Drink Champs - Episode 341 w/ Michael Eric Dyson

Episode Date: November 18, 2022

N.O.R.E. & DJ EFN are the Drink Champs. In this episode we chop it up with the one and only Michael Eric Dyson!Michael Eric Dyson shares his story as an ordained minister, American academic, author, professor and more.Listen as we discuss topics about poverty, economic policies, racism, and much much more!Lots of great topics that you don’t want to miss!!Make some noise for Michael Eric Dyson!!! 💐💐💐🏆🏆🏆   *Subscribe to Patreon NOW for exclusive content, discount codes, M&G’s + more:  🏆* https://www.patreon.com/drinkchamps   *Listen and subscribe at https://www.drinkchamps.com  Follow Drink Champs: https://www.instagram.com/drinkchamps https://www.twitter.com/drinkchamps https://www.facebook.com/drinkchamps https://www.youtube.com/drinkchamps  DJ EFN https://www.crazyhood.com https://www.instagram.com/whoscrazy https://www.twitter.com/djefn https://www.facebook.com/crazyhoodproductions  N.O.R.E. https://www.instagram.com/therealnoreaga https://www.twitter.com/noreaga   *Check out our Culture Cards NFT project by joining The Culture Cards Discord: 👇* https://discord.gg/theculturecardsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Why is a soap opera western like Yellowstone so wildly successful? The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to the American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures, and your guide on good company. The podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators,

shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi. We dive into the competitive world of streaming. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. There are so many stories out there, and if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Drink Champs, a production of the Black Effect and iHeartRadio. Drink Champs! Drink Champs! Drink Champs! This has been a production of the biggest players. You know what I mean? In the most professional, unprofessional podcast. And your number one source for drunk facts. It's Drink Champs motherfucking podcast. Where every day is New Year's Eve.

It's time for Drink Champs. Drink up, motherfucker. What a good beat. Hopefully, you're still with me. This is your boy N.O.R.E. What up, it's DJ E.F.N. And this is Drink Champs Yappy Hour. Make some noise! Right now, we have an author.

We have a minister. Radio host, a professor. An intellect. An intellect. An intellect. I love to hear this brother speak. I remember seeing him on Bill Moore just handling people. Like, just, I remember, you know, this is one of, and I was naming all his titles, but besides all that, he's a brother. Hold it down down can talk so

it's like he's it's like he's spitting bars when he talks his speeches the way he delivers the words so he hit me the other day and I said hey brother and I said I need you

and he showed up so Casey I don't know who the hell we talking about. We talking about the one, the only, Michael Eric Dyson, make some noise! So we're going to get straight to the point. We ain't going to fool around. I said, drink champs, you know,

we're not a political show, right? This is not why people come here. And we don't really, you know, prep our guests and say, yo, this is what we're going to ask, so this is what we're going to do. It's kind of like a free-for. You just come here. And we don't really, you know, prep our guests and say, yo, this is what we're going to ask, or this is what we're going to do. It's kind of like a free fall. You just come here and things just happen. Right.

So for those who's tuning in, this is our first episode since the Kanye West episode. You might have seen other episodes that dropped, but this is the very first recorded episode since the Kanye West. So what did you think when you first heard or saw Kanye on the show? Well, first of all, I'm such a huge fan of this show. I watch every episode. Well, let's make some noise. And back when we were at Diddy's Christmas party years ago,

you got my number and said, look, I want you to come on. So I'm glad we're finally able to work it out. For the people to know this, hold on, hold on. I invited this man on the show about two or three years ago, something like that. I came up to you. I was so excited to meet you. Early drink champs. Yeah, early drink champs.

Because I truly understand that this is the balance that we need. You understand what I'm saying? If we cover a story that wasn't right, I want to fix it. That's so, so, so again, let's go back to that. So what did you, was you getting phone calls? Was people calling you saying, man, Kanye West is on your show? Yeah, that's right. You say, yo, man, you know, that's the dude you love.

What is up, sir? He done cut the con and he got to the yay. The thing is, look, I've known Kanye for a while. So let me put my card straight on the table. Oh, wow. Let me tell you how I came to know Kanye. Wow. So I'm texting Jay, Jay-Z, after the- Thanks, boss.

Let's make it a little more. No, no, no. I'm not trying to floss, but go on and get that stuff out your teeth. So the thing is, is that this is right after the VMAs, right? When he does the Taylor Swift thing. Okay. I was in the audience when Kanye did what he did, right? It was like the Oscars.

Is that a joke? Is that arranged? And then afterward, when it went down and he was taking all the heat, I'm texting Jay going, I'm not feeling that. I said, because what Kanye was trying to do in that moment is to say, black artists have always been appropriated, expropriated, denounced, and then they took all their content, and then the gifts that they have have been abused,

and then they don't get the recognition for it. They make the dope and bomb albums, but they don't get the recognition. I'm imagining that night, Little Richard was going like, go ahead. Give me my Grammy I bet Chuck Berry was like Yo where was somebody when I Deserved a Grammy That maybe was given to Elvis So I saw it in the historical context

Yeah he was drunk Yeah he went up there and did something rude I love Taylor Swift but at that moment He was representative of a culture That was tired of a culture that was tired of being abused. So I told Jay, I'm not down

with all the hate that's coming to Kanye. He says, do me a favor. You know, send it to my email and I'm going to send it to Ye, Kanye.

So I did the thing. He sent it to Kanye. That's how me and Kanye first met years and years ago. So we've been talking back and forth. He done posted some of my stuff,

my tweets, texts to him in public. That's why I don't feel bad about going public now because, God dang, you ain't had asked me could you post my stuff. So let's have a public conversation, you know. So I love him. Let me be clear. I love him. He's a genius.

He's extraordinarily talented. But I think dealing with the mental health issues that he confronts, whether he wants to admit them or not, that's part of it. Another part is that the mental health may exacerbate tendencies that already pre-exist, that the conditions that underlie. Just like when you talk about COVID, COVID brings out some of the other stuff that has been hampering you. High blood pressure, diabetes, and so on. So in this sense, the mental health issues and struggles that he's been clear and quite transparent about may have also touched off our analysis of some of his politics and ideology that are problematic. He's a genius and a menace. He's a genius and a nuisance. He's a genius who does extraordinary things, but this ain't his strong suit.

Talking about George Floyd is not your strong suit. And I know you've been deeply inspired and influenced by Candace Owens, the conservative right-wing host who lives in Nashville like I do. So the thing is, who are you listening to? Who's your diet? You know, this is not Whole Foods. This is not a grocer that is of reputable

stuff. You, you getting it from a ghetto grocer and you're pumping that stuff back into the consciousness of the people. And it's sounding deeply, profoundly ignorant, you know, saying that, well, uh, he wasn't calling his mama. It was his, what his girlfriend was called. Regardless, that may have been true, but the point is he's calling to his mother who had recently died and he's feeling a kinship and intimacy with her. And then talking about fentanyl was what caused this death. Bruh, when they did Martin

Luther King Jr.'s autopsy at 39 years old, they discovered he had the heart of a 63-year-old man. Now that's my age, so I hope that was pretty damn good. But it's saying for 39, you shouldn't have a 63-year-old heart. Is that what killed him? No.

It was the bullet from James Earl Ray. So, Mr. West, brother, yay, Kanye, it was the force applied by a white supremacist cop. Now, whether he had intention to hate black people, the function of his knee on the neck of George Floyd, despite Floyd saying, I can't breathe, please get up. He was being extremely nice. He wasn't belligerent. He wasn't nasty. He wasn't vituperative. He wasn't hating. He wasn't cussing the man out. He was saying, I can't breathe. And this man didn't hear him. It was the pressure applied by the knee of Derek Chauvin and, by the way, the black cop who was on his back

and the white cop who was on his knees and his torso and the Asian cop who was lookout. That's multiculturalism for you. That's why diversity has to be toward a goal of equality because you can have diversity toward some messed up goals. Kanye West, to me, has an extraordinary

platform. He says he wants independent thought. How are you being independent in the circumference of MAGA, in the circumference of Donald Trump? Let me give you another story. I had just written a book, Tears We Cannot Stop, A Sermon to White America. And so I was out in L.A. on book tour, and I come out of this warehouse-looking place

where I'd done a show, and a brother's standing there and I said, is that Kanye? I said, hey, man, what's going on? Oh, man, what's happening? Blah, blah, blah. Is that your book sign? Right, it was at my book.

It was at a recording of a show that was talking about my book. But he happened to be outside where I was coming out. So he told his companion, he said, you know who this is? This is Michael Eric Dyson, blah, blah, blah. And then we talked a bit.

This is right after he had, you know, announced his support for Trump. So I went to my car, knock, knock, knock on the window. And it's Jay saying, you know, hey, I'd like to talk to you about what's going on. So for the next half hour, we chopping up. I'm saying, why is it that you, a rhetorical genius, a verbal master, in complete control of an aesthetic expression of hip-hop that we hadn't seen in ever. You brought together in the Midwest the soul traditions, digging into the crates to give us a sonic texture that continues to thrive today. It's so dense with blues and with R&B and

the love ethic of black people. Why would you leverage all of the genius you've created as a result of your own gifts for a man who is mediocre, who is a bigot, who has no concern for any beyond him, who is a lethal narcissist? He says, so what do you think I should do? I said, I think you should distance yourself from him. I don't think that that's something healthy for you. So when he says, you know, people can't think and they can't be independent, who are you independent from?

White supremacy is a dominant stream in American society. The belief that black people should not say black lives matter, you're wearing a white lives matter t-shirt, it might be cute to you, it might be an aesthetic representation of your imagination going crazy. But the bottom line is we know white lives matter. That's why we say black lives matter. You ain't got to say something that's apparent. When you come to the crib and you got your wife and kids there and you want to be daddy, you ain't got to say, hey, remember, I'm daddy. They already know you, daddy. If you in control, daddyism is in your DNA. But when you announce it, that means it hasn't been made clear. So when we say Black Lives Matter, we're saying that black

lives have been disrespected, have been degraded, have been denied access, have been treated as if they were second class citizens. White folk already got the advantage. So you wearing a White Lives Matter t-shirt may be cute to you, but it's destructive, it's harmful, and it hurts the core of black America in this nation. And for Kanye to say, look, I want to be independent, I'm for independent thought. So let's hold you to account. Let's ask you what you're talking about. Let's speak about the interests and intentions you have by going to Paris, appearing there, radiating a toxic racial identity that has been destructive not only to black people, but to white people, too. Whiteness has been a destructive reality for white folk themselves. That's where they're trying to struggle with it as well.

So those are some of the things I thought off the top of the dome when I saw that. You know what's crazy is when he first wore the White Lives Matter T-shirt, I think he had left Gap and he had went to Fashion Week. Right, right. And I think this is why I think I'm an outsider looking in as an insider looking out. Right. I think he only wore the White Lives Matter to steal the attention away from Fashion Week. Sure. I think he didn't actually think about the people that was hurt by it.

I think he was just thinking like, you know what? Now I own Fashion Week. Right, right, right. And it's crazy, but he actually got the goal done. If that was the goal, you know what I'm saying? For all the attention to just go to him. Like once that picture got up, you know what I'm trying to say? Why not say that clearly if that's the goal? But if not only that,

why not say cracker's gonna crack? That would've got... Now, I don't believe that for those listening, but I'm saying if you're trying to get attention, why not say that? Why not say Angela Davis rocks? Why not say black suffering needs to be talked about like pornography?

There's a lot of stuff he could have said. Because when you are that person, what you do comes out. So the choice he made, he can't escape responsibility for. Because when you said that, if you're only thinking about yourself, that's part of the problem. You claim to be a leader in terms of thought. You claim to be independent. But you are subordinate to a kind of thinking and logic. This is what we mean by white supremacy. It don't mean that every white person hates black people. That's not what white supremacy is. White supremacy is the conscious or

unconscious belief in the inherent superiority of one group and the inherent inferiority of all others. So when you're performing that, your own anti-blackness, Kanye, you a black man who's being anti-black. Take, for example, Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. Now, Clarence Thomas is a dark-skinned black man. Ain't nobody gonna miss that he a Negro. But at the same time, when he opens his mouth, white supremacist ideas, white supremacist thought, white supremacist rhetoric, white supremacist logic is coming out. And then his wife wowed him out on the January 6th tip, writing letters and emails to figures within the Trump administration to amp up their resistance to what's going on in this country by

stealing the vote or saying the vote was stolen. All of this, Kanye, you are buying into that. If you're naive, you're still dangerous. If you're intentional, you're destructive. But regardless of what your intent was, the consequent was horrible. And if he didn't mean it, he could have said by now, you know what, I was tripping. It was a ploy to get some recognition.

But what I did was destructive. I don't think he believes that. I think he actually meant what he said. And we have to take him at his word. Like I spoke to Talib Khali this morning and we were chopping it. I told him I had you come in. And he said that what it was spreading was white supremacy, like how you said. Right. How can how can that how isn't that an oxymoron, a black man spreading white supremacy? Yeah. How can that how can those two exist oxymoron, a black man spreading white supremacy? Yeah.

How can that, how can those two exist? Right, that's a great point. Well, that's why I said even with Clarence Thomas, it's ventriloquism. Black mouth open, white ideas coming forth. So you know how that works. Right. You're the one talking, but somebody else's voice is being amplified. So you can take into your own, you know, we used to call it in the old days, internalized

white oppression. In other words, you become the most effective vehicle for the spread of white supremacy because you get a pass. He can't be white supremacist, he's black. He can't be anti-black, he's black himself. Well, that's the thing with Clarence Thomas. How are you going to claim Clarence Thomas is anti-black?

Because he's a black man don't mean he can't be against black people. We see it every day. Don't we call it black on black crime? I think that's a problematic moniker. I think that doesn't describe what's going on. But at the end of the day, when a black person takes the life of another black person and not a white person, that is what we are doing. So we can see rhetorically, verbally, intellectually, ideologically, politically, academically, scholarly, any way you want to put it.

You as a black person can talk about ideas that are destructive to black people. What did Zora Neale Hurston say? All my kinfolk, I mean, all my skinfolk ain't my kinfolk. And what she meant by that is that certain ideas hibernate in the unconscious of black people and come out at very interesting moments when they began to reinforce the very ideas that hurt and harm us. So that's the oxymoronic statement. New scholarship has talked about anti-blackness and trying to be an anti-racist because black people themselves can harbor horrible beliefs that are destructive to our people. You want to see the perfect example of

that? Look at Stephen and Django. Look at Samuel L. Jackson. Samuel L. Jackson is a friend of mine. When I saw him, I said, Negro, I wanted to knock your black off. What's funny is Kanye said the same thing, though. Go ahead. You're right. Exactly. But Kanye, okay?

I'm just saying, don't be playing the role that you despise then. Right, right, right. So Stephen is up here. He is more effectively expressing the ideas of white dominance, white privilege, white superiority and black subordination to them than any white person ever could. So that's what we mean when we say black people ourselves can begin to express ideas that are harmful and destructive to our own communities. Because on one hand, it was it for me and I've been doing this for six years. I'm not a journalist. I'm not a therapist,

but I'm a realist. I'm a humanist. And it was confusing to me at times because he'll say, you know, the White Lives Matter shirt, but then he'll preach black excellence.

Right. So I was confused because he was like, yo, I want our community to have this. I want our community, I want us to do this and it's like, yo, I want our community to have this. I want our community, I want us to do this, and it's like, how does they,

how does that both exist? Yeah, that's part of the problem. And the fact is, he is a genius, so it's like, there's no question. It's like kind of like hard to like, to distinguish like which part do you actually That's a great point. You know what I'm saying? Look, we can acknowledge his genius, but his genius is in certain areas. You know, when you're a genius,

you ain't a genius at everything. Right. You know what I'm saying? You could be, Einstein was a mathematical genius, but his genius is in certain areas. You know, when you're a genius, you ain't a genius at everything. Right. You know what I'm saying? You could be, Einstein was a mathematical genius, but he could hardly keep his clothes clean. So he wasn't no clean genius. Right. Like Pharrell told me yesterday, Pharrell told me, this was his analogy. He called me, he said, well, people don't go to ESPN and talk about stocks.

Right, right. Pharrell ain't lying, there it is, right? So you got to respect the genre. What is your genre? I'm a gangster rapper, so I'm going to spit that. I'm not a conscious rapper. I'm not common. I can't talk about elevated ideas of black identity because that ain't what I do.

I can't say that, hey, I can't buy you a new purse, but I will match your work. Nah, I don't know what that's about. I got you a Birkin. Open up. So you got to understand what you good at. And Kanye is great at music. Kanye is great at productivity within the concepts of aesthetics and fashion. Kanye is great at producing. Kanye is great at being Kanye as a provocative figure. What Kanye ain't great at is understanding the relationship between what he does

and the political consequences that result from that. Now, if he's conscious of it, if he goes, I dare you to say that, I'm conscious, I'm a genius, I know what I'm doing,

well, then we're going to have to really hold you accountable. But your genius is not in this area. It's gobbledygook, it's confused. On the one hand, you talk about black excellence, and he's

made some brilliant music with Jay on Watch the Throne from black murder to black excellence. Beautiful, uplifting, powerful. Then you turn right around and you make crack music. Talking about that black music. And talking about Ronald Reagan and destroying black communities.

