The Dialogue Moderated by Angela Yee ‘The Cultural and Economic Implications of Hip-Hop'

In this episode of HGF The Dialogues, iHeart Radio Personality Angela Yee moderates a discussion with David Banner, Dr. Benjamin Chavis, and Chuck "Jigsaw" Creekmur. The conversation explores hip-hop's profound influence on culture, its role in shaping economic opportunities, and its ongoing evolution within the music industry and broader society. The panelists also discuss strategies for leveraging hip-hop's cultural impact to drive economic empowerment and social change.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Hope Global Forms, theDialogue where we bring exclusive conversations with extraordinary
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(00:22):
Visit us at Hope Globalforms dot organd follow us on social at Hope
Global Form. In today's episode,we have the dialogue the Culture and Economic
Implications of the Hip Hop Revolution,with Angela Yee, David Banner, and
Benjamin Chaviv. All Right, well, first of all, welcome. I'm

(00:42):
excited to be part of this panel. I was telling doctor Benjamin Chavis,
I've specifically wanted to do this panelto be represented as a woman on this
stage when we talk about hip hop, and so that was important to me
as we're celebrating the fiftieth anniversary ofhip hop past, Present and Future.

(01:02):
I'm from Brooklyn, so thank you. You know we are everywhere, So
I just want to start by acknowledgingthat. And since we started talking about
women, let's talk, let's semme too, David Banner and talk about
women's representation when it comes to hiphop, what you saw in the past
and how that has evolved. II think it's powerful because in society in

(01:30):
general, the women, especially Blackwomen, African women, are the cradle
of into society. So the voice, no matter what people perceive it as
good, bad, or or indifferent, it is important. And the thing
that I always tell people is thatif it's something that you don't like,

(01:52):
it's probably something that can be solved. I remember debating against Congress and telling
them, if they want us torap about roses, come to the hood
and plant so I can't rap aboutsomething that I don't see. And so
for for our women to have theiropportunity to speak, it means a lot.
And then to have someone like Rhapsody, who's my sister, who is

(02:14):
definitely breaking down walls in our ownway, and she's standing up in a
way like Queen Latifa. Did youknow Queen Latifa and shot Kim and them
had a lot to do with mycareer at one point. And so to
watch her not just as an activistfor us as a people, but an
ac advocate for women, right,you know. To see that then and

(02:37):
to see what we are now.It's beautiful. That is very well said,
because I always hear people talk aboutback in the day, it would
feel like it could only be oneit was so much competition, But now
it feels like women are really takingover when it comes to hip hop and
check let's throw it to you.I remember you even wrote an open letter.

(02:57):
Oh no, don't bring up theopen lift, but I want to
hear your thoughts as the founder ofall hip hop. You know, I
think it's healthy right now. Ithink we I would you know, I'll
be honest and say, I wouldlove to see more representation from you know,
the era, basically the Golden era. I would love to see that,

(03:17):
like that level of representation where wesaw Missy, we saw Little Kim
All on the same song celebrating womenin hip hop. And I think that
we have a lot to offer menand women, and I would love to
see the full, you know,diverse, powerful collective that we really are.

(03:39):
And doctor Benjamin Schaves, I toldyou I was at the first ever
hip hop summit Action Network that youdid in Detroit, and so I want
to flash back to that and whatmade you even decide to create something like
that, that space well, thankyou. You know my background and civil
rights and in the early nineteen seventies, early in nineteen eighties, there were

(04:02):
a lot of player haters on hiphop, and so I decided that,
look, we should be embracing hiphop, we should be lifting hip hop
up. And so I remember DavidI was there for that congressional testimony because
they were trying to censor hip hop. Look, hip hop is a cultural
phenomena that stylid in the South Bronx, among blacks and Latinos. Now hip

(04:27):
hop is all over the world.It's a global phenomenon. But what we
have to make sure is that ourculture is not only appreciated, but we
didn't have to make sure we holdonto the economics. I want to thank
John Brian for having this forum becausea lot of times what happens is we
are creative geniuses, but somebody elsegoes to the bank off of our creative

(04:48):
genius. So we got to startbringing that back home. And I'm very
the first hip hop summit I wasin New York, but we came to
Detroit and had five eminem you knowused to work with them, and every
city we went into, whatever it'sin the northeast and southeast and west Midwest.

