Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wake that ass up in the morning, The Breakfast Club Morning.
Everybody is the j n V. Just Hilarie Charlamage the guy.
We are the Breakfast Club. We got some special guests
in the building from the Not All Hood podcast. We
have Malcolm Jamore Warner where you see Baraka and Candice Kelly.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome you, Hey, good.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
To see you.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
How the brothers and sister feeling were good? Life's good?
Speaker 5 (00:25):
Yeah, good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yeah, that's about here, y'all just.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
Moved into It was the first interview in our new studio.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Wow, man, I love the name Not All Hood?
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Nah?
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Who came up with that?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
That was what you'll see?
Speaker 6 (00:39):
Yeah, I don't even remember for real, for real, Like
I was just like, uh nah, Like Malcolm and I
have been talking about just the concept of the podcast
and how the diversity and who we are and also
who we're not, right, So I was like, nah.
Speaker 7 (00:57):
Nah, Yeah, it feels like that was might say all
black people from the hood?
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Nah exactly?
Speaker 7 (01:05):
Is it that where a lot of people come from
poor and disenfranchised environments, but we are not our environment?
Speaker 6 (01:11):
Like it's just that we come from a bunch of
different environments, you know. And I feel like, you know,
a lot of media to portraying us either like your
hip hop, you're your hip hop or pop culture right,
you know, and now we're more than that.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
It's funny that you actually said that, Charlomagne, because I
grew up in I grew up in La in the jungle, wow.
And my mother used to say to me, Malcolm, we
live in the jungle, We're not of the jungle. So
she was very clear on me having my sights further
(01:49):
than just my neighborhood, which is why she put me
in theater. And it was always trying to find things
for me to do to keep me, you know, from
just going to school and just hanging out, you know.
But it was that it was a certain mindset that
you know, she instilled in me, like Okay, yeah, we're here,
but you know, this doesn't have to define us.
Speaker 8 (02:09):
And you know what, we are often recognized before we
enter into any room and judge right, and sometimes you
get the question that you know means you really don't
belong here. So when that comes, can you yeah, yeah, right,
can I help you?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Right?
Speaker 6 (02:23):
Right?
Speaker 8 (02:24):
Can I help you? Or have I seen you be
here here before? Or what are you doing in this neighborhood. Yes,
that's right one, that's the why, right, what are you
doing this neighbor This is my neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Why are you here? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (02:34):
Why are you jogging here?
Speaker 8 (02:35):
Right?
Speaker 5 (02:36):
That you know that you just happened to my father.
Speaker 8 (02:37):
He would jog in the neighborhood and all the white
neighbors would stop him when we first moved in, and
they would keep on stopping him.
Speaker 5 (02:43):
This back in the seventies.
Speaker 8 (02:44):
So he finally just went to the police station and said,
I just need to introduce myself so that when you
guys stopped me, you know who you are, and it stopped.
But that's kind of an example of what it means
when people perceive you beforehand, and what you have to
do to go outside of the box to keep im
proving who you are over and over again. So this
really is just an ongoing conversation that we have Malcolm
(03:05):
Le's call a safe space, which it is just to
say really what we want about anything about our experiences
in America. And that's really kind of key to it too.
We have people that are from diverse backgrounds, whether they're
from the Caribbean or whether they're from all you know, Africa,
but you come to America and there's kind of a
thread and those are the types of stories that we're
(03:26):
sharing to really change this mass narrative that's already out
there about us creator shift.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
It's a term hood negative though when people say hood
sometimes it comes off as negative. I don't take it
as a negative term. Is it a negative term?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
No? And I think, you know, part of the you know,
the idea of not all hood is hood is not
a negative term. Hood is part of the community. Like
when we speak of the black community, we always tend
to refer to it as if it's a monolist. That's right,
whether there are all these different lanes to the black community,
all these levels, all these different lanes, and oftentimes we
(04:02):
don't have a space where we can actually, you know, discuss,
acknowledge and deal with with all of those levels, all
those lanes. So the hood is not a bad thing.
We're not all you know, we're not Yes, we are hood,
but we're not all hood. And the media, and I
think part of it is the media tends to put
more focus on one aspect of the black community. Thus
(04:24):
we get all the stereotypes and preconceived ideas.
Speaker 6 (04:27):
And hood comes from like neighborhood, neigh right, and day
Love said it. You know, they called the hood because
we're not neighbors anymore, you know what I mean, a
lot of times we're not communicating with each other, right,
but we we're trying to change that.
Speaker 5 (04:41):
I did get that question a lot though, you have
a podcast. Isn't hood negative?
Speaker 8 (04:46):
So I understand where you're coming from. But just like
they said, it's a neighborhood. I mean, I live in
a place where I'm next to a lot of Indian neighborhood,
Indian neighborhood, Jewish neighborhood.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
You can still call it the hood.
Speaker 8 (04:58):
People also associate the word hood we're just us, which really, yeah,
we're black. So it's just one of those things. It's
kind of some damage that the media, the pop culture,
the news has done and really trying to define who
we are.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, I never took it as negative. It was always
going back to the hood, to mean, I'm going back
home to my neighborhood, right exactly wherever it was. I'm
going to play basketball in the hood, which was my neighborhood.
You know, I mean, I never took it as oh
my gosh, it's a place. No, I never took it
at that. I know a lot of people do, but
that was always just like going home, you know.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
Yeah, yeah, And you know, we were talking about this yesterday.
Speaker 8 (05:31):
That also when we talk about being African American, we
talk about the trauma that's associated, like that's really all.
You know, we have diabetes and high blood pressure and
we're dying and the.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
Infomortality rate. But we're happy people too.
Speaker 8 (05:46):
But we make it to the news when it's bad.
You know, we may often make it to the news
when it's bad. And so that's another thing that I
think this podcast does. I think for the three of us,
it's just show the joy and what it's like being
black up and because of the things that are going
out there in this twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Four lord, but yeah, how did the three of you
all come together? How did y'all get together?
Speaker 3 (06:10):
The left?
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Yo? Everything right?
Speaker 3 (06:16):
What you SA and I have been friends for she's
for a minute, a long minute, twenty plus years. We
used to both be at the National Back Theater Festival
in Winstern, Salem and where you and I met in
nineteen ninety nine, and we would put on the first
poetry jam there and that turned out to be one
(06:39):
of the biggest attractions at the theater. We used to
call them midnight poetry Jam. So after you know, all
day of theater, you know, in every imaginable performance space
in the city, then people would come back to the
to our venue and we would pack out at midnight
poetry Jam. It'll just be open mic starting at midnight
(07:01):
and we go to like two two thirty.
Speaker 6 (07:03):
And it was a big attraction, yeah festival, and then
we just kept hanging out. Yeah yeah. And then I
know link with Cannis from I was doing sort of
community organizing and sort of it was a a event
with yea Yeah in Morris Town, New Jersey, and we
(07:30):
connected there just sort of yeah linked And when I
decided that we were going to do this podcast, we're like, yeah,
we need some different voices.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
In yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (07:41):
So and I do a lot of work, a lot
of commentating on various mostly legal cases. I feel in
for rolland Martin to Roland Martin unfiltered and so I'm
always running my mouth and when I got on with them,
I think I ran my mouth for them to say,
you know what, you.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
Want to keep talking with us.
Speaker 8 (07:56):
I was like, I actually do right, So you know,
really and that first conversation we talked about anything from
and word to talking to music. I mean, we were
just on for a long time and it's just a
nice everybody was testifying, you know what I mean, it
really was. It was just a good way to connect
and get to know each other. And the conversation has
been going on ever since.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
But the dope things when Way and I first started
talking when we're both older fathers. So the initial idea
was to do a podcast from the perspective of older
black fathers. So when we first met with Candais, it
was as a producer.
Speaker 5 (08:31):
Yeah, to produce this show, that's right.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
And then we had that meeting, was like, you know,
ninety minutes, this is the show. Yeah, We're like, we
need to add candas as a host and expand the
concept from just you know, the black father perspective. And
it turned into yeah, and.
Speaker 8 (08:46):
I think your wife because your wife is in the
background like that, Yeah, what.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Are some of the topics you guys will be discussing.
Speaker 6 (08:55):
Black fatherhood?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, black.
Speaker 6 (08:59):
Older fathers with younger children.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
How you guys handling that?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Yo?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
What did your older your youngest so youngest?
Speaker 6 (09:10):
Only we only have one because I got a two.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Year old Sol, and then I got a twenty.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Two year old. Fifty three, I got a nine year old.
I got six, he got four.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
I'll be forty six and a couple of weeks my
youngest two. I got a two year old, five year
old year old, and mold is fifteen.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (09:30):
Yeah, so y'all started around when we started.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah, I'm fifty three and my daughter just turned seven.
Speaker 6 (09:36):
Okay, okay, so you'll can have a conversation we're talking about,
you know what I mean, those those days where they
be on, on, go, go, you know what I mean,
and you gotta just wrap your energy up and and
make it happen, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Crazy you say that.
Speaker 7 (09:51):
My homeboy told me that a long time ago, because
you know, all my homeboys had kids way younger than
I did, right, And they was like, man, you gonna
wait till you thirty plus forty to have kids. You're
gonna be running around. He's gonna be hurting, Like, no,
he won't.
Speaker 8 (10:02):
Yes, they are, exactly, but that doesn't some good come
with that, you being older. So yeah, you know, being
a father and not being twenty one, I've been having
growth yourself that you have to go through.
Speaker 7 (10:13):
Oh yeah, my last my two youngest get a version
of me that did not exist ten years ago.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Ten years ago. You know, I spent more of my
adult life in long term relationship, more years of my
adult life in long term relationships than not. And my
wife and I have been together eight and a half
years and not more than two days go by that
I don't give thanks to the universe forgiving me the
(10:41):
wisdom and fortitude to have waited as long as they did.
A lot of people are like, he's never gonna get married,
And I think at some point I probably thought.
