenever he chooses to spend
his time on one of the many hip hop platforms
(09:27):
that open his mind up to Black America and white
America for that matter. We are discussing doctor Umar Johnson's
comments about how Eminem can't be the greatest rapper of
all time because he's white, and some concerns I have
with that type of thinking. Some of the wild things
(09:51):
that he talks about really include I guess the top
of the list would be how we should be interacting
with white people, okay, And I've always believed that that
is very exclusionary, and I'm sure he would agree with that,
(10:17):
and I don't love that. Again, For folks who have
been longtime listeners of this show are really truthfully my
radio shows. If excited that I do with q Ward,
you understand that my push has been to foster allyship.
(10:40):
Unless you are born a healthy, straight, white Christian man,
the odds are that you have some sort of uphill
battle that exists beyond yourself, and it exists as a
(11:03):
result of the patriarchy or white supremacy, and so there
is some point in your life when you're going to
have to overcome some invisible force. And there's a lot
of us who share that experience, and I believe that
allyship helps us when we can't accomplish things on our own.
(11:29):
I famously am a big fan of Fred Hampton and
the Rainbow Coalition, and so, you know, the leaders and
the ancestors that have left the footprints for me to follow.
I've chosen which path I want to follow, and that
is one that I believe in. I believe that that
not only speaks to our plight as Black people, but
to our plight as human beings. And so the exclusionary
(11:54):
rhetoric that we often hear from doctor Umar stands often
enough in contrast to that, I believe that we should
be building bridges and including people, not burning bridges and
excluding people. So off the bat, that needs to be stated.
(12:20):
You know. Maybe it's because I grew up in California
and Arizona. We have a different sort of mentality on
the West coast. We get along with each other a
little bit better than like in the Deep South and
so forth and so on. And I'm not trying to
say that we shouldn't have, you know, afrocentric you know, efforts,
(12:42):
and we should not have a strong sense of community.
Absolutely we should. But I think that two things can
be true at the same time, and we can also
be brothers and sisters to our Hispanic brothers and sisters
and to our Asian, American and Pacific Islander brothers and sisters.
Even if there are pockets of those communities that don't
(13:04):
like that. I believe that our position and our posture
as the elder in the equation. You know, black people,
we are the first people on this planet, that we
should always be willing to receive others and be willing
to help others, especially if they are in a similar position.
(13:28):
My show Civic Cipher, I've opened the doors of that
show to communities that look nothing like Black people, Jewish
people and Palestinian people, both Asian people, Hispanic people. You
remember those kids in the cages. Hey, listen, I have
a show. You need to reach people, You need to
(13:51):
move the hearts of the people. Come to this show
that I've built and state your brief. We will support you.
I remember when you supported us in twenty twenty. I
will support you. So this is my thinking. And so
again with a person like doctor Umar, again that fiery
(14:14):
rhetoric can be very off put into a person like me.
I'm also not really a big fan of his thoughts
on homosexuality being like a mental disorder, those sorts of
things they feel like. I understand what he's trying to
say he likes strong black male figures representing our people. Right,
(14:41):
I get that that's important, but that is not the
only facet of humanity, That is not the only facet
of nature. Right. We need strong black homosexual men to
represent our people too. We need strong black women, strong
black children. Every way that human beings can be expressed, indeed,
(15:03):
they can be expressed with melanin. And I believe that
every facet of humanity that can be expressed should be
expressed as a Black person and in a way that
is that that exemplifies and examples Black excellence. And so
(15:32):
I look to members of the l g b t
q i A plus community, and I note where James
Baldwin has created extremely meaningful in roads for the activist
(15:55):
of yesteryear to penetrate the consciousness of white America and
openly gay man. And you know he's not the only one. Indeed,
I work with members of the lgbt QIA plus community
with my activism where I live. I bet most of
(16:21):
them are part of that community. And they're all amazing people,
brilliant people, great thinkers, and they're doing the work. So
far be it from me to agree with the sort
(16:42):
of rhetoric that paints homosexuality as a mental disorder, you know,
As I mentioned, I believe the statement is that homosexuality
has been observed in over a thousand species in nature,
including human, but homophobia has only been observed in one species,
(17:06):
And so there's another hard line for me. He also,
from time to time has sort of let's call them,
conspiracy theories creep into his messages, and I don't want
to say that that's the worst thing in the world.