(05:10):
There was an outpoint of artists aswell as the community at large.
And I think that a lot oftimes people don't understand or appreciate the importance
of our culture. I just wantto say something else about women. Look,
there would be no hip hop winfor the sisters. A lot of

(05:30):
what the brothers do is trying toget their attention of the systems. So
and I remember MC light we wrotea book together entitled Fusion, The Relationship
between Civil Rights and Hip Hop.I just think that their culture is global
and the stage is global. Yeah, there are contradictions, Yeah, there

(05:51):
are problems, but in all ofour culture formations that may be contradictions and
problem because they're contradictions in the societythat we live in. The culture reflects
the social condition, the political condition, the spiritual condition about people. Yeah,
you know, hip hop came outof the ashes, not you know,

(06:12):
quote unquote ashes of the civil rightsmovement, and so I think that
we saw people echoing the sentiments ofDoctor King, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael,
you know, Kwame Torret and others. And those those artists were people
like Chuck D. Krs one,and and so on and so forth.

(06:33):
In fact, each you can almostpick rappers who who were the new version
of those those icons. Now it'sa little bit different, right, So
we're not so close to the civilrights movement, We're not so close to
public Enemies era, and so Iwould love to see more leadership and representation

(06:58):
in hip hop, because every everyone's not a rapper in hip hop,
right, So we do have folkslike Tamika Mallory and others who are representative
of that. But I think thatthe artists have matured so much, or
at least having a feeling that theyknow what they want to say. And
Little Baby when he made that song, I think he kind of backed off

(07:19):
of it a little bit, becauseonce you step into that, you have
to know what you're saying. Andthat's why having mentors like Doctor King,
Malcolm Xis is really important, evenDoctor Ben, you know, because I
was there at those summits too,you know. I think our children are
a direct reflection of what we didand did not teach them. Our parents

(07:42):
walked away from the civil rights movementand they went and got money, so
our kids watched what our parents did. They set us in front of the
TV and in front of video games, and they winning got money. So
these children turn around and winning gotmoney, and then we turn around and
criticize them for doing the same exactthing that our parents did. Come on,
y'all, and then you expect ourchildren to talk about something you didn't

(08:07):
teach us about, and we rewardrappers for being exactly what they are,
and then they get on and makemoney. Then all of a sudden,
you want them to be a politicalpundit. I don't want them to talk
for me. They don't know whatthey're talking about. And they told you
they were hustlers. So we sitin the crowd and act like we're holier

(08:31):
than thou and talk about what rappersshould do and should do. Yeah,
some rappers should do certain things,but you all should also stop teaching our
children. At Chrystopher Columbus Discover America. That's a live you know, as
we're talking about being targeted, andwe're talking about financial literacy, and we're
talking about what's happening now with streaming, I want to read. DJ Scratch

(08:54):
had wrote on his page he gota four hundred and ninety six thousand streams
the year and he said, almosthalf a million people stream my single,
they'll pay me around fifteen hundred dollars, right, So that's the numbers that
you see with that. And sowhat are some things because I feel like
this is something that everybody's been addressing. You know, we all got the

(09:18):
end of the year, like whatwe did on what we've been watching and
listening to on YouTube, what we'vebeen listening to on Spotify. But the
artists are not being compensated fairly forall these streams, and so this is
something that is newer. But whatare some things that have to start to
happen now to push back against thesecorporations because artists are not being compensated and

(09:41):
we have AI, which that's goingto be a whole new thing that's going
to happen with people's intellectual properties.So this is something that we have to
really be very cognizant of and aggressiveabout now. So what are some things
that can be done? Well,we had this conversation back stage a little
bit. We have billionaires in hiphop, We have very powerful people right

(10:05):
now. Now. Again, it'snot as simple as just collecting your coins
together or your systems, but Ido think that there has to be some
sort of conversation around the power inequitiesas well as developing systems within our own
culture and making those actualized in reallife. And again, it's hard.

(10:31):
It's easy for me to say thatbecause I'm not one of those people,
and I don't understand perhaps what ittakes once you get up to that billionaire
status, when you start messing withSpotify's money or you start messing with YouTube's
money, what that translates into.But I do think we have to get
we have to hold the line.And that's a term that I learned from
an individual, and I think thatat some point we have to learn to

(10:54):
hold the line. You'll turn allright, This is the truth. I
say this all the time to people. Until we understand this, it'll never
change. White supremacy pays if yougo along with the system. It pays.
So we're gonna have to show thesechildren and show artists that it pays

(11:18):
to do the right thing instead ofguilt tripping and tell people you should do
the right thing because it's the rightthing to do. That does not work.
When I go on a lecture tothese kids, I'll ask the teachers
if you had a choice between sellingdope and working at McDonald's, which one
would you do? And the kidssay, I mean, I mean,
And the teachers would say working atmeddonald's. You're a damn lie. And
that's why these kids don't listen toyou. If these kids stand out on