Speaker 6 (10:48):
Like we used to have these conversations like Yo, they're
looking at us like we you know, damnage goods, Like
you mean you thirty done and you don't got no kids?
Not married? He got a problem.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Yeah, I mean, it's the best thing, and for me,
it's the best thing I could have bene I would
not have I definitely would not have been as effective
a husband and father had I done this any earlier
with anybody else.
Speaker 7 (11:10):
That is such a great conversation you never hear men have, Like,
that's a conversation you always hear. You know, women have
but so you actually waited like you were actually waiting
for the right.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
How many bullets since thirteen one TV?
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Since thirteen.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
You know, I neoled my way out a lot.
Speaker 7 (11:38):
Your circumstance was different, though, because you didn't know if
people wanted to be with you.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Are they wanted to be with you?
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Know what I mean? There was that because I've been
doing it for so long, I've been really blessed with
a great sense of discerning, So that was never my
issue to be completely transparent. My thing about marriage was like, yo,
I'm not getting married and then given a chick half
of my stuff because I messed up. So I was
(12:03):
very clear that even though there were situations that you know,
we're really you know, pressuring if you will you know,
like that kind of marriage, I was like, nah, because
I knew me. I knew that I wasn't going to
because I wasn't I wasn't given half of my trap
because because I messed up about you.
Speaker 6 (12:23):
It was about just being patient, like I know me,
and I know that, like everybody's gonna be able to
deal with me as a community organizer who like really
understands that the people around me that are close to
me are gonna be okay. My work in life is
to make sure that other people are gonna be okay.
So sometimes I'm I'm a little hard on them. People
(12:45):
that are close. Right, I'm gonna get out and like
they're gonna have to take a back seat sometimes. Right,
That was part of it. And the big part is
like raising my child, the idea of like me getting
married and having a child. You gotta be special, man,
you got to be special. So I love you, Shelley.
Speaker 8 (13:05):
With one show where we have these two and Lamar
Rutcker and I just sit back and I listen. It's
like there could be some people that are taking notes,
some women that are taking notes because they really I
was like, this is some good.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
Like you said, I don't hear that.
Speaker 8 (13:18):
A lot, just talking about fatherhood and just the humility
and how proud they are and then all the rules
and lessons that they learned and the long way while
they were dating. Yeah, it really was a no taking moment.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
It was good.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
You guys have boys or girls?
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Girls?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Oh yeah, yeah, girl, I said that.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
Was kind of suspect.
Speaker 7 (13:38):
Girls different differ.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
It's way different. He has four girls.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
I got four, you know, I love it. Yeah, yeah,
I love it and I deserve it, you.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
Know, they say, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
All of it. How did that change you?
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Having girls?
Speaker 1 (13:56):
I got four girls, Charlamagne's four girls, How does that change.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
You as a father?
Speaker 2 (13:59):
I got to always suit off, but some girls changing.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
So I asked the universe for a girl first. So
even before, even before conception, we were very clear we
were having a girl. And I know that I needed
a girl first to kind of ease me into it
because I'm, you know, I'm I have a pretty good
idea of what kind of father I would be. So
I needed a girl to kind of you know, slow
(14:24):
me down and and and warm and softened me up,
if you will. So for me raising my daughter, I
came into fatherhood already with a certain maturity and uh,
you know, certain understanding of male female dynamics, you know,
(14:48):
and with a girl, all of that starts with the father.
So I've always since she came, since I literally pulled
her out of my wife, I've been focused on, you know,
instilling in her the kind of love that she is
not going to have to go out in the world
(15:08):
and try to find, treating her with a level of
respect at nine months old, that she will that that
that kind of loves normalized. Right. That's always been my
biggest thing. Like we see these girls out here who
(15:29):
don't have a great relationships with the bothers, and you know,
throughout lifetimes we've been with a lot of them, right,
So I knew that the for me, the biggest gift
that I can give my daughter is a sense of self.
So when she goes out into the world, she is
not easily influenced by her surroundings. So since she was
(15:54):
like two years old, you know, someone says to her, Oh,
you're so pretty, You're so cute, You're so beautiful, She'll say,
than when I'm smart too. That's how we run it.
That's the normalization I want her to have in terms
of how she sees herself in characters.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
Absolutely, what you see, Yeah, same thing, Like you know,
it's a it's a humbling space. Giving my daughter like
a different kind of vocabulary that's empowering to her so
that when she inter acts, she knows she's she walks
and talks from position to power.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Absolutely, you know, yet, hold on, can you speak to
that candid?
Speaker 9 (16:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (16:32):
Yeah, I come from a family of three girls and
my father I mean, really just the king of all things.
They know all about my father. I told the story
already today about my father, you know what I mean.
So that is very infused in me and my mother too,
don't get me wrong, but since we're talking about fathers,
all everything that he poured into me, and you know,
sometimes you're doing something you're like, oh, that's my dad,
(16:53):
what I did right there, that's my mom. Like you
can you know when they've poured into it, when you
see you doing things that are just like what they did,
and you don't even realize it. So you don't even
realize what the kids see and don't see. But really,
my parents really allowed me to see all of the
right things they really did, and parents generally are always right,
(17:14):
I mean really like it might be twenty years down.
Speaker 6 (17:16):
The line, we try and my daughter reminds me that
bye bye.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Maybe not Yeah.
Speaker 8 (17:26):
Yeah, it really is powerful to have a powerful father,
to have a presence all the time, even when they're gone.
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Still there.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
I think the funniest thing for girl dads is humbling, right,
meaning I was never in the cheerleading or dance or
any of those sports.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
But now when I take my daughters today.
Speaker 8 (17:46):
Better get out, I be doing a dance moved right.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
It takes you out of that that ego place where
it's like now I'm gonna talk that nah right, I'm safty.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
I think when my daughter was born, I found myself
like crying all the time over like just simple ship
be like I had that touches me.
Speaker 6 (18:13):
Like baby feet and baby dimples.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I was like, what is.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
Oh, they're so cute?
Speaker 6 (18:23):
Man opened up a whole other world.
Speaker 7 (18:26):
It's probably a stupid question, way, but you hate poetry.
You laugh in Baracca? You related?
Speaker 6 (18:31):
No relation?
Speaker 3 (18:32):
No wow, no relation.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
Okay, that's a loute to the barac. I mean all
the great things you know and to know the l dogma.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
Absolutely know Mary.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Now Father's Day is around the corner, do you, guys?
As Father's Day important to you guys as much?
Speaker 3 (18:51):
And for you?
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Is it important as you? Because for myself I just
just want.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
To chill father.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
That don't need too much. This is little barbecue the
kids around, That's all I care about for all this day?
What is it for you guys?
Speaker 8 (19:06):
Well, so my father is passed a couple of years ago.
He died during COVID But you know, thank you so
much and so. But you know my husband, so you know,
I was, you know this morning, all right, we're doing dinner, right,
We're doing another house?
Speaker 5 (19:21):
Are we doing that? We're going out?
Speaker 3 (19:22):
You know.
Speaker 8 (19:22):
It's one of those things where I just like, as
I tell my husband all the time, you know what,
it's not the it's not the birthdays or the Christmas
or there or the holidays that society. I said, just
be good to me on a regular Tuesday, will be good.
But I do remember as my father and he got older,
it was really important because everybody was all over the place.
Everybody goes in their own lives. So it was good
(19:46):
to come back and give him that gift of time
because at some point, you know, you don't need.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
Socks or clothes or TV or car. You don't need that.
Speaker 8 (19:55):
What you want is stuff that's really free time, respect, love,
your energy, your opinion, all of that. So it's good
to come together for all of those things that cost
no money, especially as people get older.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
But that wants to scratch off ticket, you know, there
you go.
Speaker 8 (20:13):
You know what he wants to see you when you
give it to him, You know what I mean, it's
not the ticket.
Speaker 5 (20:19):
Yeah, but if he wins. You know, you gotta work
that out.
Speaker 7 (20:23):
I'm talking about you afraid of being too honest and
too vulnerable on these podcasts in this era, people get
very loose, as we've seen, and people have a certain
image of you.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
You even care about that, So it's interesting. So you know,
I've said that in interviews that this is, you know,
the most vulnerable and I've always been pretty transparent in
my art and my poetry and music. But I don't
I don't worry about it. I got a good taste
of it just this week because we had our first
episode on Monday and we were having conversation about the
(20:57):
N word and I had, you know, I made this's
really interesting, how many people we're not listening to what
I was saying and to my comments as I was,
you know, I was hating on J Cole. So it's
things like that. And then the way the Instagram, the
(21:18):
art of dialogue.
Speaker 9 (21:20):
And other Yeah, the way they worded it, that's the
where were in right, Like, so it was like, oh, right,
this is the reason why I stopped commenting on I
g first thing in the morning.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
Malcolm morning to say he stopped listening to J Cole.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yeah, let's play thet's certain clip here. So people undertake, like,
what are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (21:39):
You playing it in context?
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Context?
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Because I'm sure we don't have to clip off the
other clip. No, so we're in context, Okay.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Dig dig it, dig it. So so many people, you know,
they just ignore the fact that I said, I love
J Cole and I said that most of my favorite
mcs you know, are guilty of the same thing we're
talking about, you know, perpetuating, perpetuating anti black messaging in
our black music. So that was really my point.
Speaker 7 (22:08):
I don't understand. That's when they lose me. How is
that anti How is the N word saying you don't
like the N word anti black messaging? Isn't the N
word anti black?
Speaker 3 (22:17):
That's what I'm saying. My perspective is so much of
our black music today, like you take the Dope beats
away and you just listen to the lyrics. Lyrically, it's
anti black message, you know what I'm saying. And we
talk about you know, so much of you know, hip
hop today that's trash and whatnot. But you know, as
(22:39):
I said before, they grew up listening to what we
were listening to, right, So we are complicit in, you know,
the parts of hip hop today that we don't like
because they grew up listening to us. Listening listening to
the content is the same. The scale set is just whack, right,
which is what makes it stand.