(17:29):
You know, you take the good with the bad with
a lot of people. I'm sure that if you've been
listening to me for a long time, you take some
of what you agree with and leave what you don't
agree with, you know. And so I guess that could
be chalked up to that maybe I'm not immune to
conspiracy theories or coming across bad information, but you know,
I do my best, and I'm sure he does his
(17:51):
best too. But for a person like him, again, with
the backdrop of again this exclusionary rhetoric and this kind
of fiery personality, I think that when you introduce conspiracy
theories to an individual like that, the fallout, the damage
can be a lot more harmful and I don't love
(18:13):
that combination. So I say all this to say that,
you know, I absolutely want to give credit where it's due,
but far be it from me to agree with everything
that anybody says. And so when he's talking about Eminem
(18:34):
being the goat or not being the goat, sorry, I
think that it's okay to disagree, right But and this
brings me to the next point I want to make.
I want to disagree for a different reason, and I
hope that you'll follow me down this path. This concludes
(18:57):
part one of our two part conversation discussing doctor Umar
Johnson's comments stating that Eminem can't be the greatest rapper
of all time because he's white. Check back in tomorrow
for part two, where we discuss the breakdown in his logic.
This is the Black Information Network Daily Podcast and I
am your host, ramses Jah
This is the Black Information Network Daily podcast, and I
am your host, Ramsey's job. And sometimes the amount of
stories that make their way to us means that we
simply can't cover everything that comes our way. But from
time to time, a story just stays with me and
I feel compelled to share it with you and give
you my thoughts. And now one more thing.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
One of the best rabbits bullbone, according to who you
Repand let me say something to you, and this is
going to my African fundamentalism. No non African can ever
be the best of anything African. It is an insult
to the ancestors. It is an insult to the race,
and it is an insult to every Black person. Do
(01:00):
you think I could go to Palestine and be the
best anything of Palestinian culture? You never see that. You
think I could go to go to Israel and be
the best of anything in Israel, whether it be a
cook and instrumentalist, a dancer. Hell no. And we have
to stop but naming non African people. Stay with me, though,
let me finish this. We gotta stop naming non African
(01:23):
people as being the best of any aspect of our
cultural because it is an insult. You put him at
the top. That's white supremacy. That's white supremacy, that's white culture.
I don't see Eminem building these schools in.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Hospitally, so naturally, I, like many other people on the Internet,
have a lot to say about doctor Umar's comments on
whether or not Eminem can be considered the greatest of
(02:03):
all time. For longtime listeners of the show, you know
that I come from a hip hop broadcast background. I
am the younger brother of what I am many others
considered to be hip hop royalty. I'm a DJ myself,
(02:26):
and I've been immersed in hip hop culture since i
was maybe three or four years old. So I remember
a time before Eminem, and I paid particular attention to
(02:48):
facets of the culture that may have gone unnoticed by
more casual listeners. I paid attention to, you know, the beats.
I myself would spend some time as a producer. Indeed,
I produced the ORR. I sampled and reproduced the song
(03:11):
that you hear at the beginning of this show and
then the normal episodes. I produced that track as well,
with an NPC or with reason, or with my guitars
and my keyboards and everything like that. Of course, I
paid attention to the lyrics and the graffiti and the breakdancing,
and done the knowledge taken, all the classes and all
(03:33):
that sort of stuff. So naturally this would piaue my interest.
And again I do have a lot to say, and
I will try to be as brief as I can,
but no promise is here because this one is kind
of deep. It's a kind of a special intersection for me.
So again, doctor Umar says that Eminem can't be the
(03:57):
goat greatest of all time because he's first and foremost.
I want to give some credit where it's due. I
don't love the idea of black men arguing with each other.
(04:22):
I don't love the idea of black men, especially like
in a public space, really having like airing out their friction.
And to be fair, I don't have any issues with
doctor Umar. I don't agree with everything that he says,
but I don't agree with everything that anyone says. But
(04:45):
I don't want to come across like one of those
people who's trying to tear down doctor rumar.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
I.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
But for those that have been listening to the show
long enough, you know that I did not want to
tear down Kanye West. Now my intention to do that,
nor will it ever be my intention to do that.
