Part Two: Lead Belly: How a Man Named Huddie Ledbetter Beat Everyone Who Tried to Keep Him Down

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello ed, Welcome to cool people did cool stuff and
or people who are pretty cool and maybe kind of
normal but had amazing adventures and dealt with a lot
of bullshit and kind of did amazing things. I'm your host,
Margaret Kiljoy, and my guest today is problem.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Hi.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
What up, man, I'm here to body roll. You know
what I'm saying to me? Something good. I don't know
why I popped in my head not even video.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah no, that' what's that video? But Sophie and I
got to watch, and that's what matters.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
I enjoyed it.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Sophie's also here. Sophie's our producer. Hi, Sophie sub So.
We are on part two of a two parter on
Hooey ledbetter better known as led Belly. Lots of arguments
about the whether or not there's a space in there.
The problem is is that everyone was like mistreating his memory,
and so it like weirdly matters that, Like, you know,

(00:51):
he's like, no, why do you keep changing the way
that my name fucking is?

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Yeah? Let me live. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
But where we last left, he's in prison for probably
self defense, uh.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
And then trying to get out, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Which there's a couple countries where it's legal to try
and break out of prison, because they're like, well, that
makes sense. Someone's holding you in a cage.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Why would you not.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
It's natural at humid it's our job to not let
you succeed. We can't tell you don't try and get
food when you're hungry or whatever, which I mean, actually
that's the entire basis of laws. You can't just go
get food when you're hungry. But the United States is
not one of those.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
It's like, oh man, when you are shown a better way,
how it's just so obvious, like obviously you're going to
try to escape. Yeah, why would we outlaw the natural
forces of self? Of course you're going to try to
do that, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
And even in those countries, it's illegal to hold a
guard hostage while you're doing it, right, like if you
shoot somebody, you know, But if you're like digging a tunnel.
I think in Mexico is one of these countries, they're
just like, well, that's not against the laway's just gotta
stop you.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
Yeah, oh well duh yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
And that's like it almost makes it more like, all right,
we're just on opposite teams. We're trying to solve this.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
It is what it is, Yeah, I mean, and it's like,
I mean he got us, Like, what are we gonna do? Yeah,
we got us, right of katchoo. Yeah, he always.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Gets himself out of prison, but the way he's gonna
do it next is even more fucking wild. That's my teaser.
So prison was a nightmare in the United States during
World War One. I'm sure that's the only period in
which it was a nightmare. Yeah, And prisoners were worked
extra hard on the prison farm and everyone is getting
whipped left and right. I can't remember. I think at

(02:43):
this point they've gotten rid of the convict ly scene
program where they just like literally rent out the convicts
to different like plantations. So what they do instead, they're like, oh,
we're not allowed to do that. We make the prison
a plantation. Often the prison farms are literally on old
plantations where people are enslaved. Sheees. So he was as
good of a worker as he could be. He's very canny.

(03:06):
Whenever he's like being nice to people being shitty to him,
it's because he's fucking thinking about it, you know. And
he gets away with a lot that should be gotten
away with based on white people being idiots and thinking
that he's just actually like very meek to them or whatever.
Uh huh, he's a good worker to avoid getting whipped,
and then he ran for it. This isn't the way

(03:27):
he gets himself out of jail. They catch him with
dogs in a nearby lake and they whip him so
badly he couldn't work for weeks.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Great.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Meanwhile, reform groups led by women's organizations and unions were
doing as much research and journalism and outreach about them.
There's like the whole activist movement to stop this prison
farm thing. So they turn out some of the first
statistics to show how racist the prison system was. This
is the oldest statistic I've found about this. Sixteen percent

(03:55):
of Texas at the time was black. Forty six percent
of its prisoners were black, so you know, three times
more likely. Yeah, and they get a new governor and
he's a bit of a reformer, but in the way
where like, well, this guy's probably a Republican, but you
know how like sometimes democrats are like you're like, ah,
I think you're doing really good, and then somehow almost
worse than the other side. The new governor, this reformer,

(04:18):
he runs on being tough but fair. He is tough
on crime. He's one of the first American politicians to
run on being like I'm tough on crime.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Ew yeah, yeah, great.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
I don't like this guy. Yeah, but his whole thing
is that he wants better conditions in prison, and so
he would come by and inspect the prisons to make
sure everyone's entreated. Sort of Okay, they don't even do
that now.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
Yeah, I know.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
I try to do it at ice facilities and they
get fucking tear gas.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah, And it's almost like I hate that this is
coming out of my mouth, but it's like, okay, for what,
you're gonna go and see this ice facility, see what
we already know I know, and then what.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
I will say. There are a bunch of activist causes
in the past that look like that to me, where
I'm like, what do you doing? Like this one where
they're like, oh, we're gonna find all the statistics about
this prison. I'm like, yeah, but is it gonna change anything?
Sometimes it does. We covered the gay Irish Knight who
helped stop the Belgian king fucking killing everybody, and I
think the Congo and that was because of all of

(05:28):
these groups getting together and just like straight up doing
the like numbers where they're like, well, I went around
and I met this many guys who had their hands
cut off. So I guess they're lying to you when
they say no one's getting their hands cut off, you know. Yeah,
So in a weird way, I feel that way when
I see people go to the ice facilities and I'm like,
what are you doing to fucking shut it down?

Speaker 3 (05:45):
Yeah? How you go to so what are we doing guys?

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah? Yeah, So the governor goes to go inspect this prison.
He goes a couple times, and he meets Leadbetter several
times because I guess he still has his guitar in prison.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
That's funny. The prison was like, well, we're not animals, Like,
I mean, he's an incredible musician. You got to give
the guy his guitar. It's like one of the.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Worst times in places to be in prison in the
fucking history, and people are dying like every fucking day,
you know.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
Yeah, but he.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
Could still have his guitar.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
It's really good. It's always like we'd be going against
God in nature if we don't get it. Guys.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
I think that's kind of the deal. Yeah, and so
he plays songs for the governor every time he goes.
The Governor's like, oh, that guy is a guitar. He's
gonna play for me, which is very like render on
the Caesar. What is Caesar's or.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
You know it really is. And also it's a way
for the warden to kind of flex, like to show
off his goods. He's like, man, we got this guy,
Oh the bridge of Governor's come in, He's gonna play
for you. Yeah, come here, you.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Know, and just totally different than slavery times.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
Yeah, totally Yeah. I was trying not to say like
show off in words, trying to be kind to the glue,
but like, I mean, that's what you're doing, like come
dance for us. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Oh, And like later we're going to get to how
everyone was calling honey the N word the whole fucking time,
and like including the people who are like supposedly on
his side and all the shit, of course, and then
like writing fake attributions claiming he's saying it all the time.
But like later in his life, when after he died,
people are like he talked about how he hated how
that word sounded in his mouth.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
He never said it yeah, and you.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Know he was a drunk gambler. I don't know. Maybe
he did somebody, but he he wasn't a big fan
of it, very least.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
YEA.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
So he plays for the governor, but he's fucking smart.
He plays some classics like Midnight Special, and he also
sings a song that's basically hey, Governor, you there right,
specifically by name Governor Nef pardoned me.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
Like, hey, man, I've never heard this song. Sounds like, yeah, man,
I feel like what it's so crazy. There's already a
song about me.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah, I'm famous.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
Yeah, I'm famous.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yah.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
Hey sing that song about me again?

Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
It quotes the Bible verses about like you need to
forgive people their trespasses so that God can't forgive your trespasses.
Got him, and then has the lines, please Governor Nef,
let me go back home. Please Governor Nef, be good
and kind have mercy on my great long time. And
the one that's quoted the most is if I had you,
Governor Nef, like you got me, I'd wake up in

(08:23):
the morning and I'd set you free.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
Ah got him, so just beautifully on this guitar.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, and so Governor ne F even though he like
was like nicer, right, he actually pardoned fewer people than
the like more chaotic aggressive governors before. But as a
lame duck his last day of fucking thing when he's
writing out his pardons, he pardons led Better for writing
a fucking good song about him.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Day got him. So he breaks down a prison say, hey, man,
it was a really good song man. Yeah, hey, he
wrote a song about me. It's it's almost like I said,
you could pull on Trump to be like, well, you
wrote a song about me. You told you wrote a
song about me. I gotta let him go.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
That would literally work on Trump.

Speaker 3 (09:08):
I really feel like it would that I can't. He
did write a song about me.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, I mean you see it in like any halfway
decent analysis of like ye oldie racism times in the
nineteenth century different than ye oldie racist times in the
twenty first century, how like black people have to pretend
to be nice to white people in order to the game. Yeah,
and this is the game played at like the highest

(09:34):
fucking level.

Speaker 3 (09:35):
You know, so brilliant, so brilliant.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
And he also probably meant that shit about like actually
we're supposed to forgive each other, like everyone talking about.

