EP#20 Cantando en Full Harmony ft. Jcu3

The story of the iconic Full Harmony, the super producer group featuring Siggy, Yannc & Chalko the musical genius behind some of the biggest hits of Reggaeton in recent years. This week’s rapidito featuring LA’s very own Jcu3.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Me Scoda, Sonson is Gata, and this week I'm joined
by a very special guest, Shamira Iryam, a Brooklyn based
culture writer by way of Harlem, Canada and East Africa.
She's a brilliant critic and storyteller whose work you're probably
seeing a New York magazine in Essence, The Atlantic, New
York Times, and so many more. Y'all think y'all be

(00:24):
gagged with my.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Tweets, I be gagged with hers.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Shamina explores identity, cultural production, and technology through a raised
critical code framework, and she's currently a regional editor at
Africa is a Country Back Asavasalin. In this episode, we
dive into her journey as a writer, the impact of
AI on music, and the struggles independent artists face when
pushing for visibility. Oh we go there. We talk about

(00:51):
the importance of authenticity and are the evolution of both
hip hop and raggaton. So suponker what I do in Latin,
there are a lot of parallels in our work with
what she does in Anglo. In other words, everything English language,
but particularly hip hop, and the complicated nature of parasocial
relationships between artists and fans. Because it's getting weird in here,

(01:15):
and of course we close with some powerful reflections on
the future music and white culture exchanges everything at the
So sit back, relax and play, and let's get into
it with Shamida Aki Di Mama hant anina Is. I

(01:41):
am super excited because I'm here with someone I deeply admire,
another black girl or whatever. Show me up. Thanks so
much for being here. How you doing, girl?

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Thank you? I'm good.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
Thank you so much for the invitation. Mutual respect here
girl girl.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Of course, of course I can wait to get into it.
Just a record, y'all can't see me. This is an
audio podcast. But whenever she tweets, I'd be like, like,
this is me, like and if you only better. Whenever
her tweet, I got an email that's like this is
supposed to be an essay, Why are you tweeting? Yeah, girl, Okay,
talk about it because seriously, with me, I had to

(02:17):
stop tweeting because I'm like music leads, bro. I can't
tweet because all of a sudden, I see articles with
the headlines of my tweets and I'm like, yo, I'm
not getting paid for this. I got a chill, Like
it's hard being an authentic culture shifter because right back
and shit, but like exactly the.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Way that I think of it is I come up
with ten ideas an hour, So if you take.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Two, you got it. You know what I'm saying, Like
I got eight more in the In the clip.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
I literally was telling my my intern, I'm like, I
hate me because I have an idea and I bio
domain or I have an idea. Bro, you don't know
how many go daddy dot com. You're getting free promo
right now, but like and it's like two ninety nine
domain fuck and like right right done? So felt right, folks.
Oh my god, oh my god. I love the note

(03:05):
that we started on, and I want to get right
back into it in your own words, because there's what
people see online, there's what I think I don't know,
and then there's what actually is. I would love to
hear in your own words, your story. Who is Charvin? Like,
I want to hear your story? Right?

Speaker 3 (03:24):
So I am first and foremost and New Yorker. You know,
I have to start with that I grew up in Uptown, NYC.
And that is still very much home to me, although
I live in Brooklyn.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Don't tell anybody but.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
A whole story but you.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
Know, I grew up in the city as an East
African from a francophone French taking background, and a lot
of what I grew up experiencing is trying to find
different ways to connect to different communities because New York
is such a melting pot of different ethnicities, but not
many people from a small East African.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Archipelagos coast, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
So much my life in this city is trying to
build bridges and trying to figure out, you know, like, Okay,
this is how I understand my blackness.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
How does that?

Speaker 3 (04:04):
What does that mean to you? How do we connect?
What do we have in common? What we have differently?
And that helped inform everything I do as a writer.
So much of my writing is about black life and
the different ways we exist in it, right, you know,
trying to find different connections.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Different bridges, you know.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
I know, withs Corny to say that like we're more
similar than we are different, but like, I really do
feel that in a lot of different ways, you know,
And it has been a pleasure to be able to
do that. One as just a general loud mouth and
curious person who likes to know, you know, new things,
about different cultures, but also as a writer who I
like to start as a person who's curious and go

(04:38):
from there as an example to discover new things. So
that's that's the gist of I guess my background. You know,
Like I said, I grew uptown. I grew up in
sugar Hill. You know, went to rock Science for those
who care about high school in New York.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Right, you know.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
And I love talking about the things that make this
city click because as someone who grew up in the
outer boroughs, you know, a lot of people don'tderstand the
things that actually matter to a lot of local New Yorkers.
And I do try to acknowledge that part in the
stories that I tell.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Word up, word up, And she said sugar Hill just
so up, y'all who are listening or like nah, she's
a real New Yorker. And I know because I was
a transplant for a lot of years and I own it.
For New York is like sitting on the planet. So
like word up, word up, No, girl, thank you, and
immediately just off the cuff. I have another question, because girl,

(05:28):
I learned so much from you, and like the love
here is honestly so mutual, Like I learned so much
from you. You'll be tweeting and I'd be like, yes,
like felt and so you know, everyone they learned in
different ways. What was your problem? If you go to school?
Are you classical classically trained? But like, how do you
like come into your awakening and your training? What was

(05:48):
that like for you?

Speaker 3 (05:50):
So I was not classically trained as a writer or
journalist in that way, right, you know, like many people
with ADHD, I went through a lot of different career
pivots before I figured out like what made the most
sense for me.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
Right, So, like coming up.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
Middle school, high school, I thought I was going to
be a translator. In my head, I swore I had
an aptitude for languages.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
What I tell you I did not.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
What it really was was I grew up in a
French speaking household, and then I grew up around a
lot of Dominicans to Puerto Ricans, and so I was
able to pick up Spanish really quickly.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
I'm like, oh my god, I got.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
This, and I forget Oh yeah, French and Spanish are
just like really related, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (06:27):
So I had a foundation. I tried to learn Mandarin.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Go that was a rappdut it clipped real quick, like
shout out to Katie Hunter, because they were very gracious
to me to let.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Me pass that class. You know, I did that.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
I thought I was going to work in international policy
and like save the world and you know, go around
and like do international political economy type stuff. That's what
I actually studied in undergrad. I studied politics and economics
and traveled abroad and try to figure out, you know,
how to ensure alleviate poverty in the global South, right,
you know. And I went to DC after that, and

(07:02):
like the money was not there, and like I'm the
eldest in an immigrant household that is very working class. Actually,
I should be explicit I grew up poor, right, like
just to be explicit about it, right, Being on subsistence
like funds until I could go to grad school was
just not feasible for me. And that's how I ended
up pivoting into consulting. And I did consulting in the
tech world for a very long time. But then I

(07:23):
was just in this corporate space for like way too long,
and I didn't really have an outlet to talk about
the things that mattered to me, and so I started blogging.
I started contributing to blogs, doing long comments, realizing I'm
writing an essay in people's comment sessions, you know, my
friends being like, you should write this, And so I
ended up getting a byline for Ebony, and you know,
then I ended up getting a byline at a lot
of like big like culture local blocks at the time,

(07:45):
like very Smart Brothers and all those kind of blogs
that were.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Really popular at the time. And that was it.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
Fifteen years later, I'm still writing and now I'm doing
a full time like that's the short version of how
I even got here, right, And then I realized, like
I didn't just want to react to like public things
that were happening on social media, to be able to
sit and talk more meaningfully about like the connections we have,
the way stories come about, the way we live our lives.
And I was very thankful to be able to get
opportunities to do that, to really be able to be like,

(08:11):
I want to talk about black immigration, but like in
a real way and not just like acknowledging it as
a bullet point.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
I found editors that were willing to work with me.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
I've been really lucky in that the majority of my
editors have not only been black with black women, and
they've been very supportive of my journey and trying to
be like a more established writer.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
I love that for you. As you're speaking, I'm like, like,
which part do I hold on to? But I'm holding
out to all of it, and in the sense that
like in transparency, So for those who are listening, she
works more so like in the US general like Anglo
market for y'all who are listening, I of course work
more so on the Latin market. And I'm over here

(08:50):
like bro, like talking about blackness and Latin is a
is a Oh we don't go out of time, so
how hard that is. But I love that you have
supporting editors. Shout out to the ones that I have had,
because you know, they've respected me and they have taken
chances on me. At the same time, I know that

(09:12):
I've written a lot of things that like I remember
writing an op ed that completely changed the trajectory of
my life, and it was because I was talking about
black lives matter and artists lack of commentary on it,
and like I remember Goetna approached by a lot of
black latingas and being like yo, I pitched that years
ago and they were like racism is so niche and
I'm like, oh, here we go. So like anyway, like

(09:34):
I do want this people to like hear this because
it's like, ooh, the media landscape is shifting so much
on both sides at this point, and so that's exactly
where I'm going in the sense of, girl, I'm dying
to know, like what has that been like for you?
In the sense of like witnessing this shift. We're in

(09:54):
a time right now we have a certain president who
is promoting a certain culture, and there's a lot of
silence in going on, right, and we're both very outspoken women.
What have you been what have you been hold on to?
What have been pissing you off? I want to hear it.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
Yeah, I think the big thing that's been pissing me
off is the sense of safety. So, being quite honest,
you know, I grew up undocumented for most of my life, right,
you know it's an undocumented Muslim immigrant.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
In New York during nine to eleven type shit, right,
you know?