(11:41):
the corner and they have some gooddope, it's gonna sell. If they
go to college, what they aregonna have is a bill. It's not
promised to them that they're gonna dowell. And until we stop acting like
this system is broken and that itdoesn't compensate people for doing the wrong thing,
these kids are going to do whatit takes in order. If they
tell you all the time, I'mgoing after the bag, well what if

(12:05):
the bag meant supporting your your communityor being a teacher? Why are teachers
broke? I don't understand that anddidn't wonder why the educational system is broken?
Can I can I give y'all anexample of something. When I said
make them girls get down on thefloe, like a flow on the floor,

(12:26):
like a pimp, I made millionsof dollars. Watch this and watch
how uncomfortable some people get. YouReady, Since this is about hip hop,
fifty. They gave us Obama likelike it was gonna stop the fight,
like it was gonna stop the calls. My folks still scraping, trying
to find them some socks and drawsand something to eat. The ir rest
is coming. So I'm back onthese beats. But Rock push hope,

(12:50):
Reagan push dope. Clinton pushed somethingdown to young gals. And since we
talk about throats white folks, whichyou know about ropes white folks? What
you know about trees and men swingingfrom them that look like me? How
they say that don't affect us?Tuskegee, How you let them affect us?

(13:13):
Okay, you want kids to rap, but if they rap like that,
they broke, so before before youjudge the community. And I want
to say one other things. Somebodyalways noticed. I was like, bro
I eat very healthy. Why don'thealthy companies? And why the companies don't

(13:35):
come and give the same type ofpromotional deals that selling alcohol to my community
or selling something that will keep ussick. But the thing that I will
tell you, it's on you.It's on the general public. It's not
on the artists. The artists aregonna follow whatever you all demand. And
if you demand sickness, they're gonnacontinue to spew sickness. All right,

(14:03):
Yes, all we have to donow is just say amen, David,
thank you for your authentic poetry,for your commitment to the craft that transforms

(14:31):
the way people think. If youtransfer the way people think, you will
transform the way people act. AndI believe that our society in America as
well as the global but particularly inAmerica, they're considered itself the richest,

(14:52):
the most technological advanced nation in theworld. But yet there's a tendency now
to go backwards, not forward.And going backwards means, yeah, you're
gonna start not only in censoring hiphop, locking up rappers, but on

(15:13):
the other end, you'll see massexploitation of people rather than mass empowerment of
people. And a lot of ourmajor cities in Brooklyn, you know,
the gentrification is going on. Andall of our places where we used to
live, we can't afford to livethere now, you know, being pushed
out. So why am I bringingthese up to a hip hop discussion,

(15:39):
Because because again, our culture,our songs are what we meditate about,
what makes us happy, what givesus joy, has to be about not
only in learning the finance and notonly learning the economic development, but how
we are committed to one another,you know, how we forge unity to

(16:02):
achieve a sense of purpose. Youremember when there was this whole thing about
East West conflict between the artists,and we found out that the conflict was
artificial. You know, where Eastcoast artists could go to the West coast
and do well, a West coastarts could come to the East coast and
do well, but it had todefy what was being put in place.

(16:26):
So my simple point is this,we have nothing but more opportunity today not
to repeat the past, but learnfrom the past. And as we learned
from the past, we can keeppushing forward. I didn't come here to
night to be a pessimist, andit comes to the night to think that
makes you think that the situation ishopeless. It is not hopeless. We

(16:49):
are a blessed people, we're notcursed people. But we have to understand
our blessings. We have to understandthere native genius that has been deported and
parted and paused out among amazing people. We're not the only creative people in
the world, but sometimes our particularcreativity gets criminalized, gets demonized, gets

(17:17):
put down and sometimes even snuffed outbefore it is allowed to glow. So
we got work to do. AndI just want to thank again John O'Brien
for allowing this great conference to havethis aspect Angela, because to me,
how our young people think is eventuallyhow they will become. Well. Listen,

(17:45):
hip hop is fifty chuck and Iare tired said get late, but
no, thank you guys so much, and again thank you the chairman,
John O'Brien for having this summit.I was here last year. I know
I'll be back again next year,so let's continue to enjoy the rest.
I think we have more things happeningtonight, right, performance a performance all

(18:07):
right, But thank you guys,thanks for listening to Hope Global Forms the
dialogue. We hope today's episode hasinspired you. Keep the conversation going by
visiting hopeglobalforms dot org and follow uson social at Hope Global Forum. You
can find me Esen Scan on Instagramat the Essence of Underscort. Join us

(18:29):
next time for more insights from leaderswho are shaping a better world.