Speaker 3 (09:45):
Him later was like he really believed that.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah, he would fuck people up, but like he mostly
de escalated fights, you know. Yeah, And so how do
he got out? And he went to Louisiana. He's in Texas.
Oh fuck, he's in Texas and Louisiana. Various points. I
sometimes get them mixed up when he's in prison when
but he goes back right across the Texas line. He

(10:07):
grew up right across the Texas line and then moved
right across from the Louisiana line when he moved to
Texas as a little kid. He didn't move very far.
And he worked alongside Booker T. Washington in the oil
industry for a while. Whoa just as a random I
don't think they have any like great conversation. Like nothing
changes here, but like, yeah, he worked as a maintenance

(10:28):
worker and Washington was a truck driver.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah, I was gonna say, but like, you know, we're
just we're seeing them so many years down the road
in history. But like there's probably a lot of interactions
between very you know, notable black people in just in
terms of living and surviving.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
No, totally. And also like both are very political in
very very different ways right, Yeah, yeah, but like part
of a similar culture and influencing each other, you know, totally.
And he's playing shows and whenever he play shows, he
packs the house. He has another kid with another woman
who soon married someone else, but once again, he acknowledged

(11:10):
the kid as his, and that kid took the name
led Better and then he dated someone else and they
filed around on her. And one day, he's forty years old,
he's walking through town and he sees the Salvation Army
Band playing and it's all white people playing for all
white people. And there's a million versions of this story.
There's no particular reasonab believe any of them. I'm going

(11:32):
to do my best. He goes in and he dances
in the crowd anyway, even though he's a black man,
he's not supposed to be dancing on the street for
a white band.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
Well, yeah, you guys, your methodist, you should be all
right with this. Yeah, sorry, And.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
A white guy prop picks a fight with him. A
white guy is like, you need to fucking stop. But
it's a kid that he'd known since they were little.

Speaker 3 (11:56):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
And other people are like, actually, that particular white man
didn't give him shit at all. I think he did.
I think the white man, yeah, gave him shit. Need
to get the fuck out of here. So he cuts
the white man and he goes to jail again.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yeah, so I am reading so much into this story,
but you add on top of segregation. And then if
you know this is a guy you've known since you
was kids, you know, when this man walks in, he
is the most talented by miles in everyone in here, Yeah,
you know, which probably means you're a better dancer than

(12:35):
all of us. And I've been dealing with this shit
my whole life.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
And the white women might be looking at him, and.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
The white women are gonna be look, you bag every
event you go, and you bag a chick, and it's
just like leave some crumbs for the rest of us,
you know. And I'm like, this is the one space
since I'm really not in any way better than you
and anything, but at least in this room, yeah, where
you're not allowed a loud give me something, you know.

(13:02):
I'm like reading all that into that, but I could
totally see it.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
No, no, I I believe it. And so they take
him a jail and he is almost lynched. A white
mob storms the jail and only those brave sheriffs hold
them at bay. What a head fuck to be a
racist white cop in the South who believes in law
and order, and you're like all of the other racist
white cops in the South would let you lynch him,

(13:27):
but not me. I stand for something, which is him
getting beat to death in prison.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
We get to beat him fair and square. Yeah, you
gotta follow the law. Yeah okay.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
And it's like they're still the better white person, you know,
like a yeah, yeah, yeah exactly, Like, oh god, the
racist white cop is the better person in this story.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
You have the moral high ground, like somehow or another,
It's like Iran right now, somehow Iran has the moral
high ground. I don't know how you did that, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
I hate that regime so much. But watching fucking America
fail at invading them, you're like, look, that's funny. I
know it has worldwide ramifications, and I just hate the
Iranian regimes. Yeah, I hate the American one too, Yes,
but it's funny.

Speaker 4 (14:17):
Objectively evil, like objectively evil regime that you have just
somehow or another made me cheer for because you're so
inept yea.

Speaker 5 (14:30):
Yeah, yeah, and so honey, led better he's back in prison,
just as the Great Depression hits and it's now while
in prison and he starts getting famous at a new level.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
But do you know what makes products and services? I
have no good transition here, oh man, it's the products
and services that make the show. To support the show.
They they have products and services, probably actually a lot
of them, probably just podcasts, but here they are Andrew back. So,

(15:07):
in case anyone missed it learning about American history, you
can't do slavery in the United States thanks to the
thirteenth Amendment except for that tiny, little, tiny loophole in
the thirteenth Amendment quote except as punishment for a crime
whereof the party shaw have been duly convicted. So the
South moved quickly to incarcerate black people, mostly black men,

(15:30):
like after Civil War and especially Jim Crow era, to
get them to work for free, doing all the most
dangerous work. And this was explicit the same way people
are like, well, the slavery was about Like, no, if
you just fucking listen to the Confederates, they will tell you.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
Yeah, it was about this is about states rights, all right. Well,
let me ask this Confederate soldier, what are we doing
this for? Slavery homie, like this is.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
Just yeah, yeah, I want to own that guy.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
The natural state of beings is the white man is superior,
and the the United States government is trying to go
against nature. So that's why we fight.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The number of times are like this
is for the Anglo Saxons, and you're like, man, they're
even doing the old time e racism. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
Yeah, here's the thing, bro.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
Yeah. A delegate to the National Prison Association meeting of
eighteen eighty three put it like this, Before the war,
we owned the negroes, but these convicts, we don't own them.
One dies, get another.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
They're talking about how it's better, this is better.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah, and thew we get to say, but they criminals don't.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
So it's not our bed.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, And so they would build prisons directly on plantations.
After the Civil War, the South, you know, tried for
some liberty with the Black Codes, but by eighteen seventy
seven reconstruction was over. Federal troops Withdrew Jim Crow laws
took over. Almost no black men were left and off
by nineteen hundred, despite more than two thousand black politicians
having served in the South before that.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
Yeah, Okay, there's a word that you passed over, which
I'm pretty sure the listeners know. But I always want
to like like put a point on this. That part
of Reconstruction was the military. Yeah, had to come to
the States to say, guys, you have to stop doing
this to black people. We're gonna watch y'all to make Okay,

(17:28):
are you guys gonna be are you cool now? Are
you guys gonna be cool now? Are you gonna be
cool now?

Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (17:34):
All right, all right, we're right of here.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
And the second they leave, yeah, which is so funny
because like the South was fighting for slavery and the
North was fighting for abolition, and the North wasn't not racist, no, right,
and so like the federal troops still probably most of
them thought they were better than black people. Yeah, of course,
but they still were like, we're going to invade the

(17:58):
South and occupy it because that's how bad you've been
to black people. Yes, it's that's how bad. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
Again, I don't even like these people. Yeah, but like
your psycho, like, you have to stop this.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
I was reading about how the reason that England moved
away from public floggings and public hangings in England. Is
that the English were like, oh, we kind of look
like Southern Confederates when we do.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
Yeah, this kind of making us look like are we
the baddies? Are we the baddies? We kind of looked
like this, that's so funny.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
And the president of Louisiana's eighteen ninety eight Constitutional Convention
said that they disenfranchised black votes to quote perpetuate the
supremacy of the Anglo Saxon race in Louisiana.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
Hey, why are you guys doing this? Uh so we
can remain supreme?

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, Yeah, much like the only way to be the
halfway decent dancer in the room is to not let
black people in.

Speaker 3 (18:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
The only way that the fucking white race can be
superior is by not letting anyone else play.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yeah, totally. Well, if they have equal rights, yeah, won't
get to be supreme. Yeah, which is natural? Which is nature? Absolutely, Yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
It's like the same as like not the same as.
But like, you know, if the gender binary is so natural,
why do you have to make so many laws about it?
You know, like.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yeah, or why women can't be heads of state because
they're gonna get emotional and start a war and I'm like, ah, well,
since they have not been heads of state, that meant
that every war we've had. Yeah, where's your data?

Speaker 2 (19:38):
Like? Yeah? Also like where those people just like not raised?
Like overall, when I think about people who get angry
while their parents and are scary, more of them are men.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
It's almost always yeah, like I was almost always. Yeah,
I don't understand what you say it like that that
the ladies gonna get emotional. Okay, so oh, let's just
use your binary. What happens when a lady gets emotional,
he cries. What happens when a man gets emotional, he
burns shit down? So I don't understand what data points

(20:12):
you use it to make this. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
Yeah, it's only logic that works for itself. Like you
have to be like, I'm going to make the Anglo
Saxon race the most important, and therefore everything else is justifiable. Yeah,
and like yeah, they're really fucking explicit about it, and
I wish it had changed.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
But yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
So in nineteen thirty, when Ledbetter went to prison in Louisiana,
Louisiana's governor Huey P. Long Junior, this guy is weird.
I've covered him a little bit on the show before
it pops up a lot. This guy is like a
progressive fascist.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
Okay, he came up recently in Bastards too. Is this
the Kingfish guy?