I just don't think that that is constructive and don't
think that it helps us accomplish what it is that
we need to accomplish as a people any faster. I
think that actually slows us down. Sometimes I kind of
(05:16):
like the idea of being a monolith, because certainly be
a lot more effective in accomplishing the things that we
want to accomplish. I realized that we don't all always
agree on the same things, and that's okay. So back
to the lecture at hand. Doctor Umar is one such individual,
(05:36):
where again I don't always agree with everything that he says.
But again, what I want to do is start by
giving some credit where it's due. Then I want to
explain who I believe the greatest of all time is
and why in an effort to offer an alternative a
(06:00):
broach to deciding something like that that I believe floats
a little further. And then finally I want to kind
of dig into where doctor Umar's logic breaks down. And
for those of us who feel the same as him
or feel different, I think it's important to have all
(06:22):
of these pieces to the puzzle because we are always
going to have to frame and reframe concepts like these
in our minds as we reconcile the pieces of popular
culture with our plight and understanding how we can relate
to other people and what is the common thread and
(06:45):
what is something that we all more or less can
agree on, and what are some objective truths and so
forth these things. It's important to have a framework to
deal with things like this so that we don't lose
our place in the story, so that we keep our strength,
we keep the wind at our back, we stay in alignment,
and we can penetrate deeper into the areas of popular
(07:12):
culture that we need to in order to move the
needle for our agenda. So let's start at the beginning,
back to doctor Rumar. So I'll say that maybe half
of the things that he talks about absolutely brilliant. I
don't think there's any two ways about it. That he
(07:33):
is a brilliant mind. He is insightful, he's educated, he
knows how to convey his thoughts, and he does so effectively.
And I think that when you have all of these
(07:56):
things combined, you have someone who's a powerful speaker, who
again insightful, someone that can really take you from where
you are to where you might want to be and
doesn't lose you at any point along the way. You
have somebody that is worth listening to. Okay, But again,
this is true for about half of what he says,
(08:17):
in my personal opinion. The other half of what he
says is wild. And you know, I'm an adult man.
I can make up my mind for myself, and I'm
sure that all of us are able to do the same.
(08:39):
And that's okay. I again don't like the idea of
attacking a black man for having a different belief or
belief system than I do. But I think that disagreements
and conversations are healthy for the most part, provided that
they're based in mutual rooms. And I think that I
(09:05):
kind of subscribe to that way of thinking, perhaps more
so than doctor Umar does. But he and I haven't met,
so I don't want to judge him unfairly. But he's
a high profile figure and then he often gets us
having conversations that are uncomfortable whenever he chooses to spend
his time on one of the many hip hop platforms
(09:27):
that open his mind up to Black America and white
America for that matter. We are discussing doctor Umar Johnson's
comments about how Eminem can't be the greatest rapper of
all time because he's white, and some concerns I have
with that type of thinking. Some of the wild things
(09:51):
that he talks about really include I guess the top
of the list would be how we should be interacting
with white people, okay, And I've always believed that that
is very exclusionary, and I'm sure he would agree with that,
(10:17):
and I don't love that. Again, For folks who have
been longtime listeners of this show are really truthfully my
radio shows. If excited that I do with q Ward,
you understand that my push has been to foster allyship.
(10:40):
Unless you are born a healthy, straight, white Christian man,
the odds are that you have some sort of uphill
battle that exists beyond yourself, and it exists as a
(11:03):
result of the patriarchy or white supremacy, and so there
is some point in your life when you're going to
have to overcome some invisible force. And there's a lot
of us who share that experience, and I believe that
allyship helps us when we can't accomplish things on our own.
(11:29):
I famously am a big fan of Fred Hampton and
the Rainbow Coalition, and so, you know, the leaders and
the ancestors that have left the footprints for me to follow.
I've chosen which path I want to follow, and that
is one that I believe in. I believe that that
not only speaks to our plight as Black people, but
to our plight as human beings. And so the exclusionary
(11:54):
rhetoric that we often hear from doctor Umar stands often
enough in contrast to that, I believe that we should
be building bridges and including people, not burning bridges and
excluding people. So off the bat, that needs to be stated.