Speaker 6 (22:58):
Out, as they didn't listen to what we were listening to,
you know what I'm saying. But I think that we
also had a broader We listened to music when there
was more than just hip hop. Hip Hop was not
the the juggernaut of music that it is now, right, okay,
(23:19):
Like like yeah, jazz, like like you would, you know,
like we was rocking the salt hall notes, you know
what I mean, and all these other things, right, you.
Speaker 7 (23:29):
Know what I mean?
Speaker 6 (23:30):
Yeah, Like we had these a lot of other influences
that I think the youth of today don't necessarily have
aren't necessarily being uh promoted in terms of yeah, in
terms of balance.
Speaker 7 (23:43):
Yeah, I get exactly what you're saying, because even the
other genres now are hip.
Speaker 6 (23:46):
Hop, right what I'm saying, Like, you know, it's countries,
a little bit of hip hop, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
And so much of it, so much of the hip
hop that gets the shine, you know, it's it's the
anti black message, but that's very rarely. There are not
many hip hop songs that are speaking love to our people.
Most of it is very threatening.
Speaker 6 (24:08):
But is that the artists or is that the industry?
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Both okay, and the end the result is the same.
The the the psyche on young black boys and girls,
there's the same whether it's the wather.
Speaker 6 (24:25):
But if it's young black boys and girl, that's on
the parents.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Yeah, sure, but all parents don't. All parents. There's a
certain luxury that you and I have in terms of
the time that we and our wives can spend with
our daughters, right, but everybody everybody that all families don't
have that. So we're not talking about uh psyche of
young black kids who have their parents very involved in
(24:49):
their lives and showing them balance. We're talking about the
ones who were.
Speaker 6 (24:54):
Let's hold them accountable to the messages. My fault.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
This is the This is like I don't think would
you say J Cole had the anti black message?
Speaker 3 (25:07):
No, so so for me because nigga has become you know,
it's become the staple in hip hop, like it's got
to be a nigga bitch. That's why I said in
that clip. I think there should be a moratorium on
both of those words in hip hop because it's it's
at this point, it's corny, it's lazy. Everybody is using it.
So let's like, you know, you know, there are so
(25:28):
many brilliant writers and lyricists out there that it's like,
come on, let's let's let's stop our game. We don't
have to keep doing If everybody's doing it, then come
on do something different, you know. So my thing with
with with J Cole, it just I just got to
a point where I got tired of, you know, hearing
inward or being called inward in every hip hop song
(25:50):
I'm listening to. And I mentioned J Cole because I
love J Cole and he's such an and an incredible
lyrics that when I hear him just gratuitously use either
those words, I'm like, ah, I mean kind of you
know that I have to tune out. Yeah, doesn't mean
(26:10):
doesn't mean I like J Cole or respect his artistry,
his his pen game any less, I just go, all right,
I'm kind of I gotta tune out because it's not
it's not doing, it's not bringing, it's not feeding me.
Speaker 7 (26:24):
So what about the album like because and this is
the album that I say in the future is gonna
be two of the most important albums of all time.
Miss Kendrick Lamar and mister Morale in the Big Steps
jay Z four for four. The things that they're discussing
on this album, black men going to therapy, black men
doing right by the women. You know, uh, issues with
our father daddy, issues that we fix. Like, to me,
(26:46):
those themes are bigger than the language that they use.
Even you look at somebody like Tupac. To me, Tupac's
themes were bigger than the language he was using.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
People keep saying that about Tupac, but like, and I
don't want to get too a whole thing about it
about but yeah, I listened to his I mean, listen
to There's There's Dear Mama, Brenda's got a baby, keep
your head up. And then everything else is not everything.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
This changes this you got got a bunch of but
you know, you know what this conversation sounds like. It
sounds like, you know where you're younger and your father said, oh,
you listen to that hippie hoppity rap. There's a lot
of positivity. All the positive artists out there that.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Are spitting right.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
But if we're listening to music, those same artists had
the same problem. If you think about tyleb Quality never
got on radio, Most Death never got on radio. Tribe
called Quest hardly got on radio. We talked about a
lot of those positive rappers. It was the same thing
back then.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Those artists might have a record or too.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Tell him didn't get on radio too. He did a
record to jay Z hopped on the single just to
get by the time record, but it took him a
long time to get on record. Most definim didn't get
really on radio. To what miss Fat Fat Bulty. So
a lot of the things that we're talking about with
the same thing coming rarely got on you know what
I mean.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
But it's the same thing.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
It's the same thing as what we push Like back then,
who's on radio, Biggie t.
Speaker 7 (28:15):
I, you know, like they had social records with socially
redeeming value.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
But the records on radio.
Speaker 7 (28:22):
Like my dad used to always try to get me
to listen to the Honorable Minutes to Lewis farra Coon
and I would sort of reluctantly when I heard Biggie
say deep like the mind of Farrakhn. I'm like, oh,
that's the brother my daddy's always trying to get me.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
So now I really like he was speaking to you.
Speaker 7 (28:38):
Yeah, d Baron CON's a prophet. I think you ought
to listen to it, like, oh, let me pay attention.
So even with the language of a biggie or whoever,
they can still deliver messaging that makes you get in
the right direction.
Speaker 6 (28:51):
Lauren says, what's the line, right, So.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
You're ignorant trying to say, but also what what What
I have to be mindful of as well? Is politics,
not even not not even that, because that's a whole
nother relation, right, But it's more I realized that it's
(29:17):
way more productive across the board and for my my
own energy in space is instead of spending time talking
about the trash, talking about the things that I don't
like and I think we're all guilty of, we talked
about the negative. But I'm trying to be more mindful,
(29:38):
like even in my in my conversations with hip hop,
be mindful of well, instead of talking about the same thing,
which is the negative, let me spend time highlighting what
I like or like what I love about hip hop?
That right, you know, I write hard for Mumbo Fresh
all day, but even just that, like yeah, thinking about
(30:01):
you know, Norman SONISTCTED. I finally reposted on on Instagram
like seeing these cats I believe really need to have shine?
What stuff complaining that they don't have shine? I got
social media, Like now I can actually, you know, give
shine to those And I've got I got a following,
I've got a voice, you know, I've got integrity, uh,
(30:22):
a reputation for integrity going for me, so like why
not just use that and spend more time, you know,
speaking about the giving love to the things that make
me feel good.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
But I also think I have evolution to right, you know,
because I went to Hampton. When I used to drive
to Hampton, I'm listening to noise because it's keeping me up.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
What what what?
Speaker 2 (30:41):
And I'm thinking I'm the biggest what.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
But then when you get a little older.
Speaker 7 (30:46):
You'd be like, that's a little noise, right, let me
talk about something like listening to it when I'm working
up from the south workout.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
But I also grew up on Goodie mob, you know.
Speaker 6 (30:58):
And I think, you know, it's we've got more of
a balance right as we get older than one. We've
got we've been exposed to more music, right, So it's
it's a little different now, you know. I mean like
they still in the throes of what's hot, you know
what I mean. The how we access music is different now, correct,
because they're just like yo, you know, point click, right,
and it's not necessarily about what's on the radio. It's
(31:20):
about what they want to listen to.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Which is they've got direct access to that.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
You know, can don't want to ask from a woman's perspective,
you know what I find interesting?
Speaker 7 (31:28):
Right, you know, we have these conversations, but I will
never forget Snoop Dogg and DMX's versus right when they
did their verses, I think it was during COVID and
I remember thinking, oh, this is going tonight, that boy
they finally listened to Snoop and DMX and it's gonna
be a woke cancel fest on Twitter. But there was
people in the comments, the same people I usually see
(31:48):
trying to cancel people loving it. Right, Yeah, but how
does that make you feel knowing you came up in
that era of the nineties, Is it conflicting that you know?
Speaker 5 (31:57):
Not at all?
Speaker 8 (31:57):
And I'm right in the middle with them in terms
of won, the N word and just this whole idea
of music and what it represents, because I know so
I love Wu Tang, and when I listen to them,
I get like a good energy out, not just work out,
but when something goes wrong sometimes that music allows you
to let stuff out, you know that you just couldn't
(32:17):
get out in the day when you're with your peers
or when you're on the streets, you just in the
car loud with it. And then I also think it's
how were we brought up and what do we bring
to the table. So the N word, for example, I mean,
I don't know how you were introduced to it, ever,
but that's shaped probably what the word means to you,
and same with me probably saying to you. And we
(32:37):
all have different things that we bring to the table,
just culturally, and I think that just shifts. And I'm
a firm believer in the First Amendment, like all the way,
because once you start saying no here and no here,
then I'm giving somebody else the authority to say no
to me one day too, And I don't want that precedent.
I don't want them saying, well, you can't say this,
and you can't say that just because of the content
(32:59):
of it or the context of it. We don't like
it at all. It's like when they try to bring
up rack lyrics when they go to jail in court. Right,
I mean, that doesn't make any sense. We all have
the same equal First Amendment rights and you should fight
for them and use them equally.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Let me ask you a question. Yeah, TikToker, yesterday I
seen it online. She said the N word, right, she
got fired from her regular job.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Oh, this was the girl who was cooking that young lady.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yes, and in her comments she was also white by
the way, yes, right, critical.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
But this is where I'm gonna close it.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
She said on her TikTok that she didn't apologize because
it was her first right amendment to say what she
wanted to say, and she shouldn't have got fired. What's
your thoughts on somebody like that it is her first
right amendment?
Speaker 5 (33:42):
Yeah, but then there are three different rules.
Speaker 8 (33:44):
There's First Amendment rules on TikTok, there's First Amendment rules
at her work, and then that's her own rules of
what she believes about the N word, and all of
them conflicted, and she.
Speaker 5 (33:52):
Got exactly what she deserves.