Speaker 2 (20:55):
I think so.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
Yeah, he came up recently in Bastards as like a
side character. He's fucking weird. We're gonna have to do
a full bTB on him one day.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
No, that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
Yeah, progressive fascists like.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
Yeah, tell me more crazy. Yeah, the New Deal didn't
go far enough. He's critical of FDR.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, he hates FDR.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
But he wants to run Louisiana like a kingdom with
him at top. And so he ran the state like
a dictatorship.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
And he was absolutely illegally continuing to rent out convicts
to private interests for labor, despite that having been banned
decades prior. And he then gets assassinate not led Beetter,
but the Quep Long he gets assassinated nineteen thirty five
by like a judge's son. I have had to research
this man for the show so many times, and every
single time, I'm like, I need my three hours of

(21:45):
you and Robert talking about him before I'm going to
really be able to understand him.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
You know, well, if we ever do him, you can
be our guest for that.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Oh that would be fun. Yeah, because he keeps coming up,
he keeps coming up.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
He's super vocal about how much he dislikes what FDR
in the New Deal, and he pops up all the time.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
Yeah yeah, progressive fascism. Yeah yeah, yeah, it's really interesting.
Don't let the right wing hear this though, because they're like,
we told you it's all that National Socialist Party.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
Yeah okay, but yeah, and he looks exactly like you're
imagining him.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
Yeah. The name Huey P. Long is a name that's
just like it's one of those names that are just
kind of in the air.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
But yeah, Like when you said it, I was like,
I know that guy. Then I was like, wait, do
you want to know that guy? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (22:28):
No, And I was like when it came up, I
was like, oh, yeah this guy again.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
I've had to do like a paragraph worth of this
guy like three or four times on this show.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
Look at this guy.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
Oh that's absolutely Huey Long. Yea.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
He is wearing a double breasted pin striped jacket.

Speaker 3 (22:43):
Both his hands up like he's saying so like a.

Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, fucking side part ass, bald man, side part head ass.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
Thank you, Oh, it's so funny.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
That he's a great insult that more people need to use.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Yes, side part head ass, that's a great.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
So Ledbetter had a rough time in prison once again.
Ledbetter not a fan of being in prison. He's going
to get himself out again in yet another way. One
time he gets ten lashes for laziness and then fifteen
lashes for impudence. But the guy who's doing this is
this like terrible man whose name I'm not going to bother,
including this, who just killed a ton of prisoners by

(23:27):
beating them to death and then blaming it on sunstroke.
And he was on a work crew in which three
people died in one month. There's probably only ten twenty
people on that work crew, you know. And so he's
like not having a good time in jail. And then
in nineteen thirty three, a different kind of cruel master
that showed up to change his life. A guy, a

(23:50):
folklorist named John Lamox. He's a white man in his
forties or fifties, and he has his seventeen year old kid,
Allan Intel, and Alan is going to turn out all right.
Alan is the one who's going to drop out of
grad school in order to help this guy out later.
But Alan as a teenager. This is the whole thing
about being a kid, as you're not complicit. But he

(24:11):
starts off hanging out with his dad, his piece of shit.
John is a folk song collector. Alan is later going
to do this in a less evil way. But John
Lamox is a fucking bastard racist. And I thought I
was going to do episodes about Alan Lamox, but as
I read more about the Ledbetter part of the story,

(24:32):
I realized, I like, maybe next week with someone else,
I'm going to cover Alan Lamox. I needed to cover
Howdy Ledbetter first.

Speaker 3 (24:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
So John Lamox, his father and uncle fought for the Confederacy,
and he also kind of bootstrapped himself. But like, if
you read his biography, it talks about him basically bootstrapping himself.
If you read Ledbetter's biography, you learn that John's family
owned people and that's how they boostrapped themselves.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
I love these bootstrapping stories where it's it's like my
dad gave me a meager loan of a million dollars, yeah,
and three people, yeah, and three humans that I inherited
and you know, and I went to work.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah. And John Lamox he's like a Texan. He was
born in Louisiana, but he's moved over. God, everyone in
the fucking story was born in Louisiana moved to Texas.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Many such cases.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yeah, he wants to be an intellectual who's accepted. He
went to school for like one year at Harvard and
he's like really trying to be accepted. But he's obsessed
with folklore but like the American West and cowboys and
cowboy songs, and by that he means white people. Yeah,
until he realizes that black music, race music, as it
was often called YEP, was far more popular and interesting

(25:46):
to people, partly because it's better music.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
Frankly, here's that.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
Partly also because it's exotification and being like ooh the
scary other you know. Yeah, And so he and his
son Alan were traveling around prisons to find black people
willing to record songs for him. And whenever you read
the like cliffs notes versions of these stories, they're like, oh,
they really help bring people's music to light. These folk

(26:10):
music finders, they copyright the music.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
Damn.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
They go around. There's this rush happening at this time,
He's not the only one doing this. There's this rush
to mine black culture and stake acclaim in it, stick
a legal flag in it, and get the royalties to
it forever.

Speaker 3 (26:30):
Dang. I mean, part of that made my stomach hurt.
Part of me is like there's no new ideas. I mean,
like there's just the music industry dude, like yeah, and
then it's like I will pay you one hundred dollars
to play the song and then record it. Yeah, record it.
We'll pay for your day, you know, and then you

(26:51):
record the song. And then I mean it's obviously not
the same because I'm not in jail, but I have
early on I did what's called a work for hire,
which is you know, right, no, and then when I
tell you that thing is in the twenty millions of

(27:14):
like of plays. Yeah, I mean I've walked into freaking
conferences with my face on a ten foot banner. Fuck
because I just I didn't own it, you know, and
it's like you know what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yeah, And it has a direct line to slavery colonization totally,
which I I could have made that comparison in my head,
you know, But looking at this, you're like, oh, this
is the same mindset by often the literal same people.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
And this is one of the most basically colonization things
I've ever read about that isn't literal colonization of land.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
Yeah, it's exactly it. I'm gonna go find find it, yeah,
steal it. Yeah, take all the rights for it, and
you don't matter now, right.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
And so they show up to this prison and they
are looking for musicians, and here is this regionally renowned man,
the King of the twelve String, who knows hundreds and
hundreds of songs and wrote a lot of them. He
literally sang his way to freedom once before literally, and
so basically Hutt he's like, if I kiss this white
man's ass, I might get out of prison. And ironically,

(28:26):
that's not how he gets himself out of prison. But
John Lomax is going to pretend that that's what happened
for years, being like, this man knows me everything, I
got him out of prison. But that's like not even
how he gets out of prison. No, they show up,
they record a few songs, and the Lomaxes leave, and
John does not appeal on his behalf. He's like, oh,
if I record some songs they might try and get
me out. And John like literally, he's like, we have
a lot of his letters to his wife and they're

(28:48):
all just wildly racist, just like really explicitly. And he's like,
I thought for a moment about helping get this man
out of prison and writing for clemency on his part,
and I could probably do it. But could you imagine
him in the car with us, Uh, Like, what would
people think?

Speaker 3 (29:07):
Yeah? Yeah, well, I mean clearly we're not gonna like
I mean yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
And so instead of John appealing for Hoddy Howdy appeals
for Hodey Howey, does jail house lawyer shit to prove
there's all this, Like I read many many pages of this.
It kind of boils down to he was pardoned in Texas,
but that pardon hadn't been transported to Louisiana's like bureaucratic system.

(29:34):
So the way that he was sentenced in Louisiana was
based on as if his previous conviction had like stood,
and so he was able to say, like, you actually
need to reconsider my case in the following way. I
should be up for parole, not I'm gonna be. You
got to pardon me, but I need to be up
for Pearol sooner based on this, this and this. It's
fucking smart and it's a slow way for him to

(29:55):
get out of jail. Okay, Like literally you were talking
about earlier being like why am I still in jail?
I proved all this stuff that's gonna happen to him
for like a solid year. He's like, yeah, going to
have proven everything, and then he's just like yeah, while
the bureaucracy is slowly moving, he's like being whipped on
a fucking chain gang or what daily.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah, But the Lomaxes they want more out of this guy.
They only recorded a few songs, and they like it's
always presented as this thing where like then they had
this great revelation they invented a new kind of recorder
so that they could better go exploit people, which makes
me so sad. I love technology. I want technology to
do good things. Yeah, totally idea of a field recorder
or a brilliant idea. I love folk lore, so go

(30:33):
around and record things if they weren't stealing them.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah, for the purpose of like yeah, god exactly, not
for the culture, which is what both music was supposed
to be. Like I thought this was for the culture.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so they invent basically I'm
going to know more about this when I read the
book on them. I started reading the book on them,
and that's when I was like, fuck this. They invent
a recording machine that records directly on twelve inch aluminum discs. Okay,
and the whole thing. It's portable. It weighs more than
five hundred pounds, it has one hundred and fifty pounds
of batteries.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
Great portable. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
And so Huddy's like, all right, I will sing songs
for you if you let me sing my dear Governor,
please pardon me song, and you put it in front
of the governor. And he also he's smart. He mentions
his name on the tracks over and over again.