You're going like, wow, that's powerful. Or when his mother took him and his parents took him to march in civil rights marches. That's powerful. That's beautiful. George Bush doesn't care for black people. That's great. Then you flip so easily on this other side where you demonize black people, where you're saying

white lives matter, where now George Bush doesn't care for black people. Now you're saying that white lives matter. You're proving to certain black people that Kanye doesn't care for black people. Now you saying that white lives matter, you're proving to certain black people that Kanye doesn't care about black people. So there's no question that Kanye is confused, but his confusion has consequence because he has such a monumental platform. And the reason we respond to him is not because we don't love him. I suspect that he'll hear me. You betrayed me. You're supposed to be my friend.

No, sir. The old black people say where you did it, where you messed up, is where you get it, where you're going to get your punishment. I'm not administering any punishment. All of us are frail and fragile and flawed. I've made many mistakes. I pray to God people forgive me. The women, the men, the children that I've hurt inadvertently or intentionally, forgive me. So I believe, I don't believe in cancel culture.

I don't believe in disposable human beings. I believe if people mess up, then they should be allowed to come back into the fold. But you've got to admit what you did was wrong. And Kanye brokers no acceptance, brooks no acceptance, has no understanding of responsibility by saying, I did this, I said this. It's jacked up. He thinks what he says is right. And at this very moment, he needs to be held to public account for the public distress and harm that he has caused and the trauma that he's imposed upon the black people in America.

All right. I think we should make some noise for that. I think we should make some noise for that. But so how, like, because me, and I heard you say it too. Like, I do love Kanye, right? I love him. I love him.

I mess with him. And what's crazy about me and him is our relationship is never political. Right. So I didn't understand, like, not to say, because I'm guilty too for not being aware of what happened on my platform. Sure.

But most of the time, me and him speak, it's never, never political. Right. So how do I move forward, like, still love my friend, but I'm absolutely against his political views? But that's still my friend. Of course, you got to tell him that. You got to say, yay, look, I love you.

What you're doing is amazing. Now, if he's mature enough to accept your critique in love, that's why I do it in love. I'm not coming on here to try to harangue him, to harass him, to demonize him. That's not what I'm trying to do.

However, or as James Brown would say, how's it never, what we got to do is get into the thick of it. And bruh, I love you. I respect your genius.

You're in a remarkable creative in this American society, but what you're doing is problematic. And when you say, look, I understand what you mean when you say it's not explicitly political, but you know, most of life is political. This water, this booze, us sitting here in a neighborhood in Miami, right? This is all political because somebody had to make the decision about what zoning was available. Well, how could this bar or this club exist here? That's politics.

Politics is about what school your kids go to, and do they get a good education? So in one sense, your show is extremely political because it broadcasts and amplifies the diversity of black identity and hip-hop at its heart. That's a deeply and

profoundly political statement in a culture that doubts the humanity and the intelligence of black people. That's what's up. Because I believe you say you're 65, right? Sixty three. OK, so let me give you two years. So have you in these 63 years, have you ever seen something like this prior? I mean, obviously, you know, people have done horrible things, made mistakes, effed up and so on. I mean, we ain't that far past the Oscars. Right.

Oh, yeah. Right. You know what I'm saying? Will Smith, like, go Kanye right now. I know Will, too. He's a beautiful, beautiful man. I know you and Jay did stuff. No, I know Will, too. He's a beautiful, beautiful man. I know you're in Jaden's stuff, but yeah. I mean, take that attention off of my end.

Or, you know, we ain't, Jermon Green just punched, you know, Jordan Poole. Now, it didn't have the significance and the impact of this. And arguably, obviously, Will Smith's slap of Chris Rock, and both of them are dear friends of mine, and I love them.

I'm in the same dilemma as you. I love both of these men, geniuses at what they do, extraordinary human beings. One of them made a horrible mistake in publicly humiliating another black man, and that black man is left to deal with the consequences of that. Even though he says he's fine. The depression, the trauma, the internal sense of self-questioning. Should I have done this? And if I had done something differently, could I have then, could it have led to a different consequence? But what Kanye has done is to amplify the worst instincts of white folk against black folk. And he's done it as a sheep, in one sense, as a wolf in sheep's clothing,

because if you come as a friend defending us in your music, defending us in your culture and politics, although a lot of black people would say, it's been a long time since he's been defending us, he's been offending us a lot longer. But the point is that Kanye West has had moments where he has stood up

high and powerful in the culture. George Bush making music. I mean, when he's talking about blackness, going up on that stage with Taylor Swift saying Beyonce deserved that. All my single ladies, all my single ladies. Oh, oh, oh. Even the Pope was singing that. If you really want me to be positive, put a put a ring on it. So the point is that was deeply and profoundly consequential and influential. But another compatriot of his, I won't name his name, a famous musician said, but when I was hanging with Kanye, we never talked politics like you were saying. We talked about. So Kanye was never really explicitly political, even though his statements had political consequence.

It wasn't his intent. It's just what happened is my pastor used to tell me a don't mean you no harm. It just wants some blood, but it can give you malaria. So Kanye may have meant this to be exciting. He may have meant this to be controversial, although I suspect it's deeper than that. But the consequence to us is that we've got a kind of psychological malaria. We've got racial harm and trauma being delivered to us. And Kanye must be made aware of that. Either he's going to accept that responsibility and go, let me do something different. But I suspect the crowd he's hanging out with now is telling him, you're brave. You're courageous.

You're doing a good thing. He's hanging out with Donald Trump. Donald Trump, this orange apparition, this guy, this guy who when when Twitter was existing and he was on it, got up every morning to excrete the feces of his moral depravity into a nation. He turned into his psychic commode. He was doing horrible, devastating, nasty stuff to us. And for Kanye to amplify that, for Kanye to amen that. Come on, bro. You are now contagious. You got the covid of racial self-hatred or at least hatred of black folk.

And you got to quarantine for a minute to get that shit straight. Could it be an extreme version of trying to reach greatness or on your way to greatness? You're going to have those failures in those potholes. Sure. Because we see the genius in him. We see when he does really great things, but he's still trying to rise to this greatness that he hasn't achieved yet in his mind. Is it full of those failures and potholes that we're seeing?

Of course. I mean, look, Kanye is a genius, rising even higher, doing incredible things. But part of that genius has to be the ability to acknowledge a moral mishap, an ethical failure. I did something and it's wrong. You can't be just denied. Nope. I don't care. I did it. I said it. That's cool. Let me keep moving on. We can't move on because you've left us with the consequences, right? You the baby, you done crapped in a diaper. You want to

move on. We got to change that diaper. We got to deal with the consequences of it. So Kanye undeniably is rising to higher heights in terms of his fashion presence and being a billionaire. I know he keeps saying he's the richest black man in America. That would be Robert Smith, right? Robert Smith worth nearly $7 billion. Robert Smith, who stood at Morehouse College and said, let me forgive $40 million of your loans. That's what a Negro with money does. That's what a black man with bank does. That's what a black billionaire does. Now, I know there are a lot of people out here speaking about racial capitalism and trying to talk about the subversion of American economy for black people predicated upon being a billionaire. I get that. That's a different argument for a different day. I'm just saying Kanye West is trying to do the best he can, but the best he can is hurting and harming us.

And you're hanging out with people. You know, he's hanging out with Candace Owens and God bless her. Candace Owens is a highly intelligent young lady doing her thing. I deeply and profoundly disagree with her. If you want to hang out with some brilliant, beautiful black women, call up Treva Lindsay at Ohio State University. A brilliant woman wrote a book called America Goddamn, a tremendous feminist. If you want to hang out with some young, brilliant, beautiful black women, call Brittany Cooper, who wrote a book called Eloquent Rage about feminism in America and the way in which black feminism has to be assaulted, has been assaulted both from within the culture and beyond.

If you want to hang out with brilliant black women, talk to Salamisha Tillett, who just won a Pulitzer Prize and writes for the New York Times and wrote a book on the making of the color purple. If you want to hang out with brilliant black women, talk to Stephanie Jones Rogers, who won National Book Award and wrote a book, They Were Her Property, about white women owning black women at UCLA. If you want to hang out with brilliant black women, there's so many others who are available to talk to you. And they love hip-hop, and they're dope, and they got mad swag.

Do that, bruh. Just learn some different black women. That would be helpful to begin with. Right, right. Because I guess that's what he was trying to do is say, I believe Snoop critiqued him at one time. Snoop said that he didn't have a black woman around him. Right.

And now people are critiquing him because not only did he get a black woman, but he got somebody that believes in a total difference. Right. That's a great point. But she ain't his woman. Right, right. That's different. When the woman at your crib, like, Negro, I know you a big-time professor and everything, but you need to slow that down. Slow down, Mace. You're killing

them, all right? You need that pillow talk. The pillow may be white, but the black woman is radiating some intense blackness. And that makes a difference. I'm not trying to judge what he does, because Kanye predicted it. He said, first thing you're going to do when you get famous, go get a white girl, right? He said that in his own music. And I'm for, look,

love who you will. If you and this microphone can get together, y'all get down. Hey, I love you. I love you too. Why do you love me? You amplify me. Y'all can have little baby, little microphone X. So I'm for that, for sure. But

the problem is, is that yes, having a black woman in your life, an intelligent, informed, incisive, you know, incredibly caring black woman makes a difference in this country and in this world. But if you as you said, if you talk to ones who don't necessarily curry the same kind of favor or carry the same kind of burden that their hearts rend because of what black people confront, then yeah, you in trouble. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and bestselling author and meat eater founder, Stephen Rinella.

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I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to does. It makes it real.

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on good company. The podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi for a conversation

that's anything but ordinary. We dive into the competitive world of streaming, how she's turning so-called niche into mainstream gold, connecting audiences with stories that truly make them feel seen. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. It's this idea that there are so many stories out there, and if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Get a front row seat to where media, marketing, technology, entertainment, and sports collide.

And hear how leaders like Anjali are carving out space and shaking things up a bit in the most crowded of markets. Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, yo, Haz, hold up a second. I got something to say. Addiction is a treatable disease, but finding the right treatment can be overwhelming and confusing. Shatterproof, a national non-profit, is here to help without judgment. At Shatterproof, their goal is to help you find addiction care that meets your needs and leads to better health and long-term recovery. When you visit shatterproof.org,

there's an entire section that helps you learn everything you need to know about alcohol and substance use disorder. There's also a Find Help section to help you find the support you may need. Get help today by visiting shatterproof.org. Again, get help today by visiting shatterproof.org let me change the subject a little bit and we'll get back to it right um the the woman that's locked up in russia do you think that would be different if if she was any other race i want the basketball britney griner britney griner who just had her birthday, what, yesterday, right? There is no question that if she wasn't a woman who challenged the sexual norms,

she's married to a woman, but she's a dominant ball player. She is a phenomenal cultural icon. There is no question. Even LeBron had to admit it. That was him over there? I want you to remember your thoughts, but I admitted that I smoked weed in Russia. You was with me one time. You smoked weed in Russia.

You do, right? Come out. You got with me one time. You smoked weed in Russia. You do, right? Come out. You got us. You got us. Onyx admitted. Like, this was like a normal thing for rappers to go to Russia and get weed. Right, right. So this is kind of crazy for me.

No, no, you're absolutely right. We know it's arbitrary. But see, that's the point. You're dealing with a strong man. You're dealing with a dictator. You're dealing with a strong man. You're dealing with a dictator. You're dealing with a fascist. You're dealing with a person who saw her being arrested as a moment that he

could leverage her body in Russia for his advantage in fighting America. Now, if it had been Donald Trump, look how Donald Trump was vicious by saying, you know, she shouldn't have been doing what she was doing. He didn't support her. He didn't stay with her as an American. Oh, my God.

He doubled down on Russia's incarceration of her and harmed her. This is another reason just by tangential relationship. That's what I'm saying, Kanye. Look who you support. Look at this kind of dude, right, who is anti-Black at his heart. They held him

and his daddy responsible for doing stuff with real estate back in the 70s and 80s. Took out a full page ad against the so-called, you know, Central Park Five and they're exonerated five now. But the point is, that's who you're supporting. But yes, this black woman, had she been anybody else, even a straight black woman, would have received more support than a queer black woman with a black wife, both of them beautiful, intelligent women, but who are being used as a pawn and a patsy by a Russian government to get back at America. impulse within the country that is Donald Trump and those who follow him for the most part. And this is why, again, Kanye West's support of him is so undignified, is so harmful to black people and so destructive to the fundamental process of American democracy. But let me be

devil's advocate. Right. Why are we not hearing Kamala as a black woman? Right. Doing more for her. Like, you know what I'm saying? This is kind of like the time for her to rise because, I'm going to be honest, and I know what I'm about to say is not going to be popular, but in the cities, people is kind of like, they're done with the Joe Bidens.

They're done with the Kamala. It doesn't feel like there was any change. After a while, the first four years of Obama, we were, the hood was happy. We were like, and then that last four years, the hood kind of was like, yo, Obama, where is our black, where is our black, you know.

Piece of the pie. Something for, something, like, it felt like Obama didn't do, like, a black agenda that was just for, you know, black people to help us. Absolutely. And then now with Kamala coming in, we saying that, and then you know, black people to help us. Absolutely. And then now with Kamala coming in, we're saying that, and then we're saying, at least, can we go get the girl from Russia?

Right. Well, let me address that directly, because I know all the people you're talking about. I know Obama, I know Kamala Harris. Goddamn, let's love the floor. Can't you say I know the president? I mean, and I know Joe Biden, too. Because I'm about to say some critical

stuff. Now the thing is, is that Kamala Harris, however, as a sitting vice president, doesn't want to do something by a public intervention that will count negatively against Brittany Griner. So in other words, if they behind the scenes trying to work it out, you got to ask yourself a question. Do you want the commercial or do you want the product? Okay. Right? Because you can get the commercial, yes, come here, and your teeth will be clean tomorrow.

Right? Or do you just not announce that and just have clean teeth? Right? There's a serious war going on. It's a war going on. They're using her body as a war zone, and they are criminalizing her blackness, her queerness, and her Americanness at the same time.

So, to Kamala, in Kamala's defense, Vice President Kamala Harris, she can't say much right now because then the people over in Russia get mad. Oh, really? A black woman saying crazy things? Now we gonna punish the black woman. So that I give her a pass on. However...

Because the woman already got 29 years. She's sentenced. Well, 10 years at least. She got 10 years. But she got 10 years. And what they're trying to do now is to negotiate a prisoner exchange so they can release some real thug in America, some real criminal who did some horrible things in exchange for her. So they're trying to leverage her. And they're upping the ante.

The worse the war gets over there, the more critical America is of Russia in regard to Kiev and in regard to what's going on in the Ukraine. Then her body becomes even more of a precious bounty to be used by Russia. But let me say this, though. Yes. The same folk who mad now and I get it because I'll be telling black people to vote all the time. Well, it ain't working out. Dude, a lot of stuff don't work out. A lot of stuff don't work out. You got to keep trying. I know you a first time person. The person I voted for didn't win. Dude, that's the nature of the game. Right. I made an album. It didn't sell five million. OK, make another one.

All right. Keep working. Go on the Internet. Up your profile. Where are white? OK, so the point is, right. So the point is that that the same black folk mad at Biden now wasn't mad at Obama when Obama wasn't doing diddly squat for black people in this country. Now, I'm a person who was twice a surrogate for Barack Obama. That means I went out, I spoke for him, I told people to vote for him. I have no regrets about that. But the moment after each time he was elected, I was his critic. I was his critic because before you were president and after you were president, I'm still Michael Eric Dyson. I'm still committed to black people.

No one black journey is greater than the black journey. Your individual life as a black person cannot outweigh the fortunes of black people. So I knew that Barack Obama, as important as he was, was not more important than the struggle of black people to become whole in this nation. And so, yeah, here's a guy. They were putting him up on the posters with Martin Luther King Jr. Slow, slow, slow, slow down with that. Slow down. As Albert Camus says, you've got to go on the ground and rise Luther King Jr. Slow, slow, slow, slow down with that. Slow down. As Albert Camus says, you got to go on the ground and rise up the third day before you get that kind of love, bro. That's on some genius level, Jesus level love. It ain't really where you is.

Now, there's a difference between Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama. One is the civil rights leader standing outside the parameters of politics, challenging it from without with his moral vision and his ethical courage. Another one is sent to be the black face of the white American empire. So the point is, his job from the giddy up that we knew was to represent America with all the good that that means and with all the self-destructive nastiness that that brings as well. This man was in charge of the American empire, won a Nobel Peace Prize while having two wars going on. To Mar-a-Lago.

Right, right. And drone striking like a motherfucker. Right? So you hustling. I'm a hustler, baby. When the remedies of the system ain't no telling whether I drone them or I kill them. That's what they be asking.

I'm a pimp by blood. Right? So, that's a president imbued with moral principles. But anyway, P-I-M-P. But the point is, Barack Obama was a man who was given the responsibility and the reins of the

American empire at a very moment when its fortunes were declining. That's when they always give Negroes the car keys. When the car ain't working, take it over to, you know, Jiffy Fix Up and try to get the damn thing fixed. Because, oh, oh, it is a Rolls Royce, but it ain't got no engine that's working, okay? So that's what they do to us. But Barack Obama was a genius. He figured out the American economy. He got people working again. He saved the automobile industry. He did amazing things. But for black folk, not so much. You know, I compare him to my another dear friend, Shaquille O'Neal, whom I know y'all love and admire. Shaquille was one of the greatest

ballplayers ever. Kobe said had he had a certain kind of work ethic, he would have been the greatest of all time. So we know he was the most dominant big man of all time, but he wasn't a great foul shooter necessarily. So you can acclaim Shaq as one of the greatest of all time, but don't put him on the category of greatest free throw shooters ever. Barack Obama might be top 10 president for everybody else, but for us, not so much. He wasn't a top 10 president for black folk because he would scold us. He would dog us in public. He would tell us, stop feeding your kids chicken and don't do this. Now he's scolding us He would dog us in public. He would tell us, stop feeding your kids chicken and don't do this. Now he's scolding us, but he ain't scolding white folks. The one time he tried at a Tony fundraiser in San Francisco while he was running for president, he said,

yeah, man, they get that. I'm paraphrasing it. They get that juice in them when they get upset and they get religion and they go grab some guns. These white folk wore him out. And never again did he ever attempt to be critical of white folk. But Negroes take it. Negroes take abuse as a sign of love. Negroes take imposed trauma as a sign of respect. And so they felt that when Barack was doing that, at least he paying attention to me. Yeah, he beat me.