Speaker 8 (33:54):
She did, but then that's what happened. That's why you
do have to be careful with it, right. You can't
be on TikTok it. I mean, this is a good example.
Person person, No, no, you can't. So you just have
to really understand how to use the First Amendment to
So for example, if you're the KKK, you can walk
march anywhere in America, you just have to get the permit.
Speaker 5 (34:14):
You can't walk on your own. You have to follow
the rules. She didn't follow the rules.
Speaker 8 (34:19):
She she she didn't follow her own hr rules at work,
and that.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Was her problem. She did.
Speaker 5 (34:25):
That's right, like you said.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
It's also where you came from, right, because the N
word was a sign of endearment, sure something. It was
that you know, you really didn't hear the extremes of
it until I went to Hampton in the South, and
you'll be like, oh no, they're not saying it as
right right right, And that's right.
Speaker 6 (34:47):
Right different ways, And that's sort of been part, you know,
part of my argument. For a lot of people, it's
a term of endearment like it's love. There are more
interactions that are using the word that are about love
and that are about disrespect. So you know, and yes
we know the history of it. We also know that
that's mine.
Speaker 7 (35:07):
But I also grew up reading stuff I grew up,
you know, Message to the Black Man by Elijah Muhammad
Bier of Malcolm Back, you know, a great book called
From Niggas to God.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
I think every black man in America should read that.
Speaker 7 (35:18):
It's always been I've always been conflicted about using the
work because I don't use it as a term.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
If it did, right, I use it using when Chris
Rock showed me the difference. I use it for that, right.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Right, there's a I think last time I was here,
I quoted doctor Daniel Black, and I'm going to quote
him again. He says, why should I borrow a word
from people who hate me when I'm trying to speak
love to my brothers and sisters? Right, So I go
back to uh to comrade, you know the term black
(35:52):
panther Party used Reggie Mason, you know, brought it back
up to me. So I've been on this this comrade campaign. Know,
if I'm trying to speak love to my brother, will comrade,
I get the idea of you know, the N word
is a term of endearment, but it's a colonizers word, so.
Speaker 6 (36:08):
Whole language is colonized, so that like like, it's not
our language. English is not our language.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Sure, but I'm not, but I'm not going to use it.
I I'm at the point of my life where I question,
what's the what's the sense in using a colonizer's word
which was a uh, intentionally derogatory word to describe us?
Why do I want to borrow that particular word and
go through the the hoops of Oh it's it's positive
(36:35):
so for me and this so just for me personally,
I'm I'm comrade, you know, and and I use it
in both scenarios. That's my comrade to them. Anytime.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
You also said, we showed our co drout.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Hip hop, and.
Speaker 6 (37:06):
It's uh industry wise, it's sort of the bigger picture,
right because they did it the jazz like they co
opted it and used it for their own purposes.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
But there wasn't messages and jazz that were going to
have an effect. I mean, black people see them.
Speaker 6 (37:23):
I mean yeah, I mean we sort ourself out. But
I also feel like from a macro perspective, this is
going to be the civil rights movement created a lot
of opportunities, and it shifted the mentality that made many
(37:43):
of us very passive.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
You know.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
Though, Yeah, I feel like I integrated my people into
a burning.
Speaker 6 (37:52):
House, into a burning house, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
We had it.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
It was more of a sent of independence. Yeah, I
get what you're saying. Go people's.
Speaker 6 (38:06):
Argument, man, my godfather, don't call me and be like
young man. I like, you know, yeah, like it's.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
It's heavy. It's a lot.
Speaker 6 (38:18):
And I'm like, ah, you got me a pinch right now.
Speaker 5 (38:22):
I didn't what you said. You said that sold ourselves out, okay.
In terms of music on the podcast, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
I mean even I mean, you know, there was a
term and hip hop artists talk about it when the
record labels say to them, this is what you have
to rap about, and this is what we're paying for
you to wrap.
Speaker 8 (38:39):
Right.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
So it's you know, and again I say, in a
lot of ways, we are generation. You know, we are
complicit in what we see, you know, the state of
hip hop. Uh in the younger generation, that's you know,
we allowed that. And for the dollars tu, I'm gonna
(39:01):
get a T shirt that says, you know.
Speaker 7 (39:05):
We had when Snoop was here, This was a few
years ago. We had a conversation about that because that's
always been on my mind as I got noted like
damn see the Lord stuck. It was actually right, and
Snoop said she was, but it was the way she
was coming at us.
Speaker 6 (39:21):
And again it's back to that First Amendment thing too,
you know what I mean, Like it's a layered conversation,
like you can't tell me. I can say, like, where
are you going to control my tongue like that? You know,
I'm an artist, Yeah, let me do what I do.
Speaker 8 (39:36):
And so and telling yourself out means such a different
thing years ago than to you know, a lot of
it had to do with people not even being informed,
right educated on what they could could not do, their rights,
whether it was publishing, whether there was First Amendment rights,
whether it was their right to own a certain right.
(39:58):
You know that they should have owned advances. Now these
days people are smarter. So when we say that people
sell themselves out, I mean it's negative. But along the way,
you should be selling something right. You should be you know,
in the marketplace, you should be the monopoly that.
Speaker 5 (40:14):
You want to be in the process.
Speaker 8 (40:15):
So I'm glad the times are changed, right, but it's
definitely different when we talk about who we are today.
We are more informed in terms of and so we're
making more decisions, which is which is a good takeaway
when we're looking back at what was happening in the nineties.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
But some of the times, have you understand, Like we
had an artist a pitty other day. His name was
Rob four nineties from Louisiana, and he said he signed
a deal so he.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Could get out of the hood.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
He knew that if he was still there.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
It would be problems for him, his family's mother and
all that.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
So he had to do the deal to get out
of it. And I know even with hip hop back then,
a lot of artists that's the same, right, that was their.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Only way out, right. Their music was great and they
didn't know anything out.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
Of it, that's right.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
So people consider that selling selling me a soul, selling.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Themselves out for them, they look like, look, I'm just
trying to get out the hoods one, that's.
Speaker 5 (41:00):
Right, And if they had more information that would have
been better off.
Speaker 8 (41:03):
That's all access, Yeah, accessing opportunities.
Speaker 4 (41:07):
I got a couple of questions.
Speaker 7 (41:08):
I want people debscribe to the podcast, but when it
comes to TV and movies. Do you have the same
discretion with the N word and the bware?
Speaker 3 (41:17):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like if it's if it's
I mean in terms of using it, in terms of
my use of it, or the industry's use of it both.
So I think I am I'm against the gratuitous use
of the words. So like, I understand all of the
arguments and all of the defending, but I think what's
(41:38):
getting lost is I'm referring to the gratuitous use of it. Sure,
we can talk all day about there are some circumstances
where that word is the only thing that really you know,
So I'm aware of all of that. But my my
issue was, I said, it's the gratuitous use.
Speaker 8 (41:57):
Of it because I would imagine right that if you
get a tight script that takes place in the nineteen sixties,
what else scripts don't have the words?
Speaker 7 (42:06):
Right?
Speaker 5 (42:06):
So right, that's that's different.
Speaker 8 (42:08):
And that's what we talk about a lot amongst the
three of us is that it does have a place.
We can't just erase that of history, right, It has
a place. You cannot do certain things without the word
coming up. It's just where you place it in your
own life.
Speaker 5 (42:23):
And that's where you play.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
But I can't go do an August Wilson play period,
you know what I'm saying. So I get all of that.
I think my issue is along with the I go
back to anti black messaging and our music, the gratuitous
use of the N word. It's just, you know, it's
just for me. I'm just like, you know, enough already.
(42:47):
And again I said enough already. But then I also
go back to, you know, there's so many incredible lyricists
who have proven their pin game is top notch, and
I go, well, just like, elevate the shit if all
these corny motherfuckers are using nigg and bitch in all
of their lyrics and then don't elevate the shit, like
show them. And also when we're in our forties and
(43:10):
fifties still rapping the same shit we were wrapping in
our twenties, it's like that's not even you know, like
like show me some growth, right, like if you're not
even giving me any integrity in your art an evolution evolution, yeah,
and growth, And I like I just can't and it's
not feeding my soul. Can't do it.
Speaker 4 (43:28):
I get you.
Speaker 7 (43:29):
I want to ask you one question about respectability politics
because you brought it up. The thing about respectability politics,
what if the person you're respecting is just truly yourself.
Speaker 4 (43:39):
You're just policing yourself.
Speaker 7 (43:41):
You're saying about respecting the white man and the system,
but trying to make the system comfortable.
Speaker 4 (43:45):
I'm just respecting myself. Is that still respectability politics?
Speaker 3 (43:48):
So I bring it up all the time because whenever
we're talking about that, people go to, well, it doesn't
matter what people think about us, Like I'm even talking
about white people. I'm talking about our own level of
self respect. So that's all. Always that's always the take
that I bring up, But then it goes it always
the conversation always leads back to claiming respectability.
Speaker 5 (44:09):
No agreed.
Speaker 8 (44:10):
You know, we have this conversation often where you know,
you go out, you're not even worrying about any other
race until somebody reminds you. So most of the things
you're doing, I'm just doing inside of myself.
Speaker 5 (44:21):
I'm not really concerned about that echo what he says.
Speaker 6 (44:25):
I mean, those are very specific and nuanced situations. Each
it's situational, right. I think that we've gotta center ourselves first.
I think it's time that you know, we put black
folks at the front and really center how we move
(44:47):
and making our movements based around the greater good, the
respectability politics. It happens. It's a it's a reality of
American culture, and some people choose to engage and some
people don't.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
You don't seem like the type that's gonna have to
engage with.
Speaker 6 (45:13):
I love my people, I love my people.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
And well, the podcast Not All Hood is streaming everywhere
and I appreciate you guys for joining us. Malcolm, Jamal Warner,
where you see Baraka and Kandas Kelly. Thank you guys
so much. It's Breakfast, Good morning, Wake.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
That ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club
Wake that ass up in the morning, The Breakfast Club Morning.