Speaker 3 (10:25):
And what I tell you when I speak to like
my colleagues and peers, and they feel less safe now
that we did in like two thousand and two thousand
and two, thousand and four, just because of the level
of everybody monitoring everybody, Like there's a level of lack
of security that I feel like we all have. I
have my green card and I travel now, and I
still feel a little bit anxious, like I'm doing all
the steps, deleting the social media, archiving everything whatever.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
But as someone like you said, who generally.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
Feels comfortable being outspoken about the things that I want
to say or the things I believe or the information
that I feel like people don't have, it feels like
I'm being a little bit more intentional about how I
approach what I say and how I say. Like, if
I'm gonna say something prerogative, it has to be backed
up so that when you do try me, I can
list out ABCD about how I know I got this right,
Like I have to be really a little bit more

(11:11):
thoughtful about the off the cuff things that I have
to say these days, wor And you.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
You're thinking this way because you're a journalist, you know
what I mean. You're thinking because you have respect for integrity,
for ethics, you know what I mean, and for the truth.
And I think, like, what's most like what has pissed me? Off.
If I was to answer that same thing, it's like, girl,
I can't. I still, I know, I saw like a
broken record, but like the shift of Twitter has completely crazy.

(11:36):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
I mean I locked my Twitter account down for that reason,
you know, like I had to lock it down. I
felt like I was getting caught in these rage baited
cycles about talking about things that I want to talk about,
Like I'm talking about nuances of African immigration as someone
who grew up going to braiding shops and grew up
you know, my mom was a nanny, she was a housekeeper,
she did all these things. So I'm talking from personal
perspective and getting dog piled by like racist account like

(12:00):
you know, trying to start up xenophobia right, talking about
of all things Dominicans right on social media as somebody
who grew up around plenty, you know, and like getting
caught up in like you know, FBA conversations that I
find unproductive, right, you know, like I'm not even trying to,
you know, delegitimize how people feel about you know, ethnic conversations, right,

(12:21):
But it's more so like I don't find this a
productive way to talk about the topic at hands, right,
And I find that I wasn't able to have real
conversations anymore, Like you could tell that people were not
looking for dialogues.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
And that's assuming you're even talking to a real.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
Person in the first place, right, because we saw the
report of seventy five bots out there now or seventy
five percent bots out there now, right, you know. And
so I was like, I still would to say what
I have to say, but I want this to be
more of a running journal than like something that everyone
can co opt or whatever.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
So I locked it down, which like when.

Speaker 3 (12:50):
You already have a few thousand followers, it's still like
you're kind of putting like a glass closet door or whatever.
But it still gave me like a little bit of
safety of like I can't get piled on into these
conversations because you know, it is a distraction. It doesn't
allow you to think about things you want to think about,
talk about what you're to talk about, because all of
a sudden, you're arguing with a nobody who may not
even be a real person.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
Heavy on a nobody, because I mean that's literally, girl,
I remember everything in AK like I closed my eyes
and I just remember every single thing that musk and
his stoopid ass team did. The first thing they did
was take away the blue check marks from journalists to
discredit them and amount of tize that, which he could
say that's a business level business decision whatever, but what

(13:34):
was actually going on was like it was you know,
the insults were pissed at, like they can you know,
so that comes from that, and like just like wanting
to promote misinformation, which I mean, whatever we can, okay,
but to pivot a little bit. One thing I already
admired from you, and like you know, you're you're like

(13:55):
so like for lack of the terms, just so around
it to talk about everything. I feel like I scrolled
and I'm like I see everything. I'm like, I love it.
But especially in music, your takes on music be taking
me out sometimes, And so what's your take on AI?
I've been kind of like just like, oh, probably on

(14:16):
a lot. Yeah that's going on. Yeah, talk to me,
talk to me, So like.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
I should give the context. Like I said, before I
was a writer, I was in tech consulting, right, you know,
so I've been around a lot of these big trends
before they became mainstream. So I actually worked a little
bit in the AI space at the time, it was
called big data and data analytics and data insights, right,
you know, and like the whole effort was for these
big corporations at the enterprise level to be able to
collect data and marketing insights about anybody, segment it and

(14:43):
like figure out ways to generate revenue. Right, So it
was mostly for sales teams, then it was for marketing teams.
And the thing is that like there's a cap on
like how much you can do that and still be profitable, right,
And so then what happens is that they passed that
off to the consumer. So like knowing how shoddy the
actual systems are right in how non viable they were
on a corporate level, and that now they're just trying

(15:05):
to use it and like displace it and force us
to use it, right, Because as someone who's a skeptic,
I still I have to open Microsoft Word and force
Copilot to not you know, turn on right, or I
go on a Google search and I have to turn
off AI.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Right, So they're like forcing us into compliance.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
But I think the thing about it is what makes
music magical is the imperfection. And you can't create an
imperfection with AI, you can't hear the lick of a
song where somebody's voice cracks in an AI record, right.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
You can't hear a live recording where maybe that person
drummed the wrong solo sequence, but it hits so differently, right,
you know, if you're not actually played with a live
jam band.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Right, Like I had the.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
You know, distinct privilege of being able to see Bad
Bunny do the NPR tidy desk in person, right, And
I remember hearing him rehearse in the green room, just
like practicing the vocals, right, and like he's trying it
three different ways, right, He's trying it three to fourty
four to see what will work best for the acoustic.
And it's like you don't get to know that distinction
of like, oh, I'm going to be this new room,
How am I going to project this? How I'm going

(16:05):
to sing this? If you're processing it through a computer.
I think a lot of people assume that any technology
means that we should be comfortable with AI, and especially
with like genres like hip hop and house and techno
that are inherently like rooted in technology, like hip hop
started from you know, the turntables. There's a sense of like, well,
we always use technology, so why would it we continue

(16:26):
And it's like we can always innovate, right, there's no
problem with continuing to innovate. The big issue is that
this doesn't actually allow you to think. And there's labor
in practicing to find perfect right and you use the
tools to facilitate that. But if you use it to
create for you that process, the process when you sit
down and think through what makes something important or valuable

(16:48):
or memorable, you lose all of that because you're just
giving that power over to a tool.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
So Timberland over here trying to create and artists and
knowing your book.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
No, absolutely not.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
The thing that makes me sad is that it's such
a blatant money grab, right, you know, and it's like
do you need.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
More your Timberland?

Speaker 3 (17:06):
You've made so many hit records, how much more money
could you possibly need?

Speaker 2 (17:10):
You know that part?

Speaker 1 (17:11):
And also I'm just I was completely caught off guard.
So for those who are listening, you know, of course
I'm a raggaetn learn shout out to the day Blast.
I'm like obsessed with him. If you know me and
you know my story, you know my name is Gotha
because of which he's produced like that. I am a
huge Blast fan, and Blast is a huge Timberland fan.
Like Blast has told me that like he appreciated his layering.

(17:35):
He's like, oh, he'll he'll like he'll lay down the
base and then he'll lay down the percussion, and then
he always adds something quirky, and like, I take that
formula and I use that in raggaeton. We have the
pheral that we have today because of artists like Timberland
and hip hop. So for Timberland to be this extraordinary
and then wanta cave in like that is like, my guy, exactly,

(17:56):
how much more money do you need? What happened? Like
why do you like this right now? Why you operating
this as if you don't make superstars? What's going on?
You need an A and R? Tim, If you need
an A and R, I'm available, Like I got you luck.
But then it's like I don't know. I just feel

(18:16):
like it's even disrespectful to him and.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
Who he is.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
It's like, right, I don't get it, you know what
I mean?