It's like Color Purple. He beat me. But see, we like the Oprah character. I ain't miss ceiling. I ain't never thought in my own home you telling Harpo to beat me. And so we have to say to black

people, don't be like Donald Trump supporters. That's how we were with Barack. Now, I ain't saying Barack and Donald Trump are the same thing. Barack Obama is a genius, an incredible political figure, and a great mind, but he also was deeply and profoundly problematic for black people. Two things can be true at the same time. And so we got to hold him to account.

Like what Kanye? Like what Kanye? Yeah. Except, you know. We're not comparing. No, I'm not comparing. Although, now that you mention that, I hold Barack Obama at least a little responsible for Kanye. How do you say?

Because when Kanye did his thing with Taylor Swift, remember they called Barack Obama on that microphone? He called him an asshole. He called him a jackass. He scolded him. Well, he had more courage than you, Barack. Maybe if you called out white supremacy from the bully pulpit of the most powerful platform in America and indeed in the world, the Kanye West of the world wouldn't have to call that kind of thing out.

So calling him a jackass while you're sitting around being silent and complicit in the face of horrible transactions of anti-blackness in America wasn't a good look either. But black people were with Barack regardless. Remember on Saturday Night Live, no matter what he did,

yep, it's Barack, we love him. And I understand that he was the first one. White people done had 44 presidents, we had one. That's our baby daddy, we rolling it's Barack we love him and I understand that he was the first one white people done had 44 presidents we had one that's our baby daddy we rolling with him and we love him pardon me for cutting you off but that's one of the things is people said that he was the first black president so and he said the Republicans

always outvoted him so there's little much that he can do but then the very next president even when he got outvoted by the Democrats, he did what the fuck he wanted to do. Like, honestly.

All day. He used that one to force things. All day. The one before him and after him. George Bush. Yeah, John Timothy.

I'm the decider. Right. I'm going to do what I'm going to do. The one after him. But you're the one in between the sandwich. You're the reverse Oreo.

You're the reverse Oreo cookie. You've got two whites and a black on the middle. You know, and you ain't got no ice cream to put it in and no milk to dip it in. The point is this, is that when you're the president, bro, you know, now he did do some

stuff in terms of executive decisions and executive orders and the like. There's no doubt about that. And yes, Barack Obama was in a precarious position back against the wall, deeply and profoundly fighting the forces of white supremacy. And he did an ingenious job in many ways. But here's my point. If you can't do something special for Negroes, don't do nothing special against them, though. See, this is the

problem. It's one thing for you to say, I can't acknowledge what I'm doing in a certain way. Look, I've been in the White House at a table that was about twice this size with Barack Obama and nine other so-called Negro leaders. And I shared with him my vision that was problematic. Now, I had a radio host say, Michael, you're writing a book on the president. It's about 2011 and 12. You're writing a book on the president. You're a famous Black person with influence, you could really harm his chances for re-election. Now he's sitting right there. I'm like, dude, I say, are you Nostradamus? Because I

ain't even wrote the damn book yet. So and since I got kids, tell me how many books I'm going to sell so I'll know how much money I can make. Right? And Obama laughed and he said, yeah, and he's sitting here eating my food. Well, you might be the president, but you ain't as mean with this mic as me, Holmes.

So without missing a beat, I said, yeah, pay for it by my tax money. And I said, based on what I'm paying, I'm going to be here next week. Give me the menu. So I try to play it off. That's what I do. But, but he said, look, I respect Michael because I said, I disagree with you, Mr. President. And I said to his face, I wasn't trying to backstab him to be nasty. I said, you believe a rising tide lifts all boats. He said, I wouldn't quite put it that way, but I understand your point. I said, when you go when you're sick and you go to the hospital, you don't get medicine. That's universal. That's something that's non that's nonspecific.

I said, if you've got a hangnail, you get aspirin. If you've got diabetes, you get insulin. If you've got cancer, you get chemotherapy. I said, medicines, like public policy, should be aimed at the ills they're meant to relieve. So there ain't no one-size-fits-all. We steal black and citizens. If you're taking care of everybody else but afraid that if you hook us up,

it'll look like you've giving us a hookup. You're saying this in the White House? Right there. What is the advantage of us supporting you? And I said in the book, I wrote a 300 and some odd page book. See, I write books like niggas write hooks. Right? So I put that down in a book.

And I've laid that down. You write in book number, I don't know, 20 or 26. I mean, I lost count, but I'm still doing what I do. So the thing is, is that I put it there. Careful analysis. Again, like with Kanye, I love Barack Obama. I respect Barack Obama. Right. But as in The Godfather, but I never trust. No. OK. But you never trust. Right. So the point is, I love Obama. I respect him. I supported him. I went out and asked people to vote for him. But we've also got to hold black leaders to account.

We've got to hold the Michael Eric Dyson's to account. We've got to hold every black public figure to account. Not cancel them, not be nasty, not destroy them. And where I do agree with Kanye is in this cancel culture, which is so destructive. Like you don't make no mistakes. Like if somebody messes up and does something, a white person, and Obama said this the other day, let me give him some kudos. He said, people don't want to think they're walking on eggshells. If they say one wrong thing, then they're done. You know, that's this younger generation. Y'all, I mean, that ain't what, I'm a Baptist preacher. Jesus had done that, the world would be dead right now. Right. People got to be forgiven for the mistakes they've made. Now they got to know they made a mistake.

Kanye got to admit he made it. And if he don't admit it, then we got to keep hammering him, hollering at him and trying to talk to him to get him to see a different way. So for me, Barack Obama was an extraordinary president. But all the black people who blindly followed him, who didn't criticize him, now want to criticize Joe Biden. You didn't criticize your own. You had a black man in there who could identify with you. What did Joe Biden do? He put a black woman on the ticket and gave her the vice presidency or allowed her to be elected. And he put a black woman on the Supreme Court. Barack Obama had three bites at the apple. He couldn't put one sister on the court and you mad at the old white man? That old white man has done more for Negroes in total in terms of what he's trying to do, not perfectly, not without flaws, than a whole lot of black politicals who have not taken up

the mantle of a black agenda or the interests of black people. So that's why we can't be about no cancel culture and trying to get rid of people who we feel have done a wrong thing. I don't want to be canceled. I'm a black man who's made mistakes. I try to be a feminist in identification with black women and white women and women of color

and throughout the world. But I mess up, hold me to account. Tell me where I did wrong, but allow me to step back into the arena and participate again. That's what we got to do when it comes to race and class and gender and culture in this country. Goddamn. Make some noise for that. Goddamn.

So, I don't have the numbers and I don't know. I'm going off a feeling. Right, right. When Barack was in office, it felt like a lot more police killing of innocent black men happened and it felt like a lot more of killing of innocent black men happened yeah and it felt like a lot more

a police killing innocent black men getting freed happened getting getting uh of course yes is that is that true well yeah i feel i share the same feeling i wrote a book called long time coming where i addressed the martyrs of this this movement fallen martyrs, not intentional martyrs, martyrs because of their circumstance. Look. Under Barack. Under Barack Obama. And here's the point. Let's put it this way. Given the rising tide of white supremacy, because you know

Barack Obama sent the meter of white supremacy off the chart, right? It just went, the needle went off the recording mechanism itself. It just went, the needle went off the recording mechanism itself. It just went haywire because they hated him. That's why black people still defended him. And I understand why.

Because no matter what he did that was failed and flawed, the white supremacists out here are trying to kill him every day. The death threats against him were more than any other president. The harm and hate that he received. And he was so cool with it, right? I mean, the thing that we love about him, he's like Jay-Z as president.

He's like Jay-Z as president. Right. I would say that, yeah. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? He don't sweat. But we saw the effect when he came out of office, how he looked. With the gray hair. There's no doubt.

I mean, there's no doubt. But, you know, he was cool. He was calm. He's collected. He's doing his thing. But beneath, there was a fire He was calm. He's collected. He's doing his thing. But beneath there was a fire raging and it was it was burning us. So they wanted to get Barack. Couldn't get him. Who can you get? Vulnerable black people.

So he was Barack Obama was in one sense our iconic representative. And we were his proxxies can't shoot him shoot us can't kill him kill us i'm not suggesting there was some broad conspiracy that was conscious on the parts of white people but that's the genius of white supremacy it's an institution that operates on its own but as is the data show that there was more of it or was it always there and just social media and the access to film these things and and bring it out more? Of course. I mean, that's that's partly true that it was it was focused on in a way because you got a black man in the White House. You never had that before. You got a black man having to respond to black people dying.

And what will he say? And Obama was tentative on some of that stuff. Right. After Trayvon Martin, you know, that's not a police killing, but it is a vigilante killing. After Trayvon Martin's death, after the jury, you know, did what it did and let George Zimmerman off, Barack Obama says the people have spoken. The jury is to be trusted. And that's what, wait a minute, bro. Slow down. So he got to go to the crib.

His kids are there. His wife's there. Then he comes up go to the crib. His kids are there. His wife's there. Then he comes up and makes one of the greatest statements about race because you got to push presidents. Presidents ain't going to never do what you don't make them do. Right. That famous story that Harry Belafonte likes to tell and others of FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the president, having his black kitchen and cabinet with Mary McLeod Bethune and A. Philip Randolph. They were great leaders. She was the National Council of Negro Women.

He was the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Tremendous. They were part of his informal cabinet, meeting women at the White House. And he listened to what they said. He said, look, I believe everything you're saying. Now go out in the streets and make me do it. In other words, create a social movement

where I go, what was I going to do? I mean, look at what the tide has turned. So presidents rarely do unless you make them do. So yeah, Barack Obama exposed what was underlying there and the technology caught up with the truth, the empirical. Empirical is just a big word to say that which can be falsified or verified through the census. The cameras picked up. No, no, no, that can't be true. There's just no way. Imagine if there was no camera for George Floyd.

Dead, another dead nigga. We don't care. He was belligerent and he was nasty. The reason white people poured into the streets, I think, of the numbers they did, they saw that video. First of all, it was COVID. That meant we were all at home

used to watching stuff on our screen, right? Five weeks before, old men like me telling people, get off that damn phone. Why don't you talk to me face to face? Now, with COVID, hey, how are you doing? Thank God you didn't listen to me. And we're talking right now. So the thing is,

is that we were used to seeing things on screen and they were more alive and more colorful for us, number one. Number two, there were no more. But white people said, wait a minute, hey, ain't we seen this film before? Didn't this happen like six years ago with a guy named Eric Garner out in New York? And he said, I can't breathe. Jiminy Cricket. They were right.

They keep saying to us that we don't believe that it still exists. And then thirdly, what they saw, there was no more excuse. He was running. No, he wasn't. He was trying to resist arrest. No, he wasn't. He was cussing at. No, he wasn't. He was being hateful and growing for a gun. No, he wasn't. And they saw no more excuses, and they fled the streets.

So, yes, I think the cameras exposed it. I think the fact that a black president was there magnetized the bigots in this country. And Howard Thurman, the great mystic, said a bigot is a person who makes an idol of his commitment. So they were committed to their vicious understanding of whiteness as dominant. And black people were messing it up. And Obama was seen as a person taking their rights. Can you imagine white people who were upset with Obama? And Obama was hooking y'all up in a way he ain't never hooked us up. He was giving y'all the keys to the kingdom and you still hated him because the person handing you the keys was a black man. So in that sense, yes, it exposed what

was already there. So it may have seemed to be more dense and happening more, but the reality is black life being lost is a constant in America. The hatred of black people, anti-blackness is a constant, which is why, again, not to keep harping on Kanye, why what you're doing is more than a ploy. It's destructive. How do you get produced by a people who out of their loins delivered you into the world like Moses protecting you so that you could one day rise up to lead your people through sonic expression and aesthetic expression and fashion and music for you to turn around and be Pharaoh when you're supposed to be Moses. And what you do when you say white lives matter is that you turn into the very destructive enemy of the very interests that produced you. Now, when you tell us, oh, I'm in for black excellence stuff, that's a sideshow. The main theme is your destructive addiction

to white supremacy and to anti-blackness in your own mind. Let me ask you something something and then we'll bounce around sure as a president right you seeing these people who are as multiple shootings of unarmed and innocent right killings of black men black people period because there's a woman in there right sure there are many women anyone right i mean let's just say men isn't it how hard is it to just change the law that if you get caught killing somebody that's without a goddamn pistol,

that you automatically go into jail? Because then, I'm sure... I mean, I'm seeing people getting convicted now. I'm seeing people... But... He can't do that, though. He wouldn't be able to change the law? No, he can't do that because, first of all, he ain't no dictator. Now, if he's Donald Trump, he would think he could.

Right. But Barack Obama was a constitutional lawyer. He was a scholar of the Constitution. He knew that way we can't go. He can't change the law. He can't. No, he can't. He's the president.

State laws, federal laws. State law, federal law, and the people that you want to change it are invested in the very white supremacy that you don't want to talk about. Look at the police department, how it was exposed. All these white bigots are in law enforcement. Some of them are in state legislatures. Republican state legislators, maybe 38 to 40 some of them are Republican controlled, which means that the local law will always mitigate against, militate against, go against trying to create laws that hold them accountable.

Look at the notion of, you know, you know, impunit, immunity that police people are granted. So now when you talk about the immunity that they are granted, that means even if they mess up and it proves that you prove that they kill somebody, well, they're granted immunity because they were representing the state. In this case, you're a cop. So Obama couldn't change that. But what he could change, he didn't necessarily do, which is change the rhetoric, which is open your mouth. Yes, he convened the police committee and all that. But you got the bully pulpit. You got influence. Kanye has shown you that you can talk and by talk alone, you can change the atmosphere. You can change people's perception. You can influence them in deep ways. That's what

the darn social media is about. Social media influencers. You ain't got no power. You might be making money off of that, but you got influence in the world to change people's perception. Obama had the biggest bully pulpit in the world and often had to be pushed into saying something because of his own reticence to deal with race in America. And Trump took advantage of it and did use it. Like a mug. Trump didn't give a fuck, but couldn't he have at least threatened and said,

yo, listen, from now on, any law enforcement that is caught killing an innocent person, maybe not just black people, obviously black people is the biggest part. But could he at least have threatened them so people would feel scared, like the president said they're going to get me? No, because first of all, they didn't respect him as president. Damn. He was already the most powerful.

Look, it's like being the baddest man in the world when you're the heavyweight champion in the world, right? Whoever has that title is the baddest man in the world. Right. Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis, you know, Tyson Fury. You're the baddest man on the planet, the heavyweight champion. Yes. You're the most powerful person in the world when you're the American president.

Right. The most powerful. And yet what they showed is that Obama had a lot of limitations on him. He might have been the most powerful in terms of theory, right? Now, there are two theories. That's important what you're saying in terms of theory. Because you know what's crazy about that? You're saying that, but when it came

time to kill Osama, he was in that room. He had that power. He said, I'm going to murk him. Falling back on that ass. What the hell of a fight. Gangstantly. So, no doubt that he can control that. He can control the military.

That's a deep thing. You can control the killing of Osama, but you can't get Yoko. You can't get Obama boy over here. And thank God he can't again, because that would be criminal. Some people already thought the killing of a so-called

terrorist was problematic enough, but can you imagine Obama turning that power against American citizens? That was his greatness. The refusal to be seduced by the temptation to use and abuse your power in ways that are destructive of the American democracy.

But, on the other hand, you could use your bully pulpit in ways that you didn't. I was about to say there are two big theories of power. One, a guy named Max Weber, a sociologist, talked about it as inherent in institutions, as hierarchies. You above me, this person is above you. They're the big dog. Another guy named Michel Foucault talked about power breaking out everywhere it's lateral so if you try to get up into the club and the bouncer won't let you in he might not be president but he got damn power over your life that night right you ain't you ain't going nowhere son and you with your girl baby i'll tell you i could get in i could get in

i'm gonna show you the dude going like now take youratch ass home and you ain't going nowhere. So that's power, Foucault said. And people exercise power against each other and laterally, not just top down. So Obama had enormous forms of micropolitics. Obama had enormous forms of power that he could use to try to get America to think a different way. And when he was inclined to do so, he did. The famous race speech he gave in Philadelphia, the speech he gave at the 50th anniversary of the march on Selma, when John Lewis got his brains nearly beat out of his cranium. So when Obama was willing to do so, he could do it. But he was loathe to do so. He didn't want to do it. He didn't want to use his

political capital that way. He didn't want to be ghettoized and seen as the president only for black people. But dude, in the second term especially, black people gave him a pass in the first one. But second one, go for broke. Dude, you could paint the White House black, red, black, and green. Another rumor they were saying is that

he didn't want to legalize marijuana because he didn't want to be the black president. I mean, this is a rumor. I'm sure. Well, he didn't. They tried to get him to pardon Marcus Garvey, the great Marcus Garvey. Right? Guess who did?