Everybody is the j n V. Just Hilarie Charlamage the guy.
We are the Breakfast Club. We got some special guests
in the building from the Not All Hood podcast. We
have Malcolm Jamore Warner where you see Baraka and Candice Kelly.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome you, Hey, good.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
To see you.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
How the brothers and sister feeling were good? Life's good?
Speaker 5 (00:25):
Yeah, good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yeah, that's about here, y'all just.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
Moved into It was the first interview in our new studio.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Wow, man, I love the name Not All Hood?
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Nah?
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Who came up with that?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
That was what you'll see?
Speaker 6 (00:39):
Yeah, I don't even remember for real, for real, Like
I was just like, uh nah, Like Malcolm and I
have been talking about just the concept of the podcast
and how the diversity and who we are and also
who we're not, right, So I was like, nah.
Speaker 7 (00:57):
Nah, Yeah, it feels like that was might say all
black people from the hood?
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Nah exactly?
Speaker 7 (01:05):
Is it that where a lot of people come from
poor and disenfranchised environments, but we are not our environment?
Speaker 6 (01:11):
Like it's just that we come from a bunch of
different environments, you know. And I feel like, you know,
a lot of media to portraying us either like your
hip hop, you're your hip hop or pop culture right,
you know, and now we're more than that.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
It's funny that you actually said that, Charlomagne, because I
grew up in I grew up in La in the jungle, wow.
And my mother used to say to me, Malcolm, we
live in the jungle, We're not of the jungle. So
she was very clear on me having my sights further
(01:49):
than just my neighborhood, which is why she put me
in theater. And it was always trying to find things
for me to do to keep me, you know, from
just going to school and just hanging out, you know.
But it was that it was a certain mindset that
you know, she instilled in me, like Okay, yeah, we're here,
but you know, this doesn't have to define us.
Speaker 8 (02:09):
And you know what, we are often recognized before we
enter into any room and judge right, and sometimes you
get the question that you know means you really don't
belong here. So when that comes, can you yeah, yeah, right,
can I help you?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Right?
Speaker 6 (02:23):
Right?
Speaker 8 (02:24):
Can I help you? Or have I seen you be
here here before? Or what are you doing in this neighborhood. Yes,
that's right one, that's the why, right, what are you
doing this neighbor This is my neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Why are you here? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (02:34):
Why are you jogging here?
Speaker 8 (02:35):
Right?
Speaker 5 (02:36):
That you know that you just happened to my father.
Speaker 8 (02:37):
He would jog in the neighborhood and all the white
neighbors would stop him when we first moved in, and
they would keep on stopping him.
Speaker 5 (02:43):
This back in the seventies.
Speaker 8 (02:44):
So he finally just went to the police station and said,
I just need to introduce myself so that when you
guys stopped me, you know who you are, and it stopped.
But that's kind of an example of what it means
when people perceive you beforehand, and what you have to
do to go outside of the box to keep im
proving who you are over and over again. So this
really is just an ongoing conversation that we have Malcolm
(03:05):
Le's call a safe space, which it is just to
say really what we want about anything about our experiences
in America. And that's really kind of key to it too.
We have people that are from diverse backgrounds, whether they're
from the Caribbean or whether they're from all you know, Africa,
but you come to America and there's kind of a
thread and those are the types of stories that we're
(03:26):
sharing to really change this mass narrative that's already out
there about us creator shift.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
It's a term hood negative though when people say hood
sometimes it comes off as negative. I don't take it
as a negative term. Is it a negative term?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
No? And I think, you know, part of the you know,
the idea of not all hood is hood is not
a negative term. Hood is part of the community. Like
when we speak of the black community, we always tend
to refer to it as if it's a monolist. That's right,
whether there are all these different lanes to the black community,
all these levels, all these different lanes, and oftentimes we
(04:02):
don't have a space where we can actually, you know, discuss,
acknowledge and deal with with all of those levels, all
those lanes. So the hood is not a bad thing.
We're not all you know, we're not Yes, we are hood,
but we're not all hood. And the media, and I
think part of it is the media tends to put
more focus on one aspect of the black community. Thus
(04:24):
we get all the stereotypes and preconceived ideas.
Speaker 6 (04:27):
And hood comes from like neighborhood, neigh right, and day
Love said it. You know, they called the hood because
we're not neighbors anymore, you know what I mean, a
lot of times we're not communicating with each other, right,
but we we're trying to change that.
Speaker 5 (04:41):
I did get that question a lot though, you have
a podcast. Isn't hood negative?
Speaker 8 (04:46):
So I understand where you're coming from. But just like
they said, it's a neighborhood. I mean, I live in
a place where I'm next to a lot of Indian neighborhood,
Indian neighborhood, Jewish neighborhood.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
You can still call it the hood.
Speaker 8 (04:58):
People also associate the word hood we're just us, which really, yeah,
we're black. So it's just one of those things. It's
kind of some damage that the media, the pop culture,
the news has done and really trying to define who
we are.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, I never took it as negative. It was always
going back to the hood, to mean, I'm going back
home to my neighborhood, right exactly wherever it was. I'm
going to play basketball in the hood, which was my neighborhood.
You know, I mean, I never took it as oh
my gosh, it's a place. No, I never took it
at that. I know a lot of people do, but
that was always just like going home, you know.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
Yeah, yeah, And you know, we were talking about this yesterday.
Speaker 8 (05:31):
That also when we talk about being African American, we
talk about the trauma that's associated, like that's really all.
You know, we have diabetes and high blood pressure and
we're dying and the.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
Infomortality rate. But we're happy people too.
Speaker 8 (05:46):
But we make it to the news when it's bad.
You know, we may often make it to the news
when it's bad. And so that's another thing that I
think this podcast does. I think for the three of us,
it's just show the joy and what it's like being
black up and because of the things that are going
out there in this twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Four lord, but yeah, how did the three of you
all come together? How did y'all get together?
Speaker 3 (06:10):
The left?
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Yo? Everything right?
Speaker 3 (06:16):
What you SA and I have been friends for she's
for a minute, a long minute, twenty plus years. We
used to both be at the National Back Theater Festival
in Winstern, Salem and where you and I met in
nineteen ninety nine, and we would put on the first
poetry jam there and that turned out to be one
(06:39):
of the biggest attractions at the theater. We used to
call them midnight poetry Jam. So after you know, all
day of theater, you know, in every imaginable performance space
in the city, then people would come back to the
to our venue and we would pack out at midnight
poetry Jam. It'll just be open mic starting at midnight
(07:01):
and we go to like two two thirty.
Speaker 6 (07:03):
And it was a big attraction, yeah festival, and then
we just kept hanging out. Yeah yeah. And then I
know link with Cannis from I was doing sort of
community organizing and sort of it was a a event
with yea Yeah in Morris Town, New Jersey, and we
(07:30):
connected there just sort of yeah linked And when I
decided that we were going to do this podcast, we're like, yeah,
we need some different voices.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
In yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (07:41):
So and I do a lot of work, a lot
of commentating on various mostly legal cases. I feel in
for rolland Martin to Roland Martin unfiltered and so I'm
always running my mouth and when I got on with them,
I think I ran my mouth for them to say,
you know what, you.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
Want to keep talking with us.
Speaker 8 (07:56):
I was like, I actually do right, So you know,
really and that first conversation we talked about anything from
and word to talking to music. I mean, we were
just on for a long time and it's just a
nice everybody was testifying, you know what I mean, it
really was. It was just a good way to connect
and get to know each other. And the conversation has
been going on ever since.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
But the dope things when Way and I first started
talking when we're both older fathers. So the initial idea
was to do a podcast from the perspective of older
black fathers. So when we first met with Candais, it
was as a producer.
Speaker 5 (08:31):
Yeah, to produce this show, that's right.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
And then we had that meeting, was like, you know,
ninety minutes, this is the show. Yeah, We're like, we
need to add candas as a host and expand the
concept from just you know, the black father perspective. And
it turned into yeah, and.
Speaker 8 (08:46):
I think your wife because your wife is in the
background like that, Yeah, what.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Are some of the topics you guys will be discussing.
Speaker 6 (08:55):
Black fatherhood?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, black.
Speaker 6 (08:59):
Older fathers with younger children.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
How you guys handling that?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Yo?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
What did your older your youngest so youngest?
Speaker 6 (09:10):
Only we only have one because I got a two.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Year old Sol, and then I got a twenty.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Two year old. Fifty three, I got a nine year old.
I got six, he got four.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
I'll be forty six and a couple of weeks my
youngest two. I got a two year old, five year
old year old, and mold is fifteen.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (09:30):
Yeah, so y'all started around when we started.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah, I'm fifty three and my daughter just turned seven.
Speaker 6 (09:36):
Okay, okay, so you'll can have a conversation we're talking about,
you know what I mean, those those days where they
be on, on, go, go, you know what I mean,
and you gotta just wrap your energy up and and
make it happen, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Crazy you say that.
Speaker 7 (09:51):
My homeboy told me that a long time ago, because
you know, all my homeboys had kids way younger than
I did, right, And they was like, man, you gonna
wait till you thirty plus forty to have kids. You're
gonna be running around. He's gonna be hurting, Like, no,
he won't.
Speaker 8 (10:02):
Yes, they are, exactly, but that doesn't some good come
with that, you being older. So yeah, you know, being
a father and not being twenty one, I've been having
growth yourself that you have to go through.
Speaker 7 (10:13):
Oh yeah, my last my two youngest get a version
of me that did not exist ten years ago.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Ten years ago. You know, I spent more of my
adult life in long term relationship, more years of my
adult life in long term relationships than not. And my
wife and I have been together eight and a half
years and not more than two days go by that
I don't give thanks to the universe forgiving me the
(10:41):
wisdom and fortitude to have waited as long as they did.
A lot of people are like, he's never gonna get married,
And I think at some point I probably thought.