Speaker 3 (18:22):
Right to your friend's point about those quirky elements, right,
like I think about was it more than a woman
where he has a baby crying as like a sample. Right,
you don't get to do that in an AI produced
b right, Like you're not gonna think, oh my god,
I have a baby's screens and I'm gonna use that right,
Or I'm gonna use the sound of a chair squeaky right,
the way that they use on some cut which has

(18:43):
now been used everywhere.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Right.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
These things don't get to be part of how you
chop things right.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
And I think that, like sometimes we want those in perfections,
Like I think about for example, Jadakiss and just like
the locks where we go make it right, you know,
And like if you listen to how the sample is cut,
it's actually not perfect, Like it doesn't.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
Fall squarely on the floor the way it's cut.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
It's like a little off right, But that's what makes
it amazing to listen to. Right, it doesn't perfectly fit
into the bar the way that the violin sample works, right,
And if you do that in AI, it does fit
in perfectly, of course, because why would they try to
make it crooked, right, you know? And I think like
it's not even just the fact that the songs all
sound like they're made for reality television background music, which

(19:25):
like I do feel that way, you know, like I
hear the Love Island soundtrack play.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
On screaming, like I hear it. But even beyond that,
it's just like it's not even interesting.

Speaker 3 (19:38):
It can't be interesting because the things that are interesting
are the things that you get to play around with,
and you're not playing around with anything.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Of word up girl, And also hold on pause, ring
wind because you said something and I'm just like, well,
how many people get to experience that? You got to
experience my money MPR tiny? Oh, like, like how many
people decay that they did that? There's only serting about
of people in the wrong. I tell all the photos, girl.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
You know, I got as close as I could without
being a weirdo about it, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
I will say that.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
All of PR NPR's Puerto Rican contingent was in full flow.
I mean, if you saw THEATIN, do you know that
it was a very participatory experience, right, Like I will
say that, like at the outset, you know, he you know,
he was like, are you come to worst speak Spanish?
Everyone encouraged him to do the whole thing in Spanish.
You know, it was like this is your space to
be welcome. Obviously the records were amazing, but also just

(20:31):
amazing to see someone like bad Bunny who has over
the years I've known him, probably the first record of
his I ever heard, clearly was Creepy Push. That was
the first record of his that I knew quite well, right,
And I remember my friend Jose being like, you have
to listeners, God, Dad Bunny.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
A couple of years ago, he was just baggy groceries.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
And Puerto Rico and now he's out.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
Here, you know, doing the whole thing, and seeing.

Speaker 3 (20:54):
How he has gone from that, like you know, and
really defined the musical bano scene right and turning that
into what he's doing for Puerto Rico right now, and
at this moment doing it on his own terms, like
it doesn't matter if you're Latino or not. Who can
you can't do anything but stand right, you know what
I mean, Like in the sense of like it's it's
so compelling to watch him try to figure out ways
with his stardom to bring it back to Puerto Rico.

(21:16):
I think that's what a lot of people hope that
their favorite international artists can do. And there's obviously things
that bad Bunny can work on being more accountable for,
be more dynamic about, be more earnest about.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
But I think that seeing that story and seeing him.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
Talk about it in person is like that definitely took
me away, right, Like, you don't have many artists that
like stand on their square about what they care about
in twenty twenty five because of the reasons you're talking about,
with the social media backlash, with the politics of it all,
and so it feels refreshing when you see a megastar
be like, no, you have to come to me, you.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
Know, Mesco to son so on, and so I hate
to do it to you better Msssalio. Well, we rape
back right after these messages. Let's again, no some wave
on freeze, We're gonna continue on This tip is quite
literally It's why I had to pivot this damn podcast
because I was like, you know, these artists are not deep, bro,

(22:06):
They're not deep. No, And I'm tired of being the
only deep person on the call. And I'm just like,
I can't do this. I can't do shout out to Heart.
I love you so much, but like this podcast is
weekly and so I'm like I cannot fifty two weeks
of myself inspired by no, I can't do this, bro,
Like Trump is over here talking with Iran, and then

(22:30):
I can't do this. I can't do this. There's too
much going on in the world. It's too much at stake.
So I want to go there with you. I'm so
glad that you went there, because girl, I would love
your take on everyone is like, Gota, I'm glad you
did this pivot because we're not supposed to look to
these artists their hot takes. These artists are Some people
have gone as far to say these artists are dumb.
I'm like, I won't go that far, you know, but

(22:50):
like they're not and so but this is a change.
So I consider myself an artist. I went to art school.
I am to put more my music out there. But
most importantly, like I critique the world. I have an opinion,
and like, more importantly, I create. That's you're an artist.
If you create, doesn't matter what you're mean, Absolutely you're
an artist. You create. Like, with that said, what's your

(23:14):
take on this? Because I've been really sad to like
have so many people agree with me on the sense
of like, like, yeah, we shouldn't look for our recording
artists to be heroes, I agree, But also who are
our heroes today? Like what does that look like when
these platforms in regards to like these mega sized platforms
being given the people who are that deep, they're just

(23:36):
not in abundance, you know, Like that's kind of what
my contention is with it, Like how many bad buddies
do we really have? Like?

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Right?

Speaker 1 (23:44):
You know what I mean? Much? So, like who do
we turn to? And what does that say about us
that we're looking to turn to someone? What's your take
on this? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (23:53):
So I have a couple of takes, right.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
The first one is I think, yes, it's true that
celebrity is not something we rely on right in general? Right,
Like I have a friend who jokes on like a
lot of like celebrity interviewing and celebrity profiles is trying
to find people who are not that deep and try
to make them.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
As interesting as possible, right, you know, And there's.

Speaker 3 (24:12):
Something to that, right where like you know, you're trying
to find these deep connections and then you interview someone
they're like, no, I just really felt like talking about
that today, and you're like, oh, well, I guess.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
You know what I mean? So there's a little bit.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
Of that, right, But also, like art is political, all
art is political, and I fully believe that, And I
think a lot of people get caught up in the
idea of like art being political, as in, like you
have to express a political affiliation.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
But it's like the choices you make indicate your value system,
right you know.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
So if now that Trump and the administration is doing
everything and all of a sudden, you can't speak on racism,
even though you were doing it three years ago in
a different song, you have made a constructive decision that
your revenue matter is more than talking about the topics
you used to talk about, right. You know, if you
are all of a sudden adjusting the material of your music,

(24:57):
that is a political choice, even if you don't want
to call it that, right you know. Like Bad Buddy's album,
for example, Yeah, it was about Puerto Rico and protecting
Puerto Rico, but he also extended that to something material, right,
saying Okay, I'm going to make this tour a Puerto
Rican tour. I'm going to actually separate myself from the
American touring industry, Right, And that matters for an artist
on his level, Right, I think the bare minimum though

(25:19):
that we can do. And this is the part that
really frustrates me is you can't have an artist and
like celebrate from them, to celebrate them from their art,
and then get upset when people hold them accountable to what.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
They claim to be right.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
You know, no one is telling all of these artists
you have to claim activism, you have to claim feminism,
you have to claim pan Africanism, whatever the case may be. Right,
But if you are ascribing that to yourself, if you
are harnessing those things in your music, it is fair
to ask how do you feel about this if you're
going to use it for profit?

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Right?

Speaker 3 (25:50):
And that's something that megastars on multiple levels get confronted on.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
Right.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
I think about burna Boy a lot, someone who you know,
people will say, oh, he does a lot of political
messaging in his music. He talks a lot out about
Nigeria and colonialism, but gets critiqued a lot for when
massive events happen in Nigeria and the country itself or
within the diaspora. Is usually a little bit delayed in
holding the political systems task because he's not performing in

(26:13):
that circumstance. You're actually a part of the of the populace, right,
and so when you think about like what your obligation is,
it's like, I think most of us are just trying
to meet people where they are.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
Right.