I think Donald Trump. What? Right? Am I wrong? I stand to be corrected, but I think Donald Trump pardoned or is considering pardoning. I think he was considering pardoning. I think he was considering pardoning. I think he did pardon Marcus Garland, but he couldn't get Barack Obama to do it. And how is that going to hurt your political capital?

And Trump got Kodak Blackout. Huh? Trump got Kodak Blackout. I mean, come on. He got a little bit. Luane. Luane. Luane.

You know what I'm saying? I'd rather be underground pushing flowers than in the pants sharing showers. And Luane. That's right. That's right. He got Luane out. More people got out, the pants sharing showers. And Lil Wayne. That's right. I forgot. More people got out, too. I forgot. Wow, man.

So the thing is, is that Donald Trump met with the Congressional Black Caucus 60 days after he was in office. It took Obama nearly three years. People who are mad at white folk who uncritically and blindly express loyalty to Donald Trump don't see it closer to home when they were doing the same thing for Barack Obama. Now, again, we know Barack ain't Donald. We know Barack Obama is smart. He actually reads books. He knows the Constitution. He knows the Constitution. He reads things that he didn't write, and he interprets them with brilliance.

But at the same time, the truth is that Barack Obama did not exercise the full range of his authority while in office. And black people loved him regardless. Or as the brothers on the street say, irregardless. Do you think we're going to have like and listen, I don't want to say this word. I don't want to say this word, but I'm going to say it. You think we'll ever have, like, a nigga president? Richard Pryor, like Richard Pryor. Remember, he was dodging them, like, oh, yeah, hey, I got a press conference because I'm trying to get away. They're trying to kill me.

Because, like, Trump was, like, he had nigga tendencies. He would do something. Well, I would say Trump was niggard to leave. Let's distinguish that. And he's still calling, according to some, he's calling black people nigger. He wasn't saying nigga.

So he wasn't identifying with that. Now, first of all, that's off limits to you, Donald. That's not something you can be saying. Even the great Marshall Mathers understood that. Even us. I want to rephr with that. Now, first of all, that's off limits to you, Donald. That's not something you can be saying. Even, you know, the great Marshall Mathers understood that. Even us. I want to rephrase that. When we ever have a president that's black and that's hood, that's hoody, that's fuck. Not to say that Barack is not from the hood or Kamala's not from the hood. You know what I'm trying to say is like with the hood tendencies, like, you know, I don't know if you remember, it was a Dave Chappelle skit. Oh, yeah.

And Dave Chappelle was like, he was like, yo, what, what, what, you're going to talk like that in front of my wife? He's at a press conference. You ever think? Yeah. No, they can never get elected. I mean, that's what Obama understood. Right. Right.

I mean, look, Obama wasn't the first black man to be capable of being president who was black. He's the first black man they allowed to be elected. Right. Jesse Jackson. I mean, the rhetorical genius of a Jesse Jackson receiving the baton symbolically from Martin Luther King Jr. and carrying it through the wilderness of white backlash, of anti-affirmative action, of the culture of narcissism, of the hatred of black people, of white supremacy's resurgence and recrudescence and still being out there doing his thing. He could have been president by far. Now the 80s, right? In the 80s? Oh, yeah. Right. In the 80s.

Shirley Chisholm running even before then. So, yeah, there are other black people who were capable. Reagan is the president, but I voted for Shirley Chisholm. Right, right. Like that, right? Come on. Old school hip hop. Like that. Like that. But here's the point. That to get a black person like that, it's got to be by stealth.

See, you got to be Whitney Houston. And I will always love you. Right. And then beneath, you know, all y'all trying to cancel Whitney. She ain't black enough. Oh, she was really black in ways she couldn't even afford to say in public. She couldn't tell the truth about that blackness. Right. So you never know what people are doing. See, black people have to signify, you know, on the surface, we had to be cool and come high. How are you? Fine. How are you? Yes, let's have dinner at the soonest.

Thanks so very much. Bye-bye now. And then underneath, like, no, I'm gone. What's up with the gizzo to the stizzo? It's like, what is that? So, yeah, there's going to be some great deal of signifying, but there are levels, as the great philosopher Meek Mill said, there are levels to this. And the thing is, is that, yes, I think, look,

Jackie Robinson was the first black ballplayer for the major leagues. Jackie Robinson was a great ballplayer. He wasn't the greatest, but he was great. Right? He was chosen not because he was the greatest, Larry Doby, right behind him,

Newcomb, Roy Newcomb, but he was chosen because his temperament was of such, even when they stepped on his fingers, even though he wanted to break them off, he was kind enough. He was disciplined enough to stand back up. So he was chosen as much for his PR skills and as much for his ability to defer his anger

as for his skills. But coming behind him was Willie Mays, arguably the greatest player ever. And some would say Barry Bonds. So while Barack Obama was Jackie Robinson. Pre-steroids. Barry Bonds, pre-steroids. Oh, yeah. Pre-steroids. He was

the coldest ever. Already. So let him in the hall, dude, because the stuff he did after it, he just had a bigger neck and he could hit longer. But he was still killing the ball before then. But my point is that Barack Obama is Jackie Robinson.

Who we waiting for is Willie Mays. And Willie Mays will be a dominant, brilliant, capable president who's committed to black people in a certain way, but he's still going to have to disguise it. Let's be real. That's what I meant by Whitney Houston. You're going to have to signify. But yes, I think there will come a point where a person who has historically

been identified with us, who's not afraid because the culture allows him not to be afraid, although that's a long way off, to embrace his blackness. I mean, don't you think with Kamala Harris, there's some of that going on, whom I know and love, but not wanting to off to embrace his blackness. I mean, don't you think with Kamala Harris, there's some of that going on whom I know and love. But, you know, not wanting to appear to be too black on the one hand and trying to appeal to a broader audience. At the end of the day, you've got to be who you is. As the old lady said, be who you is and not who you ain't. Because if you is what you ain't, you am what you not. That was hard. That was hard. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck.

This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser-known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and meat-eater founder Stephen Rinella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here, and I'll say it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

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And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people people real perspectives this is kind of star-studded a little bit man we got uh ricky williams nfl player hasman trophy winner it's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves music stars marcus king john osborne from brothers osborne we have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote

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isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. podcast. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on good company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi for a conversation that's anything but ordinary. We dive into the competitive world of streaming, how she's turning so-called niche into mainstream gold, connecting audiences with stories that truly make them feel seen.

What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. It's this idea that there are so many stories out there, and if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Get a front row seat to where media, marketing, technology, entertainment, and sports collide. And hear how leaders like Anjali are carving out space and shaking things up a bit in the most crowded of markets. Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So I've been critical of this regime. I've been critical of Capcom and I've been critical of this regime. Right. I've been critical of Cap, Kamala. Right. And I've been critical of Biden. Right. I think Biden looks weak. Right.

I think he almost acts decrepit. Right. But besides all that, I feel like they don't come outside. I feel like me, I'm used to seeing presidents. I'm used to seeing presidents go. And I get COVID. I get all that seeing presidents go, and I get COVID. I get all that. COVID's real.

COVID's real. But it felt like even prior to COVID and after COVID, I'm not seeing them, for lack of a better term, seeing them in these streets. Yeah, see, this is what Biden, I'm not going to speak for Biden. I'm going to say to you, young man, I love your show. Watch it all the time. Fashizzle my nizzle. But at the same time, you're going, it's a bitch

up in here. I'm trying to run the world from America, and it's hard. I'd love to take off time and watch reruns of MTV raps, but damn, it's rough out here. Now, your point is, though, about the PR side of it, though. But damn, it's rough out here. Now, your point is, though, about the PR side of it, though.

Hellfellow well met. Obama wasn't that real social. Bill Clinton was social. Hello, how are you? How are you? He was kissing babies at 8, Dick. Let me tell you what. He was in your home.

They said, Obama was like a cat, and Clinton was like a dog, no pun intended. So a dog, it'd be 100 people in the room. 99 people love you. But the one person that don't, the dog would be like, don't you love me? The cat be like, you can take me or leave me home. I don't really give a damn, right? And Obama was like, look, it's good. I know what I'm doing.

I'm going to take care of business. If you like me, that's cool. If you don't, check you later. So I think that Joe Biden is an older American trying to preserve his health, trying to in the midst of COVID, trying to get the job done. Let me tell you something about Joe Biden. I went to the White House. I was invited along with a few other scholars and historians to talk to him. So we did our presentation. I thought it was going to be like eight of us. We're going to present our give our presentations. And then he go, OK, great. Thanks a lot. It was great. Take a photo op and leave. After every presentation, this dude is given 15 minutes response.

Do you think this when you said this, Dr. Dyson, about, you know, what was going on with civil rights in regard to LBJ? And he's asking serious questions. And Michael, do you think this all of that, I'm going like, damn, we were only supposed to meet an hour and a half. We met for damn near four hours. The man's energy was crazy. So I think that, look, there's a, there's room to be critical of all presidents. That's our job as American citizens. And you said you weren't political. Your job as an American citizen is to hold the people who represent you to account. You don't work for them. They work for you. That's why the police got it twisted. They think we supposed to obey them. You work for us. And yet you're out here killing us. So I think I think Joe Biden is doing a hell of a job. He had a lot of stuff to clean up.

Yes, he should be criticized like any other president, but I'll tell you, in terms of the strides he's made and the efforts he's made and what he's tried to do is pretty darn remarkable. If you compare him to his black president, for whom he was vice president,

he done done some stuff, man, in terms of substance that, again, may not look the same part cosmetically. But in terms of infrastructure, in terms of internal dialogue, in terms of politics, in terms of distribution of resources, it's far more powerful in many ways and advantageous to us than in previous administrations. And you got to think about it in comparison to Trump to Trump, he doesn't look like he's outside, but politically, he's outside. No, but Trump was outside tweeting every day.

I ain't going to lie. That's a different kind of outside. But that's why he wasn't doing no damn job. He was tweeting all the time. Trump was trying to get views and likes, you know? Listen, there was, again, I'm not bigging up Trump because I have no room to big up anybody on that side right now. But what I'm saying is I have no room to big up anybody on that side right now. But what I'm saying is, I have no room.

Make that clear. I do not like Donald Trump like that. But what I'm trying to say is, I can go two weeks without hearing something about Biden or Kamala. When Trump was in office, I couldn't go half an hour. Do you want the commercial or the product? You got to discover what you want.

And it's where you're looking, too. Are you looking at political news? Oh, on Twitter. No, but see, that's different And it's where you're looking, too. Are you looking at political news? Oh, I'm on Twitter. No, but see, that's different. If you follow news, Twitter. Elon Musk's Twitter soon. Toxic Twitter, yeah. I could go on Twitter this week. They were killing me. Yeah, yeah. They got the edit button now.

You can edit on Twitter now. On where? Now you tell me? But here's the thing, though. Great thing. A2 Brutus! A2 Brutus! But here's the thing, though. Ain't too brutish. Ain't too brutish. He said, I got your back. Yeah, you got a knife in it, too. But here's the thing. If they're in the house, the people's house doing their work, although he's traveling and doing his thing.

If he's trying to take care of business, that's what we want. We don't want the performative presidency. That's what Trump was doing, going around, hell-fellow, well-met, shaking people's hands, kissing babies, grabbing... Okay. So the thing is that this is what he was doing, but he wasn't doing the work of the people.

First of all, he didn't know what the hell he was doing. His level of incompetence was amazing. His mendacity was astonishing. And at least what Joe Biden is doing is showing you one old white man can undo what another old white man did. And so let him do what he's got to do within and inside. That doesn't mean you can't hold him to account, but it's the flashy, conspicuous elements of political theater that may be lacking in Biden. But underneath, it's like Jay said, and I might not be, say, like a Busta Rhymes, but when you break down my lines, you see what I'm doing. And in that sense, when you break down what Biden is really about, it's been far more substantive in terms of policy. Barack Obama gave us

my brother's keeper. You could have done that when you were out of office, man. God dang. What were you? You had power inside. Don't be giving us no damn Sunday school approximation of feel-good blackmailism. Give us a serious systemic

alternative to the productive forces of evil, hurt, and pain that are out there. And I think he missed the boat in many ways in that regard. Do you think Obama had a do-rag in the White House? Yeah, man. This is what I wanted to see. I wanted to see Obama come out one day

down, you know, down the stairs and then come with a do-rag on, with a grill, with his terrycloth robe, and his Magic Johnson socks, and his slippers, and go, what? Yeah! I'm living in public housing.

That's what I do. Yeah, that's the best public housing in America. But I'm still living in public housing, okay? I mean, and then when he comes down Air Force One, you know 50 Cent was playing. I don't know what you heard about me. But the right can't get a dollar out of me, right? I mean, look, let me be the anger translator if I can. Baptist preacher cussing, I'm giving you a warning.

So if you want to turn your ears away, don't listen to this. I'm going to be Obama's anger translator. So Obama was given a speech, his penultimate, that is his next to last speech as the, in the state of union. And he goes, well, I have no more races to run. And then of course the Republicans got up. Yeah, thank God. And Obama, he didn't have more race, no more races to run because he was eight years. He had to come out, right? You said racist. Racist to run.

Racist. R-A-C-E-S. Okay. R-A-C-E-S. Okay. Racist to run. And then the proposal is clapping. He says, well, that's because I beat you.

Well, that's not asking for the niggerized presidency or at least the blackened catfish presidency. You know what Obama wanted to say. And allow me that privilege to say, look, bitch, I beat your ass twice. And if we had another election, I'd whip that ass again. That's what Obama was really saying. Let's make some noise for Drink Chance Obama. Drink Chance Obama.

Holy shit. Holy. So what happens in this crazy world, right? Because we've seen things crazier. Right. What happens if Kanye runs for 2024 and wins? I'm sorry, Kanye. Nori, baby, come on the show.

I didn't really want to go. Go to Breakfast Club. Damn, I didn't know what I was thinking. I'm a champion. She's more like Florida. I'm more like, oh, no, I didn't know. Let me tell you what. That'd be like, I'm going to answer your question.

I was at the crib one day after having appeared on the Today Show after the fourth, fifth year anniversary of the killing of the folk involved Nicole and Ron Goldman, right? So I said, ain't nothing black on OJ but the bottom of his shoes. Whoa. And I said, when OJ took that long, slow ride down the LA freeway in AC Collings Bronco, it wasn't the first time he used a white vehicle to escape a black reality. Boom, right? So I go home that day, the phone rings, phone handed to me. Wife gives me the phone. She said, it's a call for you. I said, hello? He said, do I call you professor, reverend, or Dr. Dyson? I'm saying to myself, shit, that's OJ? I say, you can call me Mike. Mike is fine.

Mike is fine. Most people who know me call me that and it's all good. I was a straight, you know what I'm saying. Because now, I'm talking mad trash

on today's show. Right? I'm killing them with the rhetoric. I'm giving them vicious vicissitudes in the midst of vituperation. God dang it. I'm just smoking them with the rhetoric. I'm giving them vicious vicissitudes in the midst of vituperation, god dang it. I'm just smoking them, right, with big words.

And then I came home, and this fool called me. I was like, huh? Yeah, no. He said, I want to come to your class. Okay, anytime you want to. You can come. It's amazing. And I'm saying, and I called Johnny Cox.

I said, how you get this negro my phone number? I said, you know that's OJ? You know what he be doing? I'm just wondering. The black people are vulnerable, right? So same with Kanye. I go, oh, my God. I had no idea.

No, I'd have to stand against. I'd have to say, Kanye, if you're president and you do great things, I'm going to support you and stand by you and show you love. And if you don't, I'm going to be your worst enemy, your most convicted, you know, critic. And to say to you that now that you have political power, that you must exercise it prudently. See, here's the problem. A lot of hip hoppers

who love Donald Trump loved him as an iconic figure in the cultural space. He got a bunch of money. He flossing. He's our kind of dude. As he hated Negroes at the same time. Just keep that clear.

They already got a problematic relationship with him. But now that he switches over to president, they have a hard time, some of them, trying to make that transition. He is now the president of the United States of America. He is wielding power against the masses of black people. He's using his

bully pulpit to demonize Mexicans, Muslims, queer people, and the like. We can have no truck with a guy like that. Kanye West, should he win,

has to be opposed. If he puts poor policies, rhetoric, that is destructive to America. And if he's doing what he's doing now, we got to organize vigorously against his presidency, to be sure.

But what if he changes his ideologies and then he calls you and says, I want you to be my running mate? Yeah, I'm going to run from him. I'm going to run from him. I got to see proof. I got to see 30 days. I got to see 30 straight days. Are you just going? I can't. No, dog. No, no, no. I got to. No, I got to see 30 days, right? I got to see 30 straight days. Are you just going? I can't, no, dog. No, no, no. I got to, no, I got to, no. First of all, it ain't going to happen. And if it did, I'd say, oh, there are

far better people than me, sir. I'm just a little minion out here doing my thing. But no, I mean, my job as a public intellectual and a cultural critic is to stand outside the parameters of power, relatively speaking, and to offer a prudential insight and judgment about the forces of American white supremacy, social injustice, economic inequality. I stand for the masses of people who are vulnerable, whose backs are against the wall. So at that level, I could never go inside. So many people approach me, Dr. Dyson, can you come in and run for office? No, I don't want to do that. I want to maintain my, what Kanye says, independence of thought that allows me to support who I think needs supporting, but to be critical at the same time. Right.

And did we speak about the Bill Moore after Bill Moore used the N-word and you came on? No, no, no. We didn't talk about that. We didn't speak about that? Right. So because I thought what you spoke to Bill after that, because we all seen the joke that Bill made, right?