Speaker 6 (10:48):
Like we used to have these conversations like Yo, they're
looking at us like we you know, damnage goods, Like
you mean you thirty done and you don't got no kids?
Not married? He got a problem.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Yeah, I mean, it's the best thing, and for me,
it's the best thing I could have bene I would
not have I definitely would not have been as effective
a husband and father had I done this any earlier
with anybody else.
Speaker 7 (11:10):
That is such a great conversation you never hear men have, Like,
that's a conversation you always hear. You know, women have
but so you actually waited like you were actually waiting
for the right.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
How many bullets since thirteen one TV?
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Since thirteen.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
You know, I neoled my way out a lot.
Speaker 7 (11:38):
Your circumstance was different, though, because you didn't know if
people wanted to be with you.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Are they wanted to be with you?
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Know what I mean? There was that because I've been
doing it for so long, I've been really blessed with
a great sense of discerning, So that was never my
issue to be completely transparent. My thing about marriage was like, yo,
I'm not getting married and then given a chick half
of my stuff because I messed up. So I was
(12:03):
very clear that even though there were situations that you know,
we're really you know, pressuring if you will you know,
like that kind of marriage, I was like, nah, because
I knew me. I knew that I wasn't going to
because I wasn't I wasn't given half of my trap
because because I messed up about you.
Speaker 6 (12:23):
It was about just being patient, like I know me,
and I know that, like everybody's gonna be able to
deal with me as a community organizer who like really
understands that the people around me that are close to
me are gonna be okay. My work in life is
to make sure that other people are gonna be okay.
So sometimes I'm I'm a little hard on them. People
(12:45):
that are close. Right, I'm gonna get out and like
they're gonna have to take a back seat sometimes. Right,
That was part of it. And the big part is
like raising my child, the idea of like me getting
married and having a child. You gotta be special, man,
you got to be special. So I love you, Shelley.
Speaker 8 (13:05):
With one show where we have these two and Lamar
Rutcker and I just sit back and I listen. It's
like there could be some people that are taking notes,
some women that are taking notes because they really I
was like, this is some good.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
Like you said, I don't hear that.
Speaker 8 (13:18):
A lot, just talking about fatherhood and just the humility
and how proud they are and then all the rules
and lessons that they learned and the long way while
they were dating. Yeah, it really was a no taking moment.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
It was good.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
You guys have boys or girls?
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Girls?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Oh yeah, yeah, girl, I said that.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
Was kind of suspect.
Speaker 7 (13:38):
Girls different differ.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
It's way different. He has four girls.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
I got four, you know, I love it. Yeah, yeah,
I love it and I deserve it, you.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
Know, they say, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
All of it. How did that change you?
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Having girls?
Speaker 1 (13:56):
I got four girls, Charlamagne's four girls, How does that change.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
You as a father?
Speaker 2 (13:59):
I got to always suit off, but some girls changing.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
So I asked the universe for a girl first. So
even before, even before conception, we were very clear we
were having a girl. And I know that I needed
a girl first to kind of ease me into it
because I'm, you know, I'm I have a pretty good
idea of what kind of father I would be. So
I needed a girl to kind of you know, slow
(14:24):
me down and and and warm and softened me up,
if you will. So for me raising my daughter, I
came into fatherhood already with a certain maturity and uh,
you know, certain understanding of male female dynamics, you know,
(14:48):
and with a girl, all of that starts with the father.
So I've always since she came, since I literally pulled
her out of my wife, I've been focused on, you know,
instilling in her the kind of love that she is
not going to have to go out in the world
(15:08):
and try to find, treating her with a level of
respect at nine months old, that she will that that
that kind of loves normalized. Right. That's always been my
biggest thing. Like we see these girls out here who
(15:29):
don't have a great relationships with the bothers, and you know,
throughout lifetimes we've been with a lot of them, right,
So I knew that the for me, the biggest gift
that I can give my daughter is a sense of self.
So when she goes out into the world, she is
not easily influenced by her surroundings. So since she was
(15:54):
like two years old, you know, someone says to her, Oh,
you're so pretty, You're so cute, You're so beautiful, She'll say,
than when I'm smart too. That's how we run it.
That's the normalization I want her to have in terms
of how she sees herself in characters.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
Absolutely, what you see, Yeah, same thing, Like you know,
it's a it's a humbling space. Giving my daughter like
a different kind of vocabulary that's empowering to her so
that when she inter acts, she knows she's she walks
and talks from position to power.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Absolutely, you know, yet, hold on, can you speak to
that candid?
Speaker 9 (16:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (16:32):
Yeah, I come from a family of three girls and
my father I mean, really just the king of all things.
They know all about my father. I told the story
already today about my father, you know what I mean.
So that is very infused in me and my mother too,
don't get me wrong, but since we're talking about fathers,
all everything that he poured into me, and you know,
sometimes you're doing something you're like, oh, that's my dad,
(16:53):
what I did right there, that's my mom. Like you
can you know when they've poured into it, when you
see you doing things that are just like what they did,
and you don't even realize it. So you don't even
realize what the kids see and don't see. But really,
my parents really allowed me to see all of the
right things they really did, and parents generally are always right,
(17:14):
I mean really like it might be twenty years down.
Speaker 6 (17:16):
The line, we try and my daughter reminds me that
bye bye.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Maybe not Yeah.
Speaker 8 (17:26):
Yeah, it really is powerful to have a powerful father,
to have a presence all the time, even when they're gone.
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Still there.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
I think the funniest thing for girl dads is humbling, right,
meaning I was never in the cheerleading or dance or
any of those sports.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
But now when I take my daughters today.
Speaker 8 (17:46):
Better get out, I be doing a dance moved right.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
It takes you out of that that ego place where
it's like now I'm gonna talk that nah right, I'm safty.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
I think when my daughter was born, I found myself
like crying all the time over like just simple ship
be like I had that touches me.
Speaker 6 (18:13):
Like baby feet and baby dimples.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I was like, what is.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
Oh, they're so cute?
Speaker 6 (18:23):
Man opened up a whole other world.
Speaker 7 (18:26):
It's probably a stupid question, way, but you hate poetry.
You laugh in Baracca? You related?
Speaker 6 (18:31):
No relation?
Speaker 3 (18:32):
No wow, no relation.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
Okay, that's a loute to the barac. I mean all
the great things you know and to know the l dogma.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
Absolutely know Mary.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Now Father's Day is around the corner, do you, guys?
As Father's Day important to you guys as much?
Speaker 3 (18:51):
And for you?
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Is it important as you? Because for myself I just
just want.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
To chill father.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
That don't need too much. This is little barbecue the
kids around, That's all I care about for all this day?
What is it for you guys?
Speaker 8 (19:06):
Well, so my father is passed a couple of years ago.
He died during COVID But you know, thank you so
much and so. But you know my husband, so you know,
I was, you know this morning, all right, we're doing dinner, right,
We're doing another house?
Speaker 5 (19:21):
Are we doing that? We're going out?
Speaker 3 (19:22):
You know.
Speaker 8 (19:22):
It's one of those things where I just like, as
I tell my husband all the time, you know what,
it's not the it's not the birthdays or the Christmas
or there or the holidays that society. I said, just
be good to me on a regular Tuesday, will be good.
But I do remember as my father and he got older,
it was really important because everybody was all over the place.
Everybody goes in their own lives. So it was good
(19:46):
to come back and give him that gift of time
because at some point, you know, you don't need.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
Socks or clothes or TV or car. You don't need that.
Speaker 8 (19:55):
What you want is stuff that's really free time, respect, love,
your energy, your opinion, all of that. So it's good
to come together for all of those things that cost
no money, especially as people get older.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
But that wants to scratch off ticket, you know, there
you go.
Speaker 8 (20:13):
You know what he wants to see you when you
give it to him, You know what I mean, it's
not the ticket.
Speaker 5 (20:19):
Yeah, but if he wins. You know, you gotta work
that out.
Speaker 7 (20:23):
I'm talking about you afraid of being too honest and
too vulnerable on these podcasts in this era, people get
very loose, as we've seen, and people have a certain
image of you.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
You even care about that, So it's interesting. So you know,
I've said that in interviews that this is, you know,
the most vulnerable and I've always been pretty transparent in
my art and my poetry and music. But I don't
I don't worry about it. I got a good taste
of it just this week because we had our first
episode on Monday and we were having conversation about the
(20:57):
N word and I had, you know, I made this's
really interesting, how many people we're not listening to what
I was saying and to my comments as I was,
you know, I was hating on J Cole. So it's
things like that. And then the way the Instagram, the
(21:18):
art of dialogue.
Speaker 9 (21:20):
And other Yeah, the way they worded it, that's the
where were in right, Like, so it was like, oh, right,
this is the reason why I stopped commenting on I
g first thing in the morning.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
Malcolm morning to say he stopped listening to J Cole.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yeah, let's play thet's certain clip here. So people undertake, like,
what are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (21:39):
You playing it in context?
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Context?
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Because I'm sure we don't have to clip off the
other clip. No, so we're in context, Okay.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Dig dig it, dig it. So so many people, you know,
they just ignore the fact that I said, I love
J Cole and I said that most of my favorite
mcs you know, are guilty of the same thing we're
talking about, you know, perpetuating, perpetuating anti black messaging in
our black music. So that was really my point.
Speaker 7 (22:08):
I don't understand. That's when they lose me. How is
that anti How is the N word saying you don't
like the N word anti black messaging? Isn't the N
word anti black?
Speaker 3 (22:17):
That's what I'm saying. My perspective is so much of
our black music today, like you take the Dope beats
away and you just listen to the lyrics. Lyrically, it's
anti black message, you know what I'm saying. And we
talk about you know, so much of you know, hip
hop today that's trash and whatnot. But you know, as
(22:39):
I said before, they grew up listening to what we
were listening to, right, So we are complicit in, you know,
the parts of hip hop today that we don't like
because they grew up listening to us. Listening listening to
the content is the same. The scale set is just whack, right,
which is what makes it stand.