Speaker 3 (26:24):
If you put a big sign behind me this as feminists,
I'm allowed to ask you if you're a feminist, right,
you know, if you decide, oh, I did this because
I'm a Panaphrictist, I'm allowed to ask what pan Africanism
means to you. But beyond like you know, wanting to
go to Ghana December, right, you know, I'm allowed to
ask these things. And that doesn't mean that I don't
find musical value in the art, right, But it does
mean that I find enough value that I'm respecting your

(26:45):
word and I'm asking you what those words mean. I
think people are so afraid to do that because we're
now at a point where people think that their interests
are have to match their values, right, And so if
you say something is a little bit you know, insufficient
or inadequate, it that's somehow seeing that they're inadequate and
they have that political taste, right, And it's like, no,
I exist with lots of contradictions. I watch reality television

(27:08):
and talk about it.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
All the time, right, you know who am I.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
To be?

Speaker 2 (27:13):
Like, Oh, what you consume is reflection of who you are?

Speaker 1 (27:16):
Right.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
But it's like I want to have conversations about what
we consume, and I think people get very nervous about
that in a way that they shouldn't. Like I'm by
no means gonna be the one to tell you to
stop listening to X y.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
Z or quite literally and verbatim is quite literally why
I have critiques by Bunny but people don't get that.
And you so beautifully and I'm not going to add
to that. Just literally you guys, hear hear what she
said twice? Rewind it, play it like a little bit please,
because I mean literally one point. And I have said

(27:47):
just to add like I have always said, like Ao Balvin,
you have I don't want to hear you talk about race.
I don't. I don't want to do it. But you
know what you can do. You could mic, you know,
you could pass the mic. It don't gotta be you.
I think it's like part of this is is that
you can use your power for good in other ways.

(28:08):
I think my money doesn't. I think he does. I
can credit to him for that, like he has a
good buddy foundation. He puts on other artists who are
saying things. Maybe he doesn't have the range, or maybe
he doesn't you know, but instead of sitting and dwiddling
his thumbs, he's passing it over to someone else. So
good for him, you know, can be more done. Always

(28:30):
does that like we need a pressure, as if he's
like the worst thing ever. No, And that's kind of
where I'm going next. These parasocial relationships, they're getting weird.
I am not an a lister at all, maybe one day,
but even I have had like weird runnings of parasocial relationships.

(28:50):
I've had a stalker at three stalkers. Oh my gosh.
One of them girls found my ex boyfriend added him
try to instigate the threesome with him, Like I am
not getting She was acting as a she was after Latina.
She wasn't. She just learned Spanish and like had a

(29:11):
Puerto Rican best friend was African Americans. Like it was mean,
I want the.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
Rest stratch for I was dominic on the weekends, you know, but.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
Like let's be at least like you You're like you're you.
She was lone assuming to try to get into like
spaces she get into editorial like where I was. It
was very creepy. It was very creepy. She like wanted
my life anyway. All I have to say, parasocial relationships

(29:41):
get fucking weird. Bro. We're like, we're people like want
to like extract certain things from people. And I think
you touched on it a little bit. I just, you know,
having mentioned this, what is what do you want people
to take away? If there's anything that you need people
to know regarding parasocial relationships, what would that be coming

(30:01):
from you to be?

Speaker 3 (30:03):
The short version is you don't know these people, Like
you really don't know these people, right, you know, Like
like you said, you know, I've had situations where people
made a lot of assumptions about me, my life, what
I go through.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
After a certain.

Speaker 3 (30:15):
Point, I really try not to share my personal life
publicly in a very deep way, right, you know, like
talking about my family or whatever.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
I thought it.

Speaker 3 (30:22):
Wasn't necessarily safe for one, right, and for two, they
didn't ask to be talked about constantly, So I don't
want to extract their lives just for consumption purposes, right.
But like because of that, I've had people make a
lot of assumptions about my lifestyle, who I am, what
I have, what I have to offer, what I'm looking for,
the income I make whatever, right, you know, people who
assume I'm either dirt broke or swimming and like Twitter

(30:45):
verified cash.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
I don't really know for real, right, you know.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
And it's like people will fill in the blanks to,
you know, whatever their perspective is of you, to make
them feel comfortable with that perspective, right, you know. So
it's oh, Shmier has always been a cloud chas certain
like I mean, okay, if you say so, Like I
don't even care enough to you know, rebut that if
that's how you feel, that's how you feel, right, you know,
or you know, or Shmiz just really wants to get

(31:10):
this pitch place. That's why she's talking so much about this,
and I'm.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
Like, I wish that was the case.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
You know.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
I just unfortunately run my mouth too much, right, I think?

Speaker 1 (31:20):
No, girl, take up all the springs.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
Listen.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
One thing I found out is, you know, like meeting
a lot of these celebrities, you know, having the good
fortune to interview them. Some of them are great, some
of them are terrible, some of them are just fine.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
You know, it really depends.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
Your milledge will vary it especially depending on how you
you know what you value. Like, I really pay attention
to if celebrities speak to their team well, right, you know,
are they polite? Are they do they make a point
to acknowledge them, Do they make a point to thank
them for the work that they're doing, right? Or do
they treat them like just people on staff who are
they're to do labor for them?

Speaker 1 (31:51):
Right?

Speaker 3 (31:52):
And like a lot of the like I've interviewed people
who I'm like, oh, man, Like, if people only knew
how annoying or insulting they were condescending, they were right,
you know.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
But I think in the grand scheme of things.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
Like even for like artists that I really love, I'm like,
I love you because you gave me something. You gave
me a piece of music. Right, I don't know you
as a person. I don't spend time with you. We're
not in a group chat.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Together, right, you know what I mean? And I don't
know you.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
In that capacity to defend you or speak in you know,
in favor of you or against you in any sort
of way.

Speaker 4 (32:20):
Right.

Speaker 3 (32:21):
And I feel like, especially with younger people, there's such
an impulse to run and be like, oh, this must
be this, this or that, right, you know. And I
found it in the ways that people will attack your
own logically talk about other things, right, Like I have been,
you know, like I've been critical of rappers that I like, Like,
for example, I like Meg thea Stallion.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
I've been openly critical of her.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
People like, oh, but you were just on Meg thea
Stallion's you know, a jock like last year, like, oh,
why'd you switch it up now? And it's like, I
didn't switch it up anything. I'm still listening to her.
I just have critiques, and I think I'm allowed to
have critiques, you know. And I wish more people would
be open to that, because I think it's way more
normal to be like, I rock with this thing, and
I don't rock with this thing than to actually assume

(33:00):
that you love every single tig a person does. I
don't even love every single thing I do, much less
somebody else, Right, So you don't be a one man
army for these people.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
Yeah, and yeah, what you're getting into is duality and
like I approved this nothing to add like quite literally, yeah,
more than one thing can be true at the same time.
Hand if you're gonna take away and take away that
is exactly Oh my god. So on the note of
you had mentioned Meg, so I'm gonna go there, you
had tweeted because someone had wrote, can I be honest

(33:32):
about Meg? I don't think she should signed to a
label and wanted her to do so. It is a
bad business decision. Her being in her being in charge
of her own music deals and ventures is because she's independent.
She's playing a long games and a label will cut
it short. And then you wrote her being her own
boss is hampering her creatively. There's upside and downsides to everything.

(33:53):
But if she wants a chance at making an album
that shows her impressive ceiling as an artist, she clearly
needs a team to help guide her there. And that's
not the worst thing. She can keep buying up Popeye franchise.
I hate you pop Eyes franchises, but I personally would
prefer good music that continues in the vein of Bigger
in Texas or the three track run at the opening

(34:14):
of Traumazin where she was wrapping her ass off NDA
into Ungrateful. It's such an underrated one two punch. I
approve this message. I agree you know, like I feel
like nobody can like operate alone, you know, in the
bigger war. I really hate to say, more money, more problems.
That's a real thing, but also creatively, you know, and

(34:37):
I never really thought about it till I start your tweet.
If you're Magna Stallion and you're you're expected to deliver
at a certain caliber, and so that's going to require
a lot more people. The better the project, the next
project is going to be even more expensive. The next
is going to be even more expensive, and so that
makes things harder. And so I think she needed a

(34:57):
Popeye sis, like the popl like like she is that
cash cow because you know, like when you're independent, the
money gotta come from somewhere, and they got to come
a little faster. So because I feel you like, I agree,
I agree, I just have laughingly really, but like let's
talk about this in the sense of like, yeah, these

(35:20):
artists really do need help, like being in the Let's
just talk about the sense of like being independent, Like, right,
what is your overall consensus on that? Because big or small,
it's just proven to be damn well impossible. But some people,
of course are making it work. Some people have their
moments but overall, in my opinion, it's affecting artistry. Like

(35:44):
we don't have shacks we had it back in the day,
Like it's so different. What's your take on this?