Right, right, right. It was a white guy. You're not familiar with what I'm talking about? No, no, yeah. It was a white guy on the show and said, man, Bill,

you got to come on the field with me and Bill Moore, which was, I really liked this man prior to this. Right, right, right. And I saw it live. This wasn't a feed.

Right, right, right. I was up Friday night watching Bill Moore. Bill Moore, yep. I believe he come on Friday 10 p.m. on the East Coast feed. I was up Friday night watching Bill Maher. He'd come on Friday, 10 p.m. on the East Coast. And I got to hear him make this joke and he was like, he was like,

God said, you got to come out here on the field with me. And Bill Maher goes, he goes, hey man, I'm a house nigger. And it was like, honestly, I kind of got it, but I was like, oh, they're going to fry him. I said, I knew it. I knew they was going to fry Bill Moore.

But I remember one of his guests coming up afterwards that was black were you and were Ice Cube. Right, right, right. And Simone Sanders. I think there's three of us. Three for the price of one. Yeah, it's awesome. Well, you know, Al Franken was supposed to be the lead guest because I was the lead guest on the show. Al Franken said, let Michael Eric Dyson do that.

I'm not trying to really be involved with that right now. Thanks, Al. That's very white of you. So I went, look, Bill Maher is a friend of mine. We argue like cats and dogs. We agree about a lot. We disagree about a lot. But I knew that he made a lot. We disagree about a lot.

But I knew that he made a mistake. He owned up to that mistake. He took a serious cognizance of that mistake, and he wanted to address it. So as a friend of his, yes, I felt compelled to go there to hold him to account, first of all, that what you did is wrong. White people can never use that term period. Let me give white people listening a rule of thumb when you can use the N-word. Never! Now, I'll make one exception.

If white people want to use that word, I'll give you a 24-hour pass. If you transfer all wealth from white America to black America, every dime for 24 hours, you can go nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga. Right?

After that, it's done. It ain't going to happen, right? So the point is that I knew Bill Maher had made a mistake. I believe he had often pummeled the forces of white supremacy, jammed up the very forces that were hurting and harming black people. So I didn't think that we should cast away an ally. Again, cancel culture. I didn't believe we should cancel him. Hold him to account,

absolutely. Tell him what he did is wrong, absolutely. Tell him that what he did was destructive and harmful in certain ways and make that plain as Ice Cube did, as Simone Sanders did, as I tried to, then allow him to return chastened by his, if you will, conspicuous, if you will, punishment. But more than that, it wasn't a punishment. It was really instruction and trying to share a podium with a person who had made a mistake, but who was willing to try to confront it. And that's why, look, when Pharrell, speaking of Pharrell, called me up one day and he said, hey, Doc,

I got some black lawmakers over here in Virginia because he's from Virginia, want to know what to do about the governor, a Northam, who had done the blackface. Should we stand against him? Should we oppose him? Should we stand with him? And so I said, I'll meet with him.

I met with them and they said, Doc, what do you think? I said, don't get rid of the dude. Nothing better than a white guy who can be forgiven into his greatness. Nothing better than a white guy who's made a mistake, who's conscious of that mistake and is willing to try to right what is wrong. So I said, if you do the right thing with Northam, he is the governor right now. And look, let's be real. He first admitted, yeah, I was trying to do a Michael Jackson, youam, he is the governor right now. And look, let's be real. He first admitted, yeah, I was trying to do a Michael Jackson imitation. And he says, you want me to do the dance now? His wife said, are you serious?

Right now. You nut. Right? No. That is not the move. But he was going to admit it first, but there's no room in this culture to admit you made a mistake. So he had to lie and say, nope, I didn't. That wasn't me. It was the Shaggy defense. Wasn't me. Right. But at the same time, you know, he was a 20 years ago, was 20 years ago. Has he changed? Has he evolved? Does he have new

understandings? Does he have a new standard? Has he admitted that what he did was wrong? And if he couldn't admit it in public, has he made strides toward transformation? So when he said, right, that that wasn't me, but at the same time, he was trying to make good on what was going on in that state. I told the black lawmakers, if you forgive him and stand with him, this man might turn into Abraham Lincoln. And what did he do? One of the first things he did was forgive 10,000 felons so that it allowed them to vote again. He restored their rights. He worked with black maternal health

care. He pulled down the Robert E. Lee statue. This man went on a tear. All because he wasn't canceled, but he was forgiven. He was integrated back into the community as a whole figure. And he was allowed to exercise his gifts because now he understood that what had happened then was wrong. So that's why I believe in forgiveness.

I'm sorry, I'm a Baptist preacher. I believe if you mess up, you fess up, you dress up, and then you go into the world doing the best you can I believe I believe that I mean what's what's that saying in the bible thou who cast

the first stone what is that what's that let he who is without sin cast the first stone right right and a lot of people

out there throwing stones living in glass houses right it ain't a good look so let me ask you as being a minister right right

how can you be a minister but still love hip-hop so much? Man, yeah. Look, it's rough. I don't love these bros. Look, I'm a fan of hip-hop. I was a teen father. It started before hip-hop. How could I be a preacher and get a woman pregnant?

I was 18, she was 26. Yes, those hidden skills are amazing. a teen father. They start before hip-hop. How could I be a preacher and get a woman pregnant? Right. I was 18, she was 26. Right. Yes, those hidden skills are amazing. So, got her pregnant. I ain't said it was a shotgun wedding, but a revolver was in the room.

Right. So, we got married and then divorced, right? So, I had a son, and I'm 18 years old with a baby. I got to teach him. I got to listen to the music he's listening to after police coming straight from the underground.

A young nigga got it bad because I'm brown and not the other color. So police think they have the authority to kill a minority. I was blasting out. I was a seminary professor in Hartford blasting after police. So you can tell I'm irreverent Michael Eric Dyson,

right? I've never been on the side of black religion that is so observant of protocol that it undercuts the ability to be redemptive or transformative. I believe black people who believe in God know the frailty of our humanity, are in more intimately acquainted with our own sin, which is why we should forgive others their sins. An old preacher told me once, he said, young man, it's easy for a young preacher to damn the, you know, humanity on the heap pile of sin. He said, but the older I get, the more I learn that you got to offer forgiveness, he said, and give grace, and maybe because I need more of it myself. So as I've evolved, I've learned that we need grace. But hip hop has been an extraordinary extension of some of the prophetic traditions of the black church, that the black church used to talk about

social injustice, racial inequality. When Jay says, you know, bin Laden bin happening in Manhattan back when back then police was Al Qaedaaeda to black men, right? I felt that. I heard that, right? When Nas, it's only right that I was born to use mics and the stuff that I write, it's even tougher than dice. I'm taking rap into a new plateau through rap slow. I felt that, right? I felt KRS-One, you know, in how many seconds a philosopher will begin to speak, right? So I felt that they at their best represented the powerful expression of black struggle for social justice. And in the beginning, I know Fat Joe took a lot of heat on this, black and Latino culture produced hip-hop at its very roots and beginnings,

right? All kind of scholarship is done about this. This is why I think it's important, again, for Kanye and other people, talk to scholars. There are a lot of scholars out here who love hip-hop. There are a lot of intelligent black people with PhDs, and I'm not saying that all intelligent people have to have PhDs, because Jay-Z is one of the greatest geniuses I ever met and didn't graduate

high school. Nas went to eighth grade, Lil Wayne, and I can go on and on and on, but those are outliers. The rest of y'all outlying And what y'all need to do Okay come on Respect these jokes up in here Respect these jokes

So the thing is though Is that let's not Undervalue education Not schooling Schooling is the institutional matrix that receives the impulse to learn. Education means I'm curious about the world in which I live and I'm going to read and dig deep and think. And I think, again, for Kanye, there are so many brilliant black people out here. Why is it that black people have our entertainers as our spokespeople? Because of

white supremacy. Because they only allowed entertainers and athletes to represent us. Hey, we like them. We like the Jackie Robinsons. We like the, well, not so much Jack Johnsons. We like the Joe Louis's. We like the, you know, Louis Armstrong's. We like the Pearl Bailey's. We like the Ella Fitzgerald's. So they were allowed into spaces that we couldn't get into. So as a result of that, white supremacy mandated our spokesmen and women be celebrities who had received the kind of imprimatur of acceptance by white folk. So ain't nobody looking toward Miley Cyrus to be a spokespeople for young white folk. Britney Spears, for surely not.

But the point is, we got young people who don't know a damn thing about history. And look, you know I love hip hop. That's a problem. And I'm going to answer that. But if you don't know what in the hell you talking about, be quiet. The great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said, where one cannot speak, there one must be silent. In other words, shut your damn mouth if you don't know what you're talking about. And when they come to ask

you what's going on, say, let me get back to you, because I'm going to go call somebody who I know on speed dial and get their insight so they can help us out. So I think that's necessary. Look, I ain't no rapper, even though I got bars.

I write lyrics. I got more bars than alcoholics. So I got 26, but I do what I do. But I'm saying I don't I don't rap. I don't sing. I don't dance. But God dang it, I do think this is what I do. And black people should take advantage of that. That doesn't mean every thinking black person is going to agree with every other thinking black person. That's what it means. No, we're independent. We're critical. We're self-critical. Sometimes too much so. That's why some intellectuals can't get into the room because all they do is tearing down as opposed to reconstituting and building. So I take that responsibility seriously. However, the reason I can be a preacher and love hip hop is because Jesus was ostracized as a figure in

the community. First of all, the Bible says Herod was trying to kill him when the announcement made that he was born. The powers that be are always trying to kill kids of color, always trying to destroy them, sending them to school and kicking them out of school at seven and eight and nine years old. Herods of the world are always trying to undermine our children, kick them out, incarcerate them, send them from school to detention to prison. And so Jesus was born in a manger. That ain't just no pretty picture on Christmas. That means he's outside the political order. He has no money. His back is against the wall. And when he's spitting lyrics by saying to people, I give you now a parable, he might as well be Kendrick Lamar. He might as well be Jay. He might as well be, you know, Megan Thee Stallion.

Yes. You know, the woman at the well, she's speaking back. That's Megan Thee Stallion. Remember, you know that when no sister, when Jesus went to the well and says, where is thou husband? Now, you know a sister would have said, you Jesus, you tell me. I've been waiting for it for 25 years. But anyway, respect the second joke there. So the thing is, is that as a preacher, I understand intimately the transactions and transgressions of human beings who fail. Right. When you lead the league in hitting as a batter, that means you strike out seven out of ten times because you're batting 330. That means you strike out seven out of ten times. You go to the plate.

That's what it means to be a Christian is to understand that we are frail. We are fragile. We are flawed. We mess up. So stop judging other people. Accept them into the fold. And I learned something valuable about hearing hip-hop. And I don't mean this drill music that's out here now. Because on the one hand, I hate that the American legal system is trying to hold people accountable for some lyrics.

I mean, come on. I mean, do you go to the Godfather? Right. Terminator. Why didn't you come to me first? I understand, you know. Look how they're massacring my boy. I mean, are you going... I mean, I'm killing the Marlon

Brandon. I mean, I could go for you, you know, verb for verb, noun for noun on, you know, Michael sitting in the chair. If you put a gun there, I'll kill them both. And Sonny goes, they're laughing at him. But no, he says, why? Why can't we do it? So my point is this, that if we are talking about a culture that is sensitive

to its limitations, and as a Christian, you shouldn't be judging nobody and beating up on nobody. You should be loving and transforming people. That doesn't mean we don't hold each other accountable. That don't mean when we mess up big, we say we messed up big. That doesn't mean we don't suffer the consequences of our failures. But it also means we are invested in reconstituting society, restorative justice, not vengeance. And so much of what's going on now is about vengeance. And when I hear this drill rap, that's different. I believe people have the right to say what they want to say.

I've defended it. I've testified before Congress several times, the Senate and the U.S. House, to defend hip-hop. Right? I was there with Dionne Warwick and C. Dolores Tucker. When they were trying to get Snoop. Falling back on that ass with a hell of a gangsta lens. I was going to ask you about that. That's crazy.

Right. Let me say this. So the thing is, I've defended them. But the drill, I'm tired of black people dying at the hands of black people. And I'm tired of people writing songs about it that are about literal human beings that either they have killed, want to kill, or in celebrating that drill rap, then going out trying to live the life they sing about in their song. That was beautiful when it was the gospel music, right? I want to live the life I sing about in my song.

That was a great gospel song. B.B. King even sang about it. But that's beautiful when you're dreaming about love and community. It's not good when you're talking about killing mayhem and murder. And so going out here, you know, Pop Smoke or PNB, you know, you're at Roscoe's, and it's a father and son tag team of toxic masculinity and murderous masculinity,

and you kill that kid. You couldn't have just taken his chain? You got to shoot him in his back, in his head? This is a cultural addiction to death that we must announce for what it is and denounce it and figure out other constructive ways to embrace and love and edify each other and i think we need to be clear of of the trajectory of of hip-hop rap where it was a cautionary tale and now we're just telling you what's happening in real time and we're doing it.

That's the difference and that's dangerous. Right. Or the third one, desiring to do it. Cautionary tale, reporting as journalism. Right.

And then up here, no, that's what I want to do. Right. It's one thing. I mean, listen to Regrets by Jay-Z. Listen, you know, I'm from the place where the, you know,

what is it they say, the churches of the flakiness, people been praying to God so long that they're atheists or I was here the other day and then, you know, what is it? They say the churches are the flakiest. People have been praying to God so long that they're atheists. Or I was here the other day. And then, you know, he talks about time travel and so on in his own mind. Look about, think about Nas talking about, you know, talking to the young kid, speaking to him on the stoop. They made belly out of a verse from Nas' One Love. So there were ways in which poetry or Biggie, niggas bleed like, imagine me, you know,

being scared of a nigga breathe the same air I breathe, right? And he said, you know, the old dude with kerosene mostly rocked the Isleys, giving us novelistic details about the lives that these people live. Now it's about murder, murder, kill, kill, do you again, kill, kill. And the mumble rap, I don't want to sound like some old Negro,

but I'm saying, like, you again, kill, kill. And the mumble rap, I don't want to sound like some old Negro, but I'm saying like, you know, every time you say that, every time I go around. Know what I'm saying? No, no, Negro. No, no, no. Actually, I've been black for 63 years and don't know what the hell you said. Now, what I love about so-called mumble rap, and we don't give Beyonce her credit for starting it in one sense.

I mean, Beyonce was alighting syllables and slurring them deliberately so-called mumble rap. And we don't give Beyonce her credit for starting it in one sense. I mean, Beyonce was eliding syllables and slurring them deliberately in a laconic and sonically interesting and vocally vibrant way. She should get credit for that in terms of its music. Did you just say Beyonce made up mumble rap? I'm telling you, she was mumbling

and she was eliding and distorting. Go listen to Beyonce. Listen to what she was doing, the interesting ways in which she was playing with syllables and alighting them and distorting them for musical purposes. They took it literally and started doing it like, now we want to hear what you're talking about now. And then what you're talking about, look, I believe in the blues. So I believe the beautiful melodies that come out of so-called mumble rap.

I'm being an old kind of consternating man here. But on the other hand, I love a lot of that music because it's so melodically rich. Yeah, melodically. And it's so powerful. And it's so beautiful in terms of the blues. But the lyricism, right? Standing by the speaker, suddenly I had a fever.

Was it me or either some madness? We got to pick back up on the lyrical integrity. Now, a lot of the young people do. We know J. Cole is lyrical. We know Kend on the lyrical integrity. Now, a lot of the young people do. We know J. Cole is lyrical. We know Kendrick is lyrical. And I think Drake combines both of them. Drake, you know, when Drake first came out, when Kanye talks about being independent, I was an independent thinker because I was riding for Drake when people were like, what?

I said, Drake is a monster. He's going to be a juggernaut and was bigger than any of us thought. But he had the beautiful melodies and singing. Men didn't think, oh, that's not manly. You're singing on a song. You're an R&B artist in the middle of rapping. But what was he doing? You know, jealousy is just love and hate at the same time. He's dropping bars and he's doing it with Lil Wayne, one of the hardest out there. And he's integrating it into his own ethic of masculinity that doesn't have to kill and murder and create ma'am in order to be a real man how about elevating that how about loving that now part of it is is yellow upon yellow love and i do recognize that right his birthday is october

24th mine is october 23rd so there is some simpatico because i'm trying to help drake and steph curry bring yellow people back because we've people back. Because we've been on the margins. We've been on the margins, right? Where you, Drake, Steph Curry, and DJ Envy all go to the same karate class. That's a light-skinned karate class. And here's the thing. And here's the thing.

That's so funny. Let's chop it up. But here's the funny thing about it. Because we've been in exile now for so long, right? All you pretty chocolate boys have been dominant. You know, Denzel, Idris, Wesley Snipes. Wesley killed us. Wesley killed us.

Oh, my God. Midnight Magic. Chocolate Charm. He just murdered us, right? But here's the point. So we've been in exile because we realized when we had to whip the first time, we were wrong. Light, bright, almost white. We believed we were superior.

We believed we were cuter, or at least people told us that. Was it Albie Shaw who dropped the ball somewhere? Was it him? Yeah, the second album didn't hit. Chico Duvall. I mean, we got pushed out. We weren't trying to get out. We just got elbowed out because the Chocolate Boy said,

oh, no, we got heart and instinct, Nick Rowe. So we got marginalized. So we're trying to come back now, but with a redeemed consciousness, right? Because light-skinned people don't want to talk about light privilege anymore than white people want to talk about white privilege. You know what I'm saying? We're loathe to do that. We don't want to be honest about it. So this time around, we got to admit that we were given privileges that we didn't earn, seen in ways that we can't control.