Speaker 3 (31:24):
This song is sung by me. Yeah, my name is
Lyd Billy. I owned this song because I wrote it. Yeah, yeah,
I love it.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah. He's fucking smart. Yeah, he records songs. It's unclear
that the Lomax has actually put that record in front
of the governor. It's very likely that the reason Huddy
was released because of his own jailhouse lawyery. But John
Lomax is like for years. He's like, no, this man
knows me everything. I'm the one who got him out
of jail, of course, and John Lomax has promised Huddy

(31:58):
a job when he's out. He wont Houdey to basically
sell him his credibility in black spaces, to get the
best songs out of people. So like, you travel around
with me, you go places that don't want me, and
you record them. I get the copy, right, not you?

Speaker 3 (32:13):
Yeah, totally again, no new ideas.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yeah, but honey, as soon as he's out, the first
thing he does, right before he went to jail, E've
been dating this woman named Martha, and he loves Martha,
Like this is the woman he stays with. He probably
sleeps with other people, but this is the woman he
stays with.

Speaker 3 (32:31):
That's his lady.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yeah. Yeah, And the first thing he does he gets
out and he shows up at his girlfriend's house. He
figures how the fuck to get from like Louisiana to Texas.
He shows up in his cousin's car, rolls up. He
sees her sitting on the porch and he's like, hey,
you there, go inside and get Martha just to like
make a joke, and then they like cry and hug
and are very happy. And there's a lot of descriptions.

(32:54):
Every time he reunites with Martha, he cries a lot.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
Oh, there's a side moment that I want to put
a pin into. Is the thing that he shows up
in his cousin's car. Yeah, and okay, so follow me. Now,
this is gonna wind a little bit, all right?

Speaker 1 (33:11):
But oh really, is the story you're gonna tell? Wind
a little bit?

Speaker 3 (33:14):
Oh really? They're having before us? Where do you go?

Speaker 1 (33:18):
That's crazy?

Speaker 3 (33:20):
Just just hearing about that now, whoa, it's so crazy.
I apologize. Man, it's just new to me too, new
to me too. The guy that wrote Project twenty twenty five.
H his degree is in history and Afro studies.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Wow, see a white man or black man, a.

Speaker 3 (33:40):
Very white man. We're talking about Project twenty twenty five? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (33:43):
Yeah, yeah, Wait are you talking about the guy who's
the head of the Heritage Foundation.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
He got a fucking degree in Afro studies.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
He's got a green in history with the emphasis and
Afro studies. And then his master thesis is about the
family structures of the African American families in Louisiana. Whoa,
and how they were able to use their families to
find liberations.

Speaker 5 (34:06):
WHOA.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
And one of the ways he said is why I
wanted to put a note on this. One of the
ways he said is that the black family was not
a nuclear family. That the family is extended and this
is how we survived by having extended families, right.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Just also literally the better way to live literally.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
I mean like for tens of thousands of years, right, yeah, yeah,
and that we survived by organizing through third spaces. Yeah, okay,
no churches, picnics, barbecues, cookouts.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
But yeah, playing music by the lake, yes, playing music
by the lakes.

Speaker 3 (34:47):
But literally, he said, their means of liberation was having
extended family. So for him to be like, oh I
got here by my cousins, and why when you read
Project twenty twenty five, he's like, the cornerstone is the
nuclear family. It's the father.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Like did he switch teams or was he studying the enemy?

Speaker 3 (35:04):
I don't know. It feels like he's studying the enemy,
because I'm.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
Gonna go with study the enemy based on the way
I because he was at the RNC and I infiltrated
his party.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
Yeah, it is almost one to one everything you learned
about liberation for black people you are undoing. Yeah, in
Project twenty twenty five. It's the most bizarre.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
Yeah, we have to figure out a way to means
test like white people in African American studies classes and just.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
Be like so, hey man, what are you doing here?

Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yeah? What's your goal with this?

Speaker 3 (35:41):
Like? Fuck, yeah, it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
So just that little side note that he's like, oh no,
that's it's like, well, yeah, that's my family, my cousin,
I Benaji and my cousin gonna come get me. Yeah,
I need to check up on his lady. I use
my car. Yeah, Kevin Roberts, that's the head of the
Heritage Foundation.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
Yeah, I see her trans Foundation. Yeah, he was geeked
up at the RNC. Yes, there was no way to
get to him.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
Fuck. Well, dark on that dark revelation. Let's have a
moment of meditation by listening to these products and services
that support this podcast. And we're back. And while we
were listening to the ads, we were making legally actionable
threats again and maybe you all were too. Anyway, And

(36:31):
so when he shows up, Martha has a job, she
works at a steam laundry, and he doesn't have a job,
so he does the actually good version of the unemployed boyfriend.
He spends his time there, his week's there, taking care
of her house and being a good unemployed boyfriend. Like
whenever she's at work, he's like doing all the chores
and shit.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
Got it.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
And he's trying to get in touch with John about
this job, and he finally does. But here's the deal.
A job is where people give you to do work.
John Lomax did not pay, howe he led better?

Speaker 3 (37:05):
Oh okay, at first I was about to, you know,
be like use him as an example, like, hey, fellas,
look just be reasonable with these ladies. Like that's reasonable. Like, look,
you ain't working right now, you're trying to work. Just
take care of the crib, Like this is reasonable.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
Yeah, nobody. He goes off and he joins John, and
over and over again. John wrote about how he saved
Hoddy and always kept writing about like and this man
is eternally grateful for me, and like promised to be
my good and loyal servant for free forever and ever.
No and shine his shoes, clean his clothes, drive his car,

(37:44):
and in exchange. While they're off to go do this
work together, he gets a dollar a day for food
and a place to sleep. About thirty four dollars a
day today. Wow, Because while they're traveling, Hodey can't stay
with John.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
Yeah, of course not.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
That's like a look little bit on, Like, there's no
hotel that's gonna take both of them in fucking Texas
at the time. But John likes it that way. I'm
willing to bet money. Yeah. Immediately, John Lomax is like,
all right, I have this guy. He's gonna help me
get into black spaces, but I'm also gonna fucking bring
him around as a I was gonna say a circus act,

(38:21):
but honestly kind of a zoo act.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
Yeah, it was like a zoo animal.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
And immediately John Lomax builds up the idea that he
is working with a dangerous murderer. He says in an
interview that he asked Ledbetter what weapons he was carrying
and was shown a big, long, scary knife. It was
a small pocket knife that he used as a guitar slide.
That everyone carried a fucking pocket knife.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yeah, it's normal. And also it don't help that he'd
been in jail three times.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
Yeah, no, he has murdered people well, no, he has
killed people. It is unknown whether or not he murdered anybody. Yeah,
but John made up this wonderful racist to change this
is uh maybe those raist thing I'll read on there
right now. John was like, quote, whenever you decide you're
gonna take my money in car, you won't have to
use this knife on me. Just tell me what you

(39:11):
want and I'll give it to you without a struggle, Like,
don't hurt me, scary black man. Oh, And then a
crying hoodie said back, Oh, I guess I'm gonna read
it the way it's written. Please do please suh, don't
talk that way. You got me out of the pen.
As you a man, you won't ever have to tie
your shoes again if you don't want to. I'll step

(39:33):
in front of you. If ever anybody tries to shoot you,
I'm ready to die for you. Boss.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
Oh man green mild, magical black man to this our
tie bosh. Oh yes, no, massa good to me, massa
been good to me. Yeah. Yeah, that trow boy is
right on. Boy, oh man, it's odd. Look, this is
all the way down to the sand. Your Bullock movie,

(40:00):
what's the movie about the football boy? Blind?

Speaker 5 (40:03):
Side.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
Yes, this is blind Side. I haven't seen it. This
is blind Side. It's the plot, big scary black man
from the hood.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
Yeah, except the fact that they turned out that there
was like, hella fucked up shit going on with that movie.
Remember none of that was like yeah, yeah revision it
is history.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
Well yeah, but that's the movie plot, you know, just
again the magical black man. That's a trope, you know,
the magical black man who's no to Why is just
how's you massive being good to me? So like, oh,
he's a good he's a good white man. Yeah. Good.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
And it's probable that Hodey kissed Shawn's ass, but transparently
that was because if he did it, he probably didn't
say it like that because later it's gonna be he's
gonna be kind of willful. But yeah, the safest option in.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
Front of him, he played a game.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
Yeah yeah, And how fucking dumb do you have to
be the fall for it? You fucking asshole? Fucking Harvard
asked mother, Yeah, how.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
To look at this man and say, like, what party?