Speaker 3 (35:49):
Yeah, you know, I think people really sensationalize the fantasy
of being your own boss. Right, It's like, oh, nobody
will tell me anything. I don't have to be accountable
to anybody. I run my own thing as someone who's
a full time freelancer. All if someone could take the
administrative stuff off my plate so I could focus on
the writing, that would be the ideal situation. So much

(36:10):
of my life is chasing on invoices, chasing out checks,
making sure I have all my accounting ready, you know,
doing all this administrative stuff, sending all these emails that
I don't care for it because it takes away from
the time I have to think and to write. I
can't really sit and think and write about the interesting
things I want to talk about if I'm so focused
on how I'm going to pay my rent next month, right,
you know.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
And so I spend a lot of time doing things
to make.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
Sure I can pay my rent next month, because getting
I'm not trying to give up a rent stabilized apartment
in New York, right, Like, I'm.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
Trying to hold on to this as long as I can,
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
And so, like what do you think about that? For
any artist? Like that becomes a reality?

Speaker 1 (36:43):
You know.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
So Meg is the boss of her own industry and
she is independent, as you and I both know, being
independent does not make money.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
I mean music in general does not make money like that.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
Like, you know, a thousand streams get you a dollar
on Spotify, right, you know what I mean? Like, it's
no money for real, Right you see a billion that
person's maybe getting one thousand dollars for a billion streams.
It is not profitable right now to be a recording artist, right,
And so it makes sense then if you're independent to
do all these sponsorships to bring in the millions that
you can spend. The problem comes that when you're the

(37:14):
person holding so many different pots, right, you can't spend
as much time on the creative because you are the
person doing the endorsements, pitching the brand deals, going to meetings,
designing you know, clothing lines, making sure that your brand
is on things, producing TV shows, right, all this stuff
that keeps the money going in, but it makes music,
the actual creative stuff a little bit on the back burner.
That's the only way that it works, right. And the

(37:36):
other part of that is that when you are the boss,
even if you do have a team, because like men
does have a team right now, I want to potentially
doesn't right, But you're the boss, and so you're the
one signing everybody's check. How many people are going to
be willing to say, oh, yeah, no, I think you
should switch that beat. If you're the one paying their bills.
It's not even whether or not you're a good or
bad person. That's just how power balances work, right, you know.

(37:58):
And if you have an overseer, I don't like, if
you have someone who's gonna lie.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
I was like, I beg your pardon.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
Definitely was like no, no, no, no, no, wait.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
I don't know what I'm looking for? A manager? Yes, yes,
hold on.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
This is what happens when you talk fast. I mean
you think faster and you talk all of a sudden.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
I'm doing all the damn time, and the words be
seeping through and like yo, I'm screaming that's so funny. Chill, okay, okay.

Speaker 3 (38:33):
But if you have a manager or just someone else
to be accountable to who is not relying.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
On you for a check.

Speaker 3 (38:39):
They could be the ones to be like, listen, you
know it's this song sounds cool, but you need a
better hook, you need something that makes it work, you
need a better beat.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
You need to switch us out for that, right.

Speaker 3 (38:48):
And I do think, and it's not just me, I
do think a lot of these independent artists are struggling
with how to make revenue and that comes at the
cost of their music. So, like another example is like
a lot of the independent artists like Larry June and
all of them in the Midwest that are putting out
albums once a month or like once every three months. Right,
They're trying to keep the output out so they can

(39:09):
tour on music. And like now, because of like demand
of streaming, they know that they have to constantly be
on top of everybody's you know, like memory.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
Right, So they're constantly putting out something new.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
Bodie James will have a new collaboration with Alchemists out
maybe next month that he had won a couple of
months ago.

Speaker 4 (39:25):
Right.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
Freddie Gibbs is constantly putting out albums.

Speaker 3 (39:27):
And you get why it's happening, and some of them,
to their credit, are true geniuses and are rapping at
elite levels despite the output.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
But there's a level of like you could make a
classic album. You could take your last.

Speaker 3 (39:38):
Five albums put them into one album that'd be the
album of the year, right, And instead we're getting like
small gems and these bigger albums that are filled with
things that you're like, Oh, you're trying to make this
fit a playlist algorithm. That's why you're keeping this other
two minutes. Oh you have this sample because you hope
it's going to be on TikTok, Right, And I like
good art, so I just want better for all my
favorite artists.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
Again, girl, it's like it's just so refreshing to talk
with someone who gets it, because like.

Speaker 3 (40:12):
It's hard, and like I empathize, right, Like you have
to pay the bills, and at a certain level of celebrity, right,
you got to keep the money revenue rolling in and
when you pay out your agent and your manager all
these other things, then.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
That's the part you work with.

Speaker 3 (40:25):
But like I said, there's upsides to downside to everything, Right,
there's a reason why a lot of writers don't like
being freelancers want to be on staff. It's not because
they don't want to make as much money as possible,
but because you decide that, like the comfort and benefits
that come with being out of publication is like your
ability to actually write creatively.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Right.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
And similarly, I don't think a label is for everybody, right,
you know, but for some people it would be helpful
to be there for a search of time, if for
no other reason then to get a sense of structure
about how they think things would run for themselves.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
Like I don't think you get the.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
Beyonce of now without her having like a lot of
hand holding from Matthew Knows and that management team, and
now she understands what she needs an operation to look
like and she can take that.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
And run right, you know.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
So I think there's a lot of different ways to
do it. But affortunately now everything has been devalued. Art
has been excessively devalued, and so in the money grabs
are the way that people are going. And it's not
like I don't get it, girl, I got paychecks to.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
You know, I need to build Painty's bills.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
But I.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
Really wish that people cared more about making the music
stronger yes.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
And you know where my brain went after I was
like I I'm echoing that, and in part I blame
the fans. I'm like, I this is kind of like
where I've been and not completely just for those to
take that sound bite and like cut me up, like
not completely like there's blame of me put on various
sides here, but on the size of the fans. Like

(41:52):
I wish people would give artists more grace. Look at
how people are cutting up normany right, and she actually
had I believe, a sick parent, and it's like, you
have real life shit going on in their real lives,
Like do we want, you know, a quality things like
from our artists, Like let's give them some grace. Granted, Rihanna,
she's taken a while, and I think I think R

(42:15):
nine is nine and.

Speaker 3 (42:17):
Ninth kid, you know what I mean this Listen, I
mad my piece with Rihanna's retirement.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
I don't know if everybody else has.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
I hold it on. I'll hold it on. I'm just
like I feel her, like as a thirty seven year
old woman now myself I'm thirty one. It's like I
feel her if I a pop one, I'm a Papa
mall and then we're gonna fix it up and then
we're gonna go on. You feel me, let her, let
her pop off. And once the kids are at an
age where speaking of someone I'm purely projecting, I'm not

(42:48):
a mom, but I wouldn't get back into work until
my kids could talk to me and tell me what
the fuck is going on? Because until then, yes, I
want to see you, so like until then, like just.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
Let her cook, literally right, and she's earned a hiatus.
You dropped seven hours in seven years. You get to
take a break, you know.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
And I'm excited because like when she comes back, I
am fully I'm fully in. Maybe I'm delusional. I don't know,
maybe i am, but like when she comes by, she's
gonna be in her forties and it's gonna be like
a whole new revolution because she's gonna be older. And
then now we're gonna have this whole conversation about agism
and it's gonna be a That's another thing that's like

(43:26):
really straining us too, because instead of like giving flowers
and grace to people who have the age and like
the experience, we're also like in this energy where like
we're always looking for the hot young thing. I'm like,
sometimes hot young thing doesn't have shit to say or
to give us, you know what I mean, And like
I don't know, sometimes we don't like appreciate people who

(43:48):
for better about the block, Like I don't know, right,
I killed nobody, I don't.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
Know, So like listen, I agree one hundred percent.

Speaker 3 (43:56):
I think about how the clips like handle their entire
higher you know, roll out and marketing for the last year,
you know, like to think about holding an album for
a year, going to the press, like coming back after
fifteen year hiatus, taking the opportunity to be like we're
telling our story on our terms for our audience and
meet us where we are, you know. And they didn't

(44:16):
try to compromise what they sound like, they didn't try
to compromise like the things that they communicated, They said,
this is what we rap about, right, you know, we're
gonna stick to to ourselves. We're not gonna try to
chase the current trends. And if you like it, great,
you know, well we'll give you a full production. If
you don't, then go seek something else. And they reap
the benefits of sticking true to themselves. And I really
hope that inspires other legacy acts, especially in hip hop, which,

(44:39):
like a lot of people feel like, is a young
man's sport to be able to be like, yes, I
can be forty five and still rap and still find
a market and still tour if that's what you want
to do, right, you know, you don't have to think,
oh my god, I hit thirty. It's over right, you know,
I really hope less unless people think that, you know,
hip hop was you know, like a child's you know game,
when it was kids and teenagers learning music at the park.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Now it's fifty years old, you get to have middle
aged people.

Speaker 1 (45:06):
I'm so sorry, I'm laughing because as you stayed this,
I'm thinking about Mary J. Blich.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
Okay, well, I don't think Mary wants the tour.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Unfortunately on more Bro, I really want to know what's
going on because my listen, she's in these books.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
I love Mary down, but I'm playing the Legends Ballance
after this tour because she is clearly over it, and
I hate that her as husband seems that I've kept
her in this financial bude because there's nothing more uncomfortable
than really realizing that your favorite artist does not want
to be there yo.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
I just I've been seeing her knew step and repeating him.
I'm like, I just want to give her hug, Like.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
Someone just needs to give her a boot line and
an earring line so she could make some passive income
for Mary.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
We love you Mary respectfully, like we see you, we
see you, and we see it like hi key, oh no,
I want more for black women starting with Mary, like.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
I'm gonna pivot.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
Okay, So a lot of your work we've been, we've been,
we got into hip hop, so we're kind of in
this question already. But a lot of your work covers
hip hop, and I of course covered your thone, and
you grew up around the Mannic and the Puto Ricans,
and like you're not in a by extension like you're
franch francophone.

Speaker 3 (46:28):
Like she's just she's right, right, exactly exactly like whatever.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
And So if you had a hot take comparing and
contrasting yourtone from hip hop, considering what's going on right now,
what would it.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
Be a hot take?

Speaker 1 (46:46):
M h.

Speaker 3 (46:48):
I think my hot take is more so around the
current diaspora conversation about who owns the thone, right, you know?
I think my hot take is that hip hop, like
is not something that is necessarily owned by anybody, right
you know, Like I think it's own in the sense
that there's originators, there's influencers, right you know, but a
lot of Black cultural production, the history of it is
that we exchange with each other and then we build

(47:09):
off those exchanges, that we build something new, and then
the next generation comes to build something new, and we
all kind of build a way to.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Communicate with each other.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
You know. James Brown went to you know, West Africa
to play blues music with like Malai and guitarists, right,
you know, you see all this all the time. And
I think, you know, both are gathon and hip hop
are in a space of people feeling threatened by it
expanding and it, you know, being co opted by other spaces,
right and a zone obviously has that current lawsuit is ongoing,

(47:37):
and I think that, like the obsession with ownership is
besides the point, right you know, it's what are the
principles of the genre of what it takes to participate
in a culture?

Speaker 1 (47:47):
Right you know?

Speaker 3 (47:48):
Are you participating in that culture? Are you contributing to it?
Are you acknowledging it? If you are, then I think
that more people should be invited to be able to
participate if they need a specific standard, as opposed to
acting like you cannot participate at all unless you are
part of X y Z demographic. Like that's my general
feeling of it, right, you know. So like I'm a

(48:09):
New Yorker, I have very particular feelings about just like
you know, hip hop being a New York genre, right,
you know, I have very strong feelings about living up time.
I have lived in the Bronx all this, like how
I feel about hip hop, right, But like I had
to learn to find interesting things about you know, California
rap and rapp in the Midwest and whatever, right, you know,
Like I don't I could sit here be like, oh,
this is not what I grew up on.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
This doesn't feel good to me.

Speaker 3 (48:30):
It's like, no, well, it's there's something compelling there for somebody, right,
so let's figure out what it is. I think the
same thing about just the wave of Deathon, right, you know,
now it's you know, obviously it's black Columbian artists.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
I mean, we talk about this extensively. Who are taking
over this space?

Speaker 3 (48:43):
And I don't think the question is more so that
Columbian artists can't contribute.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
It's that how are you contributing? Why and to what extent?

Speaker 1 (48:49):
Right?

Speaker 3 (48:50):
You know, are you contributing to you know, the mestizaha,
the increased messidia of the genre, or are you agnology?

Speaker 2 (48:56):
This is a black genre.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
I want to honor that, and I want to make
make sure that what I do is in that spirit right,
And I think that's the bigger conversation than the like
who owns the copyright to a genre?

Speaker 1 (49:16):
I want y'all who are listening to know that we
didn't practice, we didn't rehearse. No, no, not at all.
This is her Okay, y'all gonna say lor go that
people really way because a Latin swears that, like, oh
Goda's just like not happy, and I'm like, that's it,
and I'm like, it's not that it's coming from somewhere.
I'm not a research Sorry, no, no.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
I've just also been lucky.

Speaker 3 (49:40):
I grew up like I think the benefit of being
in New York, to be quite honest, is am I
bad for cutting off?

Speaker 2 (49:46):
I do think.

Speaker 3 (49:47):
I do think the benefit for growing up in New
York is that I was lucky enough in the nineties
and two thousands, to witness the birth of so many
diasporic scenes firsthand. You know, I remember specifically when Mooney
Tunes mask Oh dropped because I was in high school
and we were out on one D.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
First Street going to the functions, you know what I mean. Like,
I remember what it was like when Daddy and He
became huge.

Speaker 3 (50:09):
I remember going to college and thinking that everybody knew
dance holl reggae because I live in New York and
people ask me to translate what Sean Paul said, and
I'm like, what do you mean translate?

Speaker 2 (50:18):
You know what I like?

Speaker 3 (50:21):
You know, And one thing about me navigating different spaces
is that I really find out that, like, we have
these same conversations in so many different iterations in different spaces.
Hip hop is worried about the dilution of it going global.
Guittone is worried about the dilution of it going global
and not centuring Puerto Rico and Fanama and these spaces

(50:41):
that have been really foundational to the genre. Right, you
know who else is having those conversations Gomba and Zook artists. Right,
you have huge legends like Ayaanakamura and France who are
doing a lot of compa and zoop influence sounds, but
they're not you know, amplifying Haitian and Guadalupe and Martinique
and artists right Bon out of Dominica and you know,

(51:02):
out of Guadaloupe is getting huge right beyond Shata, right,
but not a lot of people know these sounds, but
it's now huge in Europe and.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
In western Central Africa.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
Girl, we're all contending with it, like people, sorry.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
I have to go, So that is true talk. I
blame TikTok, like the way people are like, oh, what
is this sound? This is dope, And I guess that's
the cool way to like because we can really go forever.
But like I have two things this and I have
another question. But like Carl, so I get on TikTok
and they'll hear a sound and there's like this phenomenon.

(51:34):
It's funny because it relates back right back to what
you're saying about Raghatton right right now. There's something called
edit and edic is quite literally like in dragatone, just
like in dance because it's based in dancehall. There are rhythms.
So the mixtape there are rhythm like quite little sounds
that I used over and over that different people wrap over.

(51:56):
It's a dancehall tradition. It's a Jamaican tradition. So some kid,
I don't know if this is Mexico, Brazil, they heard
one like it a mixtape, I think it was forty
or forty two, and they heard one song that's dope,
and then they heard the beat and then they were
like they basically carried out the tradition and that they
were like, this one song is gonna be our new
rhythm and we're gonna call it anything. And so now

(52:19):
all like generational kids calling this music and got that,
and I'm like, bro, that's pederial, like it's coming from
right this mixtape. You discovered nothing with your Christopher Columbus asked,
and like, I don't know what to do with this,
but yes, it's happening right now in Europe, and it's
so particular, so interesting on how co opted because it's

(52:40):
like it's by the whole DJ movement going out over
there and like this remixing movement, and I blame TikTok.
I blame TikTok. I don't know. That's what I have
to say. My last question, because God knows I don't
want to. I don't want to stand at all. But
it's that girl. Have you watched Rhythm and Flow?