And I'm not dissing, you know, I look how I look. So I'm not trying to demonize yellow people. But I am saying at the same time, there are ways in which we have to be cognizant of and conscious of and responsible for the consequences of such worship. You know, they would have a paper bag down in New Orleans. If you were darkening that, you wasn't getting in the club. Certain sororities and fraternities, keeping them light, bleaching them. So we got to be honest and open up about that.

We didn't invent that as light-skinned people, but we took advantage of it. It's like white people saying, I wasn't here when slavery started. Yeah, but when you got here, you damn sure did not take advantage of what the opportunities were. So we didn't create the love of light skin, but we took advantage of it.

We were benefited from it. So I want to do that at the same time. So, yes, the new light skin is socially conscious. I just want to announce that. There's a lot of Jamaicans that's doing bleaching right now. Oh, that's, that's, that's. I mean, Sammy, Sammy Sosa. Sammy Sosa.

Oh, that's right. Sammy Sosa. Sammy Sosa. He was the Jackie Robinson of bleaching right now. Oh, that's, that's, that's, I mean, Sammy, Sammy Sosa. Sammy Sosa. Oh, that's right, Sammy Sosa. Sammy Sosa. Sammy Sosa was a, he was a Jackie Robinson a bleaching? He was a Jackie Robinson a bleaching. No, no, he was hitting balls in the bleachers, but he wasn't a bleacher, you know. But yeah, that's, that's, that's painful. That's self, that's self-hatred, man.

Yeah. That's self-hatred. Why, why are you trying to darken, I mean, to lighten your skin? Sammy Sosa had a beautiful brown skin. I mean, you know, some of our rappers and female, I don't want to name no name, you know, who have bleached their skins. It is so painful to me to see the beautiful, the beautiful black skin. My daddy was blue black from Albany, Georgia. I saw how black people treated him.

I saw how the white society treated him. They looked down on him like he was a simian, an ape, an orangutan. They saw him as an animal. And they saw me as a light-skinned, curly-haired kid wearing glasses. Oh, he must be smart. I had brothers who were equally smart. I had a brother who went to prison. I went to Princeton. One brother in the pen. I taught at the University of Penn, right? But because of, I'm not saying it's all based on skin and colorism, but a lot of it was driven by that. And the failure to recognize my brother's talent

was driven by colorism as well. We got to fight that with everything in us. I've been trying to get down. I've been trying to get darker. I've been trying to get Akon black. I've been trying to get Akon black. It's not working out. Well, been trying to get Akon black. I've been trying to get Akon black. It's not working out. Well, you better start with Akon's hair transplant first.

No, no, no, no, no. I can't wait to tell him he's horrible out here. Oh, my God. But listen, all of that is product of colonialism still affecting us today. There is no question. But see, now we're coming full circle. Because what we're talking about with Kanye or the ideas he's promoting is the colonial mindset in your own mind unconsciously using your tongue as a freeway to

deliver the vehicle of its white supremacy. That's what's going on. And until we recognize that colonialism, neocolonialism, the internalized self-hatred, the oppression of the dominant culture projected onto us, all of that is happening. And until we confront that, we won't be healthy. I'm not saying every person who is a conservative is self-hating. That's not what I'm saying at all. Because if you're going to study conservative people, then there's Thomas Sowell, there's Walter Williams, there's Robert Woodson. I mean, there are a lot of conservatives I disagree with and fight against, but have respect for at least trying to make an intelligent argument about what they see going on.

But for some people who take advantage of white supremacy dollars to fund their own anti-black campaign, I ain't got no love or compassion for that at all. Let me let me ask you a big thing in the news lately was they just said that student loan is being forgiven. Right. Is that something our community should be happy for? Absolutely. OK, but look, the white supremacists tell you that's true because they're going they got laws out here. There's a I think a state senator trying to sue the Biden administration now because he says, really, what that is about is forgiving black people what their loans are. And therefore, as a result of that, we need to stand against it. So the white supremacists understand better than some of us that that helps us in a disproportionate fashion,

because a lot of the people who make an under $100,000 can be forgiven that $20,000 and the Biden administration said that in part, this would help those who are economically disadvantaged and historically underrepresented minoritized and racialized communities. So it is helping. No doubt. No question about that. So moving forward, why we don't have in America free college? Like why you have to

pay for education in America? But like I go to people like my friends in Europe, they go to hospitals for free. They go to the schools for free. Canada, free healthcare. But I go to people like my friends in Europe. They go to hospitals for free. They go to the schools for free. Canada. We don't have to go to Europe. That's right, Canada. But them electric surgeons, dog, is a monster.

You got to wait on them in the free country. Oh, you want a nose job? No, that's 10 years and seven days. Okay, thanks. See you then. So, but having said that, I agree with you wholeheartedly. We should have universal healthcare. We should have the ability to go into any hospital in this country and darn be able to get help.

We should go to any college that our minds take us to that we're able to go to. For that matter, why is it that we don't have a free holiday for voting? Why don't you get registered the moment you're born? Every citizen in America should be able to vote. Why we got to go through? You can, look, you can have a card, a registration for a gun and be able to vote, but have one for college and not be able to vote. This is the twisted mentality. They think the second amendment is the second commandment, right? And the problem is they worship guns, they idolize and fetishize

all forms of ignorance and dominance and control, and at the same time the masses of people, including white folk, would be advantaged by free college, by voting universally, and by universal healthcare. How better, how much happier would this nation be

were we to be afforded those opportunities? And we're the richest nation in the world. You ain't talking about, I mean, the nations you're talking about ain't the richest. We are the richest per capita. And yet we have some of the greatest chasms between the have-gots and the have-nots. The inequality is atrocious in this country. And we are continually creating economic policies that reinforce the poverty of the poor and the wealth of the wealthy. And we are exporting money

currently right now in proxy wars when just a fraction of that money could help that disparity. Right here. Right here at the crib could be helping out. So yeah, no, I'm agreeing with you wholly. Other day, right, I couldn't sleep. So, but I can't sleep sometimes.

I don't watch Netflix. I don't watch Hulu. What I like to do is go watch old school cable, right? Right, right, right. I like to watch Jerry Springer. I want to watch shit like that. So, I'm watching Cheetahs the other day, right? Right.

And Cheetahs. Cheetahs, right? Cheetahs, yeah. I think you said Cheetahs. Oh, no, no, no. Cheaters, you know. They get caught cheating. When this white couple come on,

I couldn't watch it. This Chinese couple come on, I couldn't. The Chinese? Chinese, you know what I'm saying? I couldn't watch it. But as soon as Black Pain came on, I identified with it.

I was like, as soon as I seen a black couple come on, I was like, oh shit, now we rocking. And then I seen a Latino couple came on, I identified with it. I was like, I was like, as soon as I seen a black couple come on, I was like, oh shit, now we rocking. And then I seen a Latino couple come on and me being half a Latino, I did not talk to myself. I said, yo, wait a minute. Am I addicted to back trauma and not even know it?

It could be the case or representation matters or you identify with what you are. Okay. Look, it relates. You relate to it. You can see you, right? You can't identify with a white are okay look it relates you really relate to it you can see you right you you can't identify with a white person or an asian person necessarily although most of us you know black people we go to movies all the time and got no black people and we be girl get out the way god damn it the man is behind you move move move throwing stuff at the theater right ain't no black people involved right so we have an ability to transcend our ethnic boundaries and tribalism

in many ways. But, having said that, I grew up in an era where they had Jet Magazine, which is a physical magazine. Now it's online. And every week in Jet Magazine, at the end... Beauty of the Week? Well, that too. I mean, that's why I looked at Jet. I was a young man back then. That was number one,

but I'm a Baptist preacher, so I have to say number two. Okay, okay, okay. So the Jet Beauty of the Week, which was cold. But then at the end of the book, always, this week in television, all the black people in shows that were involved were listed in Jet. Wow. Oh, Diane Carroll's going to be a guest star on Bonanza. Sammy Davis Jr. will have a guest starring role on Mannix and so on.

Now, first of all, it was tragic because all the blackness could be listed at the end of a magazine that black people were on, but that's how hungry we were to see ourselves represented. The real housewives of, right? We're so desperate to see ourselves represented. Now we have over representation and over indexing in some negative situations, but we are still desperate to see ourselves represented. Now we have over-representation and over-indexing in some negative situations, but we are still desperate to see representation, to be counted, to be seen. And part of that is you want it to be seen. Even if it's trauma. Thank you. Thank you. Even if it's trauma. Even if it's trauma. I thought I was fucked up in the head. I was sitting over at night and I was like,

wait a minute, man. I'm just used to seeing my pain. That can be true too. That can be true, too. It can be true at the same time. It can both be true. But the thing is, is that representation does matter. We perk up when we see those who look like us. And the problem with white supremacy is not that white people identify with white people. It's that they only identify with white people.

And that they identify with white people in a way to exclude opportunity for others. Remember that Saturday Night Live skit with Eddie Murphy when they go into the bank and he dresses up like a white man? Damn. Okay, I didn't see that. Right, right. And then he goes to every bank.

You know, black people can't get no money. Oh, did he go to the bank because of white people and then they get it alone? Just take all the money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? So that's what it is, right right when you're in a dominant position you don't understand uh david foster wallace a late great uh incredible um novelist had a little story a little parable he said was these two fish in the water right and they're floating along

they're doing their thing and they see this older fish, you know, coming in the opposite direction. And the older fish says to them, afternoon, how's the water, boys? And then goes on about his business. And then they turn to each other. What's water? Because when you're in it, you don't recognize where you are. So white supremacy is the same way. Whiteness is the same way. You're born on third base, think you hit a triple.

You think the world operates and has the same advantage as you do. You think the world operates according to your viewpoints. Even if you're a poor white person, you think you have the ability to work hard and therefore make a difference. Not knowing that millions upon millions of black and brown and Latino and queer

and other people have worked hard and Asian folk have worked hard and never got the rewards they deserve. So they're in water and you never know you're in water until somebody calls attention to it. And then you pay attention to what that is. And that's what whiteness is in this country. Even white folk who are poor who go, look, I'm poor. I ain't got no advantages. People are mistreating me and so on and so forth. I say to them, if you can meet a police person and live to tell about it, you ain't got to be rich to take advantage of white privilege, the privilege to be taken seriously. I've seen white folk chasing police cars down with machetes. Right. And the police are running from them with a gun in their holster because their mentality is I'm not going to harm this fellow citizen. If only they could apply that to us. This is why black people are so deeply entrenched in abolishing the police, reconstructing the police, trying to grapple with police powers because they have been unleashed on us in a way because white people don't understand.

They have an advantage and a privilege and an opportunity and an experience that the masses of non-white people will never know. Well, that was, let's say something to you. Our show is about giving people flowers. Yes, sir. You know, that's why we are that's why we are appalled that we received this Black Lives because we know if people predominantly watch our show, we did check Kanye, we did check him

on his anti-Semitism, we did check him on the George Floyd thing, we did check him on Black Lives Matter. But most people just watched the first 15 minutes or 18 minutes. But our show is predominantly about giving people flowers. And we would be remiss if we didn't give you your flowers. So we want to give you your flowers face to face.

Man to man. You know what I'm saying? Let's you get some of your flowers. They last forever. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, my God. Medical marijuana? No, no, no.

No, no, no. No, that's beautiful. Thank you. Yes, yes. Let's break some noise for that? No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no. No, that's beautiful. Thank you, sir. Yes, yes, yes. Let's break some noise for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I got one more question because I know you got to go soon.

I know you got to catch a flight. No, no, no. Let's hang out. Let's hang out. Yeah, and now that I got all the seriousness out, then I'll take a little champagne. I wanted to be sober. Get through this, motherfucker.

I ain't going to lie. Oh, I was scared to death. I see you over there. I ain't going to lie. Oh, I was scared to death. I see you over there, I ain't even want to say nothing. I say, he had one beer. You know we is serious over here. But then we'll do a quick time and then we can end it there.

Reparations. First off, where do we stand as a people on getting or receiving reparations? Right. And two, where do you stand as a people on getting or receiving reparations? Right. And two, where do you stand? Do you think this is something that we deserve? This is something that we should get moving forward?

Absolutely. Okay. Martin Luther King Jr., 1963, in his book, Why We Can't Wait, said that a nation that has done something special against the Negro for 250 years must now do something special for the Negro. And he talked about a GI Bill. Remember the GI Bill, World War Two, soldiers return home. What did they get? They get extra points on a test to get into school. That was cool. You got to hook up, right? You got money for a house and you got the ability to get a job. That's the holy trinity of affirmative action. There's a scholar named Ira Katz Nelson, a professor of sociology and history at Columbia, who wrote a book when affirmative action was white. See, a lot of white folk, the Supreme Court is going to soon

vote again on affirmative action and probably will undercut it. The point is that affirmative action was a white thing from the getty up. So reparations are due. I think it's Tupac or somebody said. The truth is that we are deserving of reparations. Having worked for free to build this nation,

literally, the institutions, the buildings, the infrastructure, everything that we see in this nation was created and constructed by black labor, indigenous labor, Asian labor, black free labor forced against our will. being brought here in 1619 symbolically, as the record says, 20 and some odd Negroes brought here to America. And from then, the proliferation of black bodies to support this nation.

Why wouldn't we pay reparations? Yes. And reparations come, by the way, in many forms. It could be educational subsidies. Land. Land. How about not having Negroes pay taxes for the next 50 years? That's what we just, you know, listen. For the next 50 years. That's in my notes.

Look, look, look. Can we not pay taxes? Can we not pay taxes and get land? And they said, I swear to God. How about that? Right there. And look, if you can't give us 40 acres and a mule, give us an acre on Wall Street.

And if you ain't got a mule, give us a Jaguar and call it a day. But the point is that, yes, are necessary they are critical they are vital they have been critical in europe what happened to jewish brothers and sisters who were demonized by hitler in germany what happened to japanese brothers and sisters in this country who were demonized and internment camps so yes are, and there are some state legislatures that are talking about reparations for black people. At least under Joe Biden, right, we are now speaking about the possibility

of studying reparations because the black president, Barack Obama, was against them, right? Against reparations? Yes, absolutely. No. Absolutely. Wait, they put up a vote where we're.

No, he talked about it in his discussions that he didn't think it was going to win. He didn't think it was feasible. And let's not do it. So. So, again, the old white man, Joe Biden, the night he was elected, said, black people, I owe you and I'm a pay you. Now, that's what Joe Biden said. Now, whether or not he followed through exactly as you thought, the fact that he put it into the public sphere. Now, let me say this for all those naysayers out there who are black, this hypocritical professor doesn't recognize that, that, uh, by that Obama couldn't say certain things. I do recognize that. I recognize that Obama couldn't say a lot of things that a white guy could say. Obama couldn't be as black as Bill Clinton going on Arsenio Hall

playing the saxophone. I get that. But there are ways in which the substance of his policy could reflect a commitment to the transformative practice of politics for black people. So all I'm saying to you is Obama could have done that and could also have used his bully pulpit to inform America about what was going on. Because at the second term, they ain't going to love you no more, bruh. They don't love you like

that. So therefore, do what you think is necessary. But here's the thing we didn't want to accept about Obama. What he was doing is what he felt. You know how Michael Jordan said, after I get out of basketball, then I'll be more political? And to a certain degree, it has been. But people were saying, when you're in office

is when it makes a difference. Nobody want to hear from you after you leave, when you retire. Obama was president. And since he's been retired, he's coming back now for the midterms. He out there making dough. He out there hanging out with multi-white billionaires. Who? Obama? Obama, president. And since he's been retired, he's coming back now for the midterms. He out there making dough. He out there hanging out with multi-white billionaires.

Who? Obama? Obama, yes. Now, look, I ain't mad at him getting no dough. I ain't mad at him making no money. I ain't mad at him getting everything he can. But using, and I know he has to be relatively silent because he wants to respect the present president. I get that. But he does come out every now and again to make statements and to articulate his idea and his ideas. And it's extremely important that we hear from him. But it was especially important when he was in office to make use of that bully pulpit to change the lives of many black people and many things he left on the table. And he had nothing to do with white folk denying him an opportunity to be able to do what he did. He didn't have to go to black churches and squash black men.

He didn't have to go to the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and then dog black people saying that we use the excuses of Malcolm's death and Martin's death to engage in a culture of crime. Had a white boy said that, we would have been nuts. That sounds like white supremacy to me. Well, again, the anti-blackness and some of Obama's rhetoric, as pointed out by many writers and thinkers, was really real, including Ta-Nehisi Coates, who wrote about it. Why does he speak

to us that way in the Atlantic Magazine? Obama was on some of that anti-blackness as well. Wow. Man, that got deep. You ready for Quick Time or something? Let's go. All right. We play Man, that got deep. You ready for Quick Time with Slime? Let's go. All right. We play a game on our show.

It's called Quick Time with Slime, right? Yes, sir. So you could pick one or the other. Uh-huh. And if you're politically correct and you pick both, we drink. Being that you're not drinking, we'll drink for you. We'll drink for you. I'm going to get y'all drunk. All right. Cool, cool.

Sonny could be his ringer. Sonny could be your ringer. Your ringer, drinker. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay. I feel like... He was rushing it because he was rushing it. Okay, okay. But it's cool. Wait, wait, wait. There's the first part of it. Oh, I didn't see.