Speaker 6 (22:58):
Out, as they didn't listen to what we were listening to,
you know what I'm saying. But I think that we
also had a broader We listened to music when there
was more than just hip hop. Hip Hop was not
the the juggernaut of music that it is now, right, okay,
(23:19):
Like like yeah, jazz, like like you would, you know,
like we was rocking the salt hall notes, you know
what I mean, and all these other things, right, you.
Speaker 7 (23:29):
Know what I mean?
Speaker 6 (23:30):
Yeah, Like we had these a lot of other influences
that I think the youth of today don't necessarily have
aren't necessarily being uh promoted in terms of yeah, in
terms of balance.
Speaker 7 (23:43):
Yeah, I get exactly what you're saying, because even the
other genres now are hip.
Speaker 6 (23:46):
Hop, right what I'm saying, Like, you know, it's countries,
a little bit of hip hop, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
And so much of it, so much of the hip
hop that gets the shine, you know, it's it's the
anti black message, but that's very rarely. There are not
many hip hop songs that are speaking love to our people.
Most of it is very threatening.
Speaker 6 (24:08):
But is that the artists or is that the industry?
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Both okay, and the end the result is the same.
The the the psyche on young black boys and girls,
there's the same whether it's the wather.
Speaker 6 (24:25):
But if it's young black boys and girl, that's on
the parents.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Yeah, sure, but all parents don't. All parents. There's a
certain luxury that you and I have in terms of
the time that we and our wives can spend with
our daughters, right, but everybody everybody that all families don't
have that. So we're not talking about uh psyche of
young black kids who have their parents very involved in
(24:49):
their lives and showing them balance. We're talking about the
ones who were.
Speaker 6 (24:54):
Let's hold them accountable to the messages. My fault.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
This is the This is like I don't think would
you say J Cole had the anti black message?
Speaker 3 (25:07):
No, so so for me because nigga has become you know,
it's become the staple in hip hop, like it's got
to be a nigga bitch. That's why I said in
that clip. I think there should be a moratorium on
both of those words in hip hop because it's it's
at this point, it's corny, it's lazy. Everybody is using it.
So let's like, you know, you know, there are so
(25:28):
many brilliant writers and lyricists out there that it's like,
come on, let's let's let's stop our game. We don't
have to keep doing If everybody's doing it, then come
on do something different, you know. So my thing with
with with J Cole, it just I just got to
a point where I got tired of, you know, hearing
inward or being called inward in every hip hop song
(25:50):
I'm listening to. And I mentioned J Cole because I
love J Cole and he's such an and an incredible
lyrics that when I hear him just gratuitously use either
those words, I'm like, ah, I mean kind of you
know that I have to tune out. Yeah, doesn't mean
(26:10):
doesn't mean I like J Cole or respect his artistry,
his his pen game any less, I just go, all right,
I'm kind of I gotta tune out because it's not
it's not doing, it's not bringing, it's not feeding me.
Speaker 7 (26:24):
So what about the album like because and this is
the album that I say in the future is gonna
be two of the most important albums of all time.
Miss Kendrick Lamar and mister Morale in the Big Steps
jay Z four for four. The things that they're discussing
on this album, black men going to therapy, black men
doing right by the women. You know, uh, issues with
our father daddy, issues that we fix. Like, to me,
(26:46):
those themes are bigger than the language that they use.
Even you look at somebody like Tupac. To me, Tupac's
themes were bigger than the language he was using.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
People keep saying that about Tupac, but like, and I
don't want to get too a whole thing about it
about but yeah, I listened to his I mean, listen
to There's There's Dear Mama, Brenda's got a baby, keep
your head up. And then everything else is not everything.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
This changes this you got got a bunch of but
you know, you know what this conversation sounds like. It
sounds like, you know where you're younger and your father said, oh,
you listen to that hippie hoppity rap. There's a lot
of positivity. All the positive artists out there that.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Are spitting right.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
But if we're listening to music, those same artists had
the same problem. If you think about tyleb Quality never
got on radio, Most Death never got on radio. Tribe
called Quest hardly got on radio. We talked about a
lot of those positive rappers. It was the same thing
back then.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Those artists might have a record or too.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Tell him didn't get on radio too. He did a
record to jay Z hopped on the single just to
get by the time record, but it took him a
long time to get on record. Most definim didn't get
really on radio. To what miss Fat Fat Bulty. So
a lot of the things that we're talking about with
the same thing coming rarely got on you know what
I mean.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
But it's the same thing.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
It's the same thing as what we push Like back then,
who's on radio, Biggie t.
Speaker 7 (28:15):
I, you know, like they had social records with socially
redeeming value.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
But the records on radio.
Speaker 7 (28:22):
Like my dad used to always try to get me
to listen to the Honorable Minutes to Lewis farra Coon
and I would sort of reluctantly when I heard Biggie
say deep like the mind of Farrakhn. I'm like, oh,
that's the brother my daddy's always trying to get me.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
So now I really like he was speaking to you.
Speaker 7 (28:38):
Yeah, d Baron CON's a prophet. I think you ought
to listen to it, like, oh, let me pay attention.
So even with the language of a biggie or whoever,
they can still deliver messaging that makes you get in
the right direction.
Speaker 6 (28:51):
Lauren says, what's the line, right, So.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
You're ignorant trying to say, but also what what What
I have to be mindful of as well? Is politics,
not even not not even that, because that's a whole
nother relation, right, But it's more I realized that it's
(29:17):
way more productive across the board and for my my
own energy in space is instead of spending time talking
about the trash, talking about the things that I don't
like and I think we're all guilty of, we talked
about the negative. But I'm trying to be more mindful,
(29:38):
like even in my in my conversations with hip hop,
be mindful of well, instead of talking about the same thing,
which is the negative, let me spend time highlighting what
I like or like what I love about hip hop?
That right, you know, I write hard for Mumbo Fresh
all day, but even just that, like yeah, thinking about
(30:01):
you know, Norman SONISTCTED. I finally reposted on on Instagram
like seeing these cats I believe really need to have shine?
What stuff complaining that they don't have shine? I got
social media, Like now I can actually, you know, give
shine to those And I've got I got a following,
I've got a voice, you know, I've got integrity, uh,
(30:22):
a reputation for integrity going for me, so like why
not just use that and spend more time, you know,
speaking about the giving love to the things that make
me feel good.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
But I also think I have evolution to right, you know,
because I went to Hampton. When I used to drive
to Hampton, I'm listening to noise because it's keeping me up.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
What what what?
Speaker 2 (30:41):
And I'm thinking I'm the biggest what.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
But then when you get a little older.
Speaker 7 (30:46):
You'd be like, that's a little noise, right, let me
talk about something like listening to it when I'm working
up from the south workout.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
But I also grew up on Goodie mob, you know.
Speaker 6 (30:58):
And I think, you know, it's we've got more of
a balance right as we get older than one. We've
got we've been exposed to more music, right, So it's
it's a little different now, you know. I mean like
they still in the throes of what's hot, you know
what I mean. The how we access music is different now, correct,
because they're just like yo, you know, point click, right,
and it's not necessarily about what's on the radio. It's
(31:20):
about what they want to listen to.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Which is they've got direct access to that.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
You know, can don't want to ask from a woman's perspective,
you know what I find interesting?
Speaker 7 (31:28):
Right, you know, we have these conversations, but I will
never forget Snoop Dogg and DMX's versus right when they
did their verses, I think it was during COVID and
I remember thinking, oh, this is going tonight, that boy
they finally listened to Snoop and DMX and it's gonna
be a woke cancel fest on Twitter. But there was
people in the comments, the same people I usually see
(31:48):
trying to cancel people loving it. Right, Yeah, but how
does that make you feel knowing you came up in
that era of the nineties, Is it conflicting that you know?
Speaker 5 (31:57):
Not at all?
Speaker 8 (31:57):
And I'm right in the middle with them in terms
of won, the N word and just this whole idea
of music and what it represents, because I know so
I love Wu Tang, and when I listen to them,
I get like a good energy out, not just work out,
but when something goes wrong sometimes that music allows you
to let stuff out, you know that you just couldn't
(32:17):
get out in the day when you're with your peers
or when you're on the streets, you just in the
car loud with it. And then I also think it's
how were we brought up and what do we bring
to the table. So the N word, for example, I mean,
I don't know how you were introduced to it, ever,
but that's shaped probably what the word means to you,
and same with me probably saying to you. And we
(32:37):
all have different things that we bring to the table,
just culturally, and I think that just shifts. And I'm
a firm believer in the First Amendment, like all the way,
because once you start saying no here and no here,
then I'm giving somebody else the authority to say no
to me one day too, And I don't want that precedent.
I don't want them saying, well, you can't say this,
and you can't say that just because of the content
(32:59):
of it or the context of it. We don't like
it at all. It's like when they try to bring
up rack lyrics when they go to jail in court. Right,
I mean, that doesn't make any sense. We all have
the same equal First Amendment rights and you should fight
for them and use them equally.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Let me ask you a question. Yeah, TikToker, yesterday I
seen it online. She said the N word, right, she
got fired from her regular job.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Oh, this was the girl who was cooking that young lady.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yes, and in her comments she was also white by
the way, yes, right, critical.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
But this is where I'm gonna close it.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
She said on her TikTok that she didn't apologize because
it was her first right amendment to say what she
wanted to say, and she shouldn't have got fired. What's
your thoughts on somebody like that it is her first
right amendment?
Speaker 5 (33:42):
Yeah, but then there are three different rules.
Speaker 8 (33:44):
There's First Amendment rules on TikTok, there's First Amendment rules
at her work, and then that's her own rules of
what she believes about the N word, and all of
them conflicted, and she.
Speaker 5 (33:52):
Got exactly what she deserves.