Speaker 2 (52:56):
I watched the first season. I did not watch the
second season.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
Yeah, which I think gives you a second of how
I think about it.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
I need you to know, but I need you to
watch it. Okay, let's this. So what were your thoughts
in the first season, because I thought it was particularly good.
Not gonna lie in regards to the curation. In regards
to like the judges, the judges were stilet Cardi has
her personality, but like even then her being harsh on

(53:24):
hip hop. I appreciated her being harsh on like what
got to pass and not? I'm appreciated, you know, even
as flirty and fun as she is, it's like she
still had her you know, she had her head on
her shoulders regards for her decision making. There were some
artists I felt like they could have gone home soon,
and there was some that I felt like way to
the end. But damn, I really need you to have

(53:45):
watched the second one, because the second one first, I'll.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
Definitely I'll definitely check out the second season.

Speaker 3 (53:52):
There's also an equivalent in France, like they've franchised it,
so there's a French version which I have watched as well.
But so what I my short feelings are honest is
that there's a lot of talent. Like the first season,
d Smoke won, I thought De Smoke Deserved to win
was a very talented rapper, comes from like a very
musical without family or whatever.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Right. But I think my big.

Speaker 3 (54:10):
Issue is that, like I didn't think that like the
conversation or like the challenges were rooted into like how
hip hop works today, right, Like I think there's a
lot of foundation, like the traditional elements of hip hop.
Can you freestyle well, can you like do certain things
off the cuffwall, can you battle well?

Speaker 2 (54:23):
And all those are like good skills. But if you.

Speaker 3 (54:26):
Understand how like hip hop works as a genre, like
a money making genre, like battle rap is one specific
corner of hip hop, right, there are people who are
battle rap technicians, like the loaded Luxes, right, who cannot
make a hit song to save their lives. Just why
you have someone like cardiing a panel, even if you
don't view her as like a hip hop technician, she
understands how it hit works, right, you know?

Speaker 2 (54:46):
And so I think my big.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
Criticism was I had hoped that, Okay, you've picked the
best natural rappers that you hear, you pick the people
with the most potential, but you do more work to
help them establish careers. Right because De Smoke already had
a musical family, he already had those resources.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
His brother is literally served.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
Right, you know, like, and so it's like, what he's not.
He's not necessarily looking for a affirmation of talent. He
wants the resources to be able to have a viable
life as a musician. And I wish there was more
of that, these conversations about how to build a vible
life as an artist.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
And I think that's my.

Speaker 3 (55:18):
Big criticism over it, right, But the talent out of
this world, right, I think that's one thing, you know
that I love to see people who like might have
these passions, but like don't like just because being an
artist is not your full time job right now does
not mean that's not something you can nurture. And watching
people who are like, yeah, I do this right now,
I do this right now, but I never stop rapping.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
It's always going to beautiful for me to see.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
He thought, I and then we'll be right by right
after getting up somewhere on free.

Speaker 3 (55:55):
People who are able to continue to pursue their artistry
as artists and just still pursue their passion, Like even
despite all the other limitations. I think it's beautiful to see.
And I think that's the biggest thing for me.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
Right.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
It's like watching all these people come up.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
And say, yeah, I'm a ESL teacher, I'm a Spanish teacher, right,
Like knowing that the smoker rap in Spanish was great
to see, you know what I'm saying, you know, but
like saying like I never stopped working on my artistry,
and I think giving people the opportunity to pursue their
dreams is great. I just want people to be able
to have those dreams be sustainable as well.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
Spoor it up. It's in the sodio for six years.
But I'm gonna stop hiding. I'm gonna stop hiding. I
got like now that I.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
Know, I'm gonna be on you about it.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
Because girl, it's time. It's time. Like it was to
the point where you know, and this is publicly known.
I have to drop a single last year, recorded a
demo because I'm here. I'm here sharing songs where people
who say they want the fun and then they try
to steal my ship, and it's like, so apparently it's
good and me to go out here and just own
my shit. So I'm gonna do that. And and to

(56:57):
add to that, because I have nothing to add to
like season one, but season two, I think with a
lot of what you just said regarding that there were
elements of hip hop in the room. We could see it.
It's instant in the room. I love that question on Twitter.
It's the thing, right, yeah, with us exactly. Pop was
in the room with us, for sure. They brought out

(57:18):
Luda and I screamed. I was like, ah, they brought
up I screamed, and oh, you know, I just feel
like in combination, Oh, there was a lot of balls
that were dropped. You got slim shit here, you got
I just it was it wasn't giving. And I super
agree with you on the sense of like, for example,

(57:39):
the whole battle wrap thing and the freestelling thing. I
consider myself a rapper. Cannot freestyle to save my life.
Don't put me in the corner. I can catch them. Listen,
you give me a thirtieth try, I'll get it. Eventually.
I'm black. I can do it. I off rip. You
know that's a specific honestly.

Speaker 3 (57:55):
If you're like jay Z and the Wade ruined everybody
for that, right know, like because Jay told everybody he
doesn't write down his wraps and Wayne just goes in
the mic and does examporaneous speech, right, and so everyone
thinks exactly, everyone thinks you have to do it. It's like, no,
they do that. Do what works for you.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
If you need a petit pad, get a petit the.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
Pad, rather you write it down, they just go in
to the boots saying nonsense.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
Right right, no, Yeah, So there's definitely elements of that.
I dra tl who won first of all, and no
more like I fell in love with him, my dude,
and I was just completely in shock. I still don't
get it, and I'm torn on this too. I so

(58:39):
want you to watch this, watch this and tweet me please,
because well I will. There was get that ego. There
was moments where people were like, there there's for sure
evolution on screen, and I appreciated that. I appreciated that
became episode one. So I don't know if it was eight.
It was definitely growth. It was definitely an client and

(59:01):
there were artists who were already like establishing their artistry
in the sense of like they knew exactly who they were,
exactly what their message was, exactly where they're going, exactly
where they've been, and exactly where they don't want to go.
Like that. That was clear as day for certain artists,
but for greatto you could tell like there was an evolution.
So there was a there was a part like in
Falling in Love because of the evolution. And it's like,

(59:22):
at the same time, I think the bigger question of
what the show answered was, and I think you touched
on it as well, is how do we reward hip
hop in twenty in the late twenty twenties versus in
the twenty tens, versus in the thousands versus in the nineties.
It's all very different, you know, Like, right, does a
Kim a little Kim aesthetic and like rapping of it all,

(59:46):
the nikky aesthetic rapping of it all, like even the
cardio aesthetic rapping of it all. Does that work today
in comparison to what it did when it was their time?
I don't know. I really need to take girl, That's
what I'm going to add. And I'm for those who
are listening to chew on that. But for the very
last we went around the world. We really did. But
I ask you, is there anything I haven't asked you

(01:00:08):
that you would like to answer? And then in combination
with that, what are you mesmerized by right now? In
Culture's a lot going on in the world, But what
is what is taking your breath away?

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
Oof, that's a good question mesmerized by?

Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
I think if I think about what I'm mesmerized by
is the various ways that certain people are choosing to
use their art to do different things right or like
actually speak truths of power.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Like I think about someone like Keilani right, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
Who is continuing to put out great R and B
but choosing not to abandon her principles when she is
talking about the things that mattered to her and sacrificing contracts.
I think about someone like No Name right, who was
called out once about capitalism and that turned into an
entire you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
Know, book club that is international.

Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
I was in Nairobi and met people who were part
of No Names book club, who were fans of hers.
Like to realize that you could really have that impact,
that there's some people who are genuinely pursuing that I
think that's what gives me hope, and that's what excites me, right,
people who are like still trying to find a way
even though things feel really bleak, because it does feel bleak,
Like I think that a lot of us do wake

(01:01:16):
up these days and really do feel like, oh my god,
how can we change anything?