Oh, okay, okay, okay. Go ahead. Oh, this is good. Ready? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You said a first part of it. Oh, I didn't see. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Go ahead. Oh, this is good. Ready? Yeah, you said it all. All right, first one is Tupac or DMX? Pac. Okay. Ice Cube or Chuck D?

Oh, damn. Y'all better drink. Because that's both of them. Elvis was a hero to most, but he never meant to be straight up racist The sucker was simple and plain Or Ice Cube, I mean, come on, man Why is it that only time black people get to ride in a limo When they're dead? I mean, both of them, genius

Wow Jay-Z or Nas? Oh, drink, brother I mean, but look Obviously Jay-Z is a unique figure in the history of hip hop. There's never been a figure with that much rhetorical genius, intellectual capacity, cultural momentum and the power to shift and change the culture with his rhetoric and then follow that up with his extraordinary embodiment of a boss.

So in that sense, Jay-Z is unique and above anyone else to whom he could be compared. But when you look at the poetry of Nas and of Jay, they're geniuses of extraordinary. And Nas made Illmatic at 16. I mean, he started at 16. You hear these young guys' music, and they be like, well, they don't have enough experience.

And you're like, wait a minute. Look, Nas, verbal assassin, my architect pleases. When I was 12, I went to hell for snuffing Jesus. I mean, it's only right that I was born to use mics, and the stuff that I write is even tougher than dice. I'm taking rap into a new plateau. Through rap slow, my rhyming is a vitamin hell without a capsule a smooth criminal beat breaks never put me in your box if your shit eats steaks no doubt no doubt no doubt no doubt

but when you think that and see my only beef with Jay is that he puts kingdom come too low in his estimation I would write it if y'all could get it but being intricate or get you wood critics on the internet i'm like you should spit it i'm saying you should buy it nigga that's good business yeah that's good i agree with you i agree with you i agree with everything you said they both my homeboys how? I mean, the next one is Trump or Biden. I'm going to pour my drink on you for asking me that. You know it's Joe B. Okay, go ahead.

Oh, yeah, he picked and we're drinking. I'm still drinking. Books, Made in America or the Black Presidency? Made in America. Oh, Presidency? Made in America. Oh, my books. Oh, those are mine. Oh, I get it. Both, damn it, both.

They're two tall, slim black men who are geniuses, Jay and Barack Obama. But Jay-Z is such a towering figure. I got to, you know. Talib, Khalid, or Common? Oh, my God! Oh, my Jesus! Y'all be killing the brother up in here. Start drinking. Because, I mean, Talib,

these cats drink champagne toast death and pain like slaves on a ship bragging about who got the flyest chain. I mean, and when common says to a girl you know i won't buy you a shirt but i will match your work i mean in terms of and then you know the genius that he's expressed since the time he was a young boy in chicago yeah just just extraordinary people. Okay. Killer Mike or T.I.? Ha, ha, ha. Again, I know both of these figures.

In fact, I've known everybody you talked about. Damn, they're both incredible, man. I mean, Killer Mike run the jewels. It's just amazing. T.I., bring him out, bring him out. Yeah, they're both amazing. We got to drink. We got to drink amazing we got a drink we're gonna drink we're gonna drink eddie murphy or richard pryor oh damn now i'm gonna say this

richard pryor prior to pun intended uh eddie murphy i mean he's still maybe the stand-up goat. Richard Pryor. Richard Pryor. Okay. Right, in terms of bringing the full weight of black popular culture to bear in the narratives that he's spread. So in that sense, he's alone. But Eddie Murphy, in terms of acting, in terms of multi, you know, more than a billion dollars at the box office.

Nobody has been that great of a comedic actor and be able to do a great stand-up. And music. He did music. Great music, too. Party all the time. Party all the time. Party all the time. Party all the time.

I mean, I would say... Not our version, but his version. I would say... I might give it to Eddie on that. Oh, okay, okay. Give it to Eddie on that. You know, I'm going to tell you about Eddie. I'm 45, so I'm a little younger.

I didn't really get to see Pryor. Right, right. It was pretty much on VHS or something like that. I remember Eddie movies coming out, and me driving by the movie theater, and everyone suited and booted as if they're being seen. I had never seen that before. He did it, man. He sexualized black

comedy. Bill Cosby couldn't be sexualized. Well, not that we knew. Hey, man. We just got out the pool. The winger's back in there now. Yeah, cut that. But, I mean, Dick Gregory, but Eddie Murphy the pool the wing is back in there yeah cut that but i mean uh dick gregory but eddie murphy brought the sexual ethos of black masculinity to bear now again richard pryor is non-parade in terms of no comparison in terms of mud bone and all the stories he told in the television stuff he did

but when you look at it all together, and then when you add acting, he wasn't nearly as great a comic actor as Eddie Murphy. And Eddie Murphy's range is astonishing. And another young man coming up, we didn't mention him, I mean, Kevin Hart, to me, has gotten so much more funny,

has refined his craft, is a monster on that film, and will be challenging soon that title because of the comprehensive character of the kind of work that he does. He sat in that same seat that you're sitting in and we told him to his face, you are the closest thing to Eddie that we've been seeing. There's no question. Because people are coming out to Kev and there's a whole bunch of dumb people that say Kevin ain't funny. I am not with them. No, I saw his latest show twice. Yeah, yeah. He is funny.

Oh, my God. Okay, ODB or Bismarck-y? You, you got what I need. But you say he's just a friend. Might be the greatest hip-hop song of all time. Oh, yeah, man. I mean, I love me and Mariah.

Go back like babies will pass the fire, old dirt dog. I'll have to get that to Bismarck. Okay, Bismarck. Okay, that's cool. That's the person who I wanted to be like Bismarck-y. Because at the time, rap was so serious. And when I heard Pickin' Boogers, I was like, wait a minute. Yeah, right.

I want to be like that. Yeah, no, no doubt. This is like an oxymoron. Because I think we asked you this in a different way. But we're going to ask you it again. NWA or Public Enemy. Oh, damn. Oh, my God. I mean, the I mean, Public Enemy's influence is just is just astonishing. I mean, when you think about the clown and the court jester and the king, right?

In terms of Chuck D, right? I mean, just what he was doing. And the clown. Right, yeah, exactly. I mean, and Chuck D. And can't forget Terminator X as well. I mean, Terminator X, right, in terms of that. So, but NWA was powerful.

I mean, when F the Police came out, but then I had to explain to myself, a B is just a B is just a B is just a B. So the parts of toxic masculinity that they express, the misogyny and the hatred of women is so overwhelmingly negative. But at the same time, the power of their witness to social justice. But I'd have to choose P.E. OK. Oh, you skipped Queen Latif or MC Light?

Oh, damn drink. Because they're both I love them and know them both amazing. And they affected the genre in many ways. I mean, and to see both of them go on to become what they are. I mean, you know, Queen Latifah, like, who knew, right? Can sing, can act. I mean, like a female Will Smith at that level, if you will. She can fight to me, in my mind. Oh, yeah, no doubt. In my mind. I mean, like a female Will Smith at that level, if you will. She can fight to me, in my mind.

Oh yeah, no doubt. In my mind. I think we're going to see her with some ass. And MC Lyte, I mean, just in terms of the flow, the funky acrobatics of her rhetoric, and then now making a career. She's got the Joe, what is it?

What is it? Benjamin Buttons when you revert. Oh yeah. She's looking younger and younger. Oh, yeah. She's younger and younger. Oh, my God. Just incredibly intelligent and beautiful. Both of them. What are you going to say about Laika? Her voice is everywhere now.

I mean, doing these shows. I mean, she has invented another career in terms of announcing, in terms of broadcasting and stuff, and still out there. I've done many events with her where we did at Syracuse University where we had a conversation. Brilliant, brilliant. Both of them, amazing. Beautiful, brilliant.

80s hip-hop or 90s hip-hop? You can go back to that. Yeah, I'm going to have to rock with 90s. 90s? I mean, you know, I'm going to have to rock with 90s. 90s? I mean, you know, I'm going to have to say, back in the days our parents used to take care of us. Look at them now. They're even effing scared of us.

Calling the city for help because they can't maintain damn things. If I wasn't in the rap game, I'd probably have a key knee deep in the crack game. I mean, 90s and then Nas and Jay? I mean, when Jay said they're having a debate about who's the three greatest, Biggie, Jay or Nas, he wasn't even in the conversation at that point. But he was in the conversation. That's how forward-looking his genius was.

Oh, there ain't no doubt about that. He put himself in a category he wasn't in at that time. He knew. And that's a lesson to people. Know who you are. You might not recognize. He knew. And that's a lesson. That's crazy. That's a lesson to people. Know who you are. You might not recognize. Speak yourself into existence. He spoke that into existence.

He spoke that into existence. And now you won't think of those three without each other. No, that's exactly right. Because he. He's in a stratosphere on his own. He planned it. That's crazy. I totally forgot that.

Yeah. I hear you. You want to do the. Yeah. Higher learning or American History X? Ah, yeah. I'm going to have to go Higher Learning. You know, American History X was beautiful

because it exposed the gut bucket realities of white supremacy and its transformation. But Higher Learning, I mean, John Singleton was just such a great artist, a director, and a thinker. That's right, trying to struggle with that. Plus he put Pac in the movie.

You know, wanted to put Pac in the movies. It was beautiful and baby you know what was that play michael rapaport um who's getting dragged right now because um he you know sometimes people gotta mind their business and i'm not saying this to his case right but i feel like this is this was even though because he charmed in on something that Ye said about black people. And when he charmed in, he called Ye a crackpot. And, oh, man, I ain't going to lie. I ain't going to lie. It was almost like our people was like, we can talk about him and not you.

Right, right, right. So they are dragging Michael Rapaport right now. But he made that documentary on... Tribe Called Quest. Tribe Called Quest. I mean, that's one of the great documentaries, bro. That's a great documentary. So, big him up.

Let's see him getting dragged through the media. He's ready to come. He wants to get him on TV. I think you should do the podcast. Podcast or radio? Oh, I mean, podcasts are where it's at right now but i'm old school too i love to go just listen to that daggum radio and hear some music i never heard before the podcast but you know drink champs in particular now this is this this is this is uh the same question that's

outright but i want to know if you met either of these two. Right, because we have famous stories here on Big Change. We have famous stories on this. Michael Jackson or Prince? I met them both. Let me tell you what. Michael Jackson, we were in the bathroom at Johnny Cochran's funeral. That already sounds crazy. That already sounds like a crazy setup.

We're in the bathroom in the church at West Angeles, Church of God in Christ, pastored by the great Bishop Charles Blake, and now his son, co-pastor. And we're in the bathroom during, you know, O.J. is in the funeral, too. You got a lot of O.J. stories. I got O.J. O.J.

I was hoping that Negro didn't recognize me. We're in the bathroom. Michael Jackson is washing his hands and he turns to me and he says, Does he have gloves on when he's washing his hands? No, no, no. That would have been

some fucked up shit. Washing his hands with gloves. He goes, I like how you talk on TV. I said, what the hell? I said, I like how you sing on stage. He went, hee hee hee.

All right. Now, with Prince, Prince invited me, along with a couple others, to his palatial mansion of, what do you call it in Minneapolis? In Lake Minnetonka? Yeah, right. To the, what's the Purple Palette? I mean, not the Purple Palette. Why am I blocking? This is a senior moment.

The famous place he has there in Minnesota. We'll come to it. Yeah, yeah. What do they call it? Yeah, please Google that because I don't want to look like a complete fool. Yeah. Thank you, man.

And so he invites us, and we have a... Paisley Park. Paisley Park, yeah. So he has the, is that what it's called? The one where we went? Okay. So he... He invites me because he sees me on TV,

thinks I'm smart, talking stuff. He says, but, he says, you know, you defend gay people. I say, yeah, but you're a preacher. Now, he had just got converted, remember, to being a... Seven Day? No, not Seven Day. Michael Jackson. When Michael Jackson left and he went in.

Jehovah's Witness. He was Jehovah's Witness. Okay. And I'm thinking, Prince, you've been a patron saint for androgyny. And to myself, I didn't say this to him, but moving forward. But what I did say to him is that, yeah, because I believe God loves everybody. Either God created everybody or God ain't created nobody, sir. So I definitely believe.

So we had a little argument there. And then I said, are you telling me that all the music you had before you were converted is the devil's music? And he basically said, yes. I said, I disagree with that. I said, when you made Sign of the times i said that's god speaking to you sir all right so i disagree but then out in an event with uh tavis smiley out in la uh prince is playing on stage and he says i know mr dyson can talk but can he dance i said son son son so me and uh cedric Entertainer got on stage and started a little dance party.

Everybody else joined us. So, yeah, my Prince and Michael Jackson stories there, my man. That's crazy. And then Prince didn't have his ass out as you guys had to know. Right? Like, no, right? No, no, no. No chaps revealing the astronomical side.

No, no, not at all. They say Prince was gangsta with his ass out. Playing basketball in them high hills i mean oh prince was was cold-blooded now no doubt about that say that i haven't met either one just oh yeah okay martin luther king or malcolm x i love them both but martin luther king jr for me okay and the reason i'll tell you malcolm x changed the psychology of black people in such a fundamental way. He would have been so tonic and helpful to a Kanye West teaching him about the complicity he exhibits with the white supremacy that he's been seduced by. All right. But Martin Luther King Jr. changed the world for black people. He changed the law. Malcolm X changed the mindset of some.

King changed the law. When I say King, I mean, you know, Ella Baker. I mean, Septima Clark. I mean, all the black women and others who work with him. But he has this symbol. The 1964 Civil Rights Bill, the 1965 voting rights act, and in wake of his death, the 1968 fair housing act. That's the holy trinity of social justice. And then when I was nine years old, he was murdered. I had never heard of him. And I'm

looking at television. I'm sitting there. My father's in his favorite seat behind me. We in the hood in the ghetto in Detroit. And the newsman broke faith with the original program and said tonight at six or one local time, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. I don't think they announced he was dead. And then he was standing there. We've got some difficult days ahead, but I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. And so I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man, mine eyes. And then he turned around and fell into the arms

of Ralph Abernathy and Jesse Jackson for the last words in a public declaration that he uttered on this earth before a bullet sent across a parking lot of a motel found its unerring target in the skull and flesh of Martin Luther King Jr. at 39 years old, clipped his tie, pulled open his jaw and his feet were bicycling as if he were on a bicycle. And the greatest we've ever produced died that day. God bless. Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris? Oh, Bruce Lee. Yeah.

Donald Trump Jr. Donald Trump Jr. Oh, my God. Don't ruin my childhood. Doc, Chuck. And I'll be watching them retreads of the 70s milk. Chuck Norris is the. Oh, my God. Don't tell me. Don't ruin my childhood. Doc, Chuck, and I'll be watching them retreads of the 70s milk. Chuck Norris is the right winger, bro. Really?

Straight up. And also, wasn't he Bruce Lee's student to start with? I mean, he was, right. Chuck, I mean, Bruce Lee is the man. I mean, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was even checking out with him. And Jim Kelly. What did he say? That water flow like water.

Oh, yeah, right. I mean, yeah. Chuck Norris can't, you know, handle his noon chucks. Okay, okay. Okay. Mos Def or Black Thought? Oh, damn. Drink, bro.

Drink. I can't. I mean, both of them geniuses. Speeches my hammer, bang the world into shape, now let it fall. Although Black Thought said, slice him like a Vicum, like Michael Eric Dyson. Okay, I got to show him love. I got to show him love. Therefore, I better say Black Thought.

I got to give Black Thought the nod because he gave me so much love. But both of them are geniuses. I mean, when you have Lin-Manuel Miranda texting you saying, did you see the, what, the Funk Flash, I mean the- Or the Black Thought Funk Flash Freestyle. Oh my God. Yeah. He was like, bro.

He said, I already knew he was top 10, but my God. So yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, Black Thought's body of work is so powerful, it's so dense. I mean, both of them are geniuses, but Black Thought's extraordinary output, even into his 50s,

is quite remarkable. Dave Chappelle or Chris Rock? Drink up, bro. Drink up. But both of them, again, I mean, Chris Rock, in between, after Eddie, Chris Rock had the crown. I mean, as a stand-up. Right. And getting into acting as well, top five and others that he did I mean, as a stand-up, right?

And getting into acting as well, top five and others that he did extraordinarily well in. His new stand-up, whatever he do, it's going to be amazing. Oh, I mean, he's going around the country now. I just want to see it, right? What I meant is whenever it comes out, it has to be amazing. You're right. You're right. So his genius, I mean, he's more political in that sense.

He's more traced to some of the white Mort Sahl and some of the white comedians who were explicitly political than to Richard Pryor. Richard Pryor was cultural in a way that had political consequences. He wasn't explicitly political in the way that Chris Rock is. So Chris Rock would be the greatest political comedian in that sense within our genre. And then Dave Chappelle as taking up and combining the kind of cultural apparatus of Richard Pryor and then being able to improvise.

Chris Rock is hip-hop. Dave Chappelle is jazz. He's just telling the story. He's just speaking to you. And Chris Rock is hitting you with the rapid fire you know insight from there so they're both extraordinary geniuses okay jesse jackson or al sharpton yeah drink up bro but you know uh they're both friends of mine and they're both amazing i mean

jesse jackson i put jesse jackson number one martin luther king jr number two frederick douglas I put Jesse Jackson. Number one, Martin Luther King Jr. Number two, Frederick Douglass. Number three, Jesse Jackson. Well, between Jesse and Harriet Tubman, they can flip either one. But I'm gonna tell you how Jesse Jackson has never been given his due and not until he's dead for a few years. Will people understand what he did. He took the baton from Martin Luther King Jr., who was 39. Jesse was 26. He's now, what, 83? Somewhere around that, 84 almost?