(12:20):
You know. Maybe it's because I grew up in California
and Arizona. We have a different sort of mentality on
the West coast. We get along with each other a
little bit better than like in the Deep South and
so forth and so on. And I'm not trying to
say that we shouldn't have, you know, afrocentric you know, efforts,
(12:42):
and we should not have a strong sense of community.
Absolutely we should. But I think that two things can
be true at the same time, and we can also
be brothers and sisters to our Hispanic brothers and sisters
and to our Asian, American and Pacific Islander brothers and sisters.
Even if there are pockets of those communities that don't
(13:04):
like that. I believe that our position and our posture
as the elder in the equation. You know, black people,
we are the first people on this planet, that we
should always be willing to receive others and be willing
to help others, especially if they are in a similar position.
(13:28):
My show Civic Cipher, I've opened the doors of that
show to communities that look nothing like Black people, Jewish
people and Palestinian people, both Asian people, Hispanic people. You
remember those kids in the cages. Hey, listen, I have
a show. You need to reach people, You need to
(13:51):
move the hearts of the people. Come to this show
that I've built and state your brief. We will support you.
I remember when you supported us in twenty twenty. I
will support you. So this is my thinking. And so
again with a person like doctor Umar, again that fiery
(14:14):
rhetoric can be very off put into a person like me.
I'm also not really a big fan of his thoughts
on homosexuality being like a mental disorder, those sorts of
things they feel like. I understand what he's trying to
say he likes strong black male figures representing our people. Right,
(14:41):
I get that that's important, but that is not the
only facet of humanity, That is not the only facet
of nature. Right. We need strong black homosexual men to
represent our people too. We need strong black women, strong
black children. Every way that human beings can be expressed, indeed,
(15:03):
they can be expressed with melanin. And I believe that
every facet of humanity that can be expressed should be
expressed as a Black person and in a way that
is that that exemplifies and examples Black excellence. And so
(15:32):
I look to members of the l g b t
q i A plus community, and I note where James
Baldwin has created extremely meaningful in roads for the activist
(15:55):
of yesteryear to penetrate the consciousness of white America and
openly gay man. And you know he's not the only one. Indeed,
I work with members of the lgbt QIA plus community
with my activism where I live. I bet most of
(16:21):
them are part of that community. And they're all amazing people,
brilliant people, great thinkers, and they're doing the work. So
far be it from me to agree with the sort
(16:42):
of rhetoric that paints homosexuality as a mental disorder, you know,
As I mentioned, I believe the statement is that homosexuality
has been observed in over a thousand species in nature,
including human, but homophobia has only been observed in one species,
(17:06):
And so there's another hard line for me. He also,
from time to time has sort of let's call them,
conspiracy theories creep into his messages, and I don't want
to say that that's the worst thing in the world.
(17:29):
You know, you take the good with the bad with
a lot of people. I'm sure that if you've been
listening to me for a long time, you take some
of what you agree with and leave what you don't
agree with, you know. And so I guess that could
be chalked up to that maybe I'm not immune to
conspiracy theories or coming across bad information, but you know,
I do my best, and I'm sure he does his
(17:51):
best too. But for a person like him, again, with
the backdrop of again this exclusionary rhetoric and this kind
of fiery personality, I think that when you introduce conspiracy
theories to an individual like that, the fallout, the damage
can be a lot more harmful and I don't love
(18:13):
that combination. So I say all this to say that,
you know, I absolutely want to give credit where it's due,
but far be it from me to agree with everything
that anybody says. And so when he's talking about Eminem
(18:34):
being the goat or not being the goat, sorry, I
think that it's okay to disagree, right But and this
brings me to the next point I want to make.
I want to disagree for a different reason, and I
hope that you'll follow me down this path. This concludes
(18:57):
part one of our two part conversation discussing doctor Umar
Johnson's comments stating that Eminem can't be the greatest rapper
of all time because he's white. Check back in tomorrow
for part two, where we discuss the breakdown in his logic.
This is the Black Information Network Daily Podcast and I
am your host, ramses Jah
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