Speaker 4 (41:04):
You?

Speaker 3 (41:04):
Says Okay, when we walk into when we get into
bat and Rouge, Louisiana and we walk into this juke
joint where it's all black people and I'm your only
ticket in, Like, what makes you think I won't be like, Hey,
this white man tried to kill me.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
Yeah, totally, Like.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
What makes you think I'm not gonna do that? Listen,
They're okay. So again another side note from probe, Oh
my god. So there was this organization, this nonprofit whatever
that like is very white organization. And what they wanted
to do was it turns out like the new president
is this you know, fluffy, kind of nice white man,
but he's originally content. But this is Compton in the fifties,

(41:46):
you know what I'm saying. So I'm like, that's ain't
the Compton. I know, you don't see what I'm saying. Yeah, so,
and also I'm not from Compton, right south Central, you
know what I'm saying. Anyway, they wanted to do these
pieces of content where I would basically he's gonna fly
down to his old neighborhood and he wanted me to
interview him about kind of walking around you know, his

(42:08):
up bringing Compton to kind of like just basically for
me to be you know, led belly for this guy.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
Right, the black man is gonna make it OK for
the old neighborhood, yes, right where you're not from, but
he is, but yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
You I don't even have to finish the story where
I was like, I was like, sir, Like when I
finally like responded, I remember I was talking about manager
and then I was responding to the email. I was like,
first of all, I'm not from Compton. I'm from South Central,
But even if I was from Compton, I don't know
nobody over there.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
And it's the most las dude response.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
I can't even.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Yeah, because I couldn't tell you the difference between those neighborhoods.
I did a lot.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
First of all, they're many miles away from them, very
far apart, very far apart. Number one and then number two.
I'm like, the Compton you talking about has been gone
for forty years, so I don't know what you're talking about.
The neighborhood you in even if I was from Confident,
that means I'm either from the east side of the
west Side, which is Crip or blood, which means that

(43:12):
you might be from the wrong side that I'm from. Right,
I'm gonna walk down this like I don't know, I'm like,
what what are you talking about and am I going
to cash in that card with the people that I
do you think I'm a cash in this card for you?
I'm good your so what I'm saying like, but just
this this audacity of just like insert black dude here,

(43:37):
and you just want me to use my cultural like
it's first of all, they're non transferable number one. And
I'm like, and even me saying I'm from South Central,
do you know the last time I've been on my
Grandma Street?

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Neither do I You.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
See what I'm saying, And I'm like, and even if
I did, I don't know them young dudes. Yeah, everybody
I know went to jail or are gronos. Now they
out the street.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
So it's just like, but you're a black man and
that's where black men live, so you'll be fine.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
We know you fine, you just want me to go totally.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
And once got offered a reality TV show and I
thought they were interviewing me about a documentary. They want
to do a documentary about anarchism. And I was like,
all right, I'll do that. I'm down a talking head
about this shit, you know, And they were like, well,
it's a docu series, and I was like, do you
mean reality TV and they were like, no, no docuseries.
And then slowly I realized they didn't care about any

(44:34):
of the politics. They wanted me to bring a film
crew into train yards and squats and all of the
places that like me, as like a crust punk could
get into that they couldn't. And then I already knew
I was going to say no at this point, even
though I was going to be like the host of
the show. And then I found out they weren't trying

(44:56):
to pay me.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
Oh see see on top of it that same experience
and on top of this for free. Yeah, I'm like,
are you it's safe? Man. I wish we hadn't known
each other then, because one of the things I did
say to them was like, unless you have seventy thousand
dollars in cash that every time we walk into a

(45:18):
new street, you just gonna have to hand the homies
ten k yeah, yeah, fuck yeah, or they're gonna rob you.
I can't stop them this day neighborhood.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
So and you're exploiting them, that's what you're You're going
for authenticity. So you should fucking pay them, because if
they had gone, if this reality TV show had gone
to squats and train yards, went to a bunch of
train riders and said, yeah, can we put you in
our documentary that exploits you. Here's ten thousand dollars. They
a would have been like, fuck, yes, of course, you know,
absolutely fucking broke.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
Absolutely, you just see what I'm saying. So I'm like
and then yeah. And then with the street stuff, it's
like it's either you give us this tank or we
steal that camera.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
Yeah, yeah, totally, and.

Speaker 3 (45:56):
We get our ten k so yeah, and oh sorry,
I gotta drop it. And they like, hey, who is
he again? Because they don't know me. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
Turns out all black men are not the same as
each other sons.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
We don't all know each other.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
Yeah, now, how do he put up with this? And
I think he put up with it because he knew
this is how I get to New York City. This
is how I'm going to fucking make it right. He
is playing a game and it's a shitty game, and
he misses his fucking girlfriend and he's being treated like shit.
But he's like, all right, so a couple months, I

(46:38):
can do this. This is gonna get me to New York.
So for a couple of months they travel the South.
Mostly they visited prisons. John stayed with the wardens. How
doe he slept at the fucking prisoners. Of course he did,
but he slept with the trustees, who are the prisoners
who are trusted to watch over the prisoners with slightly
better conditions. Yeah, so like the I don't know the

(46:59):
snitch basically, yeah, good behavior boys, Yeah, got it. And
they recorded songs everywhere they went. Huddy would go into
town to find people to record. All the while he's
also expected, on top of all of this to be
a man servant. He wakes John up with coffee, he
draws his bath, he evens the car door for him,

(47:21):
and shit.

Speaker 3 (47:21):
Oh I'm good.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
Yeah, it takes patience. It takes patience for that. You
got to keep your eye on the prize with that one.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
Yeah. Any question about whether or not this man had
an anger.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
Issue, Yes, it's out the window. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
Yeah. So he's playing shows and it's like a circus actor, honestly,
a zoo act. In a lot of ways. John sees
himself as an equal partner in the show because he
introduces Hoddy and interprets between the songs, explaining all of
the black vernacular that's happening on stage, and he is

(47:55):
consciously trying to keep Huddy under his control. He undercuts
Huddy everywhere they go. No one is allowed to praise
Honey too much because quote, the praise of his music
spoils him. That's what he wrote to his wife about it.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
Oh my god, Hey, y'all, don't cla too hard.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
Yeah, put one hand together and not both hands together.

Speaker 3 (48:15):
Yeah. And I had a teacher in fourth grade that
even though I earned straight a's, he gave me all
B pluses and he gave me straight B pluses and
my black panther dad was like, can you explain this
to me? And he was like, well, we don't want
him to, you know, he'll have nothing to shoe for.
He was like, let me get this straight. So you're
telling me he earned a's, so he's already attained the

(48:36):
thing that you're saying he needs to shoe for. Yeah. Yeah,
they might both My parents been divorced. They still both
of them still talk about the story to this day.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
Yeah fuck yeah, yeah. They was just like something to
bring them together up.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
He was gonna jump over that table on that man.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Yeah, which honestly, like literally, we'll get to it. One
of the ways that Hudey gets out of a really
bad such of this is just actually by being kind
of scary, like the fact that like dangerous people like
the black man is presented as by society, especially in
this particular context. But all the time, Yeah, it's like

(49:13):
it's mostly downsides to get treated that way, right. Yeah,
But like every now and then you can be like, oh,
you afraid of me, Maybe you should be afraid of.

Speaker 3 (49:22):
Me, Maybe you should be You never know, you never
know what I'm with. Yeah, you don't know where I'm from. Yeah,
dudes a gang bang of day and eight life.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
Yeah, yeah, totally. Whereas that is like perfectly calm, nice,
kind of a cowboy redneck guy who has absolutely killed
at least one person and been in a lot of fights.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
Yeah, in their defense, again, the myth don't even need
to be necessary. Calm dudes are very scary, totally, Like
some of the scariest dudes I know, somebody scariest about
those like I grew up with in the Mexican side
of town. Dudes that are like, hey, bro, you shoul
just so a little more respect. Yeah, and you're like,
all right, like that calm, You're like, oh oh my father, Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
I know that my stories are kind of pale comparison,
pun kind of intended.

Speaker 3 (50:09):
But it's good. That was a good one.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
I DJed a goth knight, and goth knights are very
like We're a bunch of people who are used to
being picked on and we come into this space and
it's very precious to us. And I'm done DJing, someone
else's djying, and this like hipster kid comes in. He
has a couple of friends with him, and he's like dancing,
making fun of us, kind of like pointing and being

(50:33):
like and kind of like copying people. Yeah, And so
finally I just went up to him and I was like,
first I went to the bartender and the DJ, and
I was like, hey, am I start a fighting ah.
And then I went up to him and I was like,
hey man, people just like don't like it when you
make fun of him. And he like pauses and he
looks around the room and he looks at me and

(50:53):
he leaves smart.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
Yeah smart. And all you just say was like, hey, people,
don't I don't like that. I won't like that. Yeahah,
that was enough. Yeah, I love it. That's great.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
So Honey is getting spoiled by the praise of his music,
but he spends about half the time being like, fuck,
I just want to go home with my girlfriend. So
this shitty job where I'm literally not getting paid, and
at one point he straight up just asks John for
a ride home or money to get there and is ignored.
So he is not free, like he is being not

(51:29):
paid as he goes around and is sleeping in a
prison like building copyright for this white man. By the
end of the couple of months, John decided that Hudey
couldn't be trusted with the dollar a day because he
might spend it on alcohol, so starts paying directly for
the housing and only gave him money before each meal.
And during those five weeks, this is the like he suffered.

(51:51):
He went to jail and shit, but this is the
one that's like cruel and unusual, just this whole fucking thing,
you know. Yeah, in those five weeks, John collect his
six hundred and twenty five page book of American folk music,
most of it black, and copyrighted it. Yeah, and John
Lomax almost admitted that what he was doing was fucked up,
but like in the wrong way or a correct way,

(52:11):
but not the important way. He wrote, quote worse than
thieves are ballad collectors for when they capture and imprison
in cold type of folk song at the same time
they kill it. It's change in growth or not so
likely to continue after a fixed model for comparison exists.
That's like interesting in matters. But he cares more about
the like song than the singer.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
You know. Yeah, it's like you're still learning the wrong lesson. Yeah,
like it's a great lesson, it's just the wrong lesson.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
Yeah, totally. It is a quarter as important as the
lesson you should learn, Yes, exactly.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
But they drove north. They spent Christmas in DC hut.
He was probably very lonely having Christmas with a weird
white family that was making him be a servant. Yeah.
And then they went to an academic conference in Philly
to cement John as a good and true academic, and
they made Lead better wear his old prison outfit on stage.
Overall is in a bandana and a straw hat. This

(53:09):
is his biggest performance ever in his life.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
Oh, of course it is.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
Yeah. He is not allowed to attend the banquet at
which rich white people sang folk songs and sea shanties,
and for three months he wasn't paid, but it got
him to New York. As soon as they get to
New York, he's almost free. He's not free yet. As
soon as they get to New York, Lomax said about
figuring out how to make sure he basically still owned

(53:33):
the man and couldn't have an independent career. Part of
that was representing Hutty as a wild and vicious, wild
animal that only he could tame. Headlines said things like
sweet Singer of the swamp Lands, here to do a
few tunes between homicides.

Speaker 3 (53:49):
Gangster rap. Yep, you said it exactly. Yeah, he might
kill you. He might kill you. What a gat.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Yeah only actually one of the things that they do.
Even though he did go to prison for stabbing a
white man, they never say that over and over again.
He's like, don't worry, he only hurts his own kind.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
And gangster rap, gangster rap, same thing.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
Yeah, fuck, that's fucking true.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (54:16):
Wow, oh man, I hate that so much, all right.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
Go yeah, no, no, I mean I'm even thinking about
like when I was a kid, I was like clearly
liked gangster rap more than I liked the like alternative
rock on the radio, but I wasn't like culturally allowed to.
I had to be like, yeah, I like Smashing Pumpkins.
I did not like Smashing Pumpkins. Yeah, yeah, totally like.
I like Notoria's big. It's better music.

Speaker 3 (54:39):
I don't know what to tell you it's better. I
can't really do it at all, but it's way better. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
I actually genuinely thought I didn't like music as a
kid because all I had exposure to was like nineties rock.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
I don't know, it's just me. Yeah, that's like, yeah,
there's there's definitely those list of bands that you're supposed
to like, and you do your best to like you
just yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
Although the worst part by getting old is sometimes now
I like, I like the Beatles.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
Now now you can see it, yeah yeah, and I'm like, fuck,
like so funny.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
So led Belly was this huge sensation, and John figured
out soon enough that if he stayed in New York,
led Belly would leave him, so he whisked him away
to a small town in Connecticut to record an album,
including a memoir that wasn't a transcription of Huddy Talking.
Because they never recorded Huddy talking. They had him tell stories,

(55:32):
and then they went and wrote later and they just
made shit up.

Speaker 3 (55:35):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
And this is the book that's supposedly his words, that
will never be his copyright.

Speaker 3 (55:40):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
And interestingly, the historians who looked into it, their writing
was largely accurate when it was about the good times
he had with his family, and completely inaccurate when it
talked about violence. And historian Hazel Carbi said that quote
the political project of the Lomaxes was to cast the

(56:03):
blackmail body into the shape of an outlaw. John Lomax
intended to recover an unadulterated form of black music, and
then the process actually invented a particular version of black authenticity.
So this might obviously the like scary blackmail concept has
been around for a long time. But inventing this type

(56:24):
of black authenticity, I'm like, this is fucking gangster rep.

Speaker 3 (56:28):
Like, yeah, it's sad too. Like, as a member of
the culture, the part of the things that we internalize
in the sense that we didn't stay woke, which is
why again, like, while I always rocked with Leed Belly,
is like he was not unaware of the game he
was playing. Yeah, he just played the cards he was
dealt like you're not really a boss, like not really

(56:51):
a star, you know, whereas you know, you fast forward
so many years and you look at a lot of
these like young black artists and they're like these record execs.
Though you a money for a chain, you get a
chain in a car, you think you made it, yeah,
you know, and it's like and you made it, you know,
doing all this drill music, which is your music. And

(57:13):
I'm not even gonna judge you about that, you know
what I'm saying. But like you're playing into, like you said,
a perception of what it means to be legit or
authentic or truly hood. So now we're perpetuating these stories.
A lot of these kids, like y'all went to like
great schools with loving parents, but it's not you not

(57:34):
allowed to be like that, you know what I'm saying, right,
And that's very frustrating. I Mean, now there's stuff like
called nerd rap, where like dudes are like legit nerds
like to.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
Us even more than backpack wrap, because backpack wrap is
like nerd rap. But this is even more I'm.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
Saying, anime a like nerds, comic book, video game like
and their whole world is that. So it's like and
used to be like they just weren't good rap, but
now a lot of them dudes can.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
Like actually fucking rap.

Speaker 3 (58:03):
Yeah, but they're like amic Khan nerds. Yeah, you know
what I'm saying. So now there's a world for it
where you don't have to be just this version of black.
But then like yeah, but all this like performative you know,
like stuff like you know, I don't want to pick
on well, I kind of wanted to pick on very
particular people, but like like Rick Ross who was like

(58:24):
Rick Ross was a you worked at a prison. You
were a security guard at a prison. Jesus, Yeah, like
your whole persona is like that's your backstory, you know
me Thos like those guys, they didn't sell drugs. You're
from a great family.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
Yeah, And it's like that's fine. And what's funny is
that let bellies from a great family and he doesn't
pretend otherwise. Other people pretend otherwise about him exactly, yes,
but like he also still you know, legitimately hard, like
he's a hard man.

Speaker 3 (58:58):
Yeah, he's real. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. That's
what I mean by like there's the like going in
open eyed, you know, and there's something to be saying
now obviously fast forward, you know, almost one hundred years later,
like we don't we have the means of not having
to play this game anymore, Like you don't have to

(59:18):
do this now. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. This
is bad.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
What happened to lead Belly. This is a bad part.
He bad like it. As soon as he gets out
of it, he does other shit.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
Yes, yeah, that's my point. I'm just like, no, you
don't keep if you're playing the game. The point is
to do your own shit.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
Yeah, yeah, totally yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:35):
Fuck.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
So they released this book. It's a sixty four page
book that uses the N word fifty seven times, a
trillion times. Yeah. The subtitle of the book was King
of the Twelve String Guitar Players of the World, Longtime
Convict and the Penitentiaries of Texas and Louisiana. And it's
divided into two parts. And the first part is the

(59:57):
Worldly End Word and part two is the Sinful Songs.
And what's funny is like when they're going around, they
often would run across people who are like, no, I'm
not gonna play you the like fucked up like like
they're like, yeah, I play the weird fucked up songs
like for my friends, but like, no, no, we we
like church music. That's where I play some spirituals you know.

Speaker 3 (01:00:18):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
And then they made him sign this is we'll get
even more to the modern version of everything. They made
him sign a fucked up management contract we go, which
means I can draw a pretty direct line from slavery
to the exploitation of the music industry.

Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
There it is. Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
The contract had blank spots for the length of the
contract and the percentage of income that later they added
in after it was signed.

Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
After it was signed that by hand.

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
They wrote five years and fifty percent after of course
all the deductions.

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
Yeah, after recoup Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
Soon they changed to thirty three point two thirds whatever
a third of it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
Yeah, thirty three and third God, dirt dog.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
There's no terms on how to end the contract, and
he had to get Lomax's permission in order to play shows. Okay,
So in order to sweeten the deal to get him
to sign it, the Lomax has said, if you sign it,
we'll pay for Martha to come up here and live
with us.

Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
Damn signing bonus yep.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Whereas Lomax literally wrote to his wife, so Alan and I,
his son will have two servants to look after us
in our little wooded village because he's still body servanting.
And when Lomax describes getting a show for Ladbelly, he
literally writes, I have just sold him for cash money
to a party. Now you might think that's subtle. What

(01:01:38):
did he mean by that? Fortunately for us, he underlined
the word sold. Yeah, so, and what I mean is yeah,
yeah wow. But he signed the contract. Martha came up.
It had been about five six weeks since it's seen her.
He cries, and he cries and she moves in with him,
and the two of them started working for free for

(01:01:59):
the Lomaxes because they don't pay them for this, And
the lo Maxes, of course would complain like I nearly
starved when that lazy Martha didn't get home to cook
dinner for us in time for free. Yeah, he was
forced to work on his wedding day. Like the wedding
lasts about three hours and then off to work. He

(01:02:19):
wasn't allowed to play cowboy songs despite having literally been
a cowboy. I was like, wait, from Texas. Wait, yeah,
he has broken horses and wrangled livestock professionally, but that's
white people's stuff. He's not allowed to play that. Let
Better started breaking free at this point, and during a

(01:02:41):
tour around upstate New York, he started disobeying Lomax by
not telling him where he was going. He would go
off and hang out with like black people and then
go to black parties. He still made it to all
of his shows in time, but he also was like,
there's a kid's birthday party, I'm going to go play.
Fuck you. This has nothing to do with you. Yeah,

(01:03:03):
And he wasn't being properly deferential to Lomax, so Lomax
started writing home to his wife being like it's all
going badly, And one point he refused to give Lomax
the money that he made passing the hat after songs.

Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
Mm oh man, he ain't get a mass that they could. Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Yeah. So what set him free was two things. It's
a perfect one two punch that fucking Huddy Ledbetter as
the master of punch one. Lomax believed all the hype
he had built up about Huddy as a terrifying killer
and frankly Huddy is both a killer and probably capable
of being terrifying. Yes, he realized that if he pushed

(01:03:42):
the guy around too much he might get killed. Yeah,
So they were like, all right, we're buying you and
Martha tickets back to Louisiana or don recording your shit,
get the fuck out of here. And they sent him
some checks that they owed him his like one third,
but they post data the checks so he couldn't cash them.
Just to be a dick, yeah, yeah, and then not

(01:04:06):
just to be a dick, John tried to get him arrested.
I hate this guy. No, Yeah, like his probation terms
that like you can go out and work involve good behavior.
Right when Honey gets the postdated checks, he writes back
a like, fairly polite letter. We know what the letter publish.
Fairly polite letter that was, you should probably send me

(01:04:27):
the money you visit our website instead of check us out.

Speaker 1 (01:04:31):
On the iHeart Apple podcasts.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
Lomax wrote the sheriff in fucking Louisiana and was like,
the scary black man threatened my life and over sending
postated checks. Now surprise hero of the story, White sheriff
and Louisiana not only did he not turn on Huddy,

(01:04:54):
he instead went and found a white attorney to tell
Lomax like, fuck you, you need to pay Honey.

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
Pay this man is money.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Yeah, let's go. That's crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
You find fans anywhere. It's like, I'm talking about this guy, ribs,
he hasn't been paying you. Goodnight, I bro, come on,
what you talking about?

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:05:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
And so then this attorney goes and represents Honey and
they go through lots and lots of legal threats and
do all this crazy shit and they get him out
of the contract. And so that's his one two punch.
I'm a scary black man and I know the fucking law.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
That's so crazy. Yeah, that's so crazy. You're bullying this food.
Then you turn around and that dude says, hey, you're
gonna stop bullying me now. Yeah, he realizes man has
been letting you do this to him this Oh, like
I've been letting you do this.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
He's just like, that's so great.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
And so it's like he has gotten himself out of
jail by burning a hole in the floor, by singing
a song, by doing jail house lawyer shit, and then
he got himself out of it's not the same as jail,
but he got himself out of a I work for
free Exploitation's true. The book did still come out about him.
He didn't have any say over that because it was
owned by Macmillan, the publisher who actually publishes some of

(01:06:07):
my shits. Still Yeah, I was like, they still exist. Yeah, yeah,
and I actually don't know how they are. Villains are
not about a whole thing. That book came out. Ledbetter
was pretty upset about it. He wrote about it. He
was like, look, this is not my words. Just in
case anyone's curious, I didn't say any of that shit.
He also wrote that people shouldn't use the N word,

(01:06:28):
and it was used fifty seven times in the sixty
four page book, including in one of the headings. Yeah,
and people knew him so that the sound of that
word irritated him. He wanted to write his own book.
I don't believe he ever did. He was like, I'm
going to write my own book. It's going to be
called We Show Walk through the Valley in piece because
that's more his vibe. That and being kind of a
weird Christian communist. Yeah, which we'll get to now. He

(01:06:51):
moves back to New York and he helps start a
folk revival there and he plays like there's like only
like one fucking cafe, like one show venue that's really integrated,
and that's where he fucking plays over and over again.
He was arrested one more time, another probable self defense case.
He likely wrestled a man's knife away from him and

(01:07:12):
stabbed the guy with his own knife. And when this happened,
it was Alan Lomax, who had been seventeen when he
first met him. Lomax's son who paid his bail and
then dropped out of grad school to raise money for
his defense day. And so Alan Lomax he turned out alright,
he is nothing like his dad. His dad actually sold

(01:07:34):
out his own son to the Red Scare and wrote
the FEDS and was like, I think my son's a communist. Wow,
So his son had to flee the fucking country for
eight years. Alan Lomax was out of the country from
nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty eight because he was like
a small c communist. He wasn't a member of the
Communist Party, but he like.

Speaker 3 (01:07:55):
I liked the ideas.

Speaker 1 (01:07:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
Led Belly spent six months at Rikers despite all of
the defense, but that is less than he usually gets.
And he was political as fock in his later years.
He was proudly a union man. The East Coast New
York Local two on two of the American Federation of
Musicians was racially integrated, whereas he tried to go out west.
He wanted to be a cowboy in movies, but the
union there wasn't racially integrated, so he like couldn't do shit. Yeah,

(01:08:21):
he played protests all of the time. He read the
local leftist newspapers. And I talked with a singer named
Andy Cohen, someone who didn't know him directly but was
part of the early sixties movement that he inspired. So
like the kind of immediately after him scene, Yeah, and
that man described to me led Belly's politics like this,
he wouldn't have sung solidarity forever. Rather he would have

(01:08:45):
done work songs that were much more direct. And so
he's like, oh, yeah, how am I going to talk
about the workers. I'm gonna sing fucking work songs.

Speaker 3 (01:08:52):
Sing work songs. That's what I know him from. I
know him from the organizing, the like the New York
scene of just like just say the thing. Yeah, Like
that's the songwriting I feel like with him is just like,
just say it, say it, say the thing. No, totally, yeah,
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (01:09:06):
Have you ever heard a song mister Hitler.

Speaker 3 (01:09:09):
Yes, he's so fucking good.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
He wrote a song. The chorus is We're gonna tear
Hitler down someday.

Speaker 3 (01:09:15):
Yeah, just say the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:09:16):
Yeah. And I read somewhere years ago when he came
up on a different episode about jail breaks. I can't
find my source for this because I wasn't as good
at tracking everything then that he tried to volunteer for
World War Two to fight the fascists even though he
was in his fifties.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
I didn't know that one.

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
Yeah, I don't know that was true or not. But
Hoodie mentored Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, the like white
people who are more famously known for starting political folk music.
He got to go to France to play shows, and
by the end of his fifties he was diagnosed with
als Luke Arrick's disease and he needed a wheelchair, and
he kept playing shows and this part I really like.

(01:09:56):
Martha would join him on stage and sing spirituals with him.
So you go up and he play, and then when
he got to the spirituals, his wife would come on
stage and sing with him. Yeah, he closed out the
very last concert he ever played, joined by his wife
Martha and sang songs with her. And also she wore
a suit on stage two at least by the one

(01:10:17):
photo I found m h And he died at sixty
on December sixth, nineteen forty nine, and Alan Lomax worked
hard to get the rights to led better songs to
Martha instead of his dad.

Speaker 3 (01:10:31):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
Yeah, people through a concert for his memorial, and people
said about him, quote, I would want to know a
better person. And they said that he wasn't a murderer,
but that he was a quote self defense man. Someone
said that quote. He loved children, and he loved people,
and most of all, he loved himself. And they said

(01:10:52):
that he didn't start trouble, but he tried to stop it.
One of the mothers of his children, the very first
Margaret that he had kids with before he married Aalifa,
who he stayed up with, right like, Yeah, he didn't
abandon his kids, he wrote, quote, he never tried to
interfere with anyone unless they would give him a cause
then he would try to defend himself. He just wouldn't

(01:11:13):
stand for nobody to punch him in the face. He
was strong and he could win fights. Oh lord, very.

Speaker 3 (01:11:20):
Easy, good, Oh no, very easy.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
That's what I got.

Speaker 3 (01:11:25):
I love that. I think, yeah, what a what a
giant dude. And then just the unsung again tradition of
like I don't blame you know, gun three for this,
but it's just like it's not like he was. He
just admired the dude, and the dude taught it, you
know what I'm saying. Totally he became the star. You
know what I'm saying, Like again time on a tradition. Yeah,

(01:11:48):
but I do think the fact that folk music, resistance, communism, feminism,
and spirituality is all on the same stage is the
thing that I've had a hard time articulating to like
the cool zone audience. Yeah, like as like our experience

(01:12:12):
as black people. The way I talk so freely about
Bible stuff and Christianity is because well we come from this,
yeah you know what I mean. It's not like I
don't say, like we're not evangelicals, right, Like we're not
that like so there was no like the idea They're like,
well if you're well, your dad was kind of a Marxist.

(01:12:33):
I thought he was a Christian, And I'm like, well, yes.

Speaker 2 (01:12:36):
Yeah, why is this a contradiction. Yeah, like those.

Speaker 3 (01:12:38):
Aren't contradict Like, those aren't far from each other.

Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
Marx might, but he's not Marx. He doesn't fucking need
to be Marx. He's his own fucking person.

Speaker 3 (01:12:46):
Yeah exactly. I'm just like these things are not. Yeah,
a Christian to be a Communist, I'm like, easy, but.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
Yeah, totally read the fucking Bible.

Speaker 3 (01:12:54):
I don't know, Yeah, read the book.

Speaker 2 (01:12:56):
Yeah. Yeah, Like there's a lot more about hating rich
people than there is a out like people, a little
bit of hating gainy people, lots of hating rich people.

Speaker 3 (01:13:04):
A lot of that. Yeah, a lot of the gayety
gay people kind of was like also, don't eat cheese
with beefs.

Speaker 2 (01:13:10):
Yeah, or like misunderstood.

Speaker 3 (01:13:12):
Let a lot of that shit go.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
Yeah yeah, yeah, totally yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:13:15):
But like like you said, the little notes of like, look,
he stuck with this lady all the time. She ain't
want to do the world stuff, but she wanted to
do the church stuff. But you do the church stuff
with the world stuff. It all gets on stage and yeah,
I won't play that, like of course we have like
this isn't Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to
pay no utopia, like the Black Church don't have horrible
misogyny in it, you know what I'm saying, right, But

(01:13:36):
what I'm saying is like we just didn't have We
had in problems you had, you know, and a lot
of that was because of like what you're articulating was like,
this was the reality of our situation. The reality of
our situation said, the way to our freedom is to
function like this.

Speaker 2 (01:13:56):
Yeah, and like the third space stuff that you were
talking about earlier about being like it was, it was
researching episodes a couple of years ago on the show
that I really started to more understand this thing you're
talking about, where I'm like, oh no, like the Black
Church is a center of resistance, so like it's yes,
the destruction of black churches is more it's racism, and
it's a well, it's not really anti religious. It's usually

(01:14:18):
done by people who are very religious, but in the
opposite way. But it's specifically the destruction of a symbol
in an organizing place, like it is like exactly it's like, oh,
you all are trying to like lift each other up
with the same thing that we used to put you down.
So we're going to destroy that. So only like the
same way is like, the only way to be the
best dancer is to not let black people in. Yes,

(01:14:38):
the only way to be the best Christian is to
not let black Christianity it, you know, don't let them talk.

Speaker 3 (01:14:43):
Don't let them talk. Yeah, they don't point it the
stuff in the book. Yeah, that tells us we wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
Yeah. Yeah, I'm waiting for fucking advance to realize the
word Catholic means universal and the entire fucking concept of
early Christianity was the idea that you can't treat people
different based on what triber nation they are, you know. Yeah,
that was That was the fucking revolutionary idea that's embedded
in it. Power structures came out of it. Power structures
often do real bad things.

Speaker 3 (01:15:09):
But like, yeah, every time you open your mouth, I'm like, bro,
you truly don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, but yeah, dude, man,
what a guy?

Speaker 1 (01:15:16):
Man?

Speaker 3 (01:15:16):
I know, what a guy? What a story?

Speaker 2 (01:15:18):
And I love that. It's just he's a guy.

Speaker 3 (01:15:20):
He is just a dude.

Speaker 2 (01:15:21):
He is both cool and flawed in a way that
just like I fucking I was really excited about this
and I.

Speaker 3 (01:15:27):
Mess with it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:28):
Man.

Speaker 3 (01:15:28):
Thank you so much for choosing me for this one man,
because this was like, yeah, like this like put some yeah,
put some gasoline in the engine here. Man, this guy
was super excited. You know.

Speaker 2 (01:15:39):
Well, if people want to listen to your podcast or
listening to.

Speaker 3 (01:15:43):
Music, please Yeah. I come from that spirit, man, I
come from that like say the thing change the world?
You know again, prop hip hop dot Com for the
new music the new records called This is Our Fellowship.
It's about the masculinity crisis. Yeah, so it's like I'm
talking that talk. Yeah, but hood politics were prop you know,

(01:16:05):
spend a great, great time over there. You know. If
you ever, like Margaret says, you ever looked at the
headlines and was like wait what Yeah, I feel like
surely they're not saying It's like yeah they are, and
this is why they're saying that. Yeah, so like, yeah,
come to me for that. I'm not breaking news data

(01:16:26):
right now, that's you go to it can have it
here for breaking news.

Speaker 2 (01:16:30):
No, you got you got the analysis of news that
I Yeah, it's the analysis and just to continue to
gas you up on this and why people should listen
to the show. One of your specific talents is understanding
the other side and expressing things the way that the
other side understands them. Yeah, not to be like and
that's why we should have sympathy for the people who

(01:16:51):
are trying to kill you, but instead being like basic
art of war, you need to know your enemy.

Speaker 3 (01:16:57):
Yeah, and this is how they got there. And it's
not so much like I said, yeah, now sympathy, but
like honestly like us using the white Christian thing for example.
It's like me and Mahomi was talking about this recently,
like if somebody walked up to you and said, hey, bro,
your way of life is going away, like if they
did like he gave it example, like hip hop, Like
if somebody was like, listen, the post malones of the world,

(01:17:20):
the machine gun kellies of the world, are destroying your culture.
This is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna build defense
around it and make it impossible for them to come in.
And on top of that, I'm gonna invest in everything
y'all built, right, like sign me the fuck up, yo,
saying like so I mean, that's what what he telling
these people you tell me, and it's like they wrong,

(01:17:41):
you're sat up saying because like going back to the
hip hop thing, I'm like, well, you pointed a finger
at post Malone. I'm like, you ignoring third base, you
ignoring the Beastie boys, you ignoring eminem like you ignore
all these other white people who have been amazing parts
of the hip hop culture. As if you know what
I'm saying. So I'm like, well, you you cherry picking,
But that's not the point. The point is, like you said,

(01:18:02):
I need to understand what they say it, and I'm
gonna help you understand at least what they say it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:06):
Yeah, yep, So people should listen to your show figured Out, unless,
of course, your hate listening to this and trying to
learn us as the enemy, in which case, don't listen
to politics.

Speaker 3 (01:18:16):
Never mind, don't worry about it. Yeah, roll on, Yeah, Yeah,
I don't know what.

Speaker 2 (01:18:21):
Else should we if you want a book that gets
into all of this stuff and more, probably the main
source I used and the best work done to. Like,
I'm not a historian, I don't work as much with
the primary sources and do interviews and stuff and like
hang out in the archives. I am a pop historian.
I work with secondary sources primarily and try and tell

(01:18:44):
you a good story to get you interested in things.
I like to see myself as a history educator rather
than a historian, but the actual historian who did the
work that I am deeply indebted to. I would recommend
reading Bring Judgment Day Reclaiming Led Belly's Truths from Jim
Crow's Lie Lies by Sheila Curran Bernard. So if you
got any you want to plug.

Speaker 1 (01:19:05):
I just want to go play with my dog at
this point.

Speaker 2 (01:19:08):
Yeah, go play with dogs. Yeah, take care of each other.
Fuck Ice Free Palestine, and see y'all next week. Go
Lakers and Go Lakers.

Speaker 1 (01:19:23):
Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
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visit our website.

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Host

Margaret Killjoy

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Part Two: Lead Belly: How a Man Named Huddie Ledbetter Beat Everyone Who Tried to Keep Him Down