Maybe 82, 83, and just had a birthday. Jesse Jackson carried us from Martin Luther King Jr.'s death until Al Sharpton essentially takes that, of that particular variety of leadership. So Jesse Jackson. Project cancel Muhammad Ali. Jesse Jackson was by his side.

I mean, all of that. From 1968 King's death to the backlash against affirmative action in the 1970s. Jesse Jackson. I'm going to tell you a story. I was writing Jesse Jackson's book. Jesse Jackson's 81, it just told me. 81, just 81. Jesse Jackson was, I was writing his book, 1990, 91.

I was writing his, I had never written a book before, but he hired me at that point. You was a ghostwriter? Yeah, I was going to ghostwrite. Might have had my name on the cover. What? His book. And we were going, we had gone to see Mandela in London. We were there. We had a table. Mandela in London. We were there.

We had a table. Anita Baker. Crazy. Terrence Trent Darby. Crazy. Patty LaBelle. Blah! And Tracy Chapman.

Blah! And this is like 91. And Patty LaBelle said, I could listen to you talk all day. I was like, thank you. If only you knew. So I'm with Jesse Jackson in the car once and he's going. He said, I said, where are you going, Rev? Because I'm still writing this interview. And he said, oh, I'm going to Harvard. I said, what are you doing at Harvard?

He said, I'm about to have a debate. I said, who are you debating? He said, it really don't matter. Damn. I mean, like, bro, I don't it don't I don't care. I'm going to be in this battle and I'm going to whip that ass regardless, right? That's how great he was and is. Al Sharpton is the most remarkable leader we have in present day, and a man whose transformation has been astonishing. From being seen as an outsider, limited in the minds of many of his greatness, and invented himself. He became half the man he was, like literally. And then metaphorically, he transformed himself into a

leader that Barack Obama saw as the premier black leader in America. And Sharpton had to do something no other black leader has had to do. Deal with a black president as the power that be and hold him to account and at the same time show him love. That was an extremely difficult thing in Al Sharpton as the leader. But as an articulate spokesman, as a person who shows up to give visibility to the most serious issue we have in America today for black people, which is police brutality and the murder of our people. And Al Sharpton was doing that. I was arrested with Al Sharpton in the late 90s. Al Sharpton was on to police brutality when he was a bigger version of himself and in those running suits and black people were looking down at him.

Oh, that's, he dealing with thugs. He's dealing with criminals. He's always dealing with the police until their kids start dying. And now he became an American hero. So both of them, incredible geniuses. I can't lie to you. I had dinner in crustaceans in LA

and they said, Jesse Jackson is over there. That was the only person slash celebrity that I was scared to say hi to. I was like, how the fuck do you go say hi to Jesse Jackson?

I'm just like, my name is Norrie Yeager. How the hell did I walk over to your house? He would have loved you. Yeah, I was so scared. Keep hope alive. Al Sharpton,

so let me say that about Jesse and of course all the beautiful things him showing up but you know me being from New York and me

you know getting to see any type of crime bad things that happen Al Sharpton will always be there I remember when I first got like a little bit famous

just a little bit and I would see certain things that would be my go-to thing. I'm calling Al Sharpton. And the people would stop. Like, what did we do wrong? I'm like, oh, shit. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Al's the man. Al, I don't know if you've ever met me or know who the hell I am. Oh, yeah. But I weaponized your name a long time ago. I apologize. I don't know if I owe you a lump of lunch or something, but I definitely would say that. What?

What'd you say? Call Al Sharpton. I just look like I knew Al Sharpton and I don't know why. Well, Al Sharpton comes out of that tree. Al Sharpton is the greatest exponent of Jesse Jackson. Way of thought and way of approach. And Jesse from King, so that's a hell of a triumvirate.

Okay, hold on what's good the next one he tyson or ali i'd have to say muhammad ali i love mike tyson too though just in terms of fisticuffs but ali was so huge in terms of what he meant in terms of off stage off the canvas outside the boxing ring i'll give you give you a Muhammad Ali story if you want to hear it. Oh, hell yeah. So again, I was one of eight scholars who was invited to give papers on Muhammad Ali. So I talked about his rhetoric and his daughter was rapping then. So I talked about the relationship between his dog rule, you know, light as a, you know,

butterfly, what is it? Light as a butterfly, Sting Like a Bee and Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee and I was talking about doggerel poetry and its relationship to hip hop so anyway, so I got a chance to hang out with him, ask him questions, I said you were wrong about Malcolm X, weren't you?

he said yes I was, because remember he split with Malcolm with the minister Muhammad and he showed me pictures of him and Elvis Presley, two pretty men, that kind of thing. Then about a year later, we see him coming to the airport. And I tell my wife, he'll never remember me. It was just a magical day.

So we get closer, and I go up to him. I said, Mr. him. I said, Mr. Ali, I said, my name is Michael Eric Dyson. And before I could finish, he leaned over, he said, you that nigga that can talk. I said, I wear that with pride. I'm that nigga that can talk. Yes, sir. But he was an amazing, amazing transformative figure yeah Tyson was a bad boy too I mean Tyson was equally important in terms of the culture uh in terms of style in terms of his presence his complications uh his changes and what he's become right now it's pretty remarkable see I always pick Tyson over Ali and people chastise me for this I pick Floyd over Ali. And people chastise me for this. I pick Floyd over Ali, right?

I got to see... As a fighter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got to see all the Floyd fights. Yeah, Floyd was... Most of the Ali fights I got to see was on rerun. It was on tapes. And when my father watched it,

my father would always tell me what happened before. He'd be like, watch the left. Like, why are you telling me, Bob? Like, I'm sitting here trying to learn. He would always do that. Right. So that's the reason why. Well, yeah, but I mean, Floyd is a fighter just on the fight game.

It'd be hard to say he wasn't the greatest, man. Yeah. A defensive fighter. I sat down with him and did an HBO special, and we talked about his fighting as well. Yeah, yeah, I love Floyd. That's my man. Master P or Birdman? I'm going to have to go Master P.

Okay. I don't own no plane. I don't own no dope. I don't ship no dope from coast to cope. You know? Come on, man. I don't own no plane. I don't own no boat.

I don't ship no dope from coast to coast. Come on. He made grunting in the bathroom and national sound. He's a wonderful, sublime human being. Yeah. Nipsey Hussle or Eazy-E? Nipsey. I got to go Nipsey.

We want Eazy! I mean, I love Eazy, but Nipsey Hussle. Give me my Nipsey Hussle story, if you don't mind. Yes, please. So I'm getting on a plane from L.A. to New York, and I'm getting into my seat. Walter Mosley, the great writer is on the right. Van Jones on the left. I'm on this plane and this young man gets in and he says, uh, excuse me, are you Michael Eric Dyson? I said, yes, sir. I am. He said, wow. I read your

books. I said, are you Nipsey Hussle? He looked at me like, he said, yes, I am. I said, wow, I read your books. I said, are you Nipsey Hussle? He looked at me like, he said, yes, I am. I said, and I pulled out my iPhone and I had his latest marathon playing right there. He was like, oh my God. I said, oh, I ain't talking to dog. I live it. And so for three and a half, four hours, four and a half hours, we had a nonstop conversation, mostly led by the way, by Nipsey Hussle. His intelligence, his curiosity, his wanting to know things. You're right. Depict my brain, ask me certain things, respond to certain things.

A remarkable, remarkable human being. Right. Damn. That's what's up. Rest in peace to them both. Yeah. Rest in peace to them both. Yay or Pharrell?

Damn. You know them both. Ye or Pharrell? Damn. You know them both. I do. Yeah, drink up. So Pharrell, look, they're both geniuses. Let's be real. Pharrell changed the sonic landscape in his own right, too. Right.

Kanye, and a performer with Chad Hugo and with the Neptunes. So remarkable. What Kanye did as a rapper, right? Maybe arguably before Kanye, it was say Dr. Dre in terms of can rap and control the maestro, you know. You know, because people, look,

Dre had skills on that microphone. I mean, don't dismiss him. He's one of the dopest producer rappers ever. I mean, come on, right? So then you, but Kanye comes along with that backpack mentality and the honesty that he has. The ability to bring together a most deaf and a artist Jay Ivey on his first album, to have themes about social justice, about wanting material things, about your own hypocrisy. I mean, Kanye's transparency was astonishing or is astonishing as an artist and his ability to evolve and to grow and to make incredible music,

not only for the ear on the radio in the car, but in stadiums and to transform the sonic landscape. And then to bring that all together and continue to evolve and grow is damn remarkable. But yet, when you think about what Pharrell has done in terms of the architecture of sound and his high intelligence and his reflection about the aesthetic accoutrements that constitute a powerful expression of identity through music, they're both geniuses. Thank you.

Yep, that's why we drunk up. Okay, Primo or Pete Rock? Frank. Yeah, you're going to have to put Frank on that. Okay, all right, cool. Just so you know, Pete Rock, when I come to work every day we come here, I have to pass by this mural. There's a mural of Pete Rock.

Oh, man. And I don't want to drive here. I don't want to come here unless we go through there and I just look at it. I don't get out and take a picture. It's right out of the block. But I have to see it because it's a big mural of Pete Rock. And I feel like this is my way of paying homage coming to hip-hop. I mean,

I'm on, man. This is looking at Pete Rock mural. And then Pete Rock and then the C.L. Smooth coming in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just both of them. Just so fertile. Yes. So creative at a crucial part of hip-hop history. Okay. Bad Boy or Death Row? Mm.

Woo! I mean, Death Row with Snoop. I like your Snoop impressions. I mean, yeah. It's the capital O-S-O-U-S impression, double O-P-B-O-G-Y-D-O-G-G, you see. Showing much flex when it's time to wreck a mic, pimping holes in the clock and a grip,

like my name is Dolomite. Yeah. Yeah, no doubt. But, I mean, Biggie? I mean, Lil' Kim? Like, wow. I mean, though Def Kim, like, wow. I mean, Dodefro with Pac as well. I'm going to have to give the edge to Bad Boy.

It's funny you said how you brung up Biggie. You know, that's what changed my life. One day I'm chilling in the Bronx. I think it was at a restaurant. I'm outside smoking a cigarette. I don't smoke cigarettes no more. But then I did. And this woman comes up to me and she just starts talking to me.

I'm talking to her. It's a platonic conversation. But she said to me, man, it's boring. I wish a Biggie record was out. And she said it as if, like, Biggie was, like, going to Great Adventure. And I was just like, what?

I was like, what did you say? And I've just started rapping. I've just started... Well, I've been rapping. It's just I've just started getting on. That's the reason why I made Superthug. What, what, what, what? I was like, what did you say? And I just started rapping. I just started. Well, I've been rapping. It's just I just started getting on. That's the reason why I made Superthug. What, what, what, what? With Pharrell.

This is prior to Pharrell. Because I remember me telling him, I want an event record. Yeah. And I remember, I don't know if he said, what is an event record? Or someone in the room said, what is an event record? And I was like, one more chance. Right, right. Like, I want my version of One More Chance.

And it was because this stranger that I didn't know just told me the most genius thing ever. She said, it's boring out. I wish Biggie had a record. That's crazy. As if that was something to do. To me, she described it like, I wish I could go to Great Adventures.

And I was just looking at her. I was like, she changed my fucking life. Yeah, that's an epiphany moment. Met her for like three minutes, and then that was it. Wow. But all right, this is the last question, especially for Quick Time with Sly. Everyone thinks it's a trick question. Me and EFN thinks it's pretty much that.

Right, right. Loyalty or respect? Damn. That's deep. I say loyalty. Because if you have loyalty, respect is built in. You can have respect, but not be loyal. That's real.

That's real. So, man, I just want to thank you. We know you got to take the plate. I want to stay here and hang out with y'all. I want to thank you. Before, I also want to say to our fans and to the people, we have a responsibility

to deliver. We're not politicians, but we're not dumb. So that's the reason why I apologize. As a journalist, I could have left the interview up. I could have said, that's just his views and that's it.

But the minute that I heard that anybody from George Floyd's family was offended, I took it down. You know what I mean? Excuse me, when I say I, I mean us, the offenders in case. I was just like, you know what? We had conversations. We had multiple conference calls.

Right. And, you know, like we said earlier with COVID, like, you know, I got to see this. Right. So, you know, big up to my brother Kanye, you know. He tried to get me to watch this documentary. And I just was like, you know what? It doesn't matter.

I don't care if you show me a documentary. It just, that eight minutes that I saw is more powerful. It's irresponsible. So, I would like to say for our platform, and we did nothing wrong. We didn't say this rhetoric. We didn't say, but us not being responsible enough to just say, yo, you know what? If something in there that may hurt people, because I believe in free speech, but I don't believe in free speech when it hurts people.

Right, right. You know what I'm saying? I can say, you know, whatever, but if I'm hurting you, I want to tell you I apologize. So anybody that was hurt by what Kanye said on our platform wasn't us. Right.

You know, we're sincere about this shit. That's right, that's right. You know, we have Jeezy in the camp. We have all these other things in the can, but it was more important for me to sit down with you. I remember how you sat down with Bill Moore after that. And you are our people. That's why in the intro

I said, my brother. He's our brother. Thank you, my brother. And, you know, for the people out there, like you said about cancel culture, because I don't want to be cocky. Y'all can't cancel us. I don't want to be cocky. Y'all can't cancel us. I don't want to be cocky, but we own our own shit.

We're doing the responsible shit. There's no one telling us, yo, don't do this or don't do that. We're doing it. We owned up our own shit. We sat there and we said, you know what, let's own up. That's beautiful.

You know what I'm saying? For a lot of people who are sitting there saying, you know what, well, why is Norrie only apologizing? Why is not EFN apologizing? Y'all don't complain when Norrie talks all the fucking, take up all the fucking episode. I represent him then.

I'm representing him now. We are together. We are collectively. And we are apologetic. We say sorry. We put out reports on The Hollywood Reporter. We all make mistakes, but that's why I'm here to learn. They say the mistake is not the mistake. It's about how you react to the mistake.

That's right. And that's the reason why we did it. And I got so many people that's calling me saying, yo, you did the right thing. First off, you did the right thing by the interview, and then you did the right thing by letting them talk. Right. But they're doing it privately. Right, right talk. Right. But they're doing it privately. Right, right, right, right. They're doing it privately.

That's right. Yeah, exactly. The support is there. It's great, but they saw what we was going through out there. And what I would like to say is, one, that's who we are. We are people. We can't know we made a mistake until we know we made a mistake. That's right. That's right.

I don't get why people think that we're supposed to premeditate and be like, holy shit. But anyway, how do you know it's hot

until you fucking actually burn yourself? You know, your mom's always told you the stove is hot. Don't go over there. But your dumb ass still put your finger in there

and you didn't know it was a mistake because sometimes you went like this and you didn't actually touch it so it just got a little hot and you didn't even know

if it was going to burn. But it wasn't until you put your fucking finger on that shit and your finger bubbled up and you saw that white thing that you said, this is a mistake. That's right. And let me try to, let me try to correct this. So this is what we're trying to do. And we could have left it up. We could have left it up on, you know what, this is our journalistic point.

We didn't do that. Right. We said, we don't want to give views over that. That's something that offended a family of a person that I saw. And this, it could affect my relationship with Kanye, but what I did first was

I called him. I didn't want him to hear from the media that it was taken down. I called him like a man. And I said, maybe politics ain't my game. You know what I'm saying? So, I appreciate you. Yeah, we appreciate you.

Because we're in the fire right now. We got a couple more days and we'll be out of the fire, hopefully. But right now we're in the fire and you, you know, reaching out to me. Yes, sir. And I remember I seen the text and I said, who is this? I said, oh, shit, I called you immediately. I said, I ain't even wait for you to call back. I said, hey, man, yo, listen. And it's necessary.

It's necessary. It's necessary for us not to be chastised, for us to be corrected the same way. The same way we want him to be corrected. That's right. But y'all know we this culture. Y'all know we this culture. That's why I love brothers like Killer Mike and Talib Khalid and Q-Tip and all these people who called me. And, you know, they laughed

at first because they was like, man, you should have knew not to stand next to him. But, you know, for real, I said for real, I said for real. Everyone who called me, Fat Joe, everyone who called me, so you know, I want to really thank you. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. For

standing next to us and schooling us and helping us out. Okay. What you're doing is important, and you're brave and courageous, and you're honest, and you're admitting a mistake, which is what we all make and all do. You didn't intend it, like you said. You're not literally responsible for Kanye. You gave him a platform.

He said some things that are deeply, profoundly problematic. Anti-Semitic against George Floyd's family that really are anti-Black. And to have the courage to call him and tell him, but also to do this publicly, to grapple with it is extremely necessary. So I salute both of you.

I watch your shows every segment. I'm a huge fan. So thank you for having me on Appreciate you man And by the way This is a great episode It's mad entertaining I didn't drink to the end

I was so scared They gonna get me twice Thanks for joining us for another episode of Drink Champs Hosted by yours truly DJ EFN And NORE. Please make sure to follow us on all our socials. That's at Drink Champs across all platforms. At TheRealNoriega on IG.

At Noriega on Twitter. Mine is at Who's Crazy on IG. At DJ EFN on Twitter. And most importantly, stay up to date with the latest releases, news, and merch by going to drinkchamps.com. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. I get right back there and it's bad. season one, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. Why is a soap opera western like Yellowstone so wildly successful? The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports.

This kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast Season 2

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on good company. The podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi. We dive into the competitive world of streaming. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. There are so many stories out there.

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