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
Everything feels so defeating.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
The people who have money and resources have fully given
up on us, right, you know, they've fully ceded power
to authoritarianism. And then you watch people who choose to
stand up and you're like, Okay, you know, whether they're
a celebrity or not, they're making their principles known, and
so why can't I do the same thing with mine?
I think that's what keeps me enchanted about the power

(01:01:42):
of art.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
I'm sorry, I just thought about a tweet that's like
yesterday and she saw this white guy and she told
the white guy like them, we're in an economic recession.
He's like, are we? Yeah. I was like, oh my,
I like threw my laptop like you know why, and

(01:02:04):
everybody was like, you're not even you just gotta like
call you broke like that, And I was like I
literally cried, like real tears and I was like, fun,
I was like, he ate her up, but like, I'm sorry,
said not that we I don't speak French girl, I
don't know what you just said. Beautiful. I'm sorry. I

(01:02:25):
don't mean to be so silly, but like that just
brought me back, brought me there because it's like, yo,
that us it is. It is bleak for some of us,
and I think that's exact problem, because there's a lot
of us who don't deserve to like really like experience

(01:02:46):
said bleakness, and I guess this is a beautiful Eni son.
I remember, oh got this election. I remember, you know
when Cameline and Trump before he won. We're going at it,
And I was like, okay, can we have honest if
you want me to chime in. I don't think you
guys want me to chime in. I don't think you're
gonna like everything I gotta say because I'm so anti Trump,

(01:03:08):
of course, And also, can we have a real conversation
on how Democrats are dropping the fucking ball, like do
we got to how long are we going to send this?
I was drinking the kool Light heavy when it was
Biden versus heavy because I was so tired of like
Trump just talking and just being rude and like the shit,
and I was like, oh my gosh, the fuck up.
Like I was just like ready for like that to

(01:03:31):
just go off, you know, to the point of which
what I went to this president who like basically yes,
has an act, has continued the legacy of various structures
of violence that has existed throughout the course of America.
So it's like, how when are we going to have
that real conversation? And so I remember, you know, like

(01:03:52):
when it came specifically down the camera Biden has dropped out.
There was this conversation regarding I had wrote in one
my captions if someone checked me and I appreciated it.
I was like, we don't deserve to have We deserve more.
And then someone was like, deserve comes from a praise
of privilege, and I was like, you know what, you
ain't me with that, because what is deserved from being

(01:04:15):
from this imperiallest nation. Of course, granted, there's a lot
of things I didn't subscribe to. There's a lot like granted,
like I didn't sign up this, I didn't sign up
for my money to be used for that, you know.
But granted, regardless of that, there's still this positionality that exists,
you know, regardless of anything, that we benefit at the
end of the day from a certain level of power

(01:04:37):
because of where we are and the country that we're
all like, you know, inhumity, and that this directly negatively
affects other people. What are three sixty in this conversation?
And so this just pretty much brought me there in
regards to like this idea of what the hell we deserve,
right and what the hell you know what that even means?

(01:05:00):
And you know, I guess on the note, I'm looking
at you and I'm hearing what you're saying, and this
is making me think of that conversation of black women
deserving black women rest, black women be mammied lately and
regards to don't got you to do with us and
like and also black women also just resting. So like,

(01:05:21):
I don't know I had all of that to say.
I just pretty much rambled pretty much. But yeah, if
you have anything to add to that, because that's just yeah,
it's the bigger picture in regards to this whole resilience
that you're speaking to now.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
Yes, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
And I also think this is the last thing I'll
say about that which is tied it a little bit
back to music, which is that like sometimes we have
to have a little self awareness.

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
It's part of a greater diaspora of like, yes, what
we contribute to and what we.

Speaker 3 (01:05:54):
Are leading conversations about versus what matters, right, you know, Like.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
You mentioned like being in an imperial course.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
Sometimes it feels like so much of the work is
to get acknowledgment.

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:06:04):
I remember when I firstart writing about Francophone music. What
I thought was so important was I need to get
more French records in Pitchfork reviews, right, you know, I
need to get more people to know who these artists are, right,
you know, And I think that was happening a lot
in the mid twenty tens with the musical Bana and
all that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
Right, Like, we need to get people to understand who
these artists are.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
And then you get that and then think shift, right,
because now you're doing all the work to preserve that status,
all the work to preserve the dominance of afrobeads, the
dominance of ragon, right, the dominance of amapiano, whatever these
genres are, right, and like it doesn't even seem to
necessarily align with the needs of the artists, but it
aligns with something to us where we get to validate,
like we brought this here, right, we are the evangelists

(01:06:45):
to bring it here.

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
And I think one of the things I've been trying
to think.

Speaker 3 (01:06:48):
More about is like maybe that's not the victory, you
know what I'm saying, Like, yes, America has like one
of the largest music markets, but maybe the victory is
being able to go there and meet them there and
see what their needs are in the industry there, right,
you know. And sometimes that can be hard to see
because it's like I want all my major artists to
have a night at MSG that I can go see

(01:07:10):
if for nothing else that I can just hop on.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
The trade right after, right, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
But I do think that there's value in really understanding
what artists need in the global South, what we need
as we're trying to transition through like such a hostile time,
and like working towards honoring that as opposed to like
whatever version of success we think exists.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
And on that note, beautifully said, I got no more
things to add, my love. Thank you so much for.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
Me, thank you, thank you truly me Hanta.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
Until next week, child. That was a lot of after
from me, I'm done here from one of you. They
had him think you know what time it is? The

(01:08:05):
time for hold, I'm reeling.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
Let's get right into it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:16):
So there's a lot of things going on in the
world right now, including a Denta side in Palestine. What
is your take on that? What do you have to
add or say about that?

Speaker 4 (01:08:27):
I mean, I think it's it's it's really devastating, unfortunate
that not more people or being about it, or you
know that they can't say the movie because or the financial.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):
Ties that they're being impacted.

Speaker 4 (01:08:39):
So I think general more easy not you don't mean
to me say like go back to its roots and
say speaking of posistance and speaking of being successful and
you know safety posign in general.

Speaker 1 (01:08:53):
You know Jone was a music covers a music about
the past.

Speaker 4 (01:09:00):
Similar adapt these music have like I'm all to become
like now a mainstream It's unfortunately you hear about uh
coming back to the roofs of just saying what's what's
the reality, which is you should be speaking about your justice.

Speaker 1 (01:09:16):
Thank you, prepay, I'm happy, Thank you your name man?
Why are you probably nice for me? Thanks for happy?
You're ready to answer some questions on hang okay? So
then man, what was your in? Probably moon.

Speaker 4 (01:09:40):
Was an album called The Maistic Between.

Speaker 1 (01:09:46):
I had those right up? What up? And who would
you say? Is like your Mount Rushmore?

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
I would say.

Speaker 4 (01:10:01):
Dodian bad Bunny, and I'm gonna goro a DJ and
I'm gonna probably say d J Black.

Speaker 1 (01:10:08):
Why why all of these selections?

Speaker 4 (01:10:11):
I think DJ Blass like you put a lot of
artists together and all by so the girl and created
a lot of collaborations with the like up and coming artists,
and he's not created Daddy Yankee and itself. You know,
we basically my father drama like to us popularly at
some point in the two thousand or monks it on

(01:10:33):
was like I brought her frustrateds like he's like not us,
and he was basically does like grab amra, who else
gonna say that?

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
Bad buddy? You know, took it to another lot of
most recently and just and just like hate Nave. I
don't really know what it is.

Speaker 2 (01:10:53):
I wasn't work.

Speaker 4 (01:10:53):
It's a chilling worldwide and you wing you either thing.

Speaker 1 (01:10:57):
She basically until they gave the.

Speaker 4 (01:11:00):
Man for women, you know sortady in the noise, she her.

Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
Right up, thank you and okay, so the man, what
is your heart take? Okay? Not everyone used to have and.

Speaker 4 (01:11:20):
Like some artists are really good at the singers and
collaboration albums or even collaborate or you said, you know
collabor but I don't think everyone.

Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
Times and what was your intro? S? Like how did
you get him to like? And I got out of man,
like how did you get him to like? Drop? And
say how long have you been listening to it? Like
what's your story?

Speaker 2 (01:11:44):
What have you like?

Speaker 1 (01:11:46):
My exposure.

Speaker 4 (01:11:48):
Was probably blas els my slow sir ste like hearing
it and likes and like you see, like superto ex
closed into it makes me want to find the music

(01:12:10):
even like things like the internet itself.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
You know, download the music. We hit the.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
That just like it's created different level right up?

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
What up? Mascotta? Something so and if you know what
time it is? It's some for last Flowtusts and I
Heard Media production co executive produced by net of shak
It Easy Media. The Ghetto produced by Grace Gonstalis. The
Ghetto edited by Waking Coltler Like Ghetto, shout out to

(01:12:47):
my production assistance Naomi Asabo, Kayla Ecleston and shout out
to Habbi Vibes. I'm your host, Lagata. See you right
here next week on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, Apple, wherever
you listen. No mama, mhm