Speaker 8 (33:54):
She did, but then that's what happened. That's why you
do have to be careful with it, right. You can't
be on TikTok it. I mean, this is a good example.
Person person, No, no, you can't. So you just have
to really understand how to use the First Amendment to
So for example, if you're the KKK, you can walk
march anywhere in America, you just have to get the permit.
Speaker 5 (34:14):
You can't walk on your own. You have to follow
the rules. She didn't follow the rules.
Speaker 8 (34:19):
She she she didn't follow her own hr rules at work,
and that.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Was her problem. She did.
Speaker 5 (34:25):
That's right, like you said.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
It's also where you came from, right, because the N
word was a sign of endearment, sure something. It was
that you know, you really didn't hear the extremes of
it until I went to Hampton in the South, and
you'll be like, oh no, they're not saying it as
right right right, And that's right.
Speaker 6 (34:47):
Right different ways, And that's sort of been part, you know,
part of my argument. For a lot of people, it's
a term of endearment like it's love. There are more
interactions that are using the word that are about love
and that are about disrespect. So you know, and yes
we know the history of it. We also know that
that's mine.
Speaker 7 (35:07):
But I also grew up reading stuff I grew up,
you know, Message to the Black Man by Elijah Muhammad
Bier of Malcolm Back, you know, a great book called
From Niggas to God.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
I think every black man in America should read that.
Speaker 7 (35:18):
It's always been I've always been conflicted about using the
work because I don't use it as a term.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
If it did, right, I use it using when Chris
Rock showed me the difference. I use it for that, right.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Right, there's a I think last time I was here,
I quoted doctor Daniel Black, and I'm going to quote
him again. He says, why should I borrow a word
from people who hate me when I'm trying to speak
love to my brothers and sisters? Right, So I go
back to uh to comrade, you know the term black
(35:52):
panther Party used Reggie Mason, you know, brought it back
up to me. So I've been on this this comrade campaign. Know,
if I'm trying to speak love to my brother, will comrade,
I get the idea of you know, the N word
is a term of endearment, but it's a colonizers word, so.
Speaker 6 (36:08):
Whole language is colonized, so that like like, it's not
our language. English is not our language.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Sure, but I'm not, but I'm not going to use it.
I I'm at the point of my life where I question,
what's the what's the sense in using a colonizer's word
which was a uh, intentionally derogatory word to describe us?
Why do I want to borrow that particular word and
go through the the hoops of Oh it's it's positive
(36:35):
so for me and this so just for me personally,
I'm I'm comrade, you know, and and I use it
in both scenarios. That's my comrade to them. Anytime.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
You also said, we showed our co drout.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Hip hop, and.
Speaker 6 (37:06):
It's uh industry wise, it's sort of the bigger picture,
right because they did it the jazz like they co
opted it and used it for their own purposes.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
But there wasn't messages and jazz that were going to
have an effect. I mean, black people see them.
Speaker 6 (37:23):
I mean yeah, I mean we sort ourself out. But
I also feel like from a macro perspective, this is
going to be the civil rights movement created a lot
of opportunities, and it shifted the mentality that made many
(37:43):
of us very passive.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
You know.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
Though, Yeah, I feel like I integrated my people into
a burning.
Speaker 6 (37:52):
House, into a burning house, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
We had it.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
It was more of a sent of independence. Yeah, I
get what you're saying. Go people's.
Speaker 6 (38:06):
Argument, man, my godfather, don't call me and be like
young man. I like, you know, yeah, like it's.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
It's heavy. It's a lot.
Speaker 6 (38:18):
And I'm like, ah, you got me a pinch right now.
Speaker 5 (38:22):
I didn't what you said. You said that sold ourselves out, okay.
In terms of music on the podcast, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
I mean even I mean, you know, there was a
term and hip hop artists talk about it when the
record labels say to them, this is what you have
to rap about, and this is what we're paying for
you to wrap.
Speaker 8 (38:39):
Right.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
So it's you know, and again I say, in a
lot of ways, we are generation. You know, we are
complicit in what we see, you know, the state of
hip hop. Uh in the younger generation, that's you know,
we allowed that. And for the dollars tu, I'm gonna
(39:01):
get a T shirt that says, you know.
Speaker 7 (39:05):
We had when Snoop was here, This was a few
years ago. We had a conversation about that because that's
always been on my mind as I got noted like
damn see the Lord stuck. It was actually right, and
Snoop said she was, but it was the way she
was coming at us.
Speaker 6 (39:21):
And again it's back to that First Amendment thing too,
you know what I mean, Like it's a layered conversation,
like you can't tell me. I can say, like, where
are you going to control my tongue like that? You know,
I'm an artist, Yeah, let me do what I do.
Speaker 8 (39:36):
And so and telling yourself out means such a different
thing years ago than to you know, a lot of
it had to do with people not even being informed,
right educated on what they could could not do, their rights,
whether it was publishing, whether there was First Amendment rights,
whether it was their right to own a certain right.
(39:58):
You know that they should have owned advances. Now these
days people are smarter. So when we say that people
sell themselves out, I mean it's negative. But along the way,
you should be selling something right. You should be you know,
in the marketplace, you should be the monopoly that.
Speaker 5 (40:14):
You want to be in the process.
Speaker 8 (40:15):
So I'm glad the times are changed, right, but it's
definitely different when we talk about who we are today.
We are more informed in terms of and so we're
making more decisions, which is which is a good takeaway
when we're looking back at what was happening in the nineties.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
But some of the times, have you understand, Like we
had an artist a pitty other day. His name was
Rob four nineties from Louisiana, and he said he signed
a deal so he.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Could get out of the hood.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
He knew that if he was still there.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
It would be problems for him, his family's mother and
all that.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
So he had to do the deal to get out
of it. And I know even with hip hop back then,
a lot of artists that's the same, right, that was their.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Only way out, right. Their music was great and they
didn't know anything out.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
Of it, that's right.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
So people consider that selling selling me a soul, selling.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Themselves out for them, they look like, look, I'm just
trying to get out the hoods one, that's.
Speaker 5 (41:00):
Right, And if they had more information that would have
been better off.
Speaker 8 (41:03):
That's all access, Yeah, accessing opportunities.
Speaker 4 (41:07):
I got a couple of questions.
Speaker 7 (41:08):
I want people debscribe to the podcast, but when it
comes to TV and movies. Do you have the same
discretion with the N word and the bware?
Speaker 3 (41:17):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like if it's if it's
I mean in terms of using it, in terms of
my use of it, or the industry's use of it both.
So I think I am I'm against the gratuitous use
of the words. So like, I understand all of the
arguments and all of the defending, but I think what's
(41:38):
getting lost is I'm referring to the gratuitous use of it. Sure,
we can talk all day about there are some circumstances
where that word is the only thing that really you know,
So I'm aware of all of that. But my my
issue was, I said, it's the gratuitous use.
Speaker 8 (41:57):
Of it because I would imagine right that if you
get a tight script that takes place in the nineteen sixties,
what else scripts don't have the words?
Speaker 7 (42:06):
Right?
Speaker 5 (42:06):
So right, that's that's different.
Speaker 8 (42:08):
And that's what we talk about a lot amongst the
three of us is that it does have a place.
We can't just erase that of history, right, It has
a place. You cannot do certain things without the word
coming up. It's just where you place it in your
own life.
Speaker 5 (42:23):
And that's where you play.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
But I can't go do an August Wilson play period,
you know what I'm saying. So I get all of that.
I think my issue is along with the I go
back to anti black messaging and our music, the gratuitous
use of the N word. It's just, you know, it's
just for me. I'm just like, you know, enough already.
(42:47):
And again I said enough already. But then I also
go back to, you know, there's so many incredible lyricists
who have proven their pin game is top notch, and
I go, well, just like, elevate the shit if all
these corny motherfuckers are using nigg and bitch in all
of their lyrics and then don't elevate the shit, like
show them. And also when we're in our forties and
(43:10):
fifties still rapping the same shit we were wrapping in
our twenties, it's like that's not even you know, like
like show me some growth, right, like if you're not
even giving me any integrity in your art an evolution evolution, yeah,
and growth, And I like I just can't and it's
not feeding my soul. Can't do it.
Speaker 4 (43:28):
I get you.
Speaker 7 (43:29):
I want to ask you one question about respectability politics
because you brought it up. The thing about respectability politics,
what if the person you're respecting is just truly yourself.
Speaker 4 (43:39):
You're just policing yourself.
Speaker 7 (43:41):
You're saying about respecting the white man and the system,
but trying to make the system comfortable.
Speaker 4 (43:45):
I'm just respecting myself. Is that still respectability politics?
Speaker 3 (43:48):
So I bring it up all the time because whenever
we're talking about that, people go to, well, it doesn't
matter what people think about us, Like I'm even talking
about white people. I'm talking about our own level of
self respect. So that's all. Always that's always the take
that I bring up, But then it goes it always
the conversation always leads back to claiming respectability.
Speaker 5 (44:09):
No agreed.
Speaker 8 (44:10):
You know, we have this conversation often where you know,
you go out, you're not even worrying about any other
race until somebody reminds you. So most of the things
you're doing, I'm just doing inside of myself.
Speaker 5 (44:21):
I'm not really concerned about that echo what he says.
Speaker 6 (44:25):
I mean, those are very specific and nuanced situations. Each
it's situational, right. I think that we've gotta center ourselves first.
I think it's time that you know, we put black
folks at the front and really center how we move
(44:47):
and making our movements based around the greater good, the
respectability politics. It happens. It's a it's a reality of
American culture, and some people choose to engage and some
people don't.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
You don't seem like the type that's gonna have to
engage with.
Speaker 6 (45:13):
I love my people, I love my people.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
And well, the podcast Not All Hood is streaming everywhere
and I appreciate you guys for joining us. Malcolm, Jamal Warner,
where you see Baraka and Kandas Kelly. Thank you guys
so much. It's Breakfast, Good morning, Wake.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
That ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club
The Breakfast